Link
Xbitlabs review!!
Finally. Interesting read.
Power:
X1900XT
idle:28.90
load:120.60
7900GTX
idle:31.17
load:84.21
7900GT
idle:22.56
load:48.42
"We guess there?s no need to talk about a minimum PSU wattage. Any high-quality power supply with stable output voltages will do. A SLI configuration with two GeForce 7900 GT is going to consume less than 100 watts of power, delivering a very high performance. This is an admirable achievement for Nvidia whose solutions have traditionally been more economical than ATI?s, at least in the top-end products sector."
Noise:
"The same cooler as on the GeForce 7800 GTX 512 is mounted on the GeForce 7900 GTX and it works as quietly, too. You can hardly hear the graphics card even with your ear close to the working computer. We don?t think you won?t want to replace the cooler even if perfect silence is your main priority. For comparison, the Radeon X1900 XTX produces some noise even when its blower is working at a reduced speed, and when the speed is high, the noise is hardly bearable due to the irritating tone produced by the resonating plastic casing."
"Franking speaking, we don?t think the GeForce 7900 GT cooler is half as good as the GeForce 7900 GTX one. It is small and has a tiny fan, so it is rather noisy, yet not very efficient. If you are going to overclock your GeForce 7900 GT or if you just want to have a silent computer, you may want to think about a more efficient cooling solution. It?s possible some manufacturers will equip their GeForce 7900 GT with such coolers right away."
Shader Performance:
"All in all, the GeForce 7900 GTX does somewhat better than the Radeon X1900 XTX. The two graphics cards are roughly equivalent when it comes to executing pixel shaders, but Nvidia?s new solution is better than the senior Radeon at processing textures. The latter is indeed better on shaders with dynamic branching, but such shaders aren?t yet used in games."
SLi/Crossfire:
"As for extreme FSAA modes, the GeForce 7900 GTX SLI allows playing with turned-on 8x SLI AA in any resolution, but the higher-quality 16x SLI AA is too difficult even for this platform as it yields a comfortable frame rate in 1024x768 only. The Radeon X1900 XT CrossFire seems much faster than the GeForce 7900 GTX SLI in that case, but you should be aware that 14x Super AA theoretically produces a lower-quality picture than 16x SLI AA with its honest super-sampling."
I was aware of this, but would be good for somebody to test it out.
Oblivion benchmark:
16x12 HDR outdoor
X1900XT:
Min-22
Max-36.3
7900GTX:
Min-14
Max-36
"In low resolutions you can see that GeForce 7900 GTX is slightly faster than Radeon X1900 XTX, although later one this advantage disappears because of the more efficient ring bus memory controller of the latter. Despite the enormous amount of shaders in the game, Radeon X1900 does not really benefit from 48 pixel processors it has. Unfortunately, we do not know all the peculiarities of the Oblivion graphics engine that is why we cannot tell you with all certainty what slows down the Radeon X1900 XTX: fewer TMUs than by GeForce 7900 GTX or some other factors."
16x12 HDR indoor
X1900XT:
Min-37
Max-56.2
7900GTX:
Min-25
Max-53.7
Note: The crossfire benchmarks are using AFR instead of super tiling. (It looks like AFR/SFR is better than super tiling in most of the cases with dual GPU situations).
Note F.E.A.Rs performance improvement
16x12 4xAA 16xAF
X1900XT:
Min-25
Max-51
7900GTX:
Min-28
Max-47
In the end:
Highs:
* High performance in a majority of applications
* High performance in OpenGL
* Well-balanced architecture with 24 pixel processors and 24 TMUs
* Transparent textures antialiasing
* Hardware decoding of H.264 and other HD video formats
* Silent cooling system
* Low power consumption and heat dissipation
* Dual-link DVI support
* Low price for this device category ($499)
Lows:
* Slower than the Radeon X1900 XTX at executing complex shaders and in extremely high FSAA modes
* Does not support FSAA and HDR simultaneously
"The chip embodies Nvidia?s approach to making GPUs, which is to keep the number of pixel processors and TMUs in balance. The G71 has 24 of either, while the Radeon X1900 has 48 pixel processors and only 14 TMUs. Our tests have shown that Nvidia?s approach is justifiable even in modern games with their abundance of pixel shader-based visual effects because the Radeon X1900 often slows down under high textural load. You should also keep it in mind that though the Radeon X1900 XTX may be architecturally better suited for future games, its raw performance may prove too low to run such games at an acceptable speed when they do come out."
Xbitlabs review!!
Finally. Interesting read.
Power:
X1900XT
idle:28.90
load:120.60
7900GTX
idle:31.17
load:84.21
7900GT
idle:22.56
load:48.42
"We guess there?s no need to talk about a minimum PSU wattage. Any high-quality power supply with stable output voltages will do. A SLI configuration with two GeForce 7900 GT is going to consume less than 100 watts of power, delivering a very high performance. This is an admirable achievement for Nvidia whose solutions have traditionally been more economical than ATI?s, at least in the top-end products sector."
Noise:
"The same cooler as on the GeForce 7800 GTX 512 is mounted on the GeForce 7900 GTX and it works as quietly, too. You can hardly hear the graphics card even with your ear close to the working computer. We don?t think you won?t want to replace the cooler even if perfect silence is your main priority. For comparison, the Radeon X1900 XTX produces some noise even when its blower is working at a reduced speed, and when the speed is high, the noise is hardly bearable due to the irritating tone produced by the resonating plastic casing."
"Franking speaking, we don?t think the GeForce 7900 GT cooler is half as good as the GeForce 7900 GTX one. It is small and has a tiny fan, so it is rather noisy, yet not very efficient. If you are going to overclock your GeForce 7900 GT or if you just want to have a silent computer, you may want to think about a more efficient cooling solution. It?s possible some manufacturers will equip their GeForce 7900 GT with such coolers right away."
Shader Performance:
"All in all, the GeForce 7900 GTX does somewhat better than the Radeon X1900 XTX. The two graphics cards are roughly equivalent when it comes to executing pixel shaders, but Nvidia?s new solution is better than the senior Radeon at processing textures. The latter is indeed better on shaders with dynamic branching, but such shaders aren?t yet used in games."
SLi/Crossfire:
"As for extreme FSAA modes, the GeForce 7900 GTX SLI allows playing with turned-on 8x SLI AA in any resolution, but the higher-quality 16x SLI AA is too difficult even for this platform as it yields a comfortable frame rate in 1024x768 only. The Radeon X1900 XT CrossFire seems much faster than the GeForce 7900 GTX SLI in that case, but you should be aware that 14x Super AA theoretically produces a lower-quality picture than 16x SLI AA with its honest super-sampling."
I was aware of this, but would be good for somebody to test it out.
Oblivion benchmark:
16x12 HDR outdoor
X1900XT:
Min-22
Max-36.3
7900GTX:
Min-14
Max-36
"In low resolutions you can see that GeForce 7900 GTX is slightly faster than Radeon X1900 XTX, although later one this advantage disappears because of the more efficient ring bus memory controller of the latter. Despite the enormous amount of shaders in the game, Radeon X1900 does not really benefit from 48 pixel processors it has. Unfortunately, we do not know all the peculiarities of the Oblivion graphics engine that is why we cannot tell you with all certainty what slows down the Radeon X1900 XTX: fewer TMUs than by GeForce 7900 GTX or some other factors."
16x12 HDR indoor
X1900XT:
Min-37
Max-56.2
7900GTX:
Min-25
Max-53.7
Note: The crossfire benchmarks are using AFR instead of super tiling. (It looks like AFR/SFR is better than super tiling in most of the cases with dual GPU situations).
Note F.E.A.Rs performance improvement
16x12 4xAA 16xAF
X1900XT:
Min-25
Max-51
7900GTX:
Min-28
Max-47
In the end:
Highs:
* High performance in a majority of applications
* High performance in OpenGL
* Well-balanced architecture with 24 pixel processors and 24 TMUs
* Transparent textures antialiasing
* Hardware decoding of H.264 and other HD video formats
* Silent cooling system
* Low power consumption and heat dissipation
* Dual-link DVI support
* Low price for this device category ($499)
Lows:
* Slower than the Radeon X1900 XTX at executing complex shaders and in extremely high FSAA modes
* Does not support FSAA and HDR simultaneously
"The chip embodies Nvidia?s approach to making GPUs, which is to keep the number of pixel processors and TMUs in balance. The G71 has 24 of either, while the Radeon X1900 has 48 pixel processors and only 14 TMUs. Our tests have shown that Nvidia?s approach is justifiable even in modern games with their abundance of pixel shader-based visual effects because the Radeon X1900 often slows down under high textural load. You should also keep it in mind that though the Radeon X1900 XTX may be architecturally better suited for future games, its raw performance may prove too low to run such games at an acceptable speed when they do come out."