XFX 7950GT

11. Conclusion

Review Pages

1. Introduction
2. Retail package
3. Tests
4. F.E.A.R
5. Prey
6. Half Life 2 Episode 1
7. Splinter Cell Chaos Theory
8. Company Of Heroes
9. BattleField 2142
10. Overclocking
11. Conclusion

The XFX 7950GT is the latest offer from XFX for high performance gaming. The 7900 card series includes the latest technology from nVidia and promises unbeatable visual and gaming experience. XFX has chosen to provide only a silent 7950GT based card, that delivers zero noise. The card we tested was the PV-T71J-YHF9 model with 550MHz GPU and 700MHz memory clock. XFX offers four more cards from the same family with higher GPU/Memory clocks and slightly different options (TV out, TV capture). The card has a retail price of US$300~350.

The overall design of the card is rather unique. The black metal finish with green DVI connectors and the XFX logo on the passive heatsink gives an impressive look. Despite using passive cooling, the overall volume and weight of the card is very good. The double DVI output is nowadays a standard. Additionally, HDCP is also supported so you can playback High Definition content (HD DVD, Blu-Ray) without any problems. The card is rated Vista Ready, another plus for futureproof buy.

Passing on to the card's performance, overall the card was faster than the 7900GS cards in most tests. There were two cases where the 7900GS and XFX 7950GT had almost identical performance. We believe that there was a problem with the drivers or that the particular games did not take advantage of the full capabilities of the card, since all our tests verified its superiority. Enabling AA/AF is no trouble for this card, being able to sustain high framerates in almost all games. We weren't able to get much of a boost in overclocking and this may be due to the passive cooling. The card is capable of supporting 1600x1200+ resolutions, but without AA/AF enabled in most cases. For such high resolutions and quality modes, you should add a second 7950GT card. After all, the XFX 7950GT is SLI ready :-)

Lastly, we have to comment on the large retail package for the XFX 7950GT. Not only is it very well designed and includes all needed cables and printed installation guide in 13 languages, but also the retail version of Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter! A great addition from XFX for all hardcore gamers out there, "Play Hard!"