NVIDIA Single Card, Multi-GPU: GeForce 7950 GX2
by Derek Wilson on June 5, 2006 12:00 PM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
Half-Life 2 Episode One Performance
Even the newest installment of HL2 is CPU limited at the high end under 1600x1200. These tests do show that, in spite of the CPU limitation, the multi-GPU overhead isn't incredibly damaging under the Source engine.
The performance advantage of 7950 GX2 increases moving up in resolution and adding AA. While there is a benefit due to the hardware at this level of quality, framerates this high are just not necessary for playing HL2. Those with a 1600x1200 resolution limit who play HL2 style games won't need to drop $600 on hardware to get a great experience.
At the top end of our performance tests, we don't see any surprises. The 7950 GX2 is the king of HL2 as far as single board solutions go. Getting this baby in SLI for a quad GPU solution will be quite interesting indeed.
Even the newest installment of HL2 is CPU limited at the high end under 1600x1200. These tests do show that, in spite of the CPU limitation, the multi-GPU overhead isn't incredibly damaging under the Source engine.
The performance advantage of 7950 GX2 increases moving up in resolution and adding AA. While there is a benefit due to the hardware at this level of quality, framerates this high are just not necessary for playing HL2. Those with a 1600x1200 resolution limit who play HL2 style games won't need to drop $600 on hardware to get a great experience.
At the top end of our performance tests, we don't see any surprises. The 7950 GX2 is the king of HL2 as far as single board solutions go. Getting this baby in SLI for a quad GPU solution will be quite interesting indeed.
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Exsomnis - Monday, June 5, 2006 - link
Since when did slapping two PCBs together = single card? *Confused.*z3R0C00L - Monday, June 5, 2006 - link
Marketing Gimmick...It's two GPU's. It's SLI. The Fastest Single VPU/GPU solution is the x1900XTX (not tested here).
The most advanced GPU/VPU is the x1900XTX as well.
I wonder if these crds will also suffer from the 50% failure rate other 7900 series cards suffer from.
Jojo7 - Monday, June 5, 2006 - link
Haha. 50% failure rate. That's comedy.Where'd you pull that number from?
Hardocp said BFG reported 3-5%, Evga reported .04-1.9%, XFX said in the last 2 weeks they reported a .5% (half of one percent) increase in RMA's.
Yea. That seems like 50% to me.
Xenoid - Monday, June 5, 2006 - link
50% failure rate might be bullshit but the fact that you completely ignored the other half of his message is also bullshit fanboy-ism.The X1900 XTX isn't on here. The X1900 XT Crossfire isn't on here either, but the 7900 GT SLI is. This review is missing 2 of the top video cards, and for what reason? It makes this review incomplete and this should be addressed.
Jojo7 - Monday, June 5, 2006 - link
Actually, I agree with both of your points. The x1900 XTX should have been included in this review in both crossfire and single card. To the same end, the 7900 GTX in sli should have been included imo.
Noise comparisons and power draws would have been nice as well.
DerekWilson - Monday, June 5, 2006 - link
this does touch on our motivation --the 7950 GX2 is a single board solution (for those uncomortable with the inclusion of 2 PCBs, think of one as a daughterboard or something). We wanted to really focus on the comparison to other single board solutions.
Right now x1900 crossfire and 7900 gtx sli are over $1000 investments, and don't really compete with the 7950 GX2 -- unless we look at the 7950 GX2 in SLI. As we couldn't get quad SLI on the 7950 GX2 working for this article, we decided we save the comparison to that copetition later. It does seem pretty clear fromt these tests that the 7950 GX2 in SLI will be able to trump any other solution in its market segment.
Also, the 7950 GX2 doesn't require an SLI board -- which is a great advantage of current multi-GPU solutions. In many cases, putting two other solutions in SLI won't be an option for users who upgrade to a 7950 GX2.
But
Please understand that I certainly appreciate the requests for the inclusion of the 1900xt crossfire and the 7900 gtx crossfire as a reference point to what is currently possible on the highest end of the spectrum. In future articles involving the 7950 GX2 we will address this issue. Thanks very much for your feedback.
poohbear - Thursday, June 8, 2006 - link
50% failure rate? dude, do u know how this percentage thing works?! that would mean 1 in 2 79XX cards fail. please, bs is a great thing and we have plenty of it on the net, but try to atleast make your bs somewhat believable.nullpointerus - Monday, June 5, 2006 - link
No, it isn't. They only wanted to reply to a particular point within his post.
Inkjammer - Monday, June 5, 2006 - link
50% failure rate? Where are you getting those numbers from?z3R0C00L - Monday, June 5, 2006 - link
I got the number from polling various website forums.. including HardOCP.eVGA, XFX and BFG claim low to non-existant issues. My polls show an avg of 48% failure rate. It's on HardOCP... go and check out the forums.