PCSTATS     
[X]   Directory of
Guides & Reviews

Beginners Guides
Motherboards by Brand
Weekly Newsletter
Archived Newsletters

+70 MORE Beginner GUIDES....
MSI NX7950GX2-T2D1GE Geforce 7950GX2 Videocard Review
MSI NX7950GX2-T2D1GE Geforce 7950GX2 Videocard Review - PCSTATS
The GeForce 7950GX2 is nVIDIA's flagship graphics card du jour, and the first true dual core, dual slot PCI Express videocard from the boys in Santa Carla.
 87% Rating:   
Filed under: Video Cards Published:  Author: 
External Mfg. Website: MSI Oct 13 2006   C. Sun  
Home > Reviews > Video Cards > MSI NX7950GX2-T2D1GE

Here's a quick question, how do you make an already exciting videocard even more interesting? Allow more than two GPUs to run together for even more 3D performance duh! ATi has already talked about how its Radeon cores can scale past two cores, but it's nVIDIA first out of the gate with the product.

For the conspiracy theorists, this might also be a sign of what lays ahead in videocards. In the last few generations we have seen an increase of power usage and heat (avg 80W per core) for high end GPUs. Perhaps all this fuss about multi-videocard rendering is due to both companies trying to convince the masses that parallel rendering is good. Necessary even.

The GeForce 7950GX2 is nVIDIA's flagship graphics card du jour, and the first true dual core, dual slot PCI Express videocard from the boys in Santa Carla. While there have been a handful of single card dual GPU videocards introduced, these have all been brand specific attempts (like the Gigabyte GV-3D1 dual 6600GT and GV-3D1-68GT dual 6800GT). The GeForce 7950GX2 brings SLI power to every PCI Express platform! For SLI compatible motherboards (and anyone with really deep pockets), it's possible to run two GeForce 7950GX2 videocards together in SLU for a total of four GPUs rendering simultaneously! That's just ridiculously sweet!

In this review PCSTATS has the pleasure of testing out a MSI NX7950GX2-T2D1GE videocard - and from the outset this is one impressive bit of circuitry. As videocards go, the GeForce 7950GX2 aren't one to be messed with by the looks of it.

MSI NX7950GX2-T2D1GE Videocard


Includes:

Quick Installation Guide, Quick User's Guide, Driver CD, King Kong CDs, S-Video Cable, Component Output Cable, 2x DVI to analog converters, dual molex to 6 pin power connector.

The MSI NX7950GX2-T2D1GE videocard is based on the nVidia reference design, which is a combination of two separate videocard PCBs which have been stacked together to form a two-slot device. There are two GeForce 7950GX2 GPUs, each with 512MB of memory for a total of 1GB dedicated to all things graphical rendering. The card is HDCP ready and Microsoft Windows Vista compliant. The DVI video outputs will support a DVI-to-HDMI cable if you happen to have one (not included), and want to output a high quality image at 1080p to your HDTV.

MSI's NX7950GX2-T2D1GE slips delicately into a single PCI Express x16 slot, but occupies two case bracket spaces. It has one TV-output connector and two DVI connectors, analog to digital adaptors are included. The card supports component output and S-Video output.

All nVidia Geforce 7950GX2's can be run on any motherboard with at least one PCI Express x16 slot, even if the board's chipset does not officially support SLI. With a retail price of $640 CDN ($567 US, £303GBP) the MSI NX7950GX2-T2D1GE is the definition of high end gaming hardware!

The MSI NX7950GX2-T2D1GE is an awesome videocard to look at and it's quite long at 23 cm. The dual PCB videocard takes up two expansion spaces and gets very hot during operation; good case cooling is a definite must. The NX7950GX2-T2D1GE requires an extra power connector in the form of a six pin 12V plug at the rear of the card.

As with all Geforce 7950GX2's, the card is SLI compatible with an identical unit. The SLI connector on the top videocard is placed near the middle of the PCB to prevent any unfortunate mix ups with other units from the same Geforce family. This deters people from trying to connect a GeForce 7900GTX videocard to the GeForce 7950GX2 for example.

nVidia Geforce 7950GX GPU

nVIDIA uses TSMC's 90nm manufacturing process to build the GeForce 7950GX2 GPU, and each core contains staggering 278 million transistors. As you may have guessed, the Geforce 7950GX2 specs are exactly the same as those for the GeForce 7900 series GPU.

The GeForce 7950GX2 GPU has the same features; 24 pixel rendering pipelines, 8 vertex pipelines, 256bit memory controller, etc., however the core and memory clock speeds are set slightly lower.

The GeForce 7950GX2's two GPUs come clocked at 500 MHz each; comparatively we find speeds of 700 MHz for the Geforce 7900GTX, 470 MHz for Geforce 7900GT. The GDDR3 memory runs at a cool 600 MHz, were as it is 800 MHz for the Geforce 7900GTX and 660 MHz for the Geforce 7900GT. All the usual nVidia technologies are represented of course, including; CineFX 4.0 engine support, Intellisample 4.0, OpenGL 2.0 and DirectX 9.0c.

Of course considering the nVIDIA GeForce 7950GX2 is running in SLI by default, those values are essentially double. Doesn't 48 pixel and 16 vertex rendering pipelines sound sweet? How about 76.8GB/s worth of bandwidth?

© 2023 PCSTATS.com Next Page >

 

Contents of Article: MSI NX7950GX2-T2D1GE
 Pg 1.  — MSI NX7950GX2-T2D1GE Geforce 7950GX2 Videocard Review
 Pg 2.  SLI and the Geforce 7950GX2 GPU
 Pg 3.  MSI NX7950GX2-T2D1GE Videcoard Gallery
 Pg 4.  Videcoard Gallery Con't
 Pg 5.  Overclocking one fast videocard!
 Pg 6.  Videocard Benchmarks: 3DMark05
 Pg 7.  Videocard Benchmarks: 3DMark06
 Pg 8.  Videocard Benchmarks: AquaMark3
 Pg 9.  Videocard Benchmarks: FarCry
 Pg 10.  Videocard Benchmarks: SplinterCell: Chaos Theory
 Pg 11.  Videocard Benchmarks: Doom 3
 Pg 12.  Videocard Benchmarks: Quake 4
 Pg 13.  Videocard Benchmarks: FEAR
 Pg 14.  Videocard Benchmarks: X3: Reunion
 Pg 15.  Advanced Videocard Benchmarks: FarCry, Doom 3, FEAR
 Pg 16.  The Start of a Revolution?

 
Hardware Sections 


 
PCSTATS Network Features Information About Us Contact
FrostyTech
PCSTATS Newsletter
Tech Glossary
Technology WebSite Listings
News Archives
(Review RSS Feed)
Site Map
PCstats Wallpaper
About Us
Privacy Policy
Advertise on PCSTATS

How's Our Driving?
© Copyright 1999-2023 www.pcstats.com All rights reserved. Privacy policy and Terms of Use.