GeForce 7600 Series

NVIDIA announced immediate availability of the GeForce 7600 series on March 9, 2006. Models currently available are GeForce 7600GT & 7600GS. See here.


GeForce 7600 GS

On March 22, 2006, NVIDIA announced the immediate availability of the GeForce 7600 GS GPU targeted at the mid end. This new GPU will officially assume the place of the GeForce 6600GT which has been around for quite some time.

As of July 21, 2006, there is now an AGP version of the 7600GS as well. According to NVIDIA, this card is identical to the PCI-e version other than the interface. In addition the AGP version uses NVIDIA's AGP-PCIe bridge chip.

Some quick specifications:

* PCIe native/AGP 8x cards now available
* 400 MHz Core frequency
* 128-bit memory interface
* 12.8 GB/s memory bandwidth
* 3.2 Billion pixels/sec. fill rate
* 500 Million vertices/sec.
* SLI support
* passively cooled (NVIDIA reference)

Preliminary testing showed that the GeForce 7600 GS outperforms a GeForce 6600 GT and Ati's counterpart, the ATI Radeon X1600 Pro.

The retail price for the GeForce 7600 GS is $129-$149 US.



GeForce 7600 GT

This is the latest mid range product in the 7 Series family.

Quick specifications for GeForce 7600 GT from NVIDIA documents:

* PCIe native
* 560 MHz core frequency
* 128-bit memory interface
* 22.4 GB/s. memory bandwidth
* 6.72 Billion pixels/sec. fill rate
* 700 Million vertices/sec.
* 12 pixels per cycle
* Built in dual-link DVI support for 2560x1600 resolution

The 7600 features all the features of the GeForce 7 family, and is priced rather low for the mainstream market. It was made to provide a Geforce 7 series card to the mass market. It sells for around $184 USD. By using the exact same PCB and GPU socket as the 6600, manufacturing costs should be lower due to available parts left over. It compares well against ATI's counterpart, the Radeon X1800 GTO, which is a little more expensive at around $250 USD but the X1800 GTO performs better due to its 256 bit memory bus, higher peak pixel fill rate and more raw shading power. However, the memory speeds in the 7600GT are underclocked, leaving quite a lot of headroom for overclocking.




GeForce 7800 Series


GeForce 7800 GT

The GeForce 7800 GT is the second GPU in the series, launched on August 11, 2005 with immediate retail availability. It has 20 pixel pipelines, 7 vertex shaders, 16 ROPs and a 400 MHz core clock, 500 MHz memory clock (1 GHz effective) using GDDR3 memory.

The GeForce 7800 GT has been introduced as a more affordable alternative to the 7800 GTX. As of February 2006, online retail prices as low as $250 (after rebate) USD have been seen, eliciting comments from some enthusiasts that this card may represent the new video card "sweetspot" in terms of price versus performance.

There has been speculation by some gamers that CPU limits and the potential for unlocking/overclocking may imply that the 7800 GT has the potential to perform at the same level as the 7800 GTX.

Efforts to enable the unlocking of the last "quad" (NVIDIA's name for groups of four pipelines) and the remaining vertex shader have been unsuccessful because NVIDIA uses a new technology called laser locking, which severs the internal connections to the quad and renders it impossible for any software to unlock it.


GeForce 7800 GS AGP

On February 2, 2006, NVIDIA announced the 7800 GS as the first AGP video card in the GeForce 7 series lineup, an AGP version of the high-end Geforce 7 Series.

This new card is promoted by several hardware enthusiasts as "the last high-ended AGP card in existence". It has 16 pipelines instead of the 20 that the 7800 GT has, but still benefits from the optimisations the other 7-series GPUs enjoy. Clock speed are 375 MHz for the GPU and 1200 MHz for the (GDDR3) memory. Performance of this card is above both the GeForce 6800 GT and GeForce 6800 Ultra.


GeForce 7800 GTX

The GeForce 7800 GTX (codenamed G70, and previously NV47) is the first GPU in the series, launched on June 22, 2005 with immediate retail availability. The GeForce 7800 GTX supports the latest version of vertex and pixel shaders, currently at 3.0. It is a natively PCI Express chip, but use of a bridge chip could allow an AGP version to be produced (early versions of the GeForce 6800 series were natively AGP and used a bridge chip to convert to PCI Express). SLI support has been retained and even improved.

A 512 MB version of the GeForce 7800 GTX was released on November 14, 2005. This version appears to be the rumored GeForce 7800 Ultra, of which there has been much speculation for the last few months, as the card features more than simply an increased frame buffer from 256 MB to 512 MB. The card features a much improved core clock speed of 550 MHz vs. 430 MHz (27.9% increase) and fast 1.1 ns GDDR3 memory clocked at 1.7 GHz vs. 1.2 GHz (41.7% increase), when compared to the original version. Like ATI's X1800XT, the addition of another 256 MiB of memory, and to a lesser extent, the increased clock speeds, have raised the heat and power output significantly. To combat this, the GeForce 7800 GTX 512 sports a much larger yet quieter dual slot cooling solution when compared to the original 256 MiB version.

According to PC World, the 7800 GTX is "one of the most complex processors ever designed". The GPU has 300 million transistors (the Athlon 64 X2 4800+ CPU has 233.2 million transistors), along with 24 pixel and 8 vertex pipelines. Rumours had suggested that the card actually had 32 pixel pipelines, though this has since turned out to be incorrect as the GPU's transistor count is insufficient for 32 pipelines. This card includes new standard features, such as subsurface scattering, HDR lighting, and radiosity, to name a few. The mainstream success of this card will depend on how much the double-exponentially expanding technology sector can drive down the initial price ($599 USD) of this card; currently the 7800 GTX can be found for around $449 USD.

It was outdated by the 7900GTX on March 9, 2006



GeForce 7900 Series

NVIDIA officially announced availability of the GeForce 7900 series on March 9, 2006. See here.

NVIDIA's 7900 series is a product refresh and not a new generation of NVIDIA's GPU, running at 550 MHz.


GeForce 7900 GS

NVIDIA has recently released the 7900 GS, which is designed to fill the gap between the GeForce 7600 GT and the GeForce 7900 GT. As of late, Dell is the only computer manufacturer that sells the 7900 GS.

The GeForce 7900 GS has 20 pixel processors, 7 vertex processors, 256-bit memory bus, and comes clocked at approximately 450 MHz/1320 MHz for core/memory, which should provide slightly sub-par performance to the 7900 GT. The GeForce 7900 GS is powered by the latest graphics chip code-named G71, thus, comes with dual-link DVI outputs and other advantages the G71 has over predecessors, particularly, very low power consumption.

NVIDIA announced that they will be selling the 7900 GS to the retail market in August 2006 at a price range of about $179-$199.


GeForce 7900 GT

This video card was released on 9 March 2006. Like the 7900 GTX, it is a revised version of the G70 GPU(G71) that is produced at 90 nm. It too offers all the features of the 7800 series as well as an attractive performance-to-price ratio.

Featuring 24 pixel pipelines, it is actually faster than the 256 MiB version of the GeForce 7800 GTX, yet has an MSRP of $299 USD (for the base clockrate). The overclocked versions are priced up to $349 USD.

Shortly after the initial launch of the 7900GT CO/KO/Superclock series, a trend of hardware instability became more and more prevalent. Some symptoms of the unusually large number of defective cards include: artifacting while rendering graphics in graphics benchmarks such as 3DMark03, 3DMark05, 3DMark06 and Aquamark3, artifacting while playing games, BSODs (Blue Screen of Death), total system restarts, and blinking screen.

A large batch of the 7900 GT XX (note: XX may signify CO/KO/SC variants of the 7900 GT) are believed to have defective and/or malfunctioning memory modules, thus causing instability and ultimately, total card failure. Another proposed cause of large-scale instability among the 7900 GT XX include undervolting from the factory. That is, the 7900 GT XX run at a 1.2 volt GPU core voltage, while their higher end relatives, the 7900 GTX, have 1.4 volt GPU voltages, thus permitting higher clock frequencies (GPU/RAM). The 1.2 core volt coupled with factory clocks of up to 520/770 (1540 effective) may suggest that the core voltage is simply too low to allow for higher clock speeds. Another point to note is that the 7900 GT XX and the 7900 GTX are both based around the exact same core, featuring a 90nm process, allowing for a smaller die size and fewer total transistors within the core itself; it now becomes apparent that the 7900 GT XX are actually meant to run at 1.4 volts, much like the 7900 GTX, but are factory undervolted to 1.2 volts.


GeForce 7900 GTX

The GeForce 7900 GTX is the latest revision of the (G70 Core), this 90 nm produced G70 (named G71) features all the same features as its older brother the 7800 GTX but is built upon the smaller manufacturing process.

Featuring a clock speed of 650 MHz, opposed to the 550 MHz speed of the 512 GTX, this card offers up to an 8 - 15% performance increase. It features a new 24-pixel pipeline superscalar GPU model, much like the 512 MiB 7800 GTX, but offers faster performance due to "improved pipeline design". "We changed the ROP performance as well as reconfigured some of the pipelines to make sure the card was more optimized over G70," NVIDIA said.

Due to shortages of memory modules for the 512 MiB GTX, NVIDIA decided to use the more readily available 1600 MHz memory. This also allows the card to be priced very competitively, giving ATI Technologies a harder time. In turn, ATI made a massive price slash in its current lineup.

It was released on March 9, 2006.


GeForce 7900 GX2

The GeForce 7900 GX2 is two videocards stacked to fit as a dual slot solution. This is not like products such as the ASUS Dual GeForce 7800 GT, where two GPUs are on the same card. This enables quad-SLI on two PCI Express x16 slots. Other OEM companies have access to the GX2 and now is available from numerous vendors.

The card features a 500 MHz GPU and 1200 MHz effective RAM speed. Although the power of the GX2 is less than the 7900 GTX, each card is more powerful than the 7900 GT.

Many issues in this implementation of a dual-GPU unit convinced NVIDIA to restrict its sale to OEM companies. The card is extremely long, with only the largest e-ATX cases being able to hold it. Two of the cards operating in quad-SLI also required extremely well designed airflow to function, and demanded a 1000 watt power supply unit.


GeForce 7950 GX2

This is essentially a dual-GPU video card that takes up only a single PCI x16 slot, allowing for 4 GPUs to run with only two PCI x16 slots, in standard SLI motherboards. Unlike the 7900 GX2 before it, this version is available to consumers directly.

The 7950GX2 was released to retail on June 5, 2006, and shares similar specs to the GeForce 7900 GX2, with 500 MHz GPU clock, and 1200 MHz effective RAM speed. 512 MB of memory per GPU, for a total of 1 GB.

This card is designed for the DIY market; it addresses many problems which the previous 7900 GX2 had suffered from, such as noise, size, power consumption, and price. The 7950 GX2 requires only a single PCIe power connector, in contrast to the twin-connectors of its predecessor, and is much shorter, fitting easily in the same space as a 7900 GTX. Superior board layout and the addition of cooling vents on the bracket have greatly improved cooling, allowing the fans to run at a lower speed, thereby lowering noise. As of June 2006, the board can be found for $599, half the cost of a 7900 GX2.

In contrast to the twin-SLI connectors of the 7900 GX2, the 7950 only has one, shared for both GPUs. Technically, this is understandable, as there is no need for a ring bus configuration - frames need only be passed on to the primary GPU.

According to some review sites (such as Toms Hardware - see above), a single 7950GX2 draws less power than a single ATI Radeon X1900XT - some consider this an amazing feat considering the GX2 employs a pair of GPUs, when the Radeon uses only one. Other review sites say that a GX2 is quieter than the aforementioned Radeon[6], despite the GX2 boasting a pair of identical GPU coolers - however 'loudness' is highly subjective without the proper tools and testing conditions. If true, this would make a pair of GX2s cooler, quieter, and less power hungry than a pair of X1900XTs in Crossfire, with the dual-GX2 undoubtedly being faster, depending on how efficient future NVIDIA drivers are.

On August 9th, 2006, NVIDIA released official drivers which support Quad-SLI. They can be found here.


Upcoming products

No new GeForce 7 Series products are officially announced, although there is some speculation about an AGP version of the 7600GT, and certainly the 7600GS.

Recently rumors state that nVidia plans on releasing a GeForce 7950 GT, to be released on September 30th, 2006. It.com apparently obtained slides from a presentation, which shows the rumored video card. Although the entire product is questionable, as benchmark comparisons show that nVidia "tested" it on the unreleased Radeon X1900 Pro, unprofessionalism of certain sentences (“Why are we making changes?” “...to hit ATI while they are down!”), and the picture used to display the product appears to be a 7900GT.

G80 (or, using the old naming philosophy, NV50) is NVIDIA's next GPU, rumored to be released anywhere from October to November of 2006. It will feature more than 300 million transistors, OpenEXR FP16 HDR with anti-aliasing, WGF 2.0 (DirectX 10) with Shader Model 4.0. It is rumored to be fabricated on the 80nm process. If the first taping goes well then we should see a release as early as September 2006.