GeForce 7900 GT Review: Great Mid-Range Value Graphics Card

A balance between price and performance drove the creation of the GeForce 7900 GT 3D graphics card, the predecessor of the 7800 GT. Its performance is so good that it smokes everything on the market except a few cards that cost $500 to its $300. However, ATI has way more support for many of the modern image-enhancing features. For speed, I'd definitely say go for either a single GeForce 7900 GT or two in the dual-card SLI mode, but image quality has to go to the $250 ATI Radeon X1800 GTO, although it's slower.

Those who want a GeForce 7900 GT will have no problem finding it, or its big brother, the GeForce 7900 GTX. They were released about two months ago, and online vendors now have plenty to sale. Although most places only sale GeForce 7900 GTs with 256 MB of memory, some have over-clocked versions for about $50 extra.

Stock specs for the GeForce 7900 GT are a 450MHz core clock with a 1320MHz memory. Its predecessor, the 7800 GT was $150 more for less speed (450 MHz core and 1000MHz memory). The reason for the price cut was a new 90nm manufacture process, yielding more usable chips per silicon wafer. Although ATI uses the same process, its chips contain more features, so they're still more expensive.

If only the GeForce 7900 GT had more features, it would be an all-around winner. ATI's Radeon X1800 GTO couldn't keep up in either a single or dual-core mode. Also, two GeForce 7900 GTs cost the same as a Radeon X1900 XTX, but they run faster in SLI mode. All it needs is more features.

There are two major components besides speed that are commonly used to improve the 3D graphics experience. The jagged lines seen in 3D space can be removed with anti-aliasing, which has a number of levels (2X, 4X, etc.). Now, there's also something known as High Dynamic Range (HDR) lighting. It makes light and dark areas as light or dark as possible to increase detail. Although both Nvidia and ATI graphics cards support these enhancements, only ATIs do both at once. It's worth noting that having one or the other isn't really going to hurt, but when you have a game that supports both it really rocks to use both.

For both the games on the market now and many to come, the GeForce 7900 GT is lacking in image quality enhancements. It is fast and has a reasonable price, but that alone could really hurt its popularity.