Nvidia GeForce 7950 GT review: Nvidia GeForce 7950 GT
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It can’t hang with ATI’s faster (and wider) Radeon X1900 XT in performance, but if you’re building a small PC or you’re concerned about noise levels, the GeForce 7950 distinguishes itself as the only single-slot 3D card in its price range. If efficiency is more important than speed, Nvidia makes it easy.
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Rich Brown Senior Editorial Director — Home and Wellness
Rich is the editorial lead for CNET’s Home and Wellness sections, based in Louisville, KY. Before moving to Louisville in 2013, Rich ran CNET’s desktop computer review section for 10 years in New York City. He has worked as a tech journalist since 1994, covering everything from 3D-printing to Z-Wave smart locks.
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ATI Radeon X1900 XT
By the numbers, the GeForce 7950 GT looks strong but not as strong as the competition. Nvidia has a pixel pipeline advantage, dedicating 24 pipes to rendering dots on the screen compared to the Radeon X1900 XT’s 16. But its clock speeds come in at 550MHz for the chip and 1.4GHz for the DDR3 memory. The Radeon 1900XT has a faster 625MHz core and a slight memory speed advantage at 1.44GHz. That translates to an overall performance win for ATI, even when we compare its newly released 256MB Radeon X1900 XT against the 512MB GeForce 7950 GT.
We considered Nvidia’s GeForce 7900 GT the 3D card price-performance leader when we reviewed it back in the spring of this year. It was fast enough to do justice to most games on the market, and its $300 price tag didn’t break the bank.
We’re less enthused about its fall update, the GeForce 7950 GT. This card also costs around $300 (you can find the 7900 GT for about $250 now), and it has twice the memory of its predecessor, with 512MB. Nvidia designed the GeForce 7950 GT to wear the price-performance crown, but compared to the similar , the Nvidia card can’t keep up to speed.
The only test the GeForce 7950 GT took from ATI was Futuremark’s synthetic (that is, not representative of real-world gameplay) 3DMark06. On that benchmark, the GeForce 7950 GT landed right in the middle of the 256MB and 512MB versions of the Radeon X1900 XT. But on every test using an actual game, at least at 1,600×1,200, the GeForce 7950 GT fell behind. We’re most surprised by its loss on Quake 4, which Nvidia used to dominate. At the more complex 1,920×1,440 resolution, the GeForce 7950 GT fared better on Half-Life 2: The Lost Coast, which indicated to us that if you use Nvidia’s SLI technology to pair two GeForce 7950 GT cards together, you might get better performance at higher resolutions than you would applying ATI’s competing CrossFire dual-card mode.
We’ve long favored SLI for its price advantages and its more elegant all-internal implementation over CrossFire’s external dongle anyway.
3DMark06
(Longer bars indicate better performance)
Nvidia GeForce 7900 GS SLI 512MB
7187
ATI Radeon X1900 XT 512MB
5799
Nvidia GeForce 7950 GT 512MB
5431
ATI Radeon X1900 XT 256MB
4900
Nvidia GeForce 7900 GT 256MB
4568
Quake 4
(Longer bars indicate better performance)
| High Quality, 2,048×1,536, 4 X AA/16X AF | High Quality, 1,600×1,200, 4X AA/16X AF |
Nvidia GeForce 7900 GS SLI 512MB
56
85
ATI Radeon X1900 XT 512MB
46
68
ATI Radeon X1900 XT 256MB
44
65
Nvidia GeForce 7950 GT 512MB
38
57
Nvidia GeForce 7900 GT 256MB
31
47
Half-Life 2: The Lost Coast
(Longer bars indicate better performance)
| 1,920×1,440, Max Quality 4X AA/16X AF | 1,600×1,200, Max Quality 4X AA/16X AF |
Nvidia GeForce 7900 GS SLI 512MB
60
99
ATI Radeon X1900 XT 512MB
63
83
ATI Radeon X1900 XT 256MB
56
80
Nvidia GeForce 7950 GT 512MB
60
77
Nvidia GeForce 7900 GT 256MB
36
60
The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
(Longer bars indicate better performance)
| 1,920×1,440, Max/Shadows on grass off/Self shadows off | 1,600×1,200, Max/Shadows on grass off/Self shadows off |
ATI Radeon X1900 XT 512MB
30
33
Nvidia GeForce 7900 GS SLI 512MB
31
33
ATI Radeon X1900 XT 256MB
26
32
Nvidia GeForce 7950 GT 512MB
25
31
Nvidia GeForce 7900 GT 256MB
19
25
Where Nvidia does get the win is with setup.
For one, the 7950 GT is a single-slot card; the Radeon needs only one PCI Express slot, but its double-wide design takes up the space of two slots. Both cards require direct power-supply connections, but Nvidia recommends a 400-watt power supply, while ATI recommends 450 watts. It’s a minor distinction, but if you’re trying to make a small-form-factor PC or if you’re concerned about heat and, in turn, fan noise, the GeForce 7950 GT is less demanding than the Radeon X1900 XT in terms of power consumption.
We should add that Nvidia’s next-generation cards, code-named G80, are due out before the end of the year. We imagine that if you’re looking for solid performance and aren’t too concerned with setting frames-per-second records, the GeForce 7950 GT will serve you well for at least another year or so. If you really want to get the most from your gaming hardware, however, and you don’t mind waiting a few months, you might be able to get a more futureproof 3D card for a similar price.
Still, priced at a reasonable $300, the GeForce 7950 GT shouldn’t leave you with a case of buyer’s remorse when the new cards hit (unlike Nvidia’s fast-but-pricey $600 GeForce 7950 GX2).
Finally, we must thank GameSpot’s Sarju Shah and James Yu, who provided us with the test results for this review, as they have for the last couple 3D cards we’ve covered. They’ve now completed a comprehensive roundup of the current state of the graphics card picture, covering four different market segments. If you’re totally overwhelmed with the prospect of buying a new 3D card, that’s the first place to look.
Test bed
AMD Athlon 64 FX-62; Asus A8RMVP-Deluxe motherboard; 1GB Corsair XMS 3200XL DDR SDRAM; 160GB Seagate 7,200rpm hard drive; ATI Catalyst beta version 6.8_8.282.1 graphics driver software; Nvidia ForceWare 91.31 graphics driver software
6.7
Nvidia GeForce 7950 GT
Score Breakdown
Design 7Features 7Performance 0Support 6
See full specs
GeForce 7950 GT AGP — Technical City
NVIDIA
GeForce 7950 GT AGP
Buy
- Interface AGP 8x
- Core clock speed 500 MHz
- Max video memory 512 MB
- Memory type GDDR3
- Memory clock speed 1200 MHz
- Maximum resolution
Summary
NVIDIA started GeForce 7950 GT AGP sales 2 April 2007.
This is Curie architecture desktop card based on 90 nm manufacturing process and primarily aimed at gamers. 512 MB of GDDR3 memory clocked at 1.2 GHz are supplied, and together with 256 Bit memory interface this creates a bandwidth of 38.4 GB/s.
Compatibility-wise, this is single-slot card attached via AGP 8x interface. 1x Molex power connector is required, and power consumption is at 65 Watt.
We have no data on GeForce 7950 GT AGP benchmark results.
General info
Some basic facts about GeForce 7950 GT AGP: architecture, market segment, release date etc.
| Place in performance rating | not rated | |
| Architecture | Curie (2003−2013) | |
| GPU code name | G71 | |
| Market segment | Desktop | |
| Release date | 2 April 2007 (15 years ago) |
Technical specs
GeForce 7950 GT AGP’s general performance parameters such as number of shaders, GPU base clock, manufacturing process, texturing and calculation speed.
These parameters indirectly speak of GeForce 7950 GT AGP’s performance, but for precise assessment you have to consider its benchmark and gaming test results.
| Core clock speed | 500 MHz | of 2610 (Radeon RX 6500 XT) |
| Number of transistors | 278 million | of 14400 (GeForce GTX 1080 SLI Mobile) |
| Manufacturing process technology | 90 nm | of 4 (GeForce RTX 4080 Ti) |
| Thermal design power (TDP) | 65 Watt | of 900 (Tesla S2050) |
| Texture fill rate | 12.00 | of 969.9 (h200 SXM5 96 GB) |
Compatibility, dimensions and requirements
Information on GeForce 7950 GT AGP’s compatibility with other computer components. Useful when choosing a future computer configuration or upgrading an existing one. For desktop graphics cards it’s interface and bus (motherboard compatibility), additional power connectors (power supply compatibility).
| Interface | AGP 8x | |
| Width | 1-slot | |
| Supplementary power connectors | 1x Molex |
Memory
Parameters of memory installed on GeForce 7950 GT AGP: its type, size, bus, clock and resulting bandwidth. Note that GPUs integrated into processors have no dedicated memory and use a shared part of system RAM instead.
| Memory type | GDDR3 | |
| Maximum RAM amount | 512 MB | of 128 (Radeon Instinct MI250X) |
| Memory bus width | 256 Bit | of 8192 (Radeon Instinct MI250X) |
| Memory clock speed | 1200 MHz | of 22400 (GeForce RTX 4080) |
| Memory bandwidth | 38.4 GB/s | of 14400 (Radeon R7 M260) |
Video outputs and ports
Types and number of video connectors present on GeForce 7950 GT AGP.
As a rule, this section is relevant only for desktop reference graphics cards, since for notebook ones the availability of certain video outputs depends on the laptop model, while non-reference desktop models can (though not necessarily will) bear a different set of video ports.
| Display Connectors | 2x DVI, 1x S-Video |
API support
APIs supported by GeForce 7950 GT AGP, sometimes including their particular versions.
| DirectX | 9.0c (9_3) | |
| Shader Model | 3.0 | |
| OpenGL | 2.1 | of 4.6 (GeForce GTX 1080 Mobile) |
| OpenCL | N/A | |
| Vulkan | N/A |
Benchmark performance
Non-gaming benchmark performance of GeForce 7950 GT AGP. Note that overall benchmark performance is measured in points in 0-100 range.
We have no data on GeForce 7950 GT AGP benchmark results.
These processors are most commonly used with GeForce 7950 GT AGP according to our statistics.
Core 2
Extreme QX6700
50%
FX
4300
50%
User rating
Here you can see the user rating of the graphics card, as well as rate it yourself.
Questions and comments
Here you can ask a question about GeForce 7950 GT AGP, agree or disagree with our judgements, or report an error or mismatch.
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Video card GeForce 7950 GT AGP
NVIDIA
GeForce 7950 GT AGP
- AGP interface 8x
- Core frequency 500 MHz
- Video memory size 512 MB
- Memory type GDDR3
- Memory frequency 1200 MHz
- Maximum resolution
Description
NVIDIA Starts GeForce 79 Sales50 GT AGP April 2, 2007.
This is a Curie architecture desktop card based on 90 nm manufacturing process and primarily aimed at gamers. It has 512 MB of GDDR3 memory at 1.2 GHz, and coupled with a 256-bit interface, this creates a bandwidth of 38.40 Gb / s.
In terms of compatibility, this is a single-slot card connected via the AGP 8x interface. An additional 1x Molex power cable is required for connection and the power consumption is 65W.
We don’t have test results for GeForce 7
Types and number of video connectors present on GeForce 7950 GT AGP. As a rule, this section is relevant only for desktop reference video cards, since for laptop ones the availability of certain video outputs depends on the laptop model.
These are the results of GeForce 7950 GT AGP rendering performance tests in non-gaming benchmarks.
memory capacity
38.40 GB/s
of 14400 (Radeon R7 M260)
Video connectors
OpenCL
N/A
VULKAN
N/A
9002 9002 