Nvidia Announces GeForce Go7950GTX Graphics Card

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by Charles Jefferies

October 12^th - Nvidia today announced the GeForce Go7950GTX, the fourth generation of Nvidia's flagship GPU. It is the world's fastest mobile GPU, and delivers unmatched performance in the latest game titles. It is largely based on the previous Go7900GTX, delivering a higher level of performance while consuming the same amount of power.

The GeForce Go7950GTX is fully compatible with DirectX 9.0c and features Shader Model. 3.0. The card is Microsoft Vista-ready, and fully supports Vista's DirectX 9.0L (previously called Windows Graphics Foundation 1.0), and WDDM (Windows Display Driver Model). With 24 pixel pipelines, the Go7950GTX provides unsurpassed performance for high-end gaming.

Power efficiency of the Go7950GTX is handled by the latest generation of Nvidia's power-saving PowerMizer 6.0 technology, which allows for an ideal balance of power and portability. It helps reduce power consumption by varying the amount of active PCI Express lanes based on the needs of an application. In addition, Nvidia has implimented more advanced clock gating and has reduced gate leakage to maximize efficiency. The total power consumption of the Go7950GTX is 45W, identical to the previous Go7900GTX. The package is also the same.

Using Nvidia PureVideo 2.0 technology, DVDs and videos are played back with incredible clarity and detail. PureVideo HD allows for support of Blu-ray and HD DVD playback.

The GeForce Go7950GTX's superscalar GPU architecture takes gaming performance to new levels. The CineFX 4.0 engine and UltraShadow II technology deliver up to two times the shading power and four times the shadow processing power of previous-generation hardware.

With two internal RAMDACs operating at 400MHz, the Go7950GTX can power up to two external QXGA (2048x1536) resolution monitors.

Above is a view of the Nvidia GeForce Go7950GTX graphics board (view large image)

Technical specifications for GeForce Go7950GTX

Core clock	575MHz
Memory Clock	700MHz (1.4GHz effective DDR)
Power Consumption	45W
Memory Interface	256-bit
DirectX 9.0	Shader Model 3.0
Pixel Pipelines	24
Vertex Shaders	8
Manufacturing Process	.09 micron
Number of Transistors	278 million
Power Saving Technology	PowerMizer 6.0

 

Performance Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth (GB/s)	44.8
Fill Rate (Billion pixels/s)	9.2
Verticies/s (millions)	1140
3DMark03 (10x7, 1x/1x)	22,181
3DMark05 (10x7, 1x/1x)	9,763
3DMark06 (12x10, 1x/1x)	6,428

Benchmarks provided by Nvidia on Nvidia test notebook systems with the following specifications:

• CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo T7600 (2.33GHz/4MB L2/667MHz FSB)
• Chipset: Intel i945PM
• GPU: Nvidia GeFoce Go7950GTX 512MB (575/700)
• Memory: 2GB DDR2-667
• Operating System: Windows XP SP2
• GPU Driver: 84.69

(view large image)

 

That thing is insane.

 

What's the point of this release exactly? The 7900 GTX is already powerful enough especially considering DX10 is around the corner.

 

Money I suppose. I suspect there are enough gaming enthusiasts with money to make this worth their while. I think.

 

I wonder if it can go up to 1GB Vid memory like it's Big Brother Desktop componant, or if 512MB is the max on it... look like I made a good decision to wait a bit until buying my gaming laptop.

 

Whoa! 1337 Gaming Alert!!!!

 

So given that SLI (at least in notebooks) doesn't seem to be a perfected art, at least based on some of the posts and reviews that I've heard. And if you had to make a decision on buying a new laptop and if the other things like cost/features weren't an issue....

Which would you go with; 7900GTS SLI or 7950GTX

 

I agree with you, completely. Why would you ever buy this if DX10 and Vista is coming in a few months. I just don't understand, why would you invest in making 'another' videocard? They could have better use the time for 8800GTX Go or something.

Charlie

 

A single Go7950GTX will outperform dual Go7900GS video cards according to Nvidia's benchmarks by a fairly large margin. I believe that the Go7900GS SLI setup would hold a more stable framerate than the single Go7950GTX though.
I do agree that SLI notebooks are not yet as well rounded as they could be; pairing dual high-end video cards with a single-core AMD Turion 64 processor is plain limiting and disappointing. If you are buying a new notebook, make it a dual-core.

 

Because DX10 is still in it's infancy (it's not even released yet, and will only be for Vista, which will take a longer time to roll out than XP, which is already one of the slowest rolled-out OS's from Microsoft), games that use DX10 exclusively won't be around for a good 5 years because game makers aren't stupid enough to alienate 98% of their market, the 7950 is a freakin FAST card, and will probably outperform the 8800 in DX9 and lower games... need I go on?

 

It says that it is fully compatiable with Direct 9x is this a Direct 10x card ? (Excuse my ignorance)

 

...no. It's a DirectX 9 card. Like they said. If it were a DirectX 10 card, they'd have said DirectX 10, rather than "The GeForce Go7950GTX is fully compatible with DirectX 9.0c"

 

when will this thingy available in parts?? So i can buy and upgrade in 1 or 2 years later? I'd happy with 7900 GS , but i don't know where to buy it for my Dell 1705

 

My point exactly I was thinking maybe that it was backward compatiable Dx10 to Dx9.Anyway

 

Well maybe I'm just a ignorant consumer who will soon part with his money but I'll spend the extra for this when I order my XPS M1710 in the next week or two. Why? Because if I'm going to drop $4000 on a bleeding edge laptop another $250 to get an extra 5-10% performance and extend the useable gaming life by 3-4 months makes sense to me. Vista's preliminary tests are showing decreased gaming performance vs the now 5 year old and mature XP-pro and since I consider the useful life of my laptops to be about 2 years Vista and DX10 cards will be mature right about the time I'm ready for my next one. But it's time to replace what I have and I'll drop the dough now to have that 'ferrari' feeling for 6 months till the 8800's make it to the mobile platform and then I'll still be in the high performance range and I should be good for games for the next year and a half to maybe two.

 

According to Dells website, it's a $150.00 upgrade from the Go 7900 GTX.

Given the course of games going to the next version DX, if you have just purchased a laptop that has a 7900 GTX, I wouldn't worry too much about it... the 7950 GTX just gives a 'lil extra umph for use who are about to purchase a gaming laptop.

By the time that your laptop needs a DX10 card to play games, that will probably be the GeForce Go 11920 GTX 2GB Dedicated memory... in otherwords... awhile.

 

Pitabred,

The GF 8800GTX is the most amazing card ever made so far. I'ts highly unlikely that the 7950GTX could come close.

read: Nvidia 8800GTX

And since this card is only 4 months away, well, it is sort of pointless to get the 7950GTX.

I'm pretty sure that a Mobile version will arrive mabe a month or two after the desktop version.

 

You know, I just realized that the XPS m1710 costs exactly as much as the Sager NP5760 in my signature--but with C2D and 7950GTX. Hmm.

C.

 

I doubt it will be only a month or two before the 8800 moves to the mobile platform. That thing consumes 300 watts of power, while the 7950/7900 GTX only consume 45 watts. I'm not sure if you realize the difference or not, but that would utterly render your laptop a desktop from that point on, because the battery would be useless under such a power drain.

 

Power consumption will be a very large hurdle for mobile versions of the next-generation GPUs.

@claudione314--looks like Dell's decided to get competitive with the XPS M1710's pricing then. That's great! EDIT: Just checked Dell's website--I still have it coming out quite a bit more than the NP5760.

 

45W

Oh dear.

 

Having literally just received my new laptop with a 7900GTX card, this annoys me, but such is the way with technology.

Can someone try and give me some solice by telling me what the real-life performance difference is between the 7900GTX and 7950?

Thanks,

Petrov.

 

Hmm. I get the same results......... now. I swear that last night I could get one with 2.0GHz C2D, 2GHz RAM, 7950GTX, and 3-year warranty for $3086. It must be true that Dell pricing changes pretty much every day...

C.

 

Yes, their prices do change daily. That's a pretty big swing though so anybody who bought one that day got a great deal!

 

I am in the same situation.
Is it worth it returning the current system and getting one with the 7950 gtx over the 7900 gtx?

 

You're really talking about a real-world performance difference of probably a few more fps in games. Relax, seriously, if you've got a 7900gtx you have what is essentially practically the pinnacle of mobile gaming performance as it is.

 

Not if it costs $150 more than the go 7900 GTX. I doubt you'd notice the difference if you saw the two cards on the same system side by side.

 

I don't know about real-life tests, but look here: http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=82630
Even the technical specs are very similar. Same # of pipelines and shaders, same RAMDAC, only a few more MHz for mem and core... and same amount of dedicated. Now if we were talking of the desktop version (7950GX2 with 1Gb dedicated), maybe the difference would be more substantial. But this is basically the same card with a few tweaks.

And btw, PowerNotebooks is offering it for $100 more than the 7900GTX in their Sager NP5760's, which is fairer than Dell's $150 for their XPS's.

C.

 

See this article regarding why Go 7900GTX owners (like me! ) shouldn't be too concerned...

http://www.legitreviews.com/article/405/1/

Petrov.