EVGA e-GeForce 7900 GT CO Superclocked Review - Page 3 of 5
Review By Steve Angelly - March 9, 2006
CARD LAYOUT
At the heart of e-GeForce 7900 GT CO Superclocked is the NVIDIA G71 GPU. Like the GeForce 7900 GTX, the GeForce 7900 GT's GPU is based on a 90nm-fabrication process and the internal architecture is similar, but with lower clock speeds.
NVIDIA G71 GPU
There are eight 32MB on-board memory chips from Samsung rated at 1.429ns (700MHz). EVGA selects and tests the highest performing memory chips for their Superclocked models. The effective data rate of the e-GeForce 7900 GT CO Superclocked is 1580MHz, which is 130MHz higher than the reference specification.
Samsung 1.4ns Memory
The core temperature reached a maximum of 72C when testing 3DMark06 and F.E.A.R. Note that temperatures were recorded during brief runs of each benchmark.
Quiet Fan-Cooled Copper Heatsink
The graphics card has a single-slot design.
HSF Overlapping Memory Chips
Four of the eight memory chips are partially covered by the GPU heatsink, preventing any application of ramsinks. Not that ramsinks are needed, it's just that I have gotten use to seeing heatsinks in some configuration applied to the ram chips on NVIDIA hi-perf video cards. In tests conducted during this preview I did not notice any sign of memory overheating.
EVGA 7900 GT (Top)
Indeed, a small compact card with a clean-looking layout. About 1-1/4 inches shorter in length than the 7800 GTX 256MB card. Size should alleviate cramped quarters on some mid-size cases (as well as some full towers) for PCI-E power connections and also for HDD connections. Single-slot design should also help free up some space in smaller cases.
