GeForce 7 Series
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The GeForce 7 Series is the seventh generation of NVIDIA's GeForce graphics cards.
| NVIDIA GeForce 7 Series | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Codename | G70+ |
| Created | 2005-06 |
| Entry-Level GPU | GeForce 7100 |
| Mid-Range GPU | GeForce 7600 |
| High-End GPU | GeForce 7800, GeForce 7900 |
| DirectX Version | 9.0c |
Contents |
[edit] GeForce 7100 series
The 7100 series was introduced August 30th, 2006, with little notice or attention from the media. It will be a PCI Express-only interface, and will lack HDR support. The only available model is the 7100GS. [1] The chip is based on GeForce 6200 with TurboCache, but supports Intellisample 4.0 multisampling (without gamma correction) and SLI multiprocessing using Forceware 91.47 driver. [2] These features can be enabled with other GeForce 6 series video cards.
[edit] GeForce 7100 GS
Although the 7300LE series (below) was originally intended to be the "budget" series from the GeForce 7 lineup, the 7100GS has now taken its place. As it is little more than a revamped version of the GeForce 6200TC, it is designed as a basic PCI-e solution for OEMs to use if the chipset does not have integrated video capabilities.
[edit] GeForce 7300 series
nVidia designed the 7300 series to be entry level video cards. They are currently available in four versions: the 7300 GT, the 7300 GS, the 7300 LE, and the 7300 SE. (see here). They were released to replace the Geforce 6200 series of video cards. The 7300 series is not meant for hardcore gaming, but instead is meant to serve as a good graphics card for home theater PCs.
[edit] GeForce 7300 SE
Another model that NVIDIA seemed to quietly release is the new 7300 SE. It uses the same core frequency and memory speed as the 7300 LE, but has only half the fill rate and 2/3 of vertex setup rate, which means it has only 2 vertex and pixel shaders. In many ways, this card is actually inferior to the new 7100 GS, although it still retains the HDR support of its bigger brothers. 5
[edit] GeForce 7300 LE
The 7300 LE ( LE stands for light edition ) is a scaled-down version of the 7300 GS. It has DDR memory, as opposed to GDDR2/GDDR3, and a slightly lower core clock speed (450 MHz vs. 550 MHz) according to Anandtech. It is only available in the PCI Express interface. With good performance/price, the 7300 LE serves as a budget video card.
[edit] GeForce 7300 GS
On January 18, 2006, NVIDIA officially announced the immediate release of the GeForce 7300 GS graphics card. Like most of the GeForce 7 series, the 7300 GS is currently only available with a PCI Express interface. The RAMDAC is still at 400 MHz like the original 7800 GT, but NVIDIA has scaled the memory interface down to 64-bit. The 7300 utilizes an nVidia technology called turbocache with which the card is able to effectively "share" onboard integrated graphics to speed-up performance on low-end desktop machines.
The 7300 GS (G72) series was designed to replace the 6200 TC (NV44) series. With the same improved pipelines and pixel/vertex shading power inherited from its bigger brother, the 7800 series, albeit scaled down to fit budget market needs, the 7300 GS should have around double the performance of the 6200 TC. The 7300 GS also has the same Transparency AA feature and now supports FP16 Blending & Filtering, neither of which was in the 6200 TC.
[edit] GeForce 7300 GT
The 7300 GT was quietly slipped out the door sometime April/May 2006. It has 8 pixel pipelines, 4 vertex units, and uses either a 64-bit or 128-bit memory interface. Technically, it is a more advanced part than the 6600 DDR2, although the clockspeeds of 350 MHz Core and 667 MHz GDDR2 prevent it from competing directly. The only thing it shares in common with its lower powered brothers, is the 90nm process. Even though it is named a 7300 series part, it's based on the same core utilized by the 7600 series.
[edit] 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.
[edit] GeForce 7600 GS
On March 22, 2006, NVIDIA announced the immediate availability of the GeForce 7600 GS GPU targeted at the low-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, but AGP 8x cards are also available
- 400 MHz Core frequency
- 128-bit memory interface
- 12.8 GB/s memory bandwidth
- 3.2 billion pixel/s fill rate
- 500 million vertice/s
- 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.[3]
[edit] GeForce 7600 GT
This is the high-mid range product in the 7 Series family.
Quick specifications for GeForce 7600GT from NVIDIA documents:
- PCIe native
- 560 MHz core frequency
- 128-bit memory interface
- 22.4 GB/s memory bandwidth
- 6.72 Billion pixel/s fill rate
- 700 Million vertice/s
- 12 pixels per cycle
- Built in dual-link DVI support for 2560x1600 resolution
The 7600 contains 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 $165 USD. By using the exact same PCB and GPU socket as the 6600, manufacturing costs should be lower due to available parts left over; and the fact it is built on a smaller wafer. When benchmarks revealed that the 7600GT seriously outperformed its original market opponent, the ATI Radeon X1600 XT, ATI reduced prices of its Radeon X850XT PE (the fastest video card of its previous-generation product line) and introduced the X1800 GTO, which was slightly more expensive than the 7600GT but marginally faster thanks 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.
Card manufacturer Leadtek introduced an AGP version of the card in August 2006.[4]
[edit] GeForce 7800 Series
[edit] 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.
[edit] GeForce 7800 GS AGP
On February 2, 2006, NVIDIA announced the 7800 GS as the first (and the only high-end) AGP video card in the GeForce 7 series lineup, an AGP version of the high-end Geforce 7 Series.[5]
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 optimizations of the other 7-series GPUs enjoy. Clock speed are 375 MHz for the GPU and 1200 MHz for the (GDDR3) memory. According to all benchmark tests, the performance of this card is above and beyond both the GeForce 6800 GT and GeForce 6800 Ultra. Different vendor may deviate from the stated specification. It serves to provide a great upgrade path for those with high-end AGP systems who don't want to switch to a new high-end PCI-Express system. [6]
[edit] 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. 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 MB 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 MB version.[1]
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.[2] 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
Here is how the released versions of the "GeForce 7" series family compare to NVIDIA's previous flagship GPU, the GeForce 6800 Ultra, in addition to ATI's newly released Radeon X1800 XT:
| GeForce 6800 Ultra | GeForce 7300 LE | GeForce 7600 GS | GeForce 7600 GT | GeForce 7800 GTX | GeForce 7900 GTX | ATI Radeon X1800 XT | ATI Radeon X1900 XTX | |
| Transistor count | 222 million | 112 million | 178 million | 178 million | 302 million | 278 million | 321 million | 384 million |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Manufacturing process | 0.13 µm | 90 nm | 90 nm | 90 nm | 0.11 µm | 90 nm | 90 nm | 90 nm |
| Die Area | 288 mm² | 77 mm² | 125 mm² | 125 mm² | 333 mm² | 196 mm² | 288 mm² | 352 mm² |
| Core clock speed | 400 MHz | 400 MHz | 400 MHz | 560 MHz | 430 MHz | 650 MHz | 625 MHz | 650 MHz |
| Number of pixel shader processors | 16 | 4 | 12 | 12 | 24 | 24 | 16 | 48 |
| Number of pixel pipes | 16 | 4 | 12 | 12 | 24 | 24 | 16 | 16 |
| Number of texturing units | 16 | 4 | 12 | 12 | 24 | 24 | 16 | 16 |
| Number of vertex pipelines | 6 | 3 | 5 | 5 | 8 | 8 | 8 | 8 |
| Peak pixel fill rate (theoretical) | 6.4 Gigapixel/s | 1.1 Gigapixel/s | 3.2 Gigapixel/s | 4.48 Gigapixel/s | 6.88 Gigapixel/s | 10.4 Gigapixel/s | 10.0 Gigapixel/s | 10.4 Gigapixel/s |
| Peak texture fill rate (theoretical) | 6.4 Gigatexel/s | 2.2 Gigatexel/s | 4.8 Gigatexel/s | 6.72 Gigatexel/s | 10.32 Gigatexel/s | 15.6 Gigatexel/s | 10.0 Gigatexel/s | 10.4 Gigatexel/s |
| Memory interface | 256-bit | 64-bit | 128-bit | 128-bit | 256-bit | 256-bit | 256-bit ext (512-bit int) | 256-bit ext (512-bit int) |
| Memory clock speed | 1.1 GHz GDDR16 | 810 MHz GDDR2 | 800 MHz GDDR2 | 1.4 GHz GDDR3 | 1.2 GHz GDDR3 | 1.6 GHz GDDR3 | 1.5 GHz GDDR3 | 1.55 GHz GDDR3 |
| Peak memory bandwidth | 35.2 GB/s | 6.5 GB/s | 12.8 GB/s | 22.4 GB/s | 38.4 GB/s | 51.2 GB/s | 48.0 GB/s | 49.6 GB/s |
[edit] 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 650 MHz.
[edit] 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.
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.[3]
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 [4]. The product was unofficially launched August 23 by woot! as a white box OEM. Although, the product's company, MSI, made claims that these cards were stolen from MSI during transportation and sold to woot!. [5] The referenced MSI customer notice has been changed to remove explicit references to woot!.
[edit] 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 MB 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.
[edit] GeForce 7950 GT
On 14th September NVIDIA released the 7950GT. Announced with a 550 MHz core clock, 700 MHz (1400 MHz effective) memory clock, 24 pixel shader units, standard configurations come equipped with both 512 MB GDDR3 memory and HDCP support. At an introductory price of $300 USD, the GeForce 7950 GT replaces the older GeForce 7900 GT and improves performance: the GeForce 7950 GT has a fillrate of 13,200 Megatexels/s and a memory bandwidth of 44.8 GB/s (versus 10800 Megatexels/s and 940 Megavertices/s for the 7900 GT.)
[edit] GeForce 7900 GTO
The 7900 GTO is a close cousin of the 7900 GTX. The GTO first arrived at a handful of retailers around October 1, 2006. At the time of launch GTO boards sold for around $250, compared to 7900GTX boards which cost in excess of $400 at the time. The GTO was essentially identical to the GTX, with the exception that it lacked HDCP support, had underclocked memory running at 1320mhz, and used tighter memory timings. Other than that, the two boards were the exact same: same PCB, same cooler, same GPU, you name it. The GTO used extremely fast 1.1ns Samsung BJ11 GDDR3 memory running at 1.8v, as opposed to the 2.1v it is rated at. Clock speeds on the two cards are identical, at 650mhz. At stock memory speeds, most comparisons found the GTO to lag behind the GTX by roughly a 5-10% margin. The majority of owners find that their GTO will overclock to 1600mhz memory speeds, despite the under-votled RAM. Many flash to a GTX BIOS to officially make it a GTX. GTO owners having trouble reaching GTX speeds with BIOS version 5.71.22.39.13 or newer are advised to simply flash to an older BIOS version such as 5.71.22.39.08, this seems to solve overclocking problems for most users. The GTO was an extremely popular card among enthusiasts as it offered near GTX performance at a considerably lower price. It was a limited production card aimed at cleaning out G70 inventories before the release of the G80, and only spent about a month in retail channels before selling out.
[edit] 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 MB 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 (see [7]).
Due to shortages of memory modules for the 512 MB 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.
[edit] 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.
[edit] GeForce 7950 GX2
This is essentially a dual-GPU video card that takes up only a single PCIe x16 slot, allowing for 4 GPUs to run with only two PCIe x16 slots, in standard SLI motherboards. Unlike the 7900 GX2 before it, this version is available to consumers directly.[6]
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 September 2006, the board can be found for $499, 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[7], 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.
[edit] See also
- Comparison of NVIDIA Graphics Processing Units (GPUs only shown by general category, i.e. NV40 NV30)
- PCI-E
- PlayStation 3, which has a NVIDIA G70 series GPU.
[edit] References
- ^ "NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GTX 512: More Than Just More Memory", AnandTech, 14 November 2005.
- ^ "GeForce 7800 GTX Sets Gaming Speed Records", PC World, June 22, 2005.
- ^ "Dell Touts GeForce 7900 GS Graphics Card", Xbit Laboratories, 15 May 2006.
- ^ "Nvidia Plans to Sell GeForce 7900 GS in Retail.", Xbit Laboratories, 12 August 2006.
- ^ "[http://www.msicomputer.com/msiforms2/stolen.asp Important MSI Customer Notice about stolen 7900GS video cards. .]", MSI, 20 August 2006.
- ^ "GeForce 7950 GX2 - SLI on a Single Card", Toms Hardware, June 5, 2006.
- ^ "NVIDIA GeForce 7950 GX2", bit-tech, 6 June 2006.
[edit] External links
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