Author Topic: nVidia’s GeForce 7950 GX2 (Read 1346 times)

Brenjen · « **Reply #15 on:** June 21, 2006, 09:10:14 AM »

I know it'll work with my MOBO; the last info I read said I will have to flash my bios but the card will work.

People may have thought the same thing about the dual cpu systems too & they had to disable one of the cores in AH.

I don't want to have to deal with it right now because I also have to replace my joystick & I'm getting to the cut-off date on my RMA for the new video card. I have already paid for the new video card, but I haven't sent in my 7900GTX yet to complete the deal so I still have a little wiggle room.

You know how P/C headaches are; I just want to know from HTC;

A: if they know it will work

B: if they know it will NOT work

C: if they do not have any idea either way

So I can be prepared for any known issues I may run into, as it stands I'm in the dark here. I can only go by the MINIMUM system requirements posted & I am far beyond those.

I might assume from their silence I am the guinea pig & that's fine; I would just like to know ahead of time from HTC what they do or do not know about how a dual gpu single socket card will work with their software.

scottydawg · « **Reply #16 on:** June 21, 2006, 09:30:17 AM »

Skuzzy's said that AH doesn't support SLI... but I'm not sure why. I thought that AH uses DX9, and it's up to the DX drivers to handle the SLI implementation.

Not sure though. I can't imagine you getting much better performance out of AH2 with the 7950 than the 7900 GTX. I got everything on full with 1280x1024 on my 7900 GTX and it never goes below the max refresh rate of the monitor. Overkill?

Brenjen · « **Reply #17 on:** June 21, 2006, 09:53:56 AM »

People...it's not about a performance gain in AH. OK?

I have the opportunity to get a brand new $600+ video card for $80 by trading in my used 7900GTX. The 7900GTX's have been buggy because of the memory installed on the cards, allthough mine has been ok so far, I wouldn't mind a brand new card.

The performance is nearly the same on the two cards, I have spoken with people who have them installed. The 7950's are clocked to slower speeds & should be more reliable.

The SLI problem is why I went to the 7900GTX over the two 7800GT's. My SLI would run AH but it stuttered & froze & the frame rates were in the toilet. It ran AA & BF2 just fine, so I knew it was a glitch with AH & AH is my favorite game, I just don't care much for F.P.S.'rs so I want it to work; if it won't then I have to decide if I want a machine just for AHII or one that will run every other program on earth EXCEPT AHII

This 7950 card is not the new type of SLI really, it's more like the OLD type. If I'm not mistaken (but could be, I frequently am) there was an OLD style card that did the two bridged GPU's on a single card years ago & did it successfully. It was preffered to the new SLI by the people who had used both from what I have read. I myself never experienced this first hand so I do not know any more than what other peoples opinions have stated.

scottydawg · « **Reply #18 on:** June 21, 2006, 10:06:00 AM »

Sorry bro, please don't beat me senseless.

Brenjen · « **Reply #19 on:** June 21, 2006, 10:53:02 AM »

Quote

Originally posted by scottydawg
Sorry bro, please don't beat me senseless.

I'm sure you have very little to worry about there my friend.

It just seems everyone is thinking I want Skuzzy to recommend hardware or that I have some idea that this is going to up my performance in AHII or that I want some information on it's capabilities or whatever, I'm not sure how people get so confused on internet forums but it seems to happen a lot. At first I thought people were just twisting & ignoring the intent of posts for the sake of starting an arguement but now I'm not so sure; I re-read my words & it still seems clear to me what I meant.

When I built this P/C I got verbally abused on my choice of CPU's by people on other forums who thought I was an idiot for going single core when I could get a dual core for less than what this 4000+ athlon cost, but I did it for AHII because I knew there was a conflict with the dual cores, my current query is no different than the conversations on these forums about the dual core cpu problems.

If Skuzzy doesn't want to answer that's fine. If the card conflicts with AHII I'll just end the service until they catch up with technology. It'll save me money by not having to get a new joystick & paying the monthly fee; I can use the money I save to get a FX57 CPU & probably help keep my wife off my back about "that stupid game".

Bronk · « **Reply #20 on:** June 21, 2006, 11:00:46 AM »

Bren shoot Skuzzy an email. Just explain the whats going on and ask him direct if its a bad or good idea to swap em.

Bronk

Brenjen · « **Reply #21 on:** June 21, 2006, 02:43:41 PM »

Not a bad idea Bronk, I thought that this information might benefit the community at large as these cards are selling fast; it's actually hard to believe I might be the first kid on the block with one. The recent rash of trouble with the 7900 series has got a lot of folks shying away from the Nvidias but I have a good feeling about the 7950's

From everything I can gather, this is not seen as SLI by the mobo so it may work fine with AHII; I hope so, I'd hate to be forced to leave the game over something like a simple hardware upgrade.

Kev367th · « **Reply #22 on:** June 21, 2006, 03:02:21 PM »

Quote

Originally posted by Brenjen
People may have thought the same thing about the dual cpu systems too & they had to disable one of the cores in AH.

Not strictly true -

Depend on CPU make and which OS you're using.

Problem is XP on an AMD dual core, Microsofts screw up, they know it and are attempting to fix it.

Dual core + Win2000 has no probs with AH2.

As for the vid card, I would 'assume' the dual GPU is handled by the graphics drivers.
It's not SLI as it's possible to link two of these cards together using SLI to get a 4 GPU setup.

BIOS update is just to get the mobo to recognize the card properly.

Brenjen · « **Reply #23 on:** June 21, 2006, 03:44:39 PM »

Actually, the bios updates are not absolutely neccesary, people are running them in mobos like mine without the bios update & others have done before & after tests & saw no difference in the performance.

I intend to try it without the bios flash because I have no floppy drive installed on this machine & I would have to scrounge one out of a HP pavillion windows me machine that I have laying around...too much trouble.

Edit: thanks for making my point kev...it needed disscussion to be brought out into the open, no one person figured it out & at no time did Skuzzy "reccomend" any hardware, it was a simple case of a bug being worked through by the community.

Wolfala · « **Reply #24 on:** June 24, 2006, 08:58:12 PM »

Well, here's my experience. I'm running 2 7900 GTX's in SLI and havn't had any problems with AH regardless if it is not designed to do anything with it. But from what I read, they dialed the clock back 150 mhz not to fry the thing to give an almost 7900 GTX SLI performance, but just is not quite there.

So bottom line, the 7950 isn't as fast as the 7900 GTX SLI setup. So the 7950 should be for those who don't want to use 2 PCI Express 16 slots and only be left for 1 or 2 usable PCI slots.

Thats how I see it.

But on the plus side, its still early in this cards evolution. If it negates the need to use 2 PCI Express 16 slots and performs better then the 7900 GTX SLI config and has a noticable improvement - like 30 - 50 %, thats another story.

Wolf

Brenjen · « **Reply #25 on:** June 25, 2006, 12:02:32 PM »

Coolbits works with the 7950 so overclocking the 7950 is an option & some users are doing it but heat is an issue. From what I am reading the 7950 is a *hot* card as in temperature. Some users are reporting 75C under normal load with no O.C.

I think my 7900GTX EGS is begining to have issues so the 7950 is a must have for me before the 7900GTX bites the dust. My Aquamark scores have fallen from near 90,000 to under 70,000 in the past month which has me wondering what's up.

So my 7900 is getting yanked out tomorrow & shipped off to eVGA & hopefully I will have my 7950 by the end of next week. When I get it in & run some tests I will let you all know what I find.

38ruk · « **Reply #26 on:** June 25, 2006, 10:58:02 PM »

Have they figured out whats killing all these 79xx series cards yet? I was on evga's website the other day , and the posts on defective 7900's are everywhere. It looks like its a design problem as all 7900 makers are running into the same issue, hope your 7950 is trouble free. 38

Krusty · « **Reply #27 on:** June 25, 2006, 11:34:34 PM »

I wouldn't overclock the 7950, period. The dual 7900 SLI setup has one advantage: Space between the cards!

The 7950 has smaller heatsinks and fans to squeaze between the cards, and is not as good as the 7900s separately (more heat, less cooling, in a smaller space!).

So I would NOT overclock the thing, unless you intend to water cool or something like that.

Bronk · « **Reply #28 on:** June 26, 2006, 12:03:14 AM »

Quote

Originally posted by Krusty
I wouldn't overclock the 7950, period. The dual 7900 SLI setup has one advantage: Space between the cards!

The 7950 has smaller heatsinks and fans to squeaze between the cards, and is not as good as the 7900s separately (more heat, less cooling, in a smaller space!).

So I would NOT overclock the thing, unless you intend to water cool or something like that.

IMHO
The problem with water cooling vid cards is only the gpu gets cooled.
I think the rest of the card overheats and degrades the card slowly.
If I am wrong please correct.

Bronk

Wolfala · « **Reply #29 on:** June 26, 2006, 12:13:06 AM »

Quote

Originally posted by Krusty
I wouldn't overclock the 7950, period. The dual 7900 SLI setup has one advantage: Space between the cards!

The 7950 has smaller heatsinks and fans to squeaze between the cards, and is not as good as the 7900s separately (more heat, less cooling, in a smaller space!).

So I would NOT overclock the thing, unless you intend to water cool or something like that.

There is some truth in that. I pointed out in a previous thread when I built my rig (http://www.hitechcreations.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=174421) I was paranoid about heat almost to the point of being insane. I'd killed so many components I got a box which had provision for a disgusting about of fans. I have 3 120mm fans taking air in, 1 blowing across the hard drives and 2 directly onto the 7900 GTX's, a 57mm side intake and top exhaust, another 120mm exhaust and then a PSU fan.

Highest i've seen either card get under load is 70* C, while the 2nd card is in the high 40* range. Nvidia took the right step in reducing the dye size to 90mm and dropping the power requirements across the board - but the real crux is just the lack of efficiency of the entire system. Heat is a byproduct of inefficiency. Going up to 600W or 1KW power supplies is a step in the wrong direction. Like skuzzy said - programmers who program in 1000 lines when the job only takes 10 lines are just trying to do something fancy and creative - when it doesn't call to be creative. Thats how bloat forms - problem is, bloat with these integrated system components is cumulative - and heat is the result.

Wolf