PNY Verto GeForce 7900 GSWell-priced card beats pricier ATI competition
PROS Faster than its ATI competition,
reasonably priced
CONS Might become obsolete in a few months
Build around nVidia’s latest midrange graphics processor, PNY Verto GeForce 7900 GS offers more value for the money than its rivals do.We recommend it if you’re looking to play 3D games but aren’t fixated on sky-high frame rates or the next-generation graphics cards that will ship when Microsoft Vista debuts. This PCI Express card features 256MB of DDR3 memory and is designed to occupy just one internal expansion slot. The core clock is set to 450MHz. Like most recent cards, the 7900 GS requires a direct
connection to your PC’s power supply. PNY includes a Y-adapter power cable, as well as several
video cables, including a pair of DVI-to-VGA adapters. The card’s backplane has two DVI outputs and a port for an HDTV breakout pod for component, composite, and S-Video plugs. The packaging and specs are relatively straightforward, but the card’s price versus performance ratio is what really makes it a strong contender. It scored 4,257 in our BAPCo 3DMark06 test, compared with the 3,758 of ATI’s Radeon X1800 GTO, its closest and pricier competitor. The X1800 GTO was a bit nimbler on our Quake 4 test, delivering 62 frames per second (fps) to the 7900 GS’s 59fps, but ATI’s card costs $75 more. In our other gaming test, using the more demanding title Oblivion, both cards scored 27fps at 1,280x1,024 resolution.
CaptNemo 12:52 AM
