One of them runs at a stock 550MHz GPU and 700MHz memory, but the 570M Extreme cards pictured above sport a 570MHz GPU and 730MHz memory. XFX offers two versions of the GeForce 7950 GT, both passively cooled. The notched cutout in the fins should allow room for smaller PCI or PCI-E cards to coexist with this beast.

The fins on the back of the card may interfere with the expansion slot on the back side of the card, but not necessarily so. We will explore its performance shortly, but for now, note that the cooler isn’t your traditional dual-slot design. Nvidia rates the 7950 GT’s power consumption at 82W, so this passive cooler certainly has its work cut out for it. Strapped to the side of this 7950 GT is a completely passive cooler, with a heatpipe snaking up into rows of aluminum fins that extend around the back of the card. No, your eyes don’t deceive you, and neither does my photography. Can the newest GeForce fend off a feisty competitor from ATI, or has the balance of power in graphics shifted? More importantly, what video card actually makes sense to buy these days? Read on for the answers. That means we have the opportunity for at least one more head-to-head matchup between the green and red teams before ATI melts into AMD, changing the landscape forever. Oh, and the ATI card’s price tag is a tad bit lower, too. This new ATI card packs half the memory of the 7950 GT, but sports ATI’s exceptionally powerful R580 GPU with a daunting 48 pixel shader processors. Like the 7950 GT, the X1900 XT 256MB is slated to go on sale at online retailers today. The GeForce 7950 GT’s life is complicated by one very strong rival: the 256MB version of the Radeon X1900 XT that ATI introduced earlier this month. Of course, this is a technology product we’re talking about, so the decision about what to buy can never be simple. The GeForce 7950 GT makes hitting that “submit” button at Newegg even easier because it promises substantially better performance than the 7900 GT it replaces. You can buy a whole line of graphics cards based on this chip situated at different price points, with performance finely attenuated to match-all the better to separate you from your money.

Like a host of GeForce 79 cards before it, the 7950 GT is based on the G71 graphics processor, which Nvidia has been milking like nobody’s business. The 7900 GT’s demise leaves Nvidia with a hole it its lineup at around $299, and so the GeForce 7950 GT makes its debut today as the 7900 GT’s replacement.

The most recent GeForce to come loose is the 7900 GT it was dislodged by last week’s launch of the GeForce 7900 GS, which offers the same performance for about a hundred bucks less. T HESE DAYS, VIDEO CARDS ARE like shark’s teeth: one pops out, and another one moves up to take its place.

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