GeForce 7900 GS: Sparkle vs. Point-of-View vs. XFX

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XFX GeForce 7900 GS 480M Extreme

XFX uses a slightly different PCB design than Sparkle and Point-of-View and besides there are some other differences between the 7900 GS 480M Extreme and the other two cards. For example, XFX use a black PCB, the DVI-connectors are bright green and they have seen fit to equip their card with a steel bar that, according to official statements, is meant to offer extra support. In reality is nothing more than an attempt to make the card look more attractive, but we think that it does look pretty cool. The XFX card comes overclocked as standard but doesn’t quite push the card quite as hard as Point-of-View. XFX decided to clock the GPU at 480 MHz and the memory at 700 MHz. XFX proved itself to be lord and master when it came to overclocking capabilities. Though XFX utilizes the same Hynix 1.4ns DDR3-chips as both Sparkle and Point-of-View we managed to get the memory to run at no less than 880MHZ! With a maximum clock speed of 595 MHz for the GPU we managed to get a score of 5650 points in 3DMark06, 29% more than a 7900 GS at stock speeds. At these clock speeds the XFX even managed to outperform a Geforce 7900 GT.

To keep the costs and thus the price of the card down XFX had to economize on the packaging and extras. The X shaped box that has become somewhat of a XFX trademark has been replaced with a much smaller standard box. When we took a look in the box we found that the software consisted of nothing more than a driver CD.