The eVGA GeForce 7900 GTX 512MB goodies
As you have been able to observe, our review sample today comes from eVGA. The software bundle is a little on the cheapo side though as you'll not find any games. Likely to push down the price and cost. Yet there is some software included, Beyond Media software, ULEAD DVD Movie factor. Furthermore you'll find :
- Driver CD with a set of tools
- S-Video Cable
- DVI to VGA Adaptor
2x
Six pin PSU power connector
HDTV component output block
Manual
There's nothing much to be said here other then it's a simpler bundle and but it has everything included to get you going for sure. The card itself seems to be 100% NVIDIA reference based except for the cooling shim but we'll show you that and even more in our photo-shoot.
Since this is the "superclocked" version of the card we can see the 690 MHz core clock (650 default) and 1760 MHz memory clock (1600 default). And that's quite something as you'll get even more screamingly fast performance right out of the box.
The hard & software bundle along with that d-e-licious graphics card.
Power Supply - Watt Did You Say?
Now then, power consumption.
The GeForce 7900 GTX requires a very stable 12-volt power source for best performance, reliability and most of all that gaming experience of yours.
For a GeForce 7900 GTX graphics card, NVIDIA recommends a 350-400 watt power supply with 22-26 ampere on the 12 volts rails. So NVIDIA is recommending nothing too dramatic in terms of Wattage for the power supply unit yet be aware as that's a lot of Ampage on the 12 volts rails.
What we always do with new graphics' cards, is we measure the wattage peak with the help of a wattage meter. Slight side note, you are looking at the overall usage of the entire PC. The meter is placed between the power connector and the PSU. So please understand that using a Wattage meter is not the most reliable way of measuring power consumption. You basically look at how much power is the power circuit from your house pulling from the PSU. So you need to look at the results as being an indication and not an exact science.
The methodology: we simply look at the peak Wattage during a 3DMark05 session to verify power consumption. The graphics card consumes roughly 120 Watts at peak during 3D gaming, this is also the reason why we see a 6-pin power connector on the card as that much power being drawn over the motherboard is simply not possible.
In 3DMark the PC shows a maximum peak use of ~255 Watt. Slightly higher than the previous 7800 GTX reference model but also due to the fact the card comes overclocked.
The GeForce 7900 GTX 512 MB (Superclocked) with the rest of the components in the PC used up-to 255 Watt.
So indeed, you need 350 at the least as you want some spare wattage and 420 Watts or better is definitely recommended. When you buy a new PSU then look at the packaging and check the 12 volts rail on Ampere, it should be 22 AMPS minimal. There are some good SLI certified PSU's out there, these have dual 12 volts rails dedicated for the graphics card. We highly recommend them ! In fact we'll test some of them in the very near future.
What would happen if your PSU can't cope with the load ?:
- bad 3D performance
- crashing games
- spontaneous resetting PC
- freezes during gameplay
- PSU overload can cause it to break down
So many things can happen.
Temperature of the graphics card
I stated it in the 7800 GTX review already, I just love that heat-pipe design cooler. It's just so efficient and silent !! This card uses the same heatpipe cooler as the reference model we recently tested on the 7800 GTX 512MB.
At idle, normal operation, expect roughly 40-45 Degrees C. At 100% graphics core utilization we measured a maximum 72 Degrees C peak temperature, which is actually becoming the norm. Ventilation, the cooling fan at 100% utilization does not make a lot of noise at all, in fact the HD is producing way more noise then the reference cooler on this NVIDIA graphics card and that's very nice to observe.
Noise Levels coming from the graphics card
Nauseating. Yes I'm talking about the noise that PC's these days produce. The only way that will change that is if we all will pay attention to it.
When graphics cards produce a lot of heat usually that heat needs to be transported away from the hot core as fast as possible. Often you'll see massive active fan solutions that can indeed get rid of the heat, yet all the fans these days make the PC a noisy son of a gun. I'm doing a little try out today with noise monitoring, so basically the test we do is extremely subjective. We bough a certified dBA meter and will start measuring how many dBA originate from the PC. Why is this subjective you ask? Well, there is always noise in the background, from the streets, from the HD, PSU fan etc etc, so this is by a mile or two not a precise measurement. You could only achieve objective measurement in a sound test chamber.
The human hearing system has different sensitivities at different frequencies. This means that the perception of noise is not at all equal at every frequency. Noise with significant measured levels (in dB) at high or low frequencies will not be as annoying as it would be when its energy is concentrated in the middle frequencies. In other words, the measured noise levels in dB will not reflect the actual human perception of the loudness of the noise. That's why we measure the dBa level. A specific circuit is added to the sound level meter to correct its reading in regard to this concept. This reading is the noise level in dBA. The letter A is added to indicate the correction that was made in the measurement.
|
TYPICAL SOUND LEVELS |
|
Jet takeoff (200 feet) |
120 dBA |
|
|
Construction Site |
110 dBA |
Intolerable |
|
Shout (5 feet) |
100 dBA |
|
|
Heavy truck (50 feet) |
90 dBA |
Very noisy |
|
Urban street |
80 dBA |
|
|
Automobile interior |
70 dBA |
Noisy |
|
Normal conversation (3 feet) |
60 dBA |
|
|
Office, classroom |
50 dBA |
Moderate |
|
Living room |
40 dBA |
|
|
Bedroom at night |
30 dBA |
Quiet |
|
Broadcast studio |
20 dBA |
|
|
Rustling leaves |
10 dBA |
Barely audible |
We startup a benchmark, we take the dBA meter, move away 75 CM and then aim the device at the active fan on the graphics card. We measure roughly 44 dBa which is to be considered a quiet to moderate noise level coming from the PC. Again, this is a very subjective test.
A very good outcome for NVIDIA though as that's a really nice level.
Pretty sight eh ?
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