EVGA e-GeForce 7950 GT KO SLI


Introduction, Specifications, and Bundle

As enthusiasts, we'd all love to own a killer quad-core powered rig complete with a healthy amount of RAM, super-fast hard drives, and a pair of NVIDIA's flagship GeForce 8800 GTX cards pushing the pixels. The kind coin required to assemble a system like this puts them well out of reach for the majority of us, however, hence the immense popularity of more affordable, mainstream products like the one we're going to talk about today, EVGA's e-GeForce 7950 GT KO.

As the newest member of the GeForce 7 family, the GeForce 7950 GT has a lot going for it. The GPU offers all of the features of its more expensive sibling, the GeForce 7900 GTX, and arguably more thanks to the full HDCP support that comes courtesy of the necessary crypto-ROMs. EVGA has taken the 7950 GT, and cranked things up a notch by goosing the card's GPU and memory frequencies, offering a lifetime warranty, and throwing in a nice assortment of accessories and software.  We took a couple of EVGA's e-GeForce 7950 GT KO cards for a spin and have our findings laid out on the pages ahead. It turned out to be pretty good ride...

         

EVGA e-GeForce 7950 GT KO
Features and Specifications
NVIDIA CineFX 4.0 Shading Architecture
Vertex Shaders
Support for Microsoft DirectX 9.0 Vertex Shader 3.0
Displacement mapping
Geometry instancing
Infinite length vertex programs

Pixel Shaders
Support for DirectX 9.0 Pixel Shader 3.0
Full pixel branching support
Support for Multiple Render Targets (MRTs)
Infinite length pixel programs

Next-Generation Texture Engine
Accelerated texture access
Up to 16 textures per rendering pass
Support for 16-bit floating point format and 32-bit floating point format
Support for non-power of two textures
Support for sRGB texture format for gamma textures
DirectX and S3TC texture compression


._Full 128-bit studio-quality floating point precision through the entire rendering pipeline with native hardware support for 32bpp, 64bpp, and 128bpp rendering modes

API Support
. Complete DirectX support, including the latest version of Microsoft DirectX 9.0 Shader Model 3.0
._Full OpenGL support, including OpenGL 2.0


64-Bit Texture Filtering and Blending
._Delivers true high dynamic-range (HDR) lighting support
._Full floating point support throughout entire pipeline
._Floating point filtering improves the quality of images in motion
._Floating point texturing drives new levels of clarity and image detail
._Floating point frame buffer blending gives detail to special effects like motion blur and explosions


NVIDIA Intellisample 4.0 Technology
._Advanced 16x anisotropic filtering (with up to 128 Taps)
._Blistering- fast antialiasing and compression performance
._Gamma-adjusted rotated-grid antialiasing removes jagged edges for incredible image quality
._Transparent multisampling and transparent supersampling modes boost antialiasing quality to new levels
._Support for normal map compression
._Support for advanced lossless compression algorithms for color, texture, and z-data at even higher resolutions and frame rates
._Fast z-clear


NVIDIA UltraShadow II Technology
._Designed to enhance the performance of shadow-intensive games

NVIDIA Digital Vibrance Control (DVC) 3.0 Technology
._DVC color controls
._DVC image sharpening controls

NVIDIA SLI Technology
._Patented hardware and software technology allows two GPUs to run in parallel to scale performance
._Scales performance on over 60 top PC games and applications


NVIDIA PureVideo Technology
._Dedicated on-chip video processor
._High-definition H.264, MPEG2 and WMV9 decode acceleration
._Advanced spatial-temporal de-interlacing
._Inverse telecine (2:2 and 3:2 pull-down correction)
._High-quality video scaling
._Video color correction
._Microsoft Video Mixing Renderer (VMR) supports multiple video windows with full video quality and features in each window

Composited Desktop Hardware Engine
._Video post-processing
._Real-Time esktop compositing
._Accelerated antialiased text rendering
._Pixel shader-driven special effects and animation

Advanced Display Functionality
._Dual integrated 400MHz RAMDACs for display resolutions up to and including 2048x1536 at 85Hz
._Dual-link DVI capability to drive the industry's largest and highest resolution digital flat panel displays up to 2560x1600
._Integrated HDTV encoder provides analog TV-output (Component/Composite/S-Video) up to 1080i resolution
._Full NVIDIA nView multi-display technology capability


Advanced Engineering
._Designed for PCI Express x16
._Designed for high-speed GDDR3 memory


Operating Systems
._Windows XP/XP 64/ME/2000
._Built for Microsoft Windows Vista
._Linux
._Macintosh OS X


Software/Game Bundle
._Driver CD
._Hitman: Blood Money

Accessories Bundle
._User Manual
._1 x S-Video cable
._1 x HD Out Dongle

._2 x DVI-to-VGA adapter
._PCI Express power cable

 


   

EVGA includes a well-balanced group of accessories and software with their e-GeForce 7950 GT KO. Along with the card itself and an obligatory driver / utility CD, EVGA throws in a basic user's manual, an S-Video cable, an HD Component Output dongle, a 6-pin PCI Express power adapter, and a pair of DVI-to-DB15 monitor adapters. The utilities contained on the driver CD include trial versions Snapstream Beyond Media and Ulead DVD Movie Factory, and a second CD bundled with the card included a full-version of the game Hitman: Blood Money. Hitman: Blood Money may not be a cutting edge title, but it was very well received in the gaming community and garnered numerous high ratings in various reviews. Kudos to EVGA for bundling in a game that's worth playing.


Tags:  GeForce, evga, sli, VGA, force, GT, 7950, K

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