GeForce 7950 GX2
Being a product of the development of one individual manufacturing company, dual-chip graphics accelerators from the above-mentioned developers have not gained due popularity, although they could become quite an interesting acquisition. However, against the backdrop of how Nvidia managed to release more and more powerful graphics solutions based on a single chip throughout 2005, while the main competitor ATI was trying to establish mass production of the Radeon X1000 series, there was no particular need for sales of dual-chip graphics accelerators.
However, in early 2006, ATI managed to get ahead of Nvidia in terms of performance by releasing its new flagship, the Radeon X1900 XTX, in mass quantities. Having 48 computing pixel processors on board, the new chip managed to leave behind all existing Nvidia solutions, and also remain virtually undefeated, providing significant competition to the new top-class product from Nvidia - the GeForce 7900 GTX.
At the beginning of June 2006, three months after the release of the GeForce 7900 line, Nvidia introduced the very expected new product, designed to become the sole performance leader among single cards: Nvidia GeForce 7950 GX2. Either the frequency potential of the GeForce 7900 turned out to be exhausted at frequencies of 650 - 700 MHz, or the desire to make it as easy as possible to create systems based on four graphics processors (quad SLI), but the developer decided not to raise the clock speeds of the new flagship, but to install two graphics chips on it, which They certainly must defeat their arch-competitor, and at the same time give system integrators the opportunity to produce simpler quad SLI systems.
The GeForce 7950GX2 video card was a retail version of the GeForce 7900GX2 accelerator. The latter was intended exclusively for OEM suppliers, that is, for ready-made desktop PCs. The GeForce 7950GX2 is a cut-down version, the size of the textolite and cooling system was significantly reduced, which allowed installing video cards in regular systems. The GeForce 7950GX2 consists of two GeForce 7900GTX accelerators, which use 32 PCI-Express lines to exchange with each other. Another 16 lines connect the leading textolite to the motherboard.
The size of the cooler has undergone significant changes. The 7950GX2 has lost its large copper heatsink; instead, a small aluminum heatsink is used for heat dissipation, coupled with a new, much more powerful fan. Capacitors and transistors were moved from the back side of the PCB to the front side next to the DVI interfaces, which also made it possible to reduce the size of the PCB to approximately 3 cm.
Characteristics of NVIDIA GeForce 7950 GX2
| Name | GeForce 7950 GX2 |
| Core | 2 x G71 |
| Process technology (µm) | 0.09 |
| Transistors (millions) | 2 x 279 |
| Core frequency | 2 x 500 |
| Memory operating frequency (DDR) | 600 (1200) |
| Bus and memory type | GDDR3 256 Bit |
| Bandwidth (Gb/s) | 38,4 |
| Pixel pipelines | 48 (2x24) |
| TMU on conveyor | 1 |
| Textures per beat | 48 (2x24) |
| Textures per pass | 48 (2x24) |
| Vertex conveyors | 16 (2x8) |
| Pixel Shaders | 3.0 |
| Vertex Shaders | 3.0 |
| Fill Rate (Mpix/s) | 2 x 8000 |
| Fill Rate (Mtex/s) | 2 x 12000 |
| DirectX | 9.0c |
| Anti-Aliasing (Max) | SS & MS - 16x |
| Anisotropic Filtering (Max) | 16x |
| Memory Capacity | 2 x 512 |
| Interface | PCI-E |
| RAMDAC | 2 x 400 |
In the vast majority of cases, the GeForce 7950 GX2 managed to outperform its main rival, the ATI Radeon X1900 XTX video adapter, which costs 0 - 0 less. But the Achilles heel of this accelerator was the fact that it was, in fact, an SLI tandem, arranged in a complex using one PCI Express slot x16, GeForce 7950 GX2 was forced to rely entirely on support for SLI technology in ForceWare drivers and game engines. Also, its disadvantages were limited compatibility with motherboards at the time of its appearance and high power consumption
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