| Brand |
Gigabyte |
| Model |
N79T |
| Graphics Chip |
G71 |
| Graphics Memory Type |
DDR3 |
| Memory (MB) |
256 |
| Graphics Core Clock (MHz) |
450 |
| Memory Clock (MHz) |
1320 |
| Memory Speed (ns) |
1000 |
| RAMDAC Frequency (MHz) |
1.6 |
| Active Cooling on Graphics Chip |
Dual 400 |
| Heatsink on Memory |
Yes |
| Video Capture |
Yes |
| Ports |
|
| Dual Monitor Support |
Yes |
| VGA Out |
DVI-Ix2 |
| Video In and Out |
S-Video Out |
| Package and Support |
|
| Printed Manual |
Yes |
| Driver CD |
Yes |
| Performance Tool Software |
Coolbits |
| Major Games |
Serious Sam II |
| Major Software |
Power Director |
| VR Glasses |
No |
| DVD Player Software |
PowerDVD |
| Video Recording Software |
Power Director |
DirectX 9.0c
Pixel Shader 3.0
Vertex Shader 3.0
HDR
up to 8XS Anti-Aliasing
Up to 16X Anisotropic Filtering
450MHz Core Clock
1.32GHz Memory Clock
24 Pixel Pipelines
16 ROPs
32 Z-Units
8 Vertex Shader Pipelines
SLI
Render To Texture
Every video card available today, with the exception of some integrated graphics
cards and bit cards from companies like Matrox, S3 and XGI, supports Shader
Model 3.0 as their main feature and is fully supported on the GeForce 7900GT.
The key components of SM 3.0 include Pixel Shader 3.0 and Vertex Shader 3.0.
Pixel Shader 3.0 is the latest version of Pixel Shaders available. First introduced
with the 6800 series in 2004 and in Microsoft’s DirectX 9.0 API, Pixel
Shader 3.0 has the following advantages over 2.0: nearly unlimited shader length
programs (65,536 instructions in a single pass on 7900GT in DX 9.0), Dynamic
Branching in the Pixel Shader and more.
SLI was introduced in 1996 by 3DFX and their Voodoo 2 cards. The idea of two
video cards working together to improve the gaming experience is therefore not
a new one. 3DFX sadly went bankrupt late in 2000 and NVIDIA bought their primary
assets. NVIDIA introduced their version of SLI late in 2004 to coincide with
the release of the nForce4 SLI chip set.
NVIDIA has kept the same method and pattern of Anti-Aliasing for a while now.
The 7xxx series is capable of 4X Rotated Grid Multisample Anti-Aliasing. As
an image quality freak, I enjoy ATI’s AA a little better, as their cards
use a sparse pattern that is programmable. I hope NVIDIA brings sparse sampling
in the next generation “G80”.
HDR stands for High Dynamic Range Lighting. The normal video card without FP16
blending is limited to a contrast range of 255:1. The human eye can distinguish
between ranges of a thousand to one. The advent of floating point graphics chips
introduced HDR. HDR can show the difference between the brightest light and
the dimmest dark. Oblivion uses HDR in almost every scene and area, making a
perfect showcase for the 7900GT. One thing NVIDIA cards can’t do is HDR+MSAA
at the same time. |
