The launch earlier this month of the NVIDIA 7900GS card has been met with a resounding success. NVIDIA has virtually no competition at the price point of $199 at the moment, as ATI has the X1650 at $99 and the X1900GT isn’t at retail stores as of yet, while you can purchase the 7900GS at online retailers and retail stores right now.

EVGA is one of the top retail selling video card brands in the United States of NVIDIA based chipsets. They have been in the US market since they came into existence a few years ago.  They are known for their higher than reference clock speeds, their Genuine Spec cards, and the excellent support that they show for each and every customer.

NVIDIA first introduced their Shader Model 3.0 video cards two years ago with the release of the 6xxx series. Being the first with SM 3.0 gave them an advantage over the competition, ATI of over a year and a half. Last year they released their 7xxx series their second generation of  SM 3.0 parts. At the beginning of this year they released the 7900GTX at the high end. Their summer high-end part was the 7950 GX2 which is two 7900s on one PCB.

The high-end of the video card market garners the most money, while integrated video captures huge market share numbers. A recent analysis from Jon Peddie Associates indicates that Intel had the most market share with 62.9% of the market share, but only 8% of the total revenue. The Performance and High-End segment of the market (over $199), had revenues of over 74% of the total, but with lower units sold to make the money. The 7900GS is targeted for the $199 and up market, and the card I’m reviewing today is the EVGA e-GeForce 7900GS KO Edition card.