The fastest single graphics card in the world. This is the goal that NVIDIA was shooting for when they conjured up the GeForce 7950 GX2. Some might argue that a GeForce 7950 GX2, however, with its double stacked dual GPU powered PCB design, is anything but a single graphics card. We'd remind you that it does drop into a single PCI Express Graphic slot, no matter how you slice it. In fact there's room for two and yes, for Quad SLI.
In our GeForce 7950 GX2 launch article, we showed you that the 7950 is essentially a pair of GeForce 7900GTs, goosed up a bit in clock speed and then outfitted with 512MB of GDDR3 RAM. Asus was the first to ship to our labs their version of the GeForce 7950GX2, right after the launch. Though our launch card was shipped to us from XFX, that didn't stop us from configuring the new Asus card along side XFX's for some Quad SLI action. In the pages ahead we'll show you Asus' EN7950GX2 in detail, along with its single card performance and what happens when you pair two 7950GX2s together.
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Asus EN7950GX2: Features and Specifications
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Double Your Pleasure...
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NVIDIA CineFX 4.0 Shading Architecture
Vertex Shaders
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Support for Microsoft DirectX 9.0 Vertex Shader 3.0
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Displacement mapping
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Geometry instancing
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Infinite length vertex programs
Pixel Shaders
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Support for DirectX 9.0 Pixel Shader 3.0
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Full pixel branching support
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Support for Multiple Render Targets (MRTs)
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Infinite length pixel programs
Next-Generation Texture Engine
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Accelerated texture access
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Up to 16 textures per rendering pass
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Support for 16-bit floating point format and 32-bit floating point format
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Support for non-power of two textures
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Support for sRGB texture format for gamma textures
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DirectX and S3TC texture compression
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Full 128-bit studio-quality floating point precision through the entire rendering pipeline with native hardware support for 32bpp, 64bpp, and 128bpp rendering modes
64-Bit Texture Filtering and Blending
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Full floating point support throughout entire pipeline
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Floating point filtering improves the quality of images in motion
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Floating point texturing drives new levels of clarity and image detail
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Floating point frame buffer blending gives detail to special effects like motion blur and explosions
NVIDIA Intellisample 4.0 Technology
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Advanced 16x anisotropic filtering (with up to 128 Taps)
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Blistering- fast antialiasing and compression performance
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Gamma-adjusted rotated-grid antialiasing removes jagged edges for incredible image quality
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Transparent multisampling and transparent supersampling modes boost antialiasing quality to new levels
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Support for normal map compression
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Support for advanced lossless compression algorithms for color, texture, and z-data at even higher resolutions and frame rates
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Fast z-clear
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API Support
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Complete DirectX support, including the latest version of Microsoft DirectX 9.0 Shader Model 3.0
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Full OpenGL support, including OpenGL 2.0
NVIDIA Digital Vibrance Control (DVC) 3.0 Technology
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DVC color controls
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DVC image sharpening controls
NVIDIA SLI Technology
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Patented hardware and software technology allows two GPUs to run in parallel to scale performance
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Scales performance on over 60 top PC games and applications
NVIDIA UltraShadow II Technology
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Designed to enhance the performance of shadow-intensive games
NVIDIA PureVideo Technology
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Adaptable programmable video processor
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High-definition MPEG-2 and WMV9 hardware acceleration
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Spatial-temporal de- interlacing
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Inverse 2:2 and 3:2 pull-down (Inverse Telecine)
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4-tap horizontal, 5-tap vertical scaling
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Overlay color temperature correction
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Microsoft Video Mixing Renderer (VMR) supports multiple video windows with full video quality and features in each window
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Integrated HDTV output
Composited Desktop Hardware Engine
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Video post-processing
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Real-time desktop compositing
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Accelerated antialiased text rendering
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Pixel shader-driven special effects and animation
Advanced Display Functionality
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Dual integrated 400MHz RAMDACs for display resolutions up to and including 2048x1536 at 85Hz
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Dual DVO ports for interfacing to external TMDS transmitters and external TV encoders
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Full NVIDIA nView multi-display technology capability
Advanced Engineering
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Designed for PCI Express x16
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Designed for high-speed GDDR3 memory
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Asus bundled in a solid assortment of extras with the EN7950GX2, including one major game title, King Kong, which is also emblazoned on the outside of the box. Fitting, since certainly the card within could easily be considered a modern day "King Kong" of the 3D Graphics world in and of itself. Beyond this title, Asus also includes a no-name title that we've seen in their previous bundles -- SnowBlind -- and Splendid Video Enhancement software. Finally, the obligatory PCI Express power adapter cable, DVI-VGA converters and a high-def component output cable were included in this kit as well.
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