XFX GeForce 7900 GT 550M Xtreme VIVO
Introduction and Specifications
As of late, due to reported issues with overheating and graphic anomalies with overclocked GeForce cards, many gamers are starting to think twice before purchasing factory overclocked cards. Some hesitation before buying the highest overclocked card makes sense, but XFX along with the other companies affected by this problem are addressing customers' concerns and backing up their products with solid warranty support.
If you've lost some faith in XFX, you might want to consider that NVIDIA appears to be 100% behind the company. The only factory overclocked GeForce 7950 GX2 at launch was from XFX (the XFX GeForce 7950 GX2 570M XXX). The two companies have a strong relationship at this time.
This article isn't about overclocking issues or GX2s, though. It's about one of XFX's new GeForce 7900 GTs - the XFX GeForce 7900 GT 550M Xtreme with VIVO. We took two of these cards for a spin and ran them through some benchmarks, paying particular attention to any possible heat issues and image quality problems. We're happy to report that the cards performed flawlessly. Read on to see just how well they stack up against the competition.
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GPU Clock: 550 MHz Memory Clock: 1.63 GHz (effective) Memory: 256 MB GDDR3 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
Next-Generation Texture Engine
API Support |
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 desktop 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 XFX Unique Features ._Double Lifetime Warranty Software/Game Bundle ._Driver CD ._Lara Croft Tomb Raider: Legend Accessories Bundle ._User Manual ._2 x S-video cable ._2 x DVI-to-VGA adapter ._VIVO cable ._PCI Express power cable |
XFX packs the 7900 GT 550M Xtreme VIVO in its trademark X-shaped box, which is cool but can be somewhat of a hassle to open up to gain access to the product within. Inside the box, XFX packs a smaller box that holds the hardware and accessories.
In typical XFX fashion, the included bundle is rather simple. The best part of the bundle is the inclusion of the relatively new Lara Croft Tomb Raider: Legend. The rest of the bundle consists of the required cables (PCI Express power cable, two S-video cables, two DVI-to-VGA adapters, and VIVO cable) and a driver CD.