Most stable 7900GT to choose ?

osl · Post by **osl** » Tue Jun 27, 2006 12:42 am

What is the most stable brand of vanilla 7900GT available ?

TomMe · Post by **TomMe** » Tue Jun 27, 2006 1:45 am

ASUS? My MSI 7600GT doesn't have the greatest capacitors apparantly, don't know about the 7900GT.

There are a lot of problems with overclocked 7900GTs so I'd stay away from them.

korsch · Post by **korsch** » Tue Jun 27, 2006 1:21 pm

Unfortunately it probably does not matter which brand of 7900GT you buy since they are all (except the Gainward 512MB version) manufactured by Flextronics in China, according to what I have heard. In theory they are all equally susceptible to the instability reported in the various online forums.

The best hope for stability on these cards is to buy one and (if necessary) immediately underclock it to the default clock rate for a vanilla 7900GT. Then run the card through the paces of repeated 3dMark06 'Deep Freeze' tests where graphic anomalies are known to crop up in the problem cards, in the hopes you will discover the instability early on rather than unexpectedly later on down the line. Also, buy from a company that has a good RMA process.

It's a shame about the instability of these cards. At the high end of the performance video card spectrum the 7900GT is far and away the best value right now, it seems to me, and for SPCR types it offers lower power usage and heat dissipation than competing high end cards (e.g. even lower than the old ATI 9800Pro I'm currently using). I am still considering the 7900GT for a system I hope to build soon and I will probably go with an eVGA card, since eVGA has at least been relatively candid about the instability problems, has a quicker RMA process and offers a lifetime warranty -- one that permits experimentation with third party cooling solutions from what I hear.

osl · Post by **osl** » Thu Jun 29, 2006 11:41 am

Is RivaTuner best for underclocking ? I am considering replacing the OEM cooler of the 7900GT with a less noisy X800Pro cooler ...

Mats · Post by **Mats** » Thu Jun 29, 2006 12:37 pm

The instability may or may not be caused by two overheated chips on the back of the PCB, I've read about it in the eVGA forums.

nina · Post by **nina** » Thu Jun 29, 2006 1:50 pm

I now have a MSI NX6600 passive cooled, and want a better card
to play games at higher settings, like FEAR and Oblivion. If I understand it correctly, I better
not buy a 7900GT?
I was thinking of the new MSI 7900GT passive, if I ever get the money.

Other suggestions? I want a silent videocard with good performance,
passive or with a quiet fan. And not too expensive.
(maybe I ask too much..

TomMe · Post by **TomMe** » Sat Jul 01, 2006 2:46 am

I can play Oblivion fine at 800x600 and bloom with a GF 7600GT, A64 3500+, 1GB RAM single channel and onboard sound on so should run even better when I optimize.

A passive 7600GT costs around â‚¬200 here and that's about as much as I want to give for a graphics card. Non-overclocked 7900GTs should be fine from what I've read..but don't take my word for it..

McBanjo · Post by **McBanjo** » Sat Jul 01, 2006 3:14 am

My eVGA 7900GT stock speed has been a bit unstable but that's becourse of the drivers, haven't seen any BOSD that I can relate to any hardware. 7900GT is a really good card. Very cheap consider it's performance.

As long as it's stock-speed I can definatly recommend it.
Getting eVGA gives you warranty even if you swap the stock-cooling.

nina: eVGA 7900GT+Zalman ZM80D-HP works fine for me.

Shining Arcanine · Post by **Shining Arcanine** » Sat Jul 01, 2006 7:04 am

I recommend an eVGA card.

korsch · Post by **korsch** » Sat Jul 01, 2006 12:57 pm

McBanjo wrote:My eVGA 7900GT stock speed has been a bit unstable but that's becourse of the drivers, haven't seen any BOSD that I can relate to any hardware. 7900GT is a really good card. Very cheap consider it's performance.

When you say unstable at 'stock' speed, do you mean eVGA's stock overclocked speed or nVidia's 7900GT reference stock speed?

McBanjo · Post by **McBanjo** » Sat Jul 01, 2006 1:36 pm

korsch wrote:When you say unstable at 'stock' speed, do you mean eVGA's stock overclocked speed or nVidia's 7900GT reference stock speed?

I meant Nvidias reference speeds

BTW Haven't had a BSOD yet after installing Nvidias new drivers

eoctanker · Post by **eoctanker** » Fri Jul 07, 2006 8:27 am

I agree. The closer you are to the Nvidia stock GT speeds that more stable the card is. It seems the OC that the higher end 7900 cards (GTX types) become unstable due to heat issues. I have the 7900 GT KO and have not had any problems so far. I will mod the card and change the HS to a Zalman once everything else is set up in my new Solo case. The GPU fan is by far the loudest fan in my new system. Going Evga also allows you to mod the card without voiding the warrenty

. The signature series from Evga are cards that tested out better, but you pay alot more for them. Check the reviews for people who have had issues with this card and you will see that the majority are OC cards and heat issues.

korsch · Post by **korsch** » Fri Jul 07, 2006 7:58 pm

A very interesting development for those still considering the 7900GT and deciding which board to buy:

http://www.evga.com/community/messagebo ... hichpage=1

qdemn7 · Post by **qdemn7** » Tue Jul 11, 2006 5:53 am

I got a brand new 7900 GT KO that went south after only a few days. Be advised the NEW cards are now for sale at Newegg. You want the ones that are RoHS. These are the N58X or N571 series, and these are coming DIRECTLY from Nvidia, this is not some fix EVGA worked up. Nvidia is well aware of the problem, they just don't want to go public with it.

I know all this because I called EVGA vis-avis my RMA on my new card. The tech stated they just got in the new shipment of good cards straight from Nvidia.

Whatever you do, DO NOT get and older card.

McBanjo · Post by **McBanjo** » Tue Jul 11, 2006 7:27 am

Nvidia is well aware of the problem, they just don't want to go public with it.

Nvidia doesn't have to care about it since anything above reference-speed isn't supported by Nvidia but by the manufacturer.
Unless it's a bug that would appear no mather what

qdemn7 · Post by **qdemn7** » Tue Jul 11, 2006 7:35 am

McBanjo wrote:
Nvidia is well aware of the problem, they just don't want to go public with it.
Nvidia doesn't have to care about it since anything above reference-speed isn't supported by Nvidia but by the manufacturer.
Unless it's a bug that would appear no mather what

Well, from what I've read, it's NOT the GPU, it's the memory that's casuing the problems. See the above link:

Here are the details on the new 7900 cards:

* New AVL Memory (Approved Vendor List)
* RoHS compliant
* Test results are extremely positive

And the memory, just like the GPU is coming straight from Nvidia.

Modmaven · Post by **Modmaven** » Tue Jul 11, 2006 9:49 am

Interesting stuff. I have an EVGA 7600GT CO, that has been rock solid from day one, even with the factory overclock. That KO version of the 7900gt definitely looks nice, with the somewhat custom cooler on it.

RDaneel · Post by **RDaneel** » Tue Jul 11, 2006 1:32 pm

But what are all the different eVGA skus? There are 581s and 582s and 583s, etc. Anyone know? Looks like they might have some different cooling solutions, but I can't be sure if that is the only thing.

qdemn7 · Post by **qdemn7** » Tue Jul 11, 2006 3:13 pm

RDaneel wrote:But what are all the different eVGA skus? There are 581s and 582s and 583s, etc. Anyone know? Looks like they might have some different cooling solutions, but I can't be sure if that is the only thing.

All they are are various speeds of 7900 GTs, with as you said slightly different cooling solutions. If there a N58X then it's a new card.

scorp · Post by **scorp** » Wed Jul 12, 2006 4:14 am

Just received my ASUS 7900GT TOP; the stock cooler is a POS; it's rather noisy so I didn't even bothering to see what temps I'll get with it; I swaped it with a Zalman VF900Cu right away; with the VF900Cu @ 5v, the GPU gets to 68C after 3 hours of ATiTool artifact scanning (the card was OCed to 520 / 1600 as I wanted to test memory stability first); the upper chamber of the P180 is ventilated only by an Nexus 120mm @ 5v, the CPU is cooled by a Ninja (without any fan) and the nF4 is cooler by a TR HR-05; I also played some 3 hours of BF2 and run some 3dmarks and didn't noticed any problems; hopefully none will appear

The only thing that I don't like about this card is that I don't have an ambient temp. sensor, because of ASUS'es "great" and original monitoring system (btw : speedfan isn't able to read the ASUS sensor);

stupid · Post by **stupid** » Wed Jul 12, 2006 7:31 pm

Here's an article about the overheating issue with the 7900GTs.

[quote]
NVIDIA have specifically pointed a finger to the cause of the issues being associated with the overclocking settings that BFGTech, EVGA, and XFX use. NVIDIA firmly stands behind their stock core and memory clock specifications for the 7900 series and tell us that they are not seeing any unusual problems with 7900 series video cards that are not overclocked. A little over a month ago, PCPer.com discussed the issue as being the vertex shader unit being clocked too high and NVIDIA stood behind that site on its conclusions.

Well today NVIDIA officially got back to me with an answer to all my inquiries on the subject. The short of it is: the GPUs on the cards that were having problems didnâ€™t have the headroom necessary for the vendorâ€™s overclocked specifications. The two most prominent problem areas were the vertex clock (which remember runs 50 MHz faster than the pixel clock) and the memory clock. These GPU subsystems were running far enough out of spec that the chips were having physical issues with stability; causing the random â€œfreezesâ€

McBanjo · Post by **McBanjo** » Thu Jul 13, 2006 6:32 am

qdemn7 wrote:Well, from what I've read, it's NOT the GPU, it's the memory that's casuing the problems. See the above link:

Here are the details on the new 7900 cards:

* New AVL Memory (Approved Vendor List)
* RoHS compliant
* Test results are extremely positive

And the memory, just like the GPU is coming straight from Nvidia.

Doesn't mather if it's the GPU or memory or number of farts

Anything above reference isn't Nvidias problem but the card manufacturers. It's the same when people overclock, the warranty is ruined from the manufacturer and the one that overclocks has to take the blame.

Nvidia probibly do what they can to support it but it's becourse they gain money on their products and not becourse it is their fault

Spontz · Post by **Spontz** » Thu Jul 13, 2006 6:50 pm

For what it's worth, I've purchased nothing but Nvidia cards for ten years or so... and I'm currently in the process of returning my 7900GT in exchange for an ATI X1900GT.

My XFX 7900GT exhibits all the strange artifacts and problems the reviews mentioning inferior RAM and shoddy drivers would lead one to expect. I've had poor experiences with Nvidia drivers in the past, but this is more than I could shrug off. Admittedly, I'm no expert on the subject, but my own experience and the research I've done while trying to work out the problems suggest that the most stable solution for a 7900GT is to buy an ATI card.

WillScience · Post by **WillScience** » Fri Jul 14, 2006 8:17 pm

RDaneel wrote:But what are all the different eVGA skus? There are 581s and 582s and 583s, etc. Anyone know? Looks like they might have some different cooling solutions, but I can't be sure if that is the only thing.

I haven't looked at the 581/582. The 583/584 are the same card with the same speeds. The difference is the HSF: the 583 HSF doesn't cover the memory chips but the 584 HSF does.

There are numerous reports that the 583 stock HSF is whiny/noisy, and that on boot-up it runs at 100% speed unnecessarilly. Everyone there is recommending the Zalman VF900 to resolve this issue. I'm presently researching whether the 584 HSF is any better in terms of noise.

Best deal as of this posting is the 584 going for $240 after rebate ($269.99 - $30): http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDe ... ode=322814
I expect I'll be getting a Zalman VF900 to boot for my "quiet" not-silent PC.

GamingGod · Post by **GamingGod** » Sun Jul 23, 2006 8:58 pm

hey will if you get a evga 584 7900gt could you post and tell us how it works out?

Most stable 7900GT to choose ?

Most stable 7900GT to choose ?

eVGA 7900GTs