GeForce 7: Обзор Серии Видеокарт Nvidia

Series of GPUs by Nvidia
[[Kepler (microarchitecture)

The GeForce 7 series is the seventh generation of Nvidia's GeForce line of graphics processing units. This was the last series available on AGP cards. A slightly modified GeForce 7 based card (based on the 7800GTX) is present as the RSX Reality Synthesizer, which is present in the PlayStation 3.

The 7200 GS has the same memory speed as the 7300 GS, and the core frequency is the same as the 7300 LE. It has two pixel pipelines. Nvidia stated that the 7200 GS performance is 50% higher than the latest integrated graphics, it's the slowest card of the GeForce 7 series and of the GeForce 6 Series but supports HDR and Nvidia PureVideo. NVIDIA GeForce 7200 GS desktop Graphics Processing Unit was launched in January 2006. The GPU uses Second Generation CineFX Shading architecture, and it is manufactured on 90 nm technological process. The card's graphics frequency is 450 MHz. It also has 2 pixel shaders, 4 texture units, together with 2 ROPs. The GeForce 7200 GS embeds 256 MB of DDR2 memory, utilizing 64 bit bus. The memory is clocked at 400 MHz, which results in 6.4 GB/s memory bandwidth. The GPU supports PCI Express 1.0 interface, and needs a single motherboard slot.

The 7300 SE uses the same core frequency and memory speed as the 7300 LE, and has two vertex and pixel shaders. In many ways, this card is actually inferior to the 7100 GS, although it still retains the HDR support.

The 7300 LE (LE stands for light edition) is a scaled down version of the 7300 GS. It has DDR2 memory, and a slightly lower core clock speed (450 MHz vs. 550 MHz). It is only available in the PCI Express interface. ASUS have produced a 7300 series card based on the 7300 LE core, running it at 580 MHz rather than 450 MHz.

The 7300 GS the highest core clock speed of the 7300 series, thus it has better performance than the 7300 SE/LE.

The 7300 GT has a 128 bit memory interface and the highest memory bandwidth, but slightly lower 3D vertex rendering.

The 7500 series was only available to OEMs.

The GeForce 7500 LE is an OEM GPU and is identical to the 7300 GS based on the G72 core. It has either 128 MB or 256 MB of dedicated video memory, however it also supports TurboCache, giving it up to 512 MB of video memory. It has DDR2 type memory and uses 64 bits memory interface. The card also has 550 MHz core clock speed and 263 MHz or 324 MHz memory clock speed (526 MHz or 648 MHz effective).

On March 22, 2006, Nvidia announced the immediate availability of the GeForce 7600 GS GPU targeted at the low mid end. This new GPU assumed the place of the GeForce 6600 GT, which had been around for some time. The AGP version was introduced on July 21, 2006. According to Nvidia, this card is identical to the PCI e version other than the interface. In addition, the AGP version uses Nvidia's AGP PCIe bridge chip. Preliminary testing showed that the GeForce 7600 GS outperforms a GeForce 6600 GT and ATI's counterpart, the ATI Radeon X1600 Pro.

The 7600 GT is the high mid range product in the 7 Series family. The 7600 GT contains all the features of the GeForce 7 family. It was made to provide a GeForce 7 series card to the mass market; some companies released AGP versions. It incorporates DDR3 memory.

Much like the 7500 series, the 7650 GS was only available to OEMs.

The GeForce 7650GS was limited to a few OEM cards only. Not much is known about this card, other than that it uses the 80 nm process and uses DDR2 memory, with examples having 256MB of DDR2 ram.

The GeForce 7800 GT is the second GPU in the series, launched on August 11, 2005 with immediate retail availability. It has 20 pixel pipelines, 7 vertex shaders, 16 ROPs and a 400 MHz core clock, 500 MHz memory clock (1 GHz effective) using GDDR3 memory. The GeForce 7800 GT had been introduced as a more affordable alternative to the 7800 GTX. At the time it was considered the performance/cost champion of video cards.

On February 2, 2006, Nvidia announced the 7800 GS as the first AGP video card in the GeForce 7 series lineup, an AGP version of the high end GeForce 7 series. This card was promoted by several hardware enthusiasts as "the last high ended AGP card in existence". It has 16 pixel shader units instead of the 20 that the 7800 GT has, but still benefits from the optimizations of the other 7 series GPUs enjoy. Clock speeds are 375 MHz for the GPU and 1200 MHz for the (GDDR3) memory. According to all benchmark tests, the performance of this card is faster than the GeForce 6800 GT and GeForce 6800 Ultra. Different vendors may deviate from the stated specification. It serves to provide a great upgrade path for those with high end AGP systems who don't want to switch to a new high end PCI Express system. There was a special "Golden Sample" release from Gainward that was called "7800 GS+" or officially "Bliss 7800 GS 512 MB GS+" that had default clock speeds of 450 MHz core and 1250 MHz memory. Unlike a standard 7800 GS, the 7800 GS+ actually used a 7900 GT GPU that had the full 24 pixel shaders instead of the regular 16 pixel shaders that are normally found on a 7800 GS video card. Gainward had previously released a "Bliss 7800 GS 512MB GS" card that was based on a 7800 GT but utilized the AGP bus. Its external appearance and name make it nearly indistinguishable from the 7900 GT based Bliss 7800 GS 512MB GS+. Leadtek produced a similar card with 256MB memory. In late 2006 Gainward released a third '7800 GS' card with 20 pixel shaders running at 500 MHz core and 1400 MHz memory called the "BLISS GS GLH". This card is also based on the 7900 GS core.

The GeForce 7800 GTX (codenamed G70, and previously NV47) was the first GPU in the series, launched on June 22, 2005 with immediate retail availability. The GeForce 7800 GTX supported the highest specification DirectX 9 vertex and pixel shaders, at the time: Version 3.0. It was natively a PCI Express chip. SLI support had been retained and improved from the previous generation. According to PC World, the 7800 GTX was "one of the most complex processors ever designed". The GPU had 302 million transistors (the Athlon 64 X2 4800+ CPU has 233.2 million transistors), along with 24 pixel and 8 vertex shaders. It was succeeded by the 7900 GTX on March 9, 2006. The PlayStation 3's Reality Synthesizer is based on the 256 MB model of the 7800 GTX, but with slight modifications.

Introduced during the fall of 2006, at a MSRP of US$199, the 7900 GS filled the gap between the mid end GeForce 7600 GT and the high end GeForce 7900 GT. The card was unofficially launched August 23 by woot! as a white box OEM. However, the product's company, MSI, made claims that these cards were stolen from MSI during transportation and sold to woot!. The referenced MSI customer notice has been changed to remove explicit references to woot!. As of March 2007, Nvidia had discontinued production of a number of GeForce 6 and 7 series products, including the 7900 GS. The GeForce 7900 GS has 20 pixel processors, 7 vertex processors, 256 bits memory bus, and comes clocked at approximately 450 MHz/1320 MHz for core/memory, which should provide slightly lower performance than the 7900 GT. The GeForce 7900 GS is powered by the graphics chip code named G71, thus, shares the same advantages as the G71 did over its immediate predecessor G70: dual link DVI outputs, reduced power consumption, higher performance.

This video card was released on March 9, 2006. Like the 7900 GTX, it uses the G71 GPU that is produced at 90 nm. It too offers all the features of the 7800 series as well as an attractive performance to price ratio.

The GeForce 7900 GTX is a 90 nm produced G70 (named G71) and features all the same features of the 7800 GTX but is built upon the smaller manufacturing process. Due to shortages of memory modules for the 512 MB GTX, more readily available 1600 MHz memory was used.

The 7900 GTO is a close cousin of the 7900 GTX. The GTO first arrived at a handful of retailers around October 1, 2006. At the time of launch, GTO boards sold for around US$250, compared to the 7900 GTX boards that cost in excess of $400 at the time. The GTO was essentially identical to the GTX, with the exception that it lacked HDCP and VIVO support, had underclocked memory running at 1320 MHz, and used tighter memory timings. Other than that, the two boards were identical: same PCB, same cooler, same GPU. The GTO used extremely fast 1.1ns Samsung BJ11 GDDR3 memory running at 1.8V, as opposed to the 2.1V it is rated at. Clock speeds on the two cards are identical, at 650 MHz. At stock memory speeds, most comparisons found the GTO to lag behind the GTX by roughly a 5 10% margin. The majority of owners find that their GTO will overclock to 1600 MHz memory speeds, despite the under volted RAM. Many flash their GTO to a GTX BIOS to officially make it a GTX. GTO owners having trouble reaching GTX speeds with BIOS version 5.71.22.39.13 or newer are advised to simply flash to an older BIOS version such as 5.71.22.39.08, this seems to solve overclocking problems for most users. The GTO was an extremely popular card among enthusiasts as it offered near GTX performance at a considerably lower price. It was a limited production card aimed at cleaning out G70 inventories before the release of the G80, and only spent about a month in retail channels before selling out.

The GeForce 7900 GX2 is two videocards stacked to fit as a dual slot solution. This is not like products such as the ASUS Dual GeForce 7800 GT or nVidia's own 7950 GX2, where two GPUs are on the same card. This enables quad SLI on two PCI Express x16 slots. Other OEM companies have access to the GX2 and it is available from numerous vendors. The card features a 500 MHz GPU and 1200 MHz effective RAM speed. Although the power of the GX2 is less than the 7900 GTX, each card is more powerful than the 7900 GT. Many issues in this implementation of a dual GPU unit convinced Nvidia to restrict its sale to OEM companies. The card is extremely long, with only the largest e ATX cases being able to hold it. Two of the cards operating in quad SLI also required extremely well designed airflow to function, and demanded a 1000 watt power supply unit.

On September 14, 2006 Nvidia released the 7950GT. Announced with a 550 MHz core clock, 700 MHz (1400 MHz effective) memory clock, 24 pixel shader units, standard configurations come equipped with both 512 MB GDDR3 memory and HDCP support. At an introductory price of US$300, the GeForce 7950 GT replaces the older GeForce 7900 GT and improves performance: the GeForce 7950 GT has a fillrate of 13,200 Megatexels/s and a memory bandwidth of 44.8 GB/s (versus 10800 Megatexels/s and 940 Megavertices/s for the 7900 GT).

This is essentially a dual GPU video card that takes up only a single PCIe x16 slot, allowing for 4 GPUs to run with only two PCIe x16 slots, in standard SLI motherboards. Unlike the 7900 GX2 before it, this version is available to consumers directly. The 7950 GX2 was released to retail on June 5, 2006, and shares similar specs to the GeForce 7900 GX2, with 500 MHz GPU clock, and 1200 MHz effective RAM speed. 512 MB of memory per GPU, for a total of 1 GB, however total performance is more in line with 512 MB since each GPU can only access its own memory and not the memory of the other one. It does not offer any advantages over single GPU cards with 512 MB, memory wise. This card is designed for the DIY market; it addresses many problems which the previous 7900 GX2 had suffered from, such as noise, size, power consumption, and price. The 7950 GX2 requires only a single PCIe power connector, in contrast to the twin connectors of its predecessor; technically, this is understandable, as there is no need for a ring bus configuration – frames need only be passed on to the primary GPU. It is much shorter, fitting easily in the same space as a 7900 GTX. Lesser board layout and the removal of cooling vents on the bracket have greatly reduced temperatures, allowing the fans to run at a lower speed, thereby lowering noise. As of September 2006, the board can be found for $299, half the cost of a 7900 GX2. According to some review sites (such as Tom's Hardware see above), a single 7950GX2 draws less power than a single ATI Radeon X1900 XT – some consider this an amazing feat considering the GX2 employs a pair of GPUs, when the Radeon uses only one. Other review sites say that a GX2 is quieter than the aforementioned Radeon, despite the GX2 boasting a pair of identical GPU coolers – however 'loudness' is highly subjective without the proper tools and testing conditions. If true, this would make a pair of GX2 cards cooler, quieter, and less power hungry than a pair of X1900 XT cards in CrossFire. However, there is no appreciable performance gain from pairing two 7950 GX2 cards in most applications, while dual X1900 XT configurations see large performance boosts in CrossFire mode. On August 9, 2006, Nvidia released initial ForceWare 91.45 drivers for Windows 2000 and XP that support Quad SLI. The Quad SLI support was soon merged in with the normal WHQL driver package, when ForceWare 91.47 drivers was released on October 16, 2006.

Nvidia has ceased driver support for GeForce 7 series. The GeForce 7 series is the last to support the Windows 2000 operating system. The successor GeForce 8 series only supports Windows XP and later (the Windows 8 drivers also support Windows 10). Windows 2000: 94.24 released on May 17, 2006; Download
Windows XP 32 bit & Media Center Edition: 307.83 released on February 25, 2013; Download
Windows XP 64 bit: 307.83 released on February 25, 2013; Download
Windows Vista, 7 & 8 32 bit: 309.08 released on February 24, 2015; Download
Windows Vista, 7 & 8 64 bit: 309.08 released on February 24, 2015; Download