A faster and better VGA card is something we all are interested in. After having played around with my brand new MSI 7600GT, nVidia announced a new series of cards, aimed at the middle of the order users, the 7900GS series. Of course, I was not very happy that the 7600 series was about to be overtaken so quickly, but at the same time, I was curious to find out how the new 7900GS series would stack up against my 7600GT card. Inno3D, kindly offered us the opportunity to test their version of nVidia's 7900GS platform. First, let's find out a bit about Inno3D

- InnoVISION Multimedia Company

InnoVISION Multimedia Limited was established in 1998 in Hong Kong. The manufacturing operations have been set up in Shenzen, China since 1990. In this short period of time, Inno3D has focused on manufacturing OEM/ODM products, as well as contracting out extensive production and research facilities to specialist companies. Inno3D's objective is to deliver the ultimate multimedia experience to the masses of PC users and multimedia professionals, at an affordable price. InnoVISION was then created, to build brand awareness for the continuously growing product range, in order to meet the fast growing market.

InnoVISION's product scope comprises the successful Inno3D brand - a comprehensive variety of 3D graphics board accelerators, the InnoDV - series of digital video/TV capture and editing products, InnoAX - high-end sound / audio cards, and EIO - advanced peripherals.

- Inno3D 7900GS

Inno3D uses the nVidia's 7900GS series reference board. Below, you can find a comparison between the various GeForce 7 series cards, noting their differences in specs, since we will be comparing them with real life gaming tests.

GeForce 7 Series GPUs Model Comparison

Geforce 7900GS Chipset Features

Next Generation Super Scaler GPU Architecture
Delivers over 2x the shading power of previous generation products, taking gaming performance to extreme levels.

Full Microsoft® DirectX® 9.0 Shader Model 3.0 Support
The standard for today's PCs and next generation consoles enables stunning and complex effects for cinematic realism.

NVIDIA® CineFX® 4.0 Engine
Delivers advanced visual effects at unimaginable speeds. Next generation shader architecture with new texture unit design streamlines texture processing for faster and smoother gameplay.

NVIDIA® SLI Technology
NVIDIA SLI technology is a revolutionary platform innovation that allows users to intelligently scale graphics performance by combining multiple NVIDIA graphics solutions in a single system with an NVIDIA nForce SLI MCP.

NVIDIA® Intellisample 4.0 Technology
The industry’s fastest anti-aliasing delivers ultra-realistic visuals with no jagged edges, at lightning-fast speeds. Visual quality is taken to new heights through a new rotated grid sampling pattern, advanced 128 tap sample coverage, 16x anisotropic filtering, and support for transparent super-sampling and multisampling.

True High Dynamic-Range (HDR) Rendering Support
The ultimate lighting effects bring environments to life for a truly immersive, ultra-realistic experience. NVIDIA's 64-bit texture implementation delivers state-of-the-art high dynamic-range (HDR) visual effect through floating point capabilities in shading, filtering, texturing and blending.

NVIDIA® PureVideo Technology
The combination of high-definition video processors and decoder software delivers unprecedented picture clarity, smooth video, accurate color and precise image scaling for all video content to turn your PC into a high end home theater.

NVIDIA® UltraShadow II Technology
Enhances the performance of bleeding-edge games that feature complex scenes with multiple light sources and objects.

NVIDIA® ForceWare® unified Driver Architecture (UDA)
Delivers a proven record of compatibility, reliability and stability with the widest range of games and applications. ForceWare ensures the best out-of-box experience for every user and delivers continuous performance and feature updates over the life of NVIDIA GeForce GPUs.

OpenGL® 2.0 Optimizations and Support
Ensures top-notch compatibility and performance for Open GL applications.

NVIDIA® nView Multi-Display Technology
Advanced technology provides the ultimate in viewing flexible and control for multiple monitors.

PCI Express® Support
Designed to run perfectly with the next generation PCI Express bus architecture. The new bus doubles the bandwidth of AGP 8X delivering over 4 GB/sec. in both upstream and downstream data transfers.

Users, before buying such high end cards, should be aware of the system requirements:

1. Microsoft Windows® 2000/XP
2. A PCI-Express compliant motherboard with full size expansion slot
3. Installation requires CD-ROM or DVD-Rom drive
4. A 6-pin PCI Express supplementary power connector
5. DVI or VGA compatible monitor
6. Minimum of 500-600W Power Supply with a minimum of +12V @ 30A for all PC components in SLI mode