XFX GeForce 7900 GS XT

INTRODUCTION

For aeons now video card manufacturers have attempted to find just the optimal balance in the range of new products they introduce. By this I mean a concerted effort is put forth by their Research and Development section to suggest components and specifications in each card that will appeal to a certain consumer group. Up until roughly two years ago there were three types of video cards produced:

1. The "Profession Series" used by graphical artists and designers alone. The cost and limited functionality of these cards was strictly prohibitive for any other market.
2. The "High-End Gaming Edition" for the true Computer Enthusiast that didn't care what the price was as long as it was the fastest production card manufactured with plenty of headroom for overclocking.
3. The "Low End Basic Consumer Card" that would meet the needs of the corporate environment with good textural qualities and rudimentary graphics capabilities.

Due to this marketing mentality the middle grade user suffered. I'm talking about the average computer consumer that wanted a taste the "High-End Gaming" world but either couldn't afford and/or justify the expense of this top tier product. The need for a middle of the road product was rapidly becoming evident to both NVIDIA® and ATI® who were then and are currently for all intents and purposes the only two mainstream GPU/VPU chipset manufacturers. Both of these industrial giants realized a vast share of the consumer graphics market was essentially going completely unnoticed because of the cost associated with their high end legacy products. Hence both broadened their perspectives and sent their development team back to the drawing board to design a series of what I'll call for lack of better terms a "Mainstream Midline GPU/VPU" that would give "Joe/Josephine Average" a product he/she could both afford and be proud of.

As I alluded to earlier this was a couple of years and a quite a few chipset revisions ago. Even though NVIDIA® and ATI® still reign supreme as the masters of the GPU/VPU many other players have entered the market. Companies such as XFX, VisionTek, LeadTek, BFG, and EVGA to name a few that have taken the GPU/VPUs manufactured by NVIDIA® and ATI® and turned out final video card products adding their own touches of ingenuity and design along the way. Due to all these historical developments current graphics card products are now available to appeal to almost every subset of the consumer market.

So much for history! Today, September 6^th, 2006 is a new day and a special one at that. NVIDIA® along with XFX® are launching a new product, the GeForce7900 GS. The GeForce 7900 GS is the latest addition to the GeForce 7 family, and raises the performance bar in the $199 price range for the gaming enthusiast market segment. Please join us as we too launch our own extensive review of the XFX® GeForce™ 7900 GS XT edition to determine if it fits both your needs and pocketbook.

XFX: A Brief Overview

XFX, a company that is very well know not only to the general computer consumer but to the Computer Enthusiast community as well operates on the following corporate philosophy:  "XFX dares to go where the competition would like to, but can't. That's because, at XFX, we don't just create great digital video components--we build all-out, mind-blowing, performance crushing, competition-obliterating video cards and motherboards." "Oh, and not only are they amazing, you don't have to live on dry noodles and peanut butter to afford them."

From our rather extensive experience doing XFX product reviews we've seen this corporate philosophy transcend from merely words into a series of excellent, highly polished digital wonders that go a step beyond in not only performance but quality as well. We are highly anticipative that our review sample, the GeForce™ 7900 GS XT will continue to follow this same tradition.