7950GTX and DX10

I was thinking of picking up an older Dell lappy from a friend just for fun, and it has a 7950GTX running on XP in it. He says it will score almost 10K in 3D05, but will this card play the DX10 games of now and the future?

 

most games out now are not dx10 exclusive.

 

short answer: no

long answer: It will play current games at a reasonable level of performance, but it has a completely different architecture that prevents it from ever being DX10 capable. You dont need DX10 to have a good gaming experience. DX10 is still a little over-hyped anyways.

 

7950GTX is now an older top gen card. It is still capable of playing games today despite being rather old, but hovers around mid-range performance. I don't think it is that much more capable than say, a 9700M GT card.

Depending on the price, you are probably better getting a much stronger Nvidia 9800M or Ati HD4850 card if you are really interested in gaming. There are cheap laptops with strong cards nowadays.

 

I'm just worried about future games like Bioshock 2, COD Modern weapons 2, etc etc that I can play these games if i want to with this card.

 

7 series including 7950 GTX support up to DX9 only.

Depends on your resolution and settings, shouldn't be any problem for mid-settings.

 

You can max out the previous versions of those games with a Go 7950 GTX. Regarding the future versions, one should keep their fingers crossed.

 

i can play mass effect, oblivion, NWN 2, CoD5 near max without problem. however fallout 3 ran pretty poorly on my 7900gtx

 

The 7900GS with DDR3 memory gets 6500 in 3dmark06 which means it plays with the best of the current mid-range cards out there. The 7950GTX I can imagine would have similiar horsepower to the 9700M GTS in direct x9 only of course, in fact it might even perform better in dx9. Still however the heat and power consumption would be double that of the newer card.

Bottom line it will play all games that come out till dx9 support gets phased out. Just make sure if you get it that the ram and cpu are the best you can have.

 

I'm going to pick this rig up, where do I find the latest drivers for the 7950gtx? Just go to Nvidia.com?? Thnx.

 

Wrong. Even my 8800M GTX couldn't max out COD5, and 7950 GTX is only half as fast.

Wrong. Go check out the benchmarks yourself. Although 9700M has nothing to do with this thread.

laptopvideo2go

 

You didn't list resolution or processor as both heavily affect 3dmark06 scores and hurt comparisons if you do not list them with the score.

FYI, Today's cards have superior shaders and in some games like Fallout3 will massively outperform their previous gen cousins in shader-intensive apps and 3dmark06 cannot show you that. (its an old program) Yes, even in DX9 mode...

Pretty sure OC'd 8700m GTs were pretty well beating 7950GTX at 1280x1024 in 3dmark06 and the 9700m GT (not even the GTS) was scoring similar to the 8700m GT OC'd at stock. (mostly because its the same and shaders clocked stock as high as the 8700m GT would usually go)

Note there are definitely some older games and higher resolutions (which you would not likely be playing newer games at anyway) which might turn out better on the 7950GTX than the 8700m GT or 9700m GT, but a 9700m GTS should soundly beat the 7950GTX as it adds the 256-bit memory interface into the mix and ends the 7950GTXs only real remaining plus.

The 7950GTX is still viable... but newer games are going to hurt it as they are expecting stronger shader performance. This isn't to say you can't play them, just saying you are gonna have to turn down the resolution and details.

Note, given the age of this card this is still impressive.

 

I believe Nvidia's latest official driver for this card is 179.48.

For anything more recent, you need to try places like laptopvideo2go.com

 

7950 gtx plays any game in DX9. But for DX10 effects, you will need 8,9,280 series. Even if you have exclusive DX 10 game then you can get a DX9 patch for it even if it is not official. So dont worry for now and future.

 

Oops sorry,I meant CoD 4:Modern Warfare which was released in the same year(2007) as Bioshock.

 

My advice would be to get a current gen card as it has unified shaders unlike the old gen cards (7 series and before) and it makes a huge difference in newer games. Also the more you spend now and the better hardware you get the less you spend later and the longer you can be happy with your purchase.

 

Whoa, really? Please let me know how you achieved that, mine only gets 4200 in 3dmark06 running 1280x1024 resolution, barely 4500 after overclock.

Of course, unless you're talking about the desktop 7900 gs.

But still, the desktop version can barely pull a 5500 stock.

 

hmmm I based it on this ebay find:

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/nVIDIA-GeForce-Go-7900-GS-7900GS-for-DELL-9400-E1705_W0QQitemZ160327281496QQcmdZViewItemQQptZUK_Computing_LaptopMotherboards_CPUs_CA?hash=item160327281496&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14&_trkparms=72%3A1690|66%3A2|65%3A12|39%3A1|240%3A1318

So I guess it could indeed be biased... the seller states it gets 6412 with a T2400. I guess he must have tested it on a lower resolution or settings.
What I was saying must be way off lol and apologise! Just under 4500 is what I can achieve with my 8600M GT and its DDR2 with an OC!

 

Well I picked it up, a basically new Sager M570U 17" with a 7950GTX for $600 and I can use it to mess around with and play my COD games.

I tried to install the latest driver for it off Nvidia and it freaked out tho, BSOD, flashing screen, etc. I put the older driver back on it and now its fine again. Weird.

 

I can get ~6000 with an agressive overclock on my 7900gs . The 7900gs is an amazing overclocker.

 

As I remember, 7950GTXs were pulling 5400-5600 or so at 1280x1024 with either 2.2 or 2.4 C2D processors.

They are still quite viable... KoI just over-shot their realistic comparison.


Jay, what resolution and CPU for that 6k score?

 

there pretty good cards still, but theres not point to pay more for less, any of the midrange cards today will be somewhat similar, if not equal to it

 

54-5600 sounds about right.

My 7950GTX gets around 5200 at 1280x1024 (@ factory speed/no-overclock) ---but my CPU is only a 2.13Ghz C2D.

That said, as a GPU, its balanced a lot differently than an 8600GT that scores the same @ 3Dmark.

Less shader power, but around double the memory bandwidth, mean games are usually set/run @ lower shader settings, but at a higher resolution and/or AA.

 

exactly, probably should have included that in my post, that it basically the only thing it has going for it, the 256 bit memory bus.

 

They probably use the same drivers. There are possibly some actual architectural differences in the two to consider like the number or vertex or pixel shaders as well as texture mapping units and render output processors.

 

Yup,
just go to Nvidia.com

 

My 7900GS reaches only about 3600 Marks with a T5600, but even with a stronger processor I can't imagine 6500 without dangerous overclocking.

I can play CoD4 quite well with it, so a 7950GTX will be good for that game, however as the others noted, it is not worth to buy one, except if you can get it really cheap.

 

Dell XPS m1710 with a 7950 GTX (and obviously DX 9.0c)...I've found that I can play most 'recent' games 30+ FPS at a resolution of at least 1280x800...the first option that goes out the window for me is HDR and bloom effects...if the game has the option, I usually revert to Shader Model 2.0...

I prefer detail and resolution over shader effects...so for me, the 7950 GTX works great...if you like unified shader models (DX 10 and newer cards) and what they can do, then give the laptop back and buy a laptop with a newer card...

I love my 7950 GTX, and I've found in the laptop gaming world, that a video card will usually last 4 to 5 years...at the 5 year point, you're severely restricting graphic options and reducing resolution (the games still look as good as the game you bought when you first got the laptop, but they don't look near as good as the new game played on your friend's brand new laptop)...the 7950 GTX is already a couple of years old, so you're 2 to 3 years from severely restricting the graphics options and resolutions...

Moore's Law suggests that my thumbrule of 4 to 5 years is shortening as we move forward...so maybe it's already 3 1/2 to 4 years...but I don't think software (gaming) moves at the same pace as hardware... developers/publishers (with the exception of Crytek) try to make the game available to the most common projected hardware at game release...not the highest end projected hardware...

 

Well I finally have all my COD games loaded and demo'd them on this Sager and I'm happy with it. I don't know much about shaders and stuff, I just take the eyeball test and see if I am happy. I have a constant 60FPS on COD UO (and old Q3-engine game i LOVE), a constant 50-60 FPS on COD4, and an amazing 80FPS on WAW, all at 1280x960 with everything on medium and no AA. No skipping or lagging. So to me, this card passes the eyeball test, and I picked this rig up very cheap.

 

About the same experience for me...my LCD native is 1920x1200...so I prefer 1280x800 to maintain aspect ratio...but other than that, everything is pretty much just like you said...

Bioshock, UT3, Dead Space, Titan Quest will all run fine at max detail and 1920x1200...on Fallout 3, Oblivion, World in Conflict, Gears of War, H.A.W.x, GRAW2, Silverfall, I lower the settings and/or resolution (1280x800) and get very playable framerates...

Enjoy...