ASUS EN7900GS TOP Video Card Review :: EN7900GS TOP Features

• Microsoft DirectX 9.0c
• OpenGL 2.0
• Pixel Shader 3.0
• Vertex Shader 3.0
• HDR
• Multisample AA up to 4x
• Combined modes up to 8x (MSAA+SSAA)
• Transparency AA
• PureVideo HD

NVIDIA, AMD (ATI) and Intel have released SM 3.0 hardware on the market. In fact, with the exception of a few odd ATI X8xx series cards and some Intel motherboards with the GMA950 or 900 chips, the rest of the market is SM 3.0 based. The 79xx series from NVIDIA are their third iteration SM 3.0 card, after 6800 series from 2004 and the 7800 series from 2005. The key differences between the 79xx series and the 78xx series is NVIDIA moved from the 110 nanometer process to the 90 nanometer process. The 79xx series has 278 million transistors but the same features.

Pixel Shaders are used in virtually every game released today. Sid Meier's RailRoads use uses the same graphics engine as Civilization IV. Pixel Shaders to portray the water, Vertex Shaders to portray the terrain and is a lot of fun. Oblivion uses Vertex Shaders in the grass, Pixel Shaders in the water, and every surface. Ghost Recon uses HDR in the sky, Pixel and Vertex Shaders 2.0 throughout the game. The 7900GS is capable of rendering all of the effects of these games and more, as it fully supports SM 3.0.

High Dynamic Range Rendering allows the game developer to show off brighter bights and darker darks, according to NVIDIA's description of the term. Before the advent of floating point programmable graphics cards, there was a limitation to the range of brightness to darkness ratio of 255:1. The GeForce 7900GS supports Floating Point 16-bit blending, meaning that a ratio of 65,535:1 is supported. One thing that can't be done on a 7900GS is HDR+ MSAA at the same time. Hopefully this will be alleviated in the next generation.

SLI

Set SLI configuration

NVIDIA cards have the capability of doing SLI which stands for Scalable Link Interface. Two video cards on a SLI motherboard provide up to 2x the performance of a single card, depending on the application. The 7900GS TOP has a SLI "Golden Finger" where you would install the SLI bridge. Installation of SLI is easy, simply install two cards of the same make, install the SLI Bridge and the drivers. Once the drivers are installed, check enable SLI, and you're good to go.

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