Introduction

It was only the other day that we had a chance to look at the new GeForce 7900GS GPU and while the stock performance was not all that exciting, when it came to overclocking our XFX review sample, it went like an absolute beast. So we had to wonder - was there something special about the 7900GS from XFX? Was it just one good overclocker out of the batch? Or is this going to be the next "in" graphics card for people on a budget?

With a trip down to our local supplier we found what seems to be the cheapest 7900GS on the market. Walking in and trying not looking too suspicious, we asked if there was a spare 7900GS we could use for a few days. With only a little interrogation we walked out with a Palit 7900GS with just standard clocks - it is also one that would go off to the supplier's customer and sold to anyone looking for a graphics card. This is NOT to suggest that we think XFX hand pick review samples - not at all, just an observation.

Working from the Australian market, the cheapest the XFX 7900GS can be had for $349 AUD (or about $260 USD). It's not a bad price considering it is pre-overclocked and is only slightly above what other companies like Leadtek and so forth are selling. Now looking at the Palit 7900GS it can be had for as cheap as $281 AUD (or about $210 USD) - roughly $50 USD cheaper than the XFX.

We will follow our standard review layout except we won't be testing the card at stock clock speeds. We will be overclocking the hell out of it to see what we can get and let's just say the results are nice otherwise I would probably not be writing this right now if it was just a slight overclock.

Let's look at what Palit have done to the 7900GS and then continue on and check out the overclocking performance.