The chaps over at Bit-Tech take a look at six different GeForce 7900 GS cards from BFG Tech, EVGA, Galaxy, Inno3D, Point Of View and XFX. They evaluate the real-world performance delivered by these cards and compare it to ATI's Radeon X1900GT and X1800GTO. Which is the ultimate mid-range card?

The cards from BFG Tech, Galaxy, Inno3D, Point Of View and XFX are not particularly bad products in any way. In fact, had one or more of them gone ahead and pushed to implement HDCP on their GeForce 7900 GS products, we're sure that the story would have turned out a little differently. With the HD era rapidly approaching though, we think it is about time board partners started gearing up for it too.

However, if you are not really concerned about HDCP compatibility and are just looking for a well-priced video card with lots of performance, we have to commend Galaxy for stepping outside of the box and making the fastest GeForce 7900 GS on test here. The inclusion of 1.2ns memory and a super-silent Zalman cooler is just the icing on the cake for that card; it's just a shame that there was no HDCP crypto-ROM included.

EVGA's card represents the best purchase for a number of reasons - the fact that the card is future-proofed when it comes to next-generation content protection methods is a definite plus point and one that should be given some serious consideration. If you're even remotely considering using your PC to play next-generation HD content, you're going to need a system that is HDCP capable.

In other news, MSI has recently posted an alert on its website calling attention to a truckload of stolen NVIDIA 7900GS cards. The stolen GeForce 7900GS cards appear to closely resemble the NVIDIA reference board, with a green PCB, white DVI outputs, and a heatsink covering only the GPU core itself. In contrast, the retail 7900GS has a red PCB, yellow DVI outputs, and a larger heatsink that covers the onboard RAM chips and bears the MSI logo.