Nvidia has officially launched two new versions of its mighty GeForce 7900 graphics chip with the GeForce 7900 GS ($199 to $249 price point) going on sale immediately and the GeForce 7950 GT ($299 to $349 price point) hitting the shops on 14 September.

As of today, the GeForce 7900 GT is no more. It has ceased to be, and instead is replaced by the GeForce 7950 GT which has a core speed of 550MHz core and 512MB of DDR3 memory with a true speed of 700MHz (1400MHz effective). The 7950 GT has a 256-bit controller to give a 44.8GB/second memory bandwidth. Internally the 7950 GT has 24 pixel pipelines and 8 vertex shaders which means that it is effectively a GeForce 7900 GTX with a ten per cent underclock. Then we have the GeForce 7900 GS which has a 450MHz core, 256MB DDR3 running at 660MHz memory (1320MHz effective) a 256-bit controller and 42.2GB/second memory bandwidth. It has 20 pixel pipelines and 7 vertex shaders and is effectively a 7900 GT with fewer shaders but significantly cheaper.

The first reviews of GeForce 7900 GS 480M can be found on 3DAvenue, Anandtech, Guru3D, HardOCP, Hexus, HotHardware, HWZ, Neoseeker, nV News, PCPerspective, Tech Report

Tech Report: When one of the graphics leaders slaps its top-end GPU onto a card that costs $199, good things tend to follow. Such is the case with the GeForce 7900 GS. For most intents and purposes, it represents a price cut on the GeForce 7900 GT that brings along with it additional welcome relief in the form of temperature-controlled fans. Those two simple things conspire to make the 7900 GS a very attractive package, since its performance easily outstrips the two other cards we tested in the same price range, the GeForce 7600 GT and the Radeon X1800 GTO. The 7900 GS is meaningfully faster than either of those cards, because it tends to run games smoothly at higher resolutions than they can. The 7900 GS also delivers higher performance per watt and lower noise levels while playing games than the Radeon X1800 GTO.

For the moment, that means the GeForce 7900 GS stands alone as the best value in graphics, in my humble opinion. You get all of the power of the GeForce 7800 GTX that cost $599 a little more than a year ago for a third that price. And for those who like to purchase graphics power on an installment plan, the GS presents the option of adding a second card to create an SLI config that is more powerful than a GeForce 7900 GTX or a Radeon X1950 XTX. All of these are good things.