Quote Originally Posted by 'MaxD',index.php?page=Thread&postID=29003#post2900 3
I didnt read all of the posts so if it was said I am a dee-tee-dee but how video cards numbers work are. First number in this case 8 equals what series. The next number is the quality of the card from 1-9 The next 2 numbers are the modification numbers of that card. so 7950 > 8600. The 7950 is just a tad faster than some of the 8800s if I remember right. However the 8s do have advantages over the 7s especially if you are running Vista and want to take advantage of the DirectX10 graphics accelerator.

I went with the 8800gt and I like it. It it wasnt as cheap and on a single card slot I would have stuck with my 7950
No, the 7950 isn't even a tad faster than some of the 8800s. The first number is the series, that much is true. That's the architecture of the GPU. The 2nd number is now it relates to other models - within that series. They're usually separated by cutting the gpu/memory frequencies, number of shader units, memory bandwidth, and memory size. Aside from the 'low' model 200 or 300 models in the geforce series, which aren't designed for good gaming, the series number is usually always going to be an improvement over most models in the previous series.
Here's an example of how the 8800GT (not even GTX) destroys the 7950GT:
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3140&p=11
It's not even close - It's nearly twice as fast in all resolutions. Compare the slower GTS-320MB to the GT, and you'll see that the GTS is still much faster (around 50% faster) than the 7950GT. The numbers aren't as pronounced in tomshardware.com VGA charts, but the 8800GTS is still a faster card. If you step down to the 8600 (mid-level) models, the 7950GT is faster, but not by as much as you'd expect. I would never recommend that someone buy a top model card from a previous series when mid-level current series cards are available. That's like suggesting someone should buy a high end P4 D when mid-level E6300 Core2's are out for around the same price.. architecture improvements make a huge difference.