x1800xt vs 7900gt

[hanged_man]

Im going for this upgrade and i was going to buy evga 7900gt 520mhz(oc) 256mb for 315$
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814150139

but this one along with other new nvidia cards has been "out of stock" for a long time and im getting sick of this ...anyway i came across some forum discussing about x1800xt and how it performs better than 7900gt (probably the regular 7900gt and not the overclocked that i was going to buy).

Anyway,i found some x1800xt on newegg (which surprisingly some of them are cheaper than 7900gt):

SAPPHIRE
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814102698

SAPPHIRE
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814102008
(I was wondering why the difference in price between the previous two cards??!!)

SAPPHIRE 512mb
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814102697

MSI 512mb
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814127180
(i was also wondering since im no ATI expert, which one is better MSI or SAPPHIRE ??!)

and is there more performance difference between x1800xt 256mb & 512mb ?? is it worth the extra $$$ ?!!
by the way, i have 400watts power supply ...is this enough for x1800xt since i read somewhere that it consumes power like hell ?!

[Phayzon]

I stopped reading at "the x1800s are cheaper" bit thats because theyre to compete with the 7800, not 7900.

EDIT:
Every time im at Newegg I have to stare in awe at these three, especially the far left one http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductCompare.asp?CompareItemList=N82E16814150135 ,N82E16814130280,N82E16814150134&SubCategory=48

[TerminX]

What Phayzon said is correct; the 7900 competes with (and overpowers, IMO) the X1900 cards. The X1800 is last generation and can't compete with the 7900s at all.

[hanged_man]

what i said is 7900GT and NOT GTX ...and i read some reviews in some sites that x1800xt is faster but wanted to make sure if this is true and if i should get 512mb or 256 mb version ??

[Phayzon]

Either way, the 7900*anything* > Any ATI card.

[Kristian Joensen]

what i said is 7900GT and NOT GTX ...and i read some reviews in some sites that x1800xt is faster but wanted to make sure if this is true and if i should get 512mb or 256 mb version ??

As far as I can tell nobody said anything about the GTX only the series not that particular card.

[Mblackwell]

http://www.bjorn3d.com/read.php?cID=891&pageID=2098
http://www.digital-daily.com/video/geforce_7900gtx/index03.htm

Benchmarks. See it beating the X1900XTX in some instances and matching it in others? That's a a decent indicator of how good a card it is :p.

[Phayzon]

Dude that 7900GTX 512 700/1800 is beast. Get a second one and an Athlon64 FX60 and 2GB of RAM and you got yourself (a power whore) one badass system that pwns all.

[FireFly]

What Phayzon said is correct; the 7900 competes with (and overpowers, IMO) the X1900 cards. The X1800 is last generation and can't compete with the 7900s at all.
If you're talking about the 7900 GTX then that's correct. If you're talking about the 7900 GT (stock) then that's clearly not correct.

A 7900 GT is essentially just a 7800 GTX with an extra 20 MHz on the core clock and an extra 120 MHz on the memory clock. So with AA enabled the 7900 GT can expect to lose by 20 - 30% in DirectX games.

Without AA it's a little different, and the 7900 GT should be slightly faster than the X1800. However the card hanged_man linked to isn't an ordinary 7900 GT - its been overclocked by 15%. Taking into account bandwidth limitations (clockspeed doesn't scale linearly with limited bandwidth) I'd say without AA the 7900 GT will be about 10 - 15% faster in DirectX games, and you can probably add an extra 5 - 10% for OpenGL games.

With AA, I think the X1800 will come out on top in DirectX games, maybe by 5 - 15%.

[crunchy superman]

I've been in ATi's camp for a few generations now, but I'm probably going to go green with the rig I'm building soon. The X1xxx series takes more juice & has a much louder fan than the 7x00 cards. In this particular comparison, both are still fine cards, but yes, the 7900gt will be the clear winner. Still, the best overall single card solution for pure performance is going to be the 1900XTX, but again, it's loud & hungry. In dual-GPU configurations however, SLI is a much better & more mature method than ATi's Crossfire, and this is the main reason I'm going that way - I want an SLI rig! nVidia have come a long way to getting their IQ & AA up to ATi's level, so that's another reason to stay red out the window. But the last straw for me is what ATi have done to their drivers. CCC is a big'ol tubby, slow, bloated, over-engineered piece of amphibian shit! Talk about fixing something 'til it's broken - omg!! No way I'm putting up with that!

[Bludd]

Either way, the 7900*anything* > Any ATI card.
Are you insane? A 7900 GT is better than a X1900 XTX?

I hope you are not serious. It can compete with the X1800 XT, but not the X1900 XT/XTX.

[hanged_man]

Ok lets suppose im going for x1800xt ....As i said in my first post, there are 256mb and 512mb and the price difference is about 30$ ...so which one to get ?!! will i have better performance with 512mb ??? like the big fps difference between 7800GTX 256mb and 7800GTX 512mb ?!! and one more thing, as i said before i have 400 watts power supply and im worried that it wont be enough for x1800xt ...is it enough or not ??
And another problem with 7900GT is they've "out of stock" for a long time on newegg so i might go for x1800xt since i must decide in a week or less which one to get

[crunchy superman]

Go ahead & get the 512mb. It's not going to give you any real performance gain, but the extra memory is great for higher-res textures and needed for lots of anti-aliasing. For $30 more, I'd say it's worth it.

As for the PSU, don't be fooled by the wattage - there are a lot of cheap-o zillion watt units that aren't worth throwing away. A consistent amperage on the 12v rail is what the card needs. If it's a good brand, and you're not powering too much other hungry stuff in there, you'll probably be alright.

[Phayzon]

I got a 650w PSU just incase :D

[FireFly]

You'll only gain an extra couple of percent, performance wise, but they'll be less hitching, especially in future games which will have increased framebuffer (memory) requirements.

I would pay the extra $30.

In terms of power consumption, the reviews show that it peaks at about 280 Watts with a very basic system (1 HD, 1 DVD drive), so depending on the quality of your power supply and your other components, you should be ok.

[TarBaby4Ever]

Are you insane? A 7900 GT is better than a X1900 XTX?

I hope you are not serious. It can compete with the X1800 XT, but not the X1900 XT/XTX.



Here,Here,finally some comon sense.......I am Nvidia user,as I have had nothing but problems with ATI over the years.But take away the screamingly loud fans and the beefier power supply requirements of the 1900 series and it is good card series.The 1900GTO will be killer,if it ever hits retail in numbers...This round goes to Nvidia it seems.has anyone seen the Valve Steam account survey ? Oh so very,very interesting numbers there,no doubt.I was very surprised to find out how many people are using Nvidia hardware over ATI.


Edit:As for 256 versus 512,go with the 512 megger.Far more future proof.

[TerminX]

I was very surprised to find out how many people are using Nvidia hardware over ATI.
Especially after ATI gave Valve $6m for their little partnership or what have you. I was very surprised as well; adoption of the 6 and 7 series cards is far higher than I had envisioned it would be.

[Ecmaster76]

Well, a lot of it is because people buy based on benchmarks.

Really, the truth of the matter is x1900==7900

Sure there are differences in speed and the 7900 multi-gpu support is better.

But not too many people will ever use SLI or Crossfire. The performance difference in single GPU mode is either insignificant (under 10%) or offset by gains in other modes (no AA scores vs HDR scores for the same game or whatever). However the card at the top of the graph is cosidered the winner and the margin of victory is rarely discussed. Most graphs have to be zoomed in quite a bit to show some of the differences.

Reviews kept proclaiming that the 6000 series was future proof because of SM 3.0 support. Benchmarks were generally won by 6000 series cards (ATI cards did better after a couple of driver revisions, but re-benchmarking the initial reviews is rare). x800 cards have aged well. It has turned out that anything less than a 6800 can't really run SM 3 on new games anyhow. So aging has turned out to be about the same.

But most people actually believe it is possible to future proof a computer (it really isn't) and went for the more advanced but more or less useless (back then and arguably even now) SM 3 support in the 6000 series.

I think the problem is that ATI doesn't make a good enough initial impression. The original MSRP of the x1600 xt was $250. All the reviews of it were horrible because of the price. It hit the market at $160 where it creamed the 6600 at that price range.

etc

nvidia haws momentum, good PR, and more loyal users.

[avatar_58]

I think we need a genuine comparison thread filled with benchmarks from various sites to prove once and for all which is better and for what purpose. Personally I just choose Nvidia due to driver support, as all my past ATI cards had issues.

[Phayzon]

Indeed. I only had one card that didnt have a problem (dont remeber anymore), but I dont want an ISA card with 2D-only graphics.

[ZuljinRaynor]

I'm hoping to get the eVGA 7900 GT CO. From benchmarks I've seen, it smokes the X1800XL but not the X1800XT. Or at least in the 3DMark05. http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=213&type=expert&pid=20

But in 3DMark06 the 7900 GT smokes the X1800XT, except in the vertex shader test.
http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=213&type=expert&pid=21

[0marTheZealot]

Either one will suit your needs just fine. It's really preference at this point, unless you run Linux, then go for an Nvidia card. Their Linux support is heads and shoulders above ATI's.

[FireFly]

I think we need a genuine comparison thread filled with benchmarks from various sites to prove once and for all which is better and for what purpose. Personally I just choose Nvidia due to driver support, as all my past ATI cards had issues.
Well the benchmarks are fairly consistent, so not much analysis is needed.

But in 3DMark06 the 7900 GT smokes the X1800XT, except in the vertex shader test.
http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=213&type=expert&pid=21
Those benchmarks don't use the latest ATI drivers - Catalyst 6.4. The 6.3 and 6.4 releases both delivered significant performance increases in 3DMark 2006.

I have an X1800 XT and I experienced a 10% increase in performance between 6.2 and 6.4. If you look at these FiringSquad benchmarks you'll see that the X1800 XT now offers performance on par with the 7900 GT.

http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/nvidia_geforce_7900_gt_gtx_performance/page7.asp

I wouldn't use 3DMark as a measure of gaming performance, however. It's purely a synthetic benchmark.

[ZuljinRaynor]

How could they use 6.4. I mean think about it.

[FireFly]

The FiringSquad benchmarks were run with 6.3, which is what PC Perspective review should have used. I made the comparison with 6.4 because the release delivered further performance improvements over 6.3.

[ZuljinRaynor]

So they are neck in neck basically.

[hanged_man]

i decided to get x1800xt 512mb ...anyway im going a bit offtopic now, im also buying AMD64-bit Sandiego 3700+, so i was wondering which windows xp version (64-bit or 32-bit)to install ?? i heard once that the windows 64-bit had issues with compatability in games and other softwares ..is this true or not ??

[FireFly]

So they are neck in neck basically.
Yes, when talking about the stock 7900 GT.

i decided to get x1800xt 512mb ...anyway im going a bit offtopic now, im also buying AMD64-bit Sandiego 3700+, so i was wondering which windows xp version (64-bit or 32-bit)to install ?? i heard once that the windows 64-bit had issues with compatability in games and other softwares ..is this true or not ??
Yes, you may have issues finding 64-bit compatable drivers. And since there isn't any performance boost to speak of when using the 64-bit version I would stick with regular 32-bit Windows.

[Hudson]

Especially after ATI gave Valve $6m for their little partnership or what have you. I was very surprised as well; adoption of the 6 and 7 series cards is far higher than I had envisioned it would be.

Not to mention HL2/Source runs better under nVidia hardware anyway :D

My next card will also be nVidia (going to dual-boot Linux), however i'm waiting for DX10 to roll out as buying any new card now is a waste of money IMO. Besides, my current one serves me fine even in the newest games.

[ZuljinRaynor]

Yes, when talking about the stock 7900 GT.

I'm getting the eVGA 7900 GT CO.
There are 3 versions from eVGA, 7900 GT, 7900 GT CO and 7900 GT CO SUPERCLOCKED (I think).

[Sniper]

I have the eVGA 7900 GT CO. It's ****ing fast.

I'll leave it at that.

[Mr_Diffrence]

I'm getting the eVGA 7900 GT CO.
There are 3 versions from eVGA, 7900 GT, 7900 GT CO and 7900 GT CO SUPERCLOCKED (I think).

and 7900GT KO (which is the CO but with a different cooling solution). I just bought myself a 7900GT CO for $400 yesterday to replace my X850XT PE and it's awesome.

[ZuljinRaynor]

7900GT CO here too. :)