x1900 xfire or 7900 sli ??????

mattio1980 · 12 Mar 2006 at 14:12

right iv got the dosh for 2 new gfx cards and im also wanting a new mobo

do i

1) Asus A8R32-MVP Deluxe ,1x x1900xt xfire edition ,1x x1900xtx

or

2) Abit AN8-32X nForce4 SLi 2xBFG GeForce 7900 GTX OC 512MB

whats goner be better ??? i just dont know want all your thoughts

tnx

phileeny · 12 Mar 2006 at 14:22

Sorry to jump in your thread, I'm in the same boat as you but I'm looking for which of the fastest ATI X1900 and Nvidia 7900 is the quietest.

KizZ · 12 Mar 2006 at 14:36

I'd go for the Xfire route if it was me. As far as I know SLi is only optimized for some games and crossfire works for everything.

chaparral · 12 Mar 2006 at 14:50

KizZ said:
I'd go for the Xfire route if it was me. As far as I know SLi is only optimized for some games and crossfire works for everything.

You got be joking..

SLI is better by far.

http://www.simhq.com/_technology2/technology_077c.html

egt · 12 Mar 2006 at 14:59

There will be less heat and power consumption with the SLi solution plus you don't need a master card

pieman109 · 12 Mar 2006 at 15:01

But the IQ will be better with Xfire.

JonnyGLC · 12 Mar 2006 at 15:02

egt said:
There will be less heat and power consumption with the SLi solution plus you don't need a master card

Take what he says with a pinch of salt

chaparral · 12 Mar 2006 at 15:04

A random name said:
Take what he says with a pinch of salt

Can you show me one review that shows the 7900gtx getting anywhere near the heat and power of the x1900xt cards.

The x1900xt cards are well know for running very hot and having very high power requirements.

egt · 12 Mar 2006 at 15:04

A random name said:
Take what he says with a pinch of salt

Which part of my post don't you agree with?

Naffa · 12 Mar 2006 at 15:31

SLi... the 7900GTX outperforms the X1900 so logically they would in SLi. even though the new RD580 chipset has been released, i still think SLi would be the better option.

LoadsaMoney · 12 Mar 2006 at 15:55

Wait for the cat 6.5's beginning of May, and go x1900 crossfire, you'll save even more money then as the master cards are not required anymore, so you won't have to pay extra for the master card.

7900 doesn't outperform the x1900, they are about on par, but the x1900's are cheaper.

sja360 · 12 Mar 2006 at 15:59

LoadsaMoney said:
Wait for the cat 6.5's beginning of May, and go x1900 crossfire, you'll save even more money then as the master cards are not required anymore, so you won't have to pay extra for the master card.

wasnt that only the lower end cards x1300's? as i believe there wasnt enough bandwidth on the Pci-e bus to cope with transfers between two x1800/x1900's?

D.P. · 12 Mar 2006 at 16:16

KizZ said:
I'd go for the Xfire route if it was me. As far as I know SLi is only optimized for some games and crossfire works for everything.

Incorrect, SLI has better support over wider games and that is shown in reviews. X-fire is not very efficient as it is still a hack solution.

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2717&p=15

In general, SLI edges out CrossFire in most cases. Under F.E.A.R., Quake 4 and BF2 at high resolutions, SLI shows a larger performance increase than CrossFire. Splinter Cell does do a good job of showing the potential of Crossfire, but as of now we don't see as many games scaling as well with CrossFire as they do with SLI.

Need to wait until R600 or even later for ATI to have a bottom-up Multi-GPU solution like Nvidia.

D.P. · 12 Mar 2006 at 16:17

LoadsaMoney said:
Wait for the cat 6.5's beginning of May, and go x1900 crossfire, you'll save even more money then as the master cards are not required anymore, so you won't have to pay extra for the master card.

7900 doesn't outperform the x1900, they are about on par, but the x1900's are cheaper.

You'll still neeed a master card though!

7900s will a be a lot cheaper by May time anyway!

D.P. · 12 Mar 2006 at 16:22

pieman109 said:
But the IQ will be better with Xfire.

The AA will be better on NV cards though!

ACESHIGH · 12 Mar 2006 at 16:29

The X1900XT cards perform same as the 7900GTX cards, but are cheaper.
Also ATI still have better IQ still by all accounts. Personally i would suggest going the ATI route. But get 1x X1900XT card now & wait as stated above for new cats which should allow crossfire with two standard X1900 / X1800 series cards on mobos with Dual X16 SLI (such as the Asus A8N32-SLi Deluxe nForce4 SLi X16)

dread base · 12 Mar 2006 at 16:31

I recomend ATI definatley.

egt · 12 Mar 2006 at 16:32

D.P. said:
Incorrect, SLI has better support over wider games and that is shown in reviews. X-fire is not very efficient as it is still a hack solution.

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2717&p=15

Need to wait until R600 or even later for ATI to have a bottom-up Multi-GPU solution like Nvidia.

Agreed, Sli has a comfortable lead there.

D.P. · 12 Mar 2006 at 16:34

ACESHIGH said:
The X1900XT cards perform same as the 7900GTX cards, but are cheaper.
Also ATI still have better IQ still by all accounts. Personally i would suggest going the ATI route. But get 1x X1900XT card now & wait as stated above for new cats which should allow crossfire with two standard X1900 / X1800 series cards on mobos with Dual X16 SLI (such as the Asus A8N32-SLi Deluxe nForce4 SLi X16)

By most accounts ATI have worse AA IQ! and by all accounts there is barely any visible difference. And by all accounts most people don't stare at single pixels being different

LoadsaMoney · 12 Mar 2006 at 16:38

D.P. said:
You'll still neeed a master card though!

Not on the Xpress 3200 chipset, and the CAT 6.5's, x1800/x1900 won't need master cards anymore.