£350, what card do i get?

Blue Cypher · 10 May 2006 at 21:35

Hello everyone, I have £350 to spend on a graphics card, and i was wondering which one do i get? i have an A8N premium mobo so i think an nvidia card would get the most out of it.
I was thinking of maybe buying a 7900 Gtx but i was wondering is it worth the money or are there better cards out there?

Thx for replies in advance

Darkwave · 10 May 2006 at 21:40

I would most definitely go for the Sapphire X1900XT at £311 inc. VAT if I were in your shoes, but if you want the best of the best then I would most certainly reccommend the Sapphire X1900XT-X for £352 inc. VAT instead.

Both are a bit faster than the 7900GTXs overall, and support Shader Model 3.0 HDR and antialiasing (at the same time), something completely exclusive to the X1800 and X1900 series of graphics cards.

MeatLoaf · 10 May 2006 at 21:42

If it were me, id get the gainward 7900GTX.

Pulsedriver · 10 May 2006 at 21:43

7900GTX, without starting a fanboy thread, I've had the X1900XTX, good cards, just too loud.

wellibob · 10 May 2006 at 21:43

Yep i`d still think i`d go for a 7900GTX at the present time.

PinkFloyd · 10 May 2006 at 22:26

Exsomnis said:
I would most definitely go for the Sapphire X1900XT at £311 inc. VAT if I were in your shoes, but if you want the best of the best then I would most certainly reccommend the Sapphire X1900XT-X for £352 inc. VAT instead.

Both are a bit faster than the 7900GTXs overall, and support Shader Model 3.0 HDR and antialiasing (at the same time), something completely exclusive to the X1800 and X1900 series of graphics cards.

Quoted for truth

Redswipe · 10 May 2006 at 22:28

SeanyK said:
7900GTX, without starting a fanboy thread, I've had the X1900XTX, good cards, just too loud.

I bought an X1900XTX from OCuk a few weeks ago and because I had heard horror stories about the noise (all true I discovered!) I bought an Artic Cooling Accelero X2 Cooler at the same time.

It transformed the noise it created from something akin to a dustbuster to a slight whisper

It cools it better as well.

thefranklin · 10 May 2006 at 22:35

Yes, if you do get better performance for the x1900, but get a cooler with it and you will love it.

Tommy B · 10 May 2006 at 22:39

X1900XT HIS ICEQ SILENT.

Clocks to above XTX speeds and runs cooler than most XTXs.

LoadsaMoney · 10 May 2006 at 22:47

SeanyK said:
7900GTX, without starting a fanboy thread, I've had the X1900XTX, good cards, just too loud.

Yeah but for the price of the 7900, he could get the x1900 and a zalman.

Pulsedriver · 10 May 2006 at 22:51

The problem with that mate, is he may not want to void his warranty, its all well saying he can replace it back if need be, but we all know what sod's law is... and we know what would happen!

The HIS ICEQ version is worth considering, but the 7900GTX's can be found elsewhere much cheaper than those.

fullfat · 10 May 2006 at 22:58

this noise issue is very over rated imho.
go for the x1900xt mate, thats what i would do anyways. if its just for HDR+AA then youre winning already

LoadsaMoney · 10 May 2006 at 23:01

SeanyK said:
The problem with that mate, is he may not want to void his warranty, its all well saying he can replace it back if need be, but we all know what sod's law is... and we know what would happen!

The HIS ICEQ version is worth considering, but the 7900GTX's can be found elsewhere much cheaper than those.

Yeah, but all hes gota do is put the stock cooler back on and RMA it.

I agree about the noise being very over rated, my x1800 isnt loud at all, and its the same cooler, hardly picks up from its quiet 2D windows speed, they are only loud for about 3 secs when you first turn your mahine on as they run full speed, then settle to their 2D quiet mode, and as i said mine hardly picks up from that.

Blue Cypher · 10 May 2006 at 23:14

So the x1900 is better? its going to be used for all the latest games by the way. I mean the 7900 is newer so does it not have newer features?

G.O.A.T · 10 May 2006 at 23:16

Blue Cypher said:
So the x1900 is better? its going to be used for all the latest games by the way. I mean the 7900 is newer so does it not have newer features?

To be fair it's six of one and half a dozen of the other, either :

Gainward BLISS Geforce 7900 GTX 512MB GDDR3 TV-Out/Dual DVI
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatalog/Online_Catalogue_7900_Series_358.html

or

HIS Excalibur ATI Radeon X1900 XT ICEQ 3 SILENT Heatpipe 512MB
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatalog/Online_Catalogue_X1900_Series_501.html

Both are around the £350 mark, read some reviews around the net to see which would suit the games you want to play best. ATI still sucks at OpenGL but could be seen as aimed at titles yet to be released (must ...not..say future proof) due to the math-op-shader heavy architecture. Having used both sets of drivers lately I have been impressed with the stability and robustness of both offerings.

Blue Cypher · 10 May 2006 at 23:19

Got any links for those cards GOAT because i cant find them on google, not the exact ones anyway.

Also my processor wont be a bottleneck will it, its a AMD 3700+ overclocked to 2.87 Ghz?

fullfat · 10 May 2006 at 23:25

cpu is fine i reckon

or atleast the best youre gonna get

lay-z-boy · 10 May 2006 at 23:28

arh....

what is with the bs about the coolers, they are loud on startup and thats it, besides, if you can afford such a price, you can either afford an arctic cooling x2 or watercooling tbh.

Blue Cypher · 10 May 2006 at 23:29

Thx for the links GOAT much apreciated, i still cant decide! i may go for 7900 because i have a mobo which sides better for it ( sli etc!)

Darkwave · 10 May 2006 at 23:29

Blue Cypher said:
So the x1900 is better? its going to be used for all the latest games by the way. I mean the 7900 is newer so does it not have newer features?

Unfortunately "newer" does not always mean better, comparing a Geforce Ti 4600 vs. a Geforce FX 5600 is a fantastic example of this.

The X1900 series generally outperforms the 7900 series in all but a few games (mostly OpenGL ones if I recall correctly) and has better features such as AVIVO and the ability to render HDR and antialiasing at the same time.

As others have mentioned, the X1900 series is hotter and louder than the 7900 series, but without bias it is my opinion that this is the only saving grace for the 7900 series at the moment. Besides, it's very cheap and easy to fit a Zalman VF900-Cu to the X1900 and drop temperatures like a stone while making it compleretly silent to boot. I just installed one of them on my X1800XT and I have come to the conclusion that anyone who doesn't buy one of these coolers is utterly mad, wether they are using ATi or Nvidia.

Last but not least is the question of your particular motherboard and also of SLi. If you plan to go dual-card sometime in the future, and under no circumstances intend to replace your current motherboard, then I strongly suggest you go for the 7900GTX instead of the X1900XT or X1900XT-X. This is the only reason to consider your motherboard though, because both ATi and Nvidia cards perform exactly the same in any PCI-E 16x slot. nForce boards are not Nvidia biased except for SLi, and Crossfire boards are not ATi biased except for Crossfire.