7900 Collated Reviews Thread

testa12 · 9 Mar 2006 at 17:47

MR.B said:
Better image quality my ass. And a more noisey fan aswell. Cleary the better card huh? lol.

Trust me, I owned a 7800GTX 512 and the graphics quality is much better since I moved to the X1900XTX. To the best of my knowledge there are no suggestions that the image quality on a 7900 will be any better than the 7800.

As for the fan, yes it is more noisy at start up for sure and perhaps marginally more noisy in general. But if thats what makes your mind up then fine, but I personally prefer to have decent quality graphics than a quiet fan

Goksly · 9 Mar 2006 at 17:48

Its totally person specific... just like TFT's.... When im playing games the missus cant stand the blur on my tft, but I dont notice it.
In this situation I would rather have a slightly aliased telephone wire, then a shimmering floor.

And yeah - on the subject of the fan, I only notice how loud it is when I benchmark, as they are generally silent. In windows the fan is inaudiable (and I have my shuttle on top of my desk) and in games the fan is easily out done by the in game sounds.
So yeah, in benchmarks it can be a tad annoying, but in all real world situations, its very acceptable - but again - personal pref :}

welshtom · 9 Mar 2006 at 17:49

MR.B said:
Ok, so worser shimmering with nVidia hardware but better AA, especially with supersampling + transparent AA as the last 2 comparison pics show in the link i posted. I think that makes 'em pretty equal. So people should stop saying ATI have better image quality because they dont.

Plus nvidia take a bigger hit on performance to get the so-called better AA

TheMeekon · 9 Mar 2006 at 17:50

The shimmering is very bad since i got my Dell 2405. Gonna try a x1900xt in the coming weeks too see what they are like. I just have such bad luck with ATI cards, three faulty cards i have had :mad:

Arcane · 9 Mar 2006 at 17:51

The shimmering pretty much disappears when you set the CP to high quality.

TheMeekon · 9 Mar 2006 at 17:53

Arcane said:
The shimmering pretty much disappears when you set the CP to high quality.

Its always on high Quality

Edit* Oops was actually on quality today. Forgot too change after driver change

Thought it was worse today

Goksly · 9 Mar 2006 at 17:53

Arcane said:
The shimmering pretty much disappears when you set the CP to high quality.

But then there will be a performance hit. Not sure what all review sites are doing, but most reviews seem to be using driver defaults which seems to be a tad unfair if people are going to have to use high quality if they want to be rid of a bug?

testa12 · 9 Mar 2006 at 17:59

Is this the same bug that NVIDIA have supposedly known about for a long time but not fixed yet?

egt · 9 Mar 2006 at 18:00

MR.B said:
Better image quality my ass. And a more noisey fan aswell. Cleary the better card huh? lol.

Thanks for the link. Thats got to be the most convincing article to finally prove once and for all that ati does not have better IQ (so it really was a myth) In fact, from those comparison pics, Nvidia definitely has better IQ. Take a look at the tree branches in HL2 :eek:

As for shimmering, there is a lot of unhappy ati owners HERE Check it out

Arcane · 9 Mar 2006 at 18:05

I've always run at high quality as I'd read the issue with shimmering was resolved that way so I can't comment on it's performance hit, I've read it's minimal and as everything ran fine at HQ I've never bothered testing.

I'm undecided on what to buy now, both options look very tempting and as I got good prices for my 7800 GTX's on Fleabay I've got the cash to put back in...

speeduk · 9 Mar 2006 at 18:25

From what I can see reading the firingsquad and anand reviews (most rep in my opinion) the x1900XTX is faster than the 7900GTX - especially in F.E.A.R over 1600x1200 which is mostly gpu bound anyway.

Also check those COD2 reviews on the new cat 6.3's - even x1800 is faster than 7900GTX.

D.P where does it show the 7900 faster than the x1900? :confused:

As for noise - my X1900XT is perfectly quiet.

:confused:

00fil00 · 9 Mar 2006 at 18:28

Well all the reviews i have read show ati ahead either by a bit or a whole lot. if the 7900gtx was below the xtx in price then it would be hard to judge, but as its above the xtx price by a whole lot for no gain?? it really is a no brainer. are people here REALLY considering an overclocked XFX 7900 at 700core for like £500 just to be EQUAL or few frames ahead of 1900xtx at £340??? why not just buy an xtx?! makes no sense to me.

Devious · 9 Mar 2006 at 18:34

00fil00 said:
Well all the reviews i have read show ati ahead either by a bit or a whole lot. if the 7900gtx was below the xtx in price then it would be hard to judge, but as its above the xtx price by a whole lot for no gain?? it really is a no brainer. are people here REALLY considering an overclocked XFX 7900 at 700core for like £500 just to be EQUAL or few frames ahead of 1900xtx at £340??? why not just buy an xtx?! makes no sense to me.

Especially when the XTX's over clock well too. I wonder how far the 7900 GTX EE will overclock? Or are they already throttled to the limit.

easyrider · 9 Mar 2006 at 18:38

00fil00 said:
Well all the reviews i have read show ati ahead either by a bit or a whole lot. if the 7900gtx was below the xtx then it would be hard to judge, but as its above the xtx price by a whole lot for no gain?? it really is a no brainer. are people here REALLY considering an overclocked XFX 7900 at 700core for like £500 just to be EQUAL or few frames ahead of 1900xtx at £340??? why not just buy an xtx?! makes no sense to me.

No.

you can get a 7800 GTX for 40 quid more if you have a SLI mobo and overclock it I would have thought to 700 mhz

The cheapest xfx 7900 GTX runs at 650 core so I would have thought a 50 mhz overclock would be easy to achieve.

Also ATI have just cut the prices.I think in few weeks the GTX's will settle and they will be on par with each other price wise.

Having said that I have seen GTX's for 369 inc vat putting it in the same price bracket as an x1900XTX

speeduk · 9 Mar 2006 at 18:40

easyrider said:
No.

you can get a 7800 GTX for 40 quid more if you have a SLI mobo and overclock it I would have thought to 700 mhz

The cheapest xfx 7900 GTX runs at 650 core so I would have thought a 50 mhz overclock would be easy to achieve.

Also ATI have just cut the prices.I think in few weeks the GTX's will settle and they will be on par with each other price wise.

Having said that I have seen GTX's for 369 inc vat putting it in the same price bracket as an x1900XTX

Yeah but if you shop around I am sure you could find a cheaper XTX etc and in a few weeks time they could be cheaper.

easyrider · 9 Mar 2006 at 18:45

speeduk said:
Yeah but if you shop around I am sure you could find a cheaper XTX etc and in a few weeks time they could be cheaper.

But ATI is not an option with people who want to go SLI.

And I'm sure that the XTX's will not drop that dramatically either after the current price drop purely because of the 7900 release.

00fil00 · 9 Mar 2006 at 18:45

easyrider said:
No.

you can get a 7800 GTX for 40 quid more if you have a SLI mobo and overclock it I would have thought to 700 mhz

The cheapest xfx 7900 GTX runs at 650 core so I would have thought a 50 mhz overclock would be easy to achieve.

Also ATI have just cut the prices.I think in few weeks the GTX's will settle and they will be on par with each other price wise.

Having said that I have seen GTX's for 369 inc vat putting it in the same price bracket as an x1900XTX

i dont really understand what you are saying.
you can get a 7800 gtx for 40 more? eh? your saying 7800gtx is more expensive than what?
yes you can get a cheap 7900 gtx and overclock it to 700 but the point is, even if you do that you are still behind in speed for £20 - £40 MORE money. it still doesnt make sense. why not buy xtx?

easyrider · 9 Mar 2006 at 18:46

00fil00 said:
frames ahead of 1900xtx at £340??? why not just buy an xtx?! makes no sense to me.

show me a link on OCUK where you can get a XTX for 340?

don't you mean a XT

smids · 9 Mar 2006 at 18:48

easyrider said:
show me a link on OCUK where you can get a XTX for 340?

don't you mean a XT

PowerColor for £352 XT-X

Connect3D £346 XT-X

easyrider · 9 Mar 2006 at 18:49

00fil00 said:
i dont really understand what you are saying.
you can get a 7800 gtx for 40 more? eh? your saying 7800gtx is more expensive than what?
yes you can get a cheap 7900 gtx and overclock it to 700 but the point is, even if you do that you are still behind in speed for £20 - £40 MORE money. it still doesnt make sense. why not buy xtx?

because the small outlay extra will allow users who want to go SLI and have SLI mobo achance to get another 7900 GTX in due course.

I don't wont to be stuck with a single 1900 xtx in my pc .

I want the option for 2 GTX's if i so wish.