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Budget Cards

Schleppel

Schleppel

Schleppel

Associate
Joined
6 Nov 2007
Posts
30
The X800Xl in my system is starting to really struggle with games, so I am going to replace it.

My system is based around an Athlon 64 X2 4600, 2Gb of ram an a 20 in dell monitor with a resolution of 1680-1050. I am not sure about forking out on a 8800GTS just at the moment as, it seems that it's DX10 performance is in doubt and I wont be upgrading to vista until I upgrade the rest of the system in a year or so, by then there will hopefully be more choice.

So I am after a budget or second hand card off fleebay. I am looking at

Nvidia = 7900GTX 512 Mb of ram

And

ATI = X1950 pro or xt

Out of these what would people recommend ?
 
I'd easily recommend a Radeon X1000 series card over a Geforce 7 series one purely on the basis of having superior image quality. The X1950Pro and X1950XT are both brilliant cards and will serve you well.
 
Looking at the specs and some benchmarking in magazines, the XT only comes in 256Mb, but with my monitor would 512 be better? which brings it down to The X1950Pro and the 7900GTX, the latter seems to be about 20% more powerful in games. How much of a difference it there in the image quality ?

Going to want to be at least able to play things like Stalker and fear even if not at my monitors highest res.
 
The x1950xt did come in 512mb form and was faster than the 7900gtx.

The prices are dropping at the moment due to the new 8800gt which offers stunning performance for lowish prices.

What's your budget and what PSU do you have?

gt
 
That one is certainly on my short list, however looking at some benchmarks on web and a well know magazine, the 7900GTX seems to come out on top by about 15FPS and stalker was unplayable on the x1950pro at my monitors native whilst the 7900GTX just managed it.

I don't want ot get the x1950pro and find that I really needed somthing just a little more powerful.
 
the x1950 pro should do the job....and it should run on your PSU... (15 and 14a 12v rails are pretty weak...)....otherwise 7900s are very energy efficient in comparison and perform reasonably well also.


However, if you can find a reasonably priced 7900GTX then that's quite a good card as well. Significantly faster than the x1950xt in the majority of games and consumes about 75% of the power as well. Although I would still say that your PSU is not sufficient to run it.

People always go on about the image quality in the 7900s vs x1900s but I have had many 7-series cards and many ati cards and the truth is you can't tell a darned bit of difference unless you take a screenshot and examine it very closely.
 
Well If I can find a second hand one on fleebay (should not be difficult) It might be a good excuse to get a powerful PSU. I will wait and see if it works. On subject of PSU's anyone recommend a quiet one with modular cables ?
 
That Overclockers X1950 PRO, looks a good price the second hand ones are going for nearly £70 , anyone know what the going rate for 7900GTX is second hand ?
 
i went from a power color x800gto 256mb to the (ocuk) triplex 1950 pro 256 mb
and the performance is slightly more than double :)

A64 3700 @2.64
1 gig cheapo ram

it ran crysis demo at medium very smoothly and was playable on high @1024x768.

awesome card for the money but not sure about your res mode :)
 
Yrkoon said:
i went from a power color x800gto 256mb to the (ocuk) triplex 1950 pro 256 mb
and the performance is slightly more than double :)

A64 3700 @2.64
1 gig cheapo ram

it ran crysis demo at medium very smoothly and was playable on high @1024x768.

awesome card for the money but not sure about your res mode :)
Click to expand...

Same for me with X800XT PE to X1900XT on just about the exact same system except my 1gb of DDR is the corsair that's in my sig. Felt like it was about double the power. Shame it can't be said for the jump to the 2900 with AA applied :(. The X1900 range has been successful since day1 so I feel confident that Schleppel will enjoy firing up some new titles to test :).

Off topic/ Is your CPU stepping CABGE by any chance Yrkoon as my overclock on my first 3700+ was the exact same (spooky). I could run 2.7Ghz no problem but it wasn't stable @ 1.55v in prime.
 
my overclock is limited my 939 dual vsta wont let me up the voltage past the stock 1.4 :P

had it up to 2.72 ghz but wasnt prime stable due to lack of voltage or windows stable for that matter booted xp but not vista :P

revision sh-e4 on cpu z bought it oem here last september i didnt look at the print on the cpu before i slapped the heat sink on so not sure of exact stepping :)
 
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