Make up my mind - X1900XT-X or 7900GTX

locutus12 · 17 Apr 2006 at 17:13

SeanyK said:
7900GTX, cooler, quieter, just as good if not better overall.

I've had nothing but trouble with ATi's drivers lately, and they ARE loud, contrary to what many people say.

untill you throw in some AA and AF, then it starts to suck compaired to the ATI offerings. and if you want HDR + AA youve got no chance

Darkwave · 17 Apr 2006 at 17:21

SeanyK said:
7900GTX, cooler, quieter, just as good if not better overall.

Cooler and quieter... Until you put a VF900-CU on it, and you could buy almost four of those with the price difference between an X1900XT and a 7900GTX.

As for performance, is a couple of FPS really worth £75+ more? The X1900XT will still pull ahead in high-res with AA+AF, and can do AA+HDR.

7900GTX = Big, fat waste of money.

Flanno · 17 Apr 2006 at 17:23

Well, from what I have seen on early comarative reviews with cat 6.2's, nvidia are ahead on most games at 1600 with 4xaa/16xaf. Must look for reviews with cat 6.3/6.4 as that might be a different story. Of course no hdr/aa simulataneously on nvidia cards is a bit dissapointing. Is this a driver thing or by design ?

Darkwave · 17 Apr 2006 at 17:24

Flanno said:
Of course no hdr/aa simulataneously on nvidia cards is a bit dissapointing. Is this a driver thing or by design ?

It's in the hardware.

Flanno · 17 Apr 2006 at 17:25

Besides Oblivion is there going to be many games that let you use hdr/aa and at playable framerates ?

Darkwave · 17 Apr 2006 at 17:28

Flanno said:
Besides Oblivion is there going to be many games that let you use hdr/aa and at playable framerates ?

I don't see why not, if it's not already optimised to do it in the game code then no doubt ATi could rig a patch up like the Chuck patch.

They're probably working on one for Far Cry as we speak, at least I hope so.

westie17 · 17 Apr 2006 at 17:31

Anything using HDR?

Darkwave · 17 Apr 2006 at 17:37

westie17 said:
Anything using HDR?

It's only enabled for SM3.0 HDR in Oblivion at the moment, but since other games also use SM3.0 HDR I can't see why ATi wouldn't be able to engineer a patch for those games too.

Duke · 17 Apr 2006 at 17:39

X1900 XT with the new Zalman cooler.. quiet and overclockable \o/

man_from_uncle · 17 Apr 2006 at 17:49

I've been lead to believe that there are some cheaper 7900gtxs out there (cheaper than you can get on this site at least). Availability is limited though, so if you do find one for the same price as a X1900XTX then you'll probably be waiting weeks for it to come in.

If I had the wonga, and a fresh machine with no previous drivers, i'd probably go for a X1900XT + Zalman vf900 over either the X1900XTX or the 7900GTX. (dead pleased with my 7900gt though, best value card out of the lot if you're prepared to do the volt mod).

trojan698 · 17 Apr 2006 at 17:49

The XT-X has better ram iirc, 1.1ns compared to 1.4ns on the XT. correct me if I'm wrong

R B Customs · 17 Apr 2006 at 17:56

i just cant see the logic in going for the Geforce...
ive had 2 Geforces and 3 ATIs, there was no hesitation swappign between the companies at all. i just went for performance / price
its allready been summed up by too many people here
the ATI is cheaper, most of the time better... AND you can run HDR and AA at the same time !! we all know how crap games look with no AA... even 2x is better than nothing.
i dont find the x1900 loud, its silent at idle although i have altered the fan profiles. but even so.. who games with the speakers on Mute anyway ?

Mul · 17 Apr 2006 at 17:56

yeh the XTX has 1.1ns ram. nevertheless the XT clocks well and in most cases gets to XTX speeds.

I'd also say X1900XT due to it's Price: Performance ratio

Mul

Darkwave · 17 Apr 2006 at 18:03

man_from_uncle said:
I've been lead to believe that there are some cheaper 7900gtxs out there.

There can be cheaper anything out there if you look hard enough. As this is OCuk, let's stick with OCuk prices, instead of having posts erased for discussing competitors.

The cheapest 7900GTX on this site is something like £380, and that's if we count ones that are out of stock or on pre-order, it's simply over-priced when you can get an X1900XT-X for ~£350 or an X1900XT (which is still as good as, if not better than, a 7900GTX) for ~£310, and the stock indicator is a nice shade of green.

trojan698 said:
The XT-X has better ram iirc, 1.1ns compared to 1.4ns on the XT.

I think you're right, but I don't think it's worth spending £50+ extra for when the XT performs just as well and can overclock to XT-X speeds anyway.

speeduk · 17 Apr 2006 at 18:33

SeanyK said:
7900GTX, cooler, quieter, just as good if not better overall.

I've had nothing but trouble with ATi's drivers lately, and they ARE loud, contrary to what many people say.

90mm tornado = loud.
x1900 on bootup = loud.
x1900 running in a cool case under load = quiet.

Flanno · 17 Apr 2006 at 19:08

One of my mates just came over with his rig and set it up. He is running a fairly quiet Gibabyte aurora case, Enermax liberty, and x1900xt. It is definitely very loud on bootup and settles down in windows. No doubt about it. But still too loud for me I think. My btx case just uses a single quiet 80mm fan for cooling the hard drive and a very quiet 120mm fan which pulls in air over the cpu and accross the video card area. It is so quiet, all I can hear is the buzzing from my CRT. It annoys me so much I will probably have to get an LCD soon. And a 1900xt would be way too noisy, even in windows. Of course with a Zalman cooler that would change, but then I am sure if I was running at XTX speeds, this would mean also having to run the zalman at more then minimum settings to maintain decent cooling, which would still be too loud for me. And of course all that hot air is not being exhausted is it ? I think I am going to get the 7900GTX. It will run quieter and cooler and I won't have to worry about my psu being put under pressure.

Nobski · 17 Apr 2006 at 19:19

Flanno said:
I think I am going to get the 7900GTX. It will run quieter and cooler and I won't have to worry about my psu being put under pressure.

Happy to put your £300 + GPU under pressure but not your far cheaper £40 ish PSU = bye bye £ £ £

Flanno · 17 Apr 2006 at 19:57

Nobski said:
Happy to put your £300 + GPU under pressure but not your far cheaper £40 ish PSU = bye bye £ £ £

What are you on about ? The system I have is a Dell 9150 which has a 375w psu. While it can actually run a 1900xt-x, since the 9150 is now sold with the 1900xt-x as an option, it would do so under a fair bit of load, and not leave much juice left over for say a physx card. The 7900GTX on the other hand uses considerably less power (about the same as a 7800GTX), and so the psu would be working less hard, not to mention much quieter. I could have course replace the psu, but that would involve finding an atx psu with the exact same measurements as the 375w (probably not too hard), plus a fairly messy wiring job. For those reasons, plus the fact I have heard my friends ati x1900 and find it too loud under windows - I am going to order a 7900gtx. The only question is whether I order a stock one or wait for the XFX extreme versions to come into stock.

Darkwave · 17 Apr 2006 at 20:07

Flanno said:
I have heard my friends ati x1900 and find it too loud under windows.

X1900XT/XT-X + Zalman VF900-CU = Much cheaper and better than any 7900GTX (even the ones not in stock, which is most of them.)

Flanno · 17 Apr 2006 at 20:16

Exsomnis said:
X1900XT/XT-X + Zalman VF900-CU = Much cheaper and better than any 7900GTX (even the ones not in stock, which is most of them.)

At what voltage ? At 12v this runs too loud. At 5v it is silent, but is it enough to cool an XT-X ? I suppose you could get a fan controller for it rather then use the zalman fanmate but I cannot belive the zalman at 5v will cool an xt-x under load as well as the stock cooler, which at least exhausts the air out the back.

<edit> I have just read some good reviews of the Arctic Cooling Accelero X2 cooler. This would solve the noise issue on the ati card for sure, and as I have a btx case which is what these are designed to run in, the heat that rises off it should be caught by the 120mm fan as it blows air through the cpu heatsink (which is at the front of my case) and out the back of the case </edit>

Also, when you say it's much better then a 7900gtx - are you talking about cooling/temps, because if you are talking about benchmarks, please post some links. I have seen about half a dozen reviews so far and the 7900gtx is as fast and sometimes faster then a 1900xt-x in most gaming benches at 1280 or 1600 with 4xaa/16x af.