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Should I upgrade to a GX2?

phill9800

phill9800

phill9800

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Bridgwater, Somerset
A very good friend has offered me his XFX Extreme GX2 PCI-Express graphics card for £250.. Funds are tight at the moment for myself, but I was wondering would this card be a good upgrade for me, as I have a X1900 XT anyways??

I'm using a Conroe E6600 at the moment with the X1900 XT and performance is mind blowing for me... Upgraded from a AMD X2 4600 @ 2.9Ghz and its just laughing at it, even at standard clock!! :D

Just wondering what you guys thought :)

Many thanks!!
 
If he offered me the card, what would be a good price for me to say yes then? £200 or something? :confused:

If its only another £40 I'll stick with my X1900 XT and get a GTX or even a new ATI card when I can afford an upgrade!! :D
 
Yeah, if you're spending that much then there's no point in getting anything other than an 8800GTS.

Save your money for now, see what R600 has to offer, and get an 8800GTS/GTX if you're unimpressed. :)
 
GX2 is a very good card, and if you find a x1900 xt mind blowing then the performance would probably kill you :P plus the GX2 can easily be overclocked by 25% on most cards without too much trouble... however for £250 ish you might as well save the extra for a 8800GTS as the previous poster said... the GX2 might have the performance advantage in some games - tho mostly it runs about the same as an 8800GTS... but is lacking DX10 functionality, can't do FSAA+HDR which the 8800 can and is based on SLI rather than being truly one card, while I'm yet to find a game I can't managed to get it running at full speed in, it would be better to have the one card with the 8800GTS.
 
For £200 the GX2 would give you blinding performance, I deffinatly wouldn't spend any more money than that tho on one now.

I think what you need to do :P is ask yourself, does your current system play all the games you play now and any in the immediate future at a playable fps and with the quality settings you require...
 
Does anyone know when the ATI's new card is coming out?

I will hold off and see what happens... By the sounds of it I could be killed!! :eek: :p :D
 
I bought one for £225 about a couple of months ago. £200 would probably be about right!

But the 8800gts should also be considered if you have the extra cash!

The GX2 can in some cases beat the 8800gts but it is a bit temperamental regarding it's sli functionality (sometimes it doesn't activate properly leaving you with only one core doing the work - at that point it's nothing better than something like a 7900gt)! The GTS would be far more reliable in gaming terms as it works purely as a single card!

If you still want a GX2 despite hearing this i can recommend it as an exceptionally fast card. It plays everything i give it with all options maxed and the resolution at 1680x1050!

gt

edit: like all the above said! :rolleyes: Doh... too late again!!! :(
 
The only thing is, eventually I'm going to be upgrading to two 24" TFT monitors because I want the extra screen size and screen res.. 1280x1024 isnt big enough for me anymore, so with the 24" models, I think (from what I've been reading) 1920x1200 is the size they manage..

I'm so far, unsure which model to go for because I hear good and bad things about a few of the models, but this is what I'm thinking of mainly...

Would my X1900 XT be enough to run at 1920x1200 with some settings turned on?
I dont think it could handle it could it??

I think if anything mind, I'd wait till the ATI card makes a showing and go from there... I've liked ATI cards and more so the HIS models... I just hope my 520w OC Z Mod Stream can keep up!! :D
 
gt_junkie said:
The GX2 can in some cases beat the 8800gts but it is a bit temperamental regarding it's sli functionality (sometimes it doesn't activate properly leaving you with only one core doing the work - at that point it's nothing better than something like a 7900gt)!
Click to expand...

This has caught reviewers out a few times (claiming incorrectly the card can't do SLI in certain games, etc.) and unfortunatly lead to a bad reputation for the card amongst certain groups of people... however I find this only happens if you do a lot of testing/benchmarking different games and applications in a row or after changing the settings a lot and can be corrected usually by simply toggling single and multi-GPU mode a couple of times. Its doesn't happen frequently enough (atleast for me) to be annoying and I don't think I've seen it happen at all with the latest (93.81) beta drivers.
 
phill9800 said:
The only thing is, eventually I'm going to be upgrading to two 24" TFT monitors because I want the extra screen size
Click to expand...

in multi GPU mode the GX2 will ONLY (excuse the caps) drive ONE monitor, you have to drop it to single GPU mode (basically a slightly faster version of a 7900GT) to run 2 displays with this card... you'd be much better off with a different card.

Unfortunatly a X1900 XT would struggle to run 1920x1200 at a decent quality level and still get playable fps all of the time. You might be better off in the short term seeing if you can crossfire that setup? if your card and motherboard support it and you can find another compatible x1900 (don't think you need a master any more but might do with the older card dunno)... if its possible it should be a lot cheaper and give you most of the performance of a GX2.
 
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Rroff said:
in multi GPU mode the GX2 will ONLY (excuse the caps) drive ONE monitor, you have to drop it to single GPU mode (basically a slightly faster version of a 7900GT) to run 2 displays with this card... you'd be much better off with a different card.

Unfortunatly a X1900 XT would struggle to run 1920x1200 at a decent quality level and still get playable fps all of the time. You might be better off in the short term seeing if you can crossfire that setup? if your card and motherboard support it and you can find another compatible x1900 (don't think you need a master any more but might do with the older card dunno)... if its possible it should be a lot cheaper and give you most of the performance of a GX2.
Click to expand...

I wasnt meaning both screens at once (apologises, thats my fault) I'm just meaning I want to buy two 24" screens for the two PC's I have to replace the two 19" screens I have...

I dont want to go SLI or Crossfire as at the moment I wont use the power of both of the cards as I dont have the screen size at the moment.

I think the GTX or the new ATI card that comes out seems like the better option for me...
 
ah

I beg to differ - even at 1280x SLI or crossfire is justified, even at this res a single 7900GTX can't power all the latest games at high or ultra quality at 100% playable fps all of the time...
 
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