Which card?

FireElements

Which card?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814102697
This

or

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814150139
That

Which one will be better? I'm kind of leaning towards the X1800XT.

fobis

X1800xt, Imo.

Tipstaff

They are both pretty much the same performance wise. The 7900GT beats out the X1800XT by a bigger margin in OpenGL games (as usual), but only by a slim margin with DirectX games. However, since the X1800XT comes with 512MB of ram you should see that lead reverse with games that load lots of textures into memory.

Thing is, is it worth paying $110 more for?

FireElements

It's only $10 more.

Alien1

Both of these sollutions have their advantages and disadvantages

but as a future-proof sollution the X1800 probably sounds better

Tipstaff

Ops.. Sorry.. I accidentally hit an extra 1.

Anyways, I was sort of being sarcastic. The jest was that if you get almost identically the same performance in most games, yet better performance for games that will upload a huge amount of textures into memory (such as Doom on Ultra setting), for $10 more the X1800XT is the better deal.

'Course.. instead of being sarcastic I could have just said, "I would go with the X1800XT".

The_Neon_Cowboy

X1900gt ???

Tipstaff

Personally I'd buy that card instead, however they range from about $100 to $200 more than the ones he is looking to buy.

otaku.net

wow, another ati vs nvidia..... but anyway, i'm for ati.... the extra ram is one of the main reason... but imo, my main reason would be crossfire..... lets say that if u want to add another graphics there in the future, ati will be more flexible than nvidia's sli...... cheaper also.......

H3X4D3C1M4L

Yeah but SLI is more mature.

That said ATI has weathered the storm very well IMO and pulled out a nice platform.

Tipstaff

Plus with their upcoming cards, and possibley with revisions of current cards you won't need to buy special master cards (or Crossfire Edition cards) since all of them will be technically master capable, or need the external cable. Infact, this is already available with the X1300, and X1600XT.

OmegaRED

That XFX 7900 GT easily beats an X1800XT once overclocked and at stock beats it in the majority of the tests I've seen. CoD2 is the only game that comes to mind where the ATI card had a noticable lead.

FireElements

Well I'm pretty much set on the Radeon X1800XT. I like ATI better than NVIDIA anyways.

OmegaRED

Either are good cards, you gotta pick based on the games you play. CoD2 and Oblivion (HDR+AA) are good reasons to go for ATI but BF2 and all the Nvidia favored games are why I'm switching over. That and the X1800 is almost 100 bucks more than the 7900GT at the Canadian retailers I've been checking out.

kingsownall

isnt bf2 more of a shader intense game? but i recommend the 1800 over the 7900 since most games i play are more shader intense. but if u play opengl games like doom or quake. 7900 is th way to go. but its on ur personal preference anyway. im ati fan boy

Alien1

These is wrong

There is also a majority of directx games that the 7900 with latest driver is the winner even compared to X1900 and not only to X1800

7900 is not only a winner in the OpenGL games as you think
it has it's victories in some DirectX game titles as well (of course ATI has the most DX victories with AA\AF at maximum settings)

It's pretty competitive with the latest X1900 series in several fronts according the drivers you are using of course

OmegaRED

A lot of people don't realize the 7900 GT actually beats the 7800GTX and we know how that stacked up against ATI's x1800 series. The 7900GT can also be overclocked to GTX levels which pulls it ahead of its predecessors.

http://www.legitreviews.com/article/322/11/

FireElements

If you are showing the 7900GT overclocked why don't you show the X1800XT overclocked.

AlexM105

http://firingsquad.com/hardware/sapp..._xtx/page6.asp

Games that have nVidia's marketing all over them don't mean they run better on nVidia hardware.

OmegaRED

To be fair that is x1900 series it greatly improved upon the X1800.

You are right I would have liked to have seen both overclocked.

If you do decide to get the X1800XT from Sapphire tell us how it turns out. I found that same card for identical price as the BFG 7900GT OC so I might get it instead...I'd like to see some head to head X1800XT vs 7900GT before I decide

FireElements

I just ordered the X1800XT from Newegg.

AlexM105

My point was to show that even though BF2 has nVidia's marketing ALL over it, it still runs better on ATi's cards. Marketing is a very powerful thing, and many people fall for it.

Far Cry was released with nVidia's marketing, but ATi's cards have always had a lead in that game. The X800 and X850s were ALWAYS ahead of the 6800s... Now they've just about evened up, unless you count HDR+AA, then ATI still leads the game.

Look at Oblivion....


http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/...ance/page5.asp

Again, my point is that games with "nVidia" on them don't always mean they run better on nVidia hardware. Don't be fooled by them!

kingsownall

indeed its just a marketing ploy to take all ur money

OmegaRED

That is not entirely true it is a fact that with the previous generation (X800/6800) Nvidia cards performed much better in BF2 and other Nvidia optimized games.

The X1900 series is the undisputed king and we all know that but as far as the X1800XT goes for every benchmark it wins it loses 2 more to the 7900GT.

Also those Oblivion benchmarks are misleading here are some on the top 3rd party cards.



And on overclocking:

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/200...dtohead/9.html

OmegaRED

Btw I'm in the same position as FireElements I'm trying to decide between the X1800XT and the 7900GT if you've got a link where they test BFG,XFX, or EVGA against ATI's model that would help.

H3X4D3C1M4L

For the 7900's as long as clock speed is the same they'll perform the same

The_Neon_Cowboy