Cpl Ledanek Posted February 24, 2006 Share Posted February 24, 2006 Glucosamine Condroitin Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rossiski Posted March 6, 2006 Share Posted March 6, 2006 One other thing. I am building a new pc down the road and I'm curious what a widescreen monitor runs...anything over 19". ← I bought a Trinitron W900 24 inch widescreen CRT off of Craigslist for $100. Weighs 100 pounds too! But I couldn't beat the price. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Logos Posted March 10, 2006 Share Posted March 10, 2006 (edited) Executing Thread Ressurection Protocol #5 Okay, I know many of us are looking to upgrade vidcards in anticipation of GR:AW. A few weeks ago, I recommended that people wait for the 7900's to be released, and now they have. All of these cards are available right now. If you want to read a full review at Anandtech: NVIDIA's Tiny 90nm G71 and G73: GeForce 7900 and 7600 Debut If you want to know in more general terms: Midrange cards: 6800GS - $170 vs. 7600GT - $190 In highend games with resolutions low enough for frames/second of 40+, the 7600GT outperforms the 7800GS by about 12-20%, and for only about $20 more. Highend Cards: 7900 GT - $300 vs. 7800GTX - $410 The 7900GT and 7800GTX perform almost identically, except the 7900GT is $110 CHEAPER and draws 19% LESS power under load. Ultra Highend: 7900GTX 512MB - $540 Battlefield 2 @ 1280x960 4xFSAA 7900GTX - 89 f/s _7900GT - 65 f/s F.E.A.R. @ 1280x1024 4xFSAA 7900GTX - 61 f/s _7900GT - 46 f/s _7600GT - 32 f/s All in all, I'd say the 7600GT is a great deal if you're willing/able to play at 1024x768. On the other hand, if you need/want/must play at 1280x1024/960 or better, the 7900GT looks like the card to get. BTW, if you wait a couple of weeks, these prices will probably drop $10-$20. --Logos Edit: LOL. While I was writing this, the 7900GTX went from in-stock to out-of-stock at Newegg. Edited March 10, 2006 by Logos Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
smokin Posted March 10, 2006 Share Posted March 10, 2006 Ultra Highend: 7900GTX 512MB - $540 Battlefield 2 @ 1280x960 4xFSAA 7900GTX - 89 f/s _7900GT - 65 f/s F.E.A.R. @ 1280x1024 4xFSAA 7900GTX - 61 f/s _7900GT - 46 f/s _7600GT - 32 f/s _ATI 1900xt - $500ish F.E.A.R. @ 1280x960 4xFSAA AtI x1900xtx - 95 fps Ati x1900XT - 92 http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1697,1914656,00.asp If one is looking to get an ultra high end card, they should also look into what ATI is producing. They have more advanced architecture for tommorrows game (Pixel shader processors) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
agentkay Posted March 10, 2006 Share Posted March 10, 2006 The 7900 review on [H] says something else: http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/article.html...W50aHVzaWFzdA== Especially the 7900GT at $300 is a steal. Put on an aftermarket aircooler (Zalman for instance), clock to 600/1500 (people reached 560/1600 on the tiny stock cooler without problems) and it is the best card at that price point hands down. Other thing that should be noted is the extremely efficient architecture of the new 7900 cards, with under 280 million transistors (over 20 million LESS tranistors than the 7800) it performs in the average just like the X1900 which has around 380 million transistors (= more heat, and noise). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
smokin Posted March 10, 2006 Share Posted March 10, 2006 http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2717&p=1 Here is a cool link comparing the best card of ati and Nvidia. Each brand of card has certain games they perform better at, nvidia will have better benchmarks in some game and ati will have better bentch marks in other. From my research the $300 7900gt is a GREAT deal, hands down people should chose that card if this is thier budget. The ATI 1900xt is however the better card for overall performance and future gaming. It out performs nvidia in most benchmarks and while most benchmarks are neck in neck, games that are designed to expolite ati's architecture (pixel processors, and fear) you see ati gain a considerable amnount of FPS over nvidia. You have to shop around, but those high end card are priced pretty much the same. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
agentkay Posted March 10, 2006 Share Posted March 10, 2006 (edited) I wouldn´t say the X1900XT is the better card, but its a good card no doubt. However, it has good sides and bad sides, just like the 7900GT/X. Overall they are quite even, they both have 48 ALUs and similar clocks. ATI has better AF filtering, NV has better AA. ATI has the better memory controller which means the performance hit from AA/AF is 10%-20% smaller in the average than Nvidias. NV has THE best mid-end card (GT) that overclocks easielly to the level of the high-end cards. NV lacks a few features like HQ-AF, or HDR+AA (which doesn´t work on every HDR game anyway, not even in Oblivion, dev-confirmed), but NV has the more efficient architecture and not a gamble architecture like ATIs, which NEEDS extremely shader heavy games to use its full potential. Just check out the results in Shadermark or 3dmark06, which are both the most shader heavy programs to date (games in 2 years might have so many shaders), and the X1900 it not that far ahead at all, but in theory it should since it has more theoretical shader power. If people want to invest into a real futureproof architecture, they should wait (if they can) for the DX10 cards, after all the 7900/X1900 are just the refreshes of the 7800/X1800 cards, meant for people with low 6800/X800 (or lower) cards and for people like that, they offer an impressive performance jump. So every manufacturer has several good/bad sides, and its the personal preferance and the total sum of invidual good/bad sides (some people hate loud cards, others don´t overclock, etc) that should decide whats worth someones hard earned money. Edited March 10, 2006 by agentkay Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Logos Posted March 10, 2006 Share Posted March 10, 2006 (edited) _ATI 1900xt - $500ish F.E.A.R. @ 1280x960 4xFSAA AtI x1900xtx - 95 fps Ati x1900XT - 92 If one is looking to get an ultra high end card, they should also look into what ATI is producing. They have more advanced architecture for tommorrows game (Pixel shader processors) ← Smokin #1 -- Those numbers were taken on a different testbed, so they don't mean much compared to another review that used another testbed. Moreover, the NVidia cards are performing a little closer to ATI's top cards today than they were a couple of month ago when that review was done, presumably because of driver optimizations, with which NVidia is very good. #2 -- And this is the bigger issue -- the numbers you quoted were NOT with 4xFSAA. In that review you're quoting, for 4xFSAA, you have to look at the orange bar, which for F.E.A.R. shows this: F.E.A.R. @ 1280x960 4xFSAA _ ATI X1900XTX - 69 f/s __ ATI X1900XT - 67 f/s __ ATI X1800XT - 56 f/s 7800GTX 512MB - 50 f/s _____ 7800GTX - 39 f/s We have to remember that because we're using different computers, hardware tests are only very rough estimates of how a card might perform on our systems. The one thing they are pretty good for is to compare cards against each other at a particular point in time. To see that comparison, the review I quoted is pretty comprehensive in testing most of today's top models. The review I was quoting had the X1900XT and X1900XTX in it. If we add those numbers in with the same testbed, with the most current drivers, it looks like this: Battlefield 2 @ 1280x960 4xFSAA X1900XTX - 89 f/s _7900GTX - 89 f/s _X1900XT - 88 f/s __7900GT - 65 f/s F.E.A.R. @ 1280x1024 4xFSAA _7900GTX - 61 f/s X1900XTX - 59 f/s _X1900XT - 56 f/s __7900GT - 46 f/s __7600GT - 32 f/s If we look at NVidia's two new cards, what we can see is that both of ATI's highend cards and the 7900GTX perform so close to each other that any one is as good as the other two performance-wise. The two places where the NVidia card has the advantage are power consumption and driver support. As far as ATI having a technological advantage for tomorrow's games because of tripling the number of pixel-shaders per pipeline, how much has yet to be seen, but you're correct; it probably will. However, going ultra high-end this close to DX10 is a mistake. The Radeon 1900 line's innovative multi-shader pipes might make it better than the 7900GTX a year from now on DX10 games, but it won't be better on those DX10 games a year from now than the $300 DX10 compatibles that are released a year from now by ATI or NVidia. Basically, I wouldn't personally shell out $500-$600 for a card today, planning on it being great for midterm or longterm future games -- it simply won't be. If you need to upgrade for a game today, it's better to shell $180/$300 for the new NVidia cards that ATI currently has no competition for at those pricepoints, then upgrade 12 - 18 months from now if you want to with a $300 card that will beat today's $500 - $600 cards in the DX10 games. You never know, even the $200 cards a year from now might beat today's $550 giants in DX10 games. If anyone remembers, in the early days of HL2 DX9 tech demos in 2003, the $200 9600pro outperformed the $450 FX5900 because the 9600pro could run native in the DX9 path and the FX5900 couldn't. We might see that again with today's cards trying to run in DX10. We might not. But I wouldn't bet $550 on it. --Logos Edited March 10, 2006 by Logos Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Logos Posted March 10, 2006 Share Posted March 10, 2006 http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2717&p=1 Here is a cool link comparing the best card of ati and Nvidia. ← Bro, that's the article I was quoting. The ATI 1900xt is however the better card for overall performance and future gaming. ← We don't KNOW that this is true, but I believe you're correct. The thing is, it's not DX10, so who cares? In DX10 games, midrange cards a year from now will beat all these cards we're talking about today. From my research, the $300 7900gt is a GREAT deal; hands down, people should choose that card if this is in their budget. ← And now we are on the exact same page. --Logos Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tangovictor Posted April 13, 2006 Share Posted April 13, 2006 Ok - for those of us not in the PCI-E world... (AGP only here)... have any of you heard of this card manf.? VisionTek Radeon X850XT PE VTKX850XTPEA WB Video Card This card is $309 and the x850xt PE is benching quite well in the marks I've seen - but that is for the ATI or Sapphire cards - and 256 Mem, this is 512. Any alternatives or comments? Model Brand VisionTek Model VTKX850XTPEA WB Chipset Chipset Manufacturer ATI GPU Radeon X850XT PE Core clock 540MHz PixelPipelines 16 Memory Memory Clock 1180MHz Memory Size 256MB Memory Interface 256-bit Memory Type GDDR3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
whoa182 Posted April 13, 2006 Share Posted April 13, 2006 I bought a ATI X850XT P.E and doesn't support HDR I assume GRAW will have bloom effect for cards that dont support HDR? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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