X1900 GT vs 7900 GT

They make noise, too.

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moritz
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X1900 GT vs 7900 GT

Post by moritz » Sat Aug 19, 2006 2:13 am

I was going to get a 7900 GT for my next setup, but then I read Anandtech's Summer Mid Range Roundup, which concludes:
While this has been quite a lot of information to absorb, we will do our best to sort it all out. Not only is the X1900 GT a better performer in most cases than the stock 7900 GT, but with this week's price cuts the ATI part offers an incredible value advantage. Essentially, this week we are able to get $300 performance for $230.
And he's right, the X1900 GT is faster and is a lot cheaper in the couple of stores I looked - about 200 EUR instead of 250 EUR for the 7900 GT. 250 is the limit I set for graphics cards, incidently.

So - is there anything wrong with a X1900? I've never had an ATI before, this would be a first. But then I haven't had an Intel CPU since my Celeron 300A. ;) I do seem to recall that the current ATI GPUs have a much higher power consumption than the Nvidias? Is it prohibitively high? The Anandtech article also recommends to wait for a few weeks for some mysterious upcoming cards, but I really don't feel like waiting for that long for something that will most likely turn out to be some absurd high-end beast.

Thanks for any guidance!

Mats
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Post by Mats » Sat Aug 19, 2006 5:26 am

The X1900GT consumes more power than 7900GT.
More heat, and if you'll end up in a situation where you have to swap PSU too, it can become expensive.

moritz
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Post by moritz » Sat Aug 19, 2006 5:34 am

Dang. Thanks for the link. I'll have to replace my PSU, anyway, so the price is still way in favor of the X1900 GT, but 75 over 45W is signifcant. On the other hand, the difference at idle isn't, which is where noise matters most to me. -sigh-

Mats
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Post by Mats » Sat Aug 19, 2006 7:05 am

You just wait a couple of weeks and you'll see what happens with the prices. nVidia can't keep those prices when the only advantage is low power, something the vast majority don't care about (yet).

moritz
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Post by moritz » Sat Aug 19, 2006 7:14 am

Yeah, that's what I'm hoping now.

Gorsnak
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Post by Gorsnak » Sat Aug 19, 2006 7:51 am

Are 7900GTs still experiencing all those artifacting issues? I read a 5-page thread on the Arstechnica forums about everyone and their dog rma-ing those things over and over again, and the eVGA support forum....yikes. Scared me into going with a X1900GT. I'd tell you about how it works, but I'm still waiting for my RAM to arrive for the new build.

dexton
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Post by dexton » Sat Aug 19, 2006 7:56 am

Mats wrote:The X1900GT consumes more power than 7900GT.
More heat, and if you'll end up in a situation where you have to swap PSU too, it can become expensive.
On the other hand, ATI cards seems better at balancing the load between +12V and 3.3V+ rails.

Devonavar
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Post by Devonavar » Sat Aug 19, 2006 12:08 pm

One interesting thing that I learned during the Condor review: As a general rule, the X1900XTX did not consume any more power than our 6800GT. The only time the power consumption even approached the huge peaks that it is known for is when the SM3.0 engine was enabled. If the X1900GT is built on the same chip as the XTX, this should still hold true.

So, if you're willing to sacrifice SM3.0 (and especially if you're planning to use the card for established games that don't support SM3.0), an X1900-based system could well be reasonably easy to cool.

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