Help? 7900GTX | X1900XTX

[politbureau]

Wow, great feedback, thanks all!

 

It is a tough call - I'm compelled to go with the 7900GTX for several reasons, including the ability to SLI it with my existing card later on. But the XTX seems to post the best benchmarks in all the games I play, at least at higher resolutions - which is what I'd be playing at.

 

Drivers are another reason I like nVidia - seem to be a lot more options out there in this regard. Either that or I'm lazy and don't want to have to relearn the whole game again with ATI! But honestly, my current choice of drivers for my GTX is primarily based about increasing IQ - a moot point with the XTX since it is already much better in this.

 

Price is the other factor - the XT/XTX is just cheaper right now than the GTX, by $40-60, which is nothing to laugh at. However this is mitigated by the fact that I would consider it almost a reqiurement to upgrade the cooling on the XTX ASAP, especially if I was considering even the mildest overclocking. Adding an AC Accelero would bring the difference closer to $5-10, at which point the line becomes blurred again...

 

Sigh, so many decisions...

[red930]

The stock cooler, even though it's just a compact jet engine, can cool pretty well. At idle it keeps my X1900 oced from stock to 732/1700 from 625/1450.. i'm happy

 

right now I can barely hear the fan, and ATItool is reporting 65C.

 

Your call, if you want to upgrade cooling look at the VF-900 from Zalman too.

[Sorrento]

hmm, ATI cards run pretty hot... but thats "pretty normal"

 

My 9800XT ran between 65° C (winter) and 75° C (summer with A/C off)... and it was ok, but it overheated the inside of the case a lot. I tried an Arctic Silencer thingy, but it only lasted less than a year before its fan went bad... now I am using the Thermaltake Tide Water thing and to my suprise it lowered the temperatures during the summer to winter standards, nearly double the amount of degrees the Silencer had done before.

 

Only problem for that thing is how huge it is, it takes 2 pci slots. I am only using it to decrease the case temperature and to overclock the 9800XT a little bit... however at normal temperatures or 75° C the card worked normally, almost as if it was its normal temperature.

[red930]

hmm, ATI cards run pretty hot... but thats "pretty normal"

 

My 9800XT ran between 65° C (winter) and 75° C (summer with A/C off)... and it was ok, but it overheated the inside of the case a lot. I tried an Arctic Silencer thingy, but it only lasted less than a year before its fan went bad... now I am using the Thermaltake Tide Water thing and to my suprise it lowered the temperatures during the summer to winter standards, nearly double the amount of degrees the Silencer had done before.

 

Only problem for that thing is how huge it is, it takes 2 pci slots. I am only using it to decrease the case temperature and to overclock the 9800XT a little bit... however at normal temperatures or 75° C the card worked normally, almost as if it was its normal temperature.

 

damn man

 

i have no idea why my cpu temps are reported by EVERYTHING except sandra as 60 load.. maybe now that i think of it it's cause i have ballistix toasters and an x1900 furnacing my case sensors

 

ati's are hotass, one of their major MAJOR setbacks

 

but then again all gfx are.. *shrug*

[Sorrento]

nVida cards aren't that hot... I have an IR Thermometer here and when I point it to the PCB of my 6800GT's, or my new 7950GX2 it gives me warm temperature readings... but if I point it to my 9800XT's PCB, or my friend's x850XTPE or any other ATI the reading is really really hot... its like the ATI cards are some kind of a furnace or something.

 

IMO this is not a real setback, on the contrary... ATI cards seem to be ok at these temperatures, while nVidia cards aren't and like one of my old 6800GT's can suffer damage if the temperature gets too extreme.

 

Have any of you think why ATI cards don't have lifetime warranty like nVidia's XFX and eVGA have??? At first we would think they don't have lifetime warranty because they aren't as good as the nVidias... but I think the later ones offer the warranty as part of their PR advertising campaign only, and probably suffer more RMA's and warranty claims than their ATI counterparts. This is just a theory of course, I like both brands and take the good things from each one only.

[politbureau]

Sorrento - ditto the IR thermo (I have a Fluke 62, what do you have?) - the hottest 'surface' temp in my case is the PWMIC, which reads anywhere from 32-40 degrees. My 7900GTX with the Accelero is hottest on the back side, directly behind the GPU, where the PCB reads 39-44 degrees.

 

My X850XTPE on the other hand, reads 46-54 degrees on the back of the PCB... quite a bit hotter.

 

OT, but I've always wanted to find a thermal camera and take a few shots of a computer while it's running, to really see where the heat's at... That way one could place heatsinks and fans only where they're needed. Oh and this Fluke 62 IR thermometer is the bomb. Highly reccomended - available on ebay sometimes for under a hundred bucks, it's a gun style, so easy to aim into cases, and it shows both current and max temp in the display.

 

BTW, the AC Accelero is an awesome cooler - actually I keep wanting to do a mini review of it sometime. While it only lowered my temps by a couple degrees (2-3 degrees at idle, and 4-5 degrees at load) it is much quieter than the stock cooler, and the fan sound is 'smoother,' which less mechanical noise.

 

Peace

[Sorrento]

A thermal picture would be ideal... good idea

[politbureau]

Just read a review over at Anandtech which included the XTX and GTX....

 

The XTX is on average about 7% faster than the GTX across all games, with a couple exceptions. The GTX wins in Battlefield by 4-5%, but the XTX owns Oblivion and Quake4 (12% and 25% faster respectively).

 

Considering this was a review of the non-overclocked parts, I would assume with the added headroom of the XTX, it would be a better overall investment. Since the XTX is seeing average overclocks of about 12/16% (core/mem) compared to the 7/11% of the GTX (based on a few dozen web reviews I looked up), the XTX fully rocked out should be quite a bit faster than the GTX.

 

There is still the issue of purchasing an aftermarket cooler, but as this is really a requirement for any serious overclocking anyway, kind of a moot point.

[Darkorb]

but u cant sli it on that mobo

[politbureau]

Some benchies I found online for the OC'd version of the 7900GTX vs the X1900XTX.

 

http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=30856

 

Too bad this doesn't compare the OC'd version of both cards.nVidia pretty much spanks the XTX here, but again, it's not exactly a fair fight - OC'd vs non-OC'd.

Interesting though it's almost a dead heat in the HQ settings, and that where one card does take a lead, it's the XTX, and by a fair margin.

Also interesting how 3Dmark 03 & 05 favour the 7900GTX by a wide margin (26/7.2%).

[politbureau]

but u cant sli it on that mobo

Yeah, which is one of my major considerations.. Hence why this is such a tough decision!

[cmay119]

I don't know if anyone had mentioned this yet, but you said this will be running a 24" Dell widescreen, but noted that it needed to push 1680x1050 resolution. The max resolution of both the Dell 2405 and Dell 2407 is 1920x1200. Although both monitors scale nicely down to 1680x1050 wouldn't you want the card to be able to push the native res?

 

To do that well, I'd suggest either SLi or atleast the X1900XTX as a single card solution.

 

If you go with SLi, you could throw in 2x7900GT's as well that should be able to handle oblivion just fine at the resolution.

 

Good luck with your decision, yes it is difficult, but that's half the fun.