7900GTX vs. X1900XTX - Consolidated Results

[Elfear]

Originally posted by: ChiSoxFan
Is the lack of Nvidia HDR+AA something that can be fixed with a driver update or are you SOL with a current gen card? I have a 7800GT and am thinking about going to a 7900 GTX or X1900XT and am hoping to be able to use both with my 480W power supply, but the HDR+AA is something I'd like to have. BTW, nice summary to the original poster. That was very helpful.

No problem.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe the HDR+AA feature is hardware related and can't be fixed with drivers.

 

[5150Joker]

Originally posted by: DeathReborn

Originally posted by: 5150Joker

Originally posted by: nib95

Originally posted by: beggerking
how about adding extremetech and xbitlib reviews to the chart? both have good reviews.

I agree, and I still think HardOCP should be added.
I cant belive they could be that bias when lately they have pointed out many negative factors of Nvidia cards.

Once the Rage3D one goes up, you should definately add that too.

HardOCP is very biased, doesn't matter if they mentioned the shimmer issue or not. The facts over the years speak for themselves:

1. Kyle defended nV's cheats while blasting ATi for the "quack" bit.
2. They welcome AEG trolls like Rollo to their forum.
3. When they were reviewing a system I believe that was made by Voodoo that had an ATi chipset in it, the BFG 7800 card was defective yet Kyle was quick to lay the blame on ATi.
4. In their X1900 review, they decided to speculate on an upcoming 32 pipe 7900 which of course we all know was a dream.
5. Their initial denial of the shimmer issue - they were criticized for it so much that they finally had no choice but to acknowledge it.
6. Their 7900 review performance numbers don't line up with everyone else - a lot of them are out of whack.

Don't want to derail Elfear's thread but I'm glad he didn't add in [nV]OCP to the chart.

Give it a rest joker, you're fast headed nito the same areas Rollo did. Keep dragging up AEG and you'lljust end up hated and maybe even banned from AT. Stop calling everyone that doesn't agree with your OBVIOUS ATI BIAS a AEG "employee" or a "tRollo" as it just makes you look more and more desperate.

Hard[OCP] may well be biased BUT they are a much better source for information than you. So by your own standards you should stop posting benchmarks, opinions & ridiculous FUD so that threads can maintain their so called "unbiased purity".


What I want to see is 2048x1536 with AA & AF on SLI Setups and also 16x12 & 19x12/14 using OC'd X1900XT & XTX along with GT & GTX OC'd. I also want to see more Single vs Dual COre CPU's used in comparative tests so people can see the real world gaming performance difference.

Do you know how to read, genius? Point me to where I called anyone besides Rollo an AEG troll? HardOCP isn't a good source of information if it's colored with bias. I don't care about their testing methods.

 

[Munky]

Originally posted by: Elfear

Originally posted by: ChiSoxFan
Is the lack of Nvidia HDR+AA something that can be fixed with a driver update or are you SOL with a current gen card? I have a 7800GT and am thinking about going to a 7900 GTX or X1900XT and am hoping to be able to use both with my 480W power supply, but the HDR+AA is something I'd like to have. BTW, nice summary to the original poster. That was very helpful.

No problem.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe the HDR+AA feature is hardware related and can't be fixed with drivers.

Correct.

 

[RobertR1]

Can we not turn this into another begger vs. joker thread?

 

[Elfear]

Originally posted by: FalllenAngell

Originally posted by: Elfear

Originally posted by: jayanath
btw whats ur opinion of 7900gtx and 7900gt

X1900XT(X) but it lacks some of the features that I find nice (HDR+AA......

So have you been using the reduced precision HDR+AA on Far Cry and Serious Sam2 much?

I have actually and I must say it looks absolutely incredible in FarCry. I'll probably play it through again just for the added visual effects.

Originally posted by: beggerking
how about adding extremetech and tomshardware reviews to the chart? both have good reviews.

I'm not adverse to adding more sites to the list. I'm not a big fan of Tom's so I probably won't add it unless the results look comparable to other more reputable sites. I didn't add Hardocp's results because the way they do their benchmarking makes it very hard to quantify the results. I really don't feel like adding a hundred little notes next to each benchmark because they change the settings so much.

 

[DeathReborn]

Originally posted by: 5150Joker

Originally posted by: DeathReborn

Originally posted by: 5150Joker

Originally posted by: nib95

Originally posted by: beggerking
how about adding extremetech and xbitlib reviews to the chart? both have good reviews.

I agree, and I still think HardOCP should be added.
I cant belive they could be that bias when lately they have pointed out many negative factors of Nvidia cards.

Once the Rage3D one goes up, you should definately add that too.

HardOCP is very biased, doesn't matter if they mentioned the shimmer issue or not. The facts over the years speak for themselves:

1. Kyle defended nV's cheats while blasting ATi for the "quack" bit.
2. They welcome AEG trolls like Rollo to their forum.
3. When they were reviewing a system I believe that was made by Voodoo that had an ATi chipset in it, the BFG 7800 card was defective yet Kyle was quick to lay the blame on ATi.
4. In their X1900 review, they decided to speculate on an upcoming 32 pipe 7900 which of course we all know was a dream.
5. Their initial denial of the shimmer issue - they were criticized for it so much that they finally had no choice but to acknowledge it.
6. Their 7900 review performance numbers don't line up with everyone else - a lot of them are out of whack.

Don't want to derail Elfear's thread but I'm glad he didn't add in [nV]OCP to the chart.

Give it a rest joker, you're fast headed nito the same areas Rollo did. Keep dragging up AEG and you'lljust end up hated and maybe even banned from AT. Stop calling everyone that doesn't agree with your OBVIOUS ATI BIAS a AEG "employee" or a "tRollo" as it just makes you look more and more desperate.

Hard[OCP] may well be biased BUT they are a much better source for information than you. So by your own standards you should stop posting benchmarks, opinions & ridiculous FUD so that threads can maintain their so called "unbiased purity".


What I want to see is 2048x1536 with AA & AF on SLI Setups and also 16x12 & 19x12/14 using OC'd X1900XT & XTX along with GT & GTX OC'd. I also want to see more Single vs Dual COre CPU's used in comparative tests so people can see the real world gaming performance difference.

Do you know how to read, genius? Point me to where I called anyone besides Rollo an AEG troll? HardOCP isn't a good source of information if it's colored with bias. I don't care about their testing methods.

I can read perfectly fine thank you very much. Just look up your responses to beggarking, Crusader et al yourself if you want to see how blatantly moronic you have been acting.

HardOCP may be tinted green, you are glowing bright Red and it shows. Not long after Rollo left you actually posted something that wasn't negative about nV and I honestly thought you may just have been impartial. Next day, you were right in there promoting ATI and picking at nV at every chance you got.

As for the tests i'd like to see that's in GENERAL, not from HardOCp, altho if they did that i'd very happily read it and draw my own conclusions.

 

[moonboy403]

man....everything thread is somehow turning into an ati vs nvidia thread

or maybe joker vs begger

and when's this aeg/troll thing's gonna stop?!
it's past us now

 

[DeathReborn]

Originally posted by: moonboy403
man....everything thread is somehow turning into an ati vs nvidia thread

or maybe joker vs begger

and when's this aeg/troll thing's gonna stop?!
it's past us now

These threads do degenerate into petty fighting quite quickly don't they.

Beggar does tend to invite the hassle he gets and joker just keeps trolling the same topics (AEG, AF, Branching etc) in threads that have no mention of them until he joins in.

Perhaps the Mods should take both to one side and lecture them in laying off it and getting back to civilisation.

 

[darkdemyze]

Originally posted by: moonboy403
man....everything thread is somehow turning into an ati vs nvidia thread

or maybe joker vs begger

and when's this aeg/troll thing's gonna stop?!
it's past us now

When someone is willing to grow up and admit the other one is right or just swallow their pride and let the other one feel like they're the big man even if it's not true.

 

[ronnn]

Nice consolodation. Thanks. No clear winner here at this point. Will have to see how the heat, and power usage work out for ati. I am hoping that another die shrink may help ati on this front and the g80 may be quite close, which hopefully will improve the current iq deficits. Interesting how both companies have awesome cards with very obvious negatives. So I suggest pick your poison and enjoy gaming.

 

[Acanthus]

Originally posted by: nib95
Looks good, also looks like the X1900 takes the lead 22-15 to ATI.
However if you took away that 5% rule, it might look different. Because truth is, even 5% counts in reality.

Great post btw.

not really... you cant see 5%

 

[Acanthus]

Originally posted by: Elfear

Originally posted by: Crusader
Theres a lot of intangibles in favor of the 7900s as well.
But say we call the performance a wash.. just to avoid nitpicking over 5% again and again.

• The Geforce 7900 has these qualities over the competing solution:
  Lower power consumption, run cooler, run quieter, have SLI capability (scales better than Crossfire which requires special master cards and special motherboards), as well as cheaper pricing.

• The X1900 has this advantage:
  HDR+AA

The rest.. Purevideo vs AVIVO.. while nice, I dont think too many truley care about. Ive had PVP since my Geforce6.. and with my soon-to-be 7900GT I still wont be using it. But that might be a concern for some here.

Best SFF PC pick (by far)- 7900GT
Best High End pick (close one)- 7900GTX
High End Alternative (if you just cant stand using Nvidia)- X1900XTX

Here's my take:

7900GTX advantages:
1) low noise
2) low heat (although it is dissipated inside the case)
3) lower power consumption (for those users who would like to save $2.00 each month on their electric bill)
4) ability to do 8xSSAA on old games or at low resolutions

X1900XT advantages:
1) HDR+AA
2) HQ AF
3) Less shimmering
4) software voltmods (for overclockers this is a huge plus, hardware voltmods are expensive and tricky)
5) Less expensive (right now that is, will probably change in the near future)

one minor thing, hardware volt mods are about 80 cents at radio shack.

 

[Capt Caveman]

FWIW - I'm interested in seeing how these two cards perform w/ Elder Scrollsblivion when it comes out on March 20. Currently, I'm leaning towards the X1900XT. However, the G80 is suppsed to be out in June. Correct? If so, I wonder if waiting til the end of the month or til April to buy an EVGA 7900GTX would be a good thing b/c I could then step-up to a G80 when it comes out. Just a thought.

 

[DeathReborn]

Originally posted by: ronnn
Nice consolodation. Thanks. No clear winner here at this point. Will have to see how the heat, and power usage work out for ati. I am hoping that another die shrink may help ati on this front and the g80 may be quite close, which hopefully will improve the current iq deficits. Interesting how both companies have awesome cards with very obvious negatives. So I suggest pick your poison and enjoy gaming.

QFT.

What a way to celebrate 2,000 posts, a sensible post. gz

ronnn
Platinum Member

Posts: 2000
Joined: 05/22/2003

 

[Acanthus]

Originally posted by: 5150Joker

Originally posted by: DeathReborn

Originally posted by: 5150Joker

Originally posted by: nib95

Originally posted by: beggerking
how about adding extremetech and xbitlib reviews to the chart? both have good reviews.

I agree, and I still think HardOCP should be added.
I cant belive they could be that bias when lately they have pointed out many negative factors of Nvidia cards.

Once the Rage3D one goes up, you should definately add that too.

HardOCP is very biased, doesn't matter if they mentioned the shimmer issue or not. The facts over the years speak for themselves:

1. Kyle defended nV's cheats while blasting ATi for the "quack" bit.
2. They welcome AEG trolls like Rollo to their forum.
3. When they were reviewing a system I believe that was made by Voodoo that had an ATi chipset in it, the BFG 7800 card was defective yet Kyle was quick to lay the blame on ATi.
4. In their X1900 review, they decided to speculate on an upcoming 32 pipe 7900 which of course we all know was a dream.
5. Their initial denial of the shimmer issue - they were criticized for it so much that they finally had no choice but to acknowledge it.
6. Their 7900 review performance numbers don't line up with everyone else - a lot of them are out of whack.

Don't want to derail Elfear's thread but I'm glad he didn't add in [nV]OCP to the chart.

Give it a rest joker, you're fast headed nito the same areas Rollo did. Keep dragging up AEG and you'lljust end up hated and maybe even banned from AT. Stop calling everyone that doesn't agree with your OBVIOUS ATI BIAS a AEG "employee" or a "tRollo" as it just makes you look more and more desperate.

Hard[OCP] may well be biased BUT they are a much better source for information than you. So by your own standards you should stop posting benchmarks, opinions & ridiculous FUD so that threads can maintain their so called "unbiased purity".


What I want to see is 2048x1536 with AA & AF on SLI Setups and also 16x12 & 19x12/14 using OC'd X1900XT & XTX along with GT & GTX OC'd. I also want to see more Single vs Dual COre CPU's used in comparative tests so people can see the real world gaming performance difference.

Do you know how to read, genius? Point me to where I called anyone besides Rollo an AEG troll? HardOCP isn't a good source of information if it's colored with bias. I don't care about their testing methods.

Youve called me and beggarking both AEG...

Go away.

 

[akugami]

I find the two high end cards to be remarkably similar in terms of performance. I'm going to have to give the edge to the X1900 for extra features as well as better image quality. One thing I'm puzzled with is a lot of sites only listing the benchmarks for the X1900XTX and not the X1900XT in their 7900 reviews. I think it's much more likely for someone to buy an XT than an XTX.

Crusader. The nVidia SLI solution also requires a special motherboard.

If you go SLI, you kinda throw out the power and heat savings you get from a single card solution and it's something many seem to neglect to mention. But SLI is a much more mature platform than Crossfire and if you plan a multi-GPU system, SLI is the way to go.

One thing that really sticks out to me is nVidia's lower power requirements which should mean cooler video cards. I'm also surprised that they reduced the transistor count by so much while retaining the same level of performance as the 7800GTX 512MB. This means that even at the same price ranges, and assuming almost every other part they use are roughly the same in cost, it would mean nVidia makes more money on their GPU's and potentially it would mean cheaper video cards in the long run. Consumers win.

I actually like HardOCP's philosophy as far as reviewing video cards go. While unfortunately the way they review the performance means that no two runs are going to be exact, they try to duplicate real gameplay instead of canned benchmarks. You also see the various dips and rises in the frame rates instead of just seeing an average fps. You see the min/max/avg framerates so you can see how a game truly performs. Huge pluses and it's unfortunate more sites don't adopt a similar style of benchmarking. It's more time consuming but IMHO it's a good way to show alternative performance ratings in addition to the standard canned time demo's and the like. Again, I don't see it as a replacement for standard benchmarking but as an addition to it.

Now, I was always of the opinion that the 7900GTX would be a 7800GTX 512MB except on a more widely available basis. I'm disappointed to see I was right because I was really hoping for nVidia to trounce ATI and make my job of which video card to buy easier. As it is I'm going to take a bit of time to mull over the results and look at a few more forums and see what the folks are saying before making a final decision. I'm still leaning towards remaining with ATI at the moment though due to the higher IQ and graphics features as well as the promise of AVIVO video encoding acceleration. That and the fact that much when I last upgraded video cards, there was no clear cut winner (6800vsX800) and that I was still using ATI. Very similar to the situation now. I plan to get an AMD X2 CPU along with the new video card so I'll just take a little more time to mull things over like I said.

These are just ramblings that I'm putting down as it pops into my head.

 

[moonboy403]

actually....firingsquad just did a review on the ultra high resolution of dell 3007 with 7900 gtx sli and xtx crossfire

from what they tested, gtx sli came out on top in 3 out of 4 games they tested (including fear although xtx beats out gtx in single configuration)
one thing that's interesting was the min framerates of the gtx sli in comparison to the xtx crossfire
gtx sli's min framerate was MUCH higher than the crossfire (i guess crossfire needs more work and driver improvements?)

ati's crossfire only won cod2, but they won it with a pretty big margin

 

[CaiNaM]

Originally posted by: Matthias99

Originally posted by: beggerking

Originally posted by: Matt2
One thing is undeniable.

If you want a multi-GPU system, there is no other choice but 7900GTX SLI

agreed. Crossfire is just not mature enough.. and the dongle is plain awful..

OMG IT HAS A DONGLE!

Give it a rest... nobody cares what they use to connect the cards, as long as it performs well. At least, people who actually care about things like performance or cost rather than how many lighted fans their case has.

That said, SLI does seem to be more mature right now (although still not without its issues).

I really don't understand the assertion that the 7900GTX SLI is the "only choice" for a multi-GPU system; a 7900GT SLI is still way faster than any single card, especially if you can overclock them. Even a 7800GT SLI can beat pretty much anything except an X1900XTX. The 7900GTX SLI is clearly the fastest solution available right now, but it's far from the only viable one.

i don't like the dongle, and the fact is that's not the only issue with crossfire.

other issues are noise/heat, power consumption, poor chipset features, poor chipset performance. the truth is if you're really interested in performance and stability (not to mention the plethora of great sli motherboards - many of which ppl already have), not the mention ati's requirement in having an expensive (so far thier prices have not "adjusted") master card, SLI is the clear winner if multi-gpu setup is in your future.

price being equal tho (ati's prices are starting to fall in line), i think i'm gonna go ati this round manly due to HQ AF and less texture crawl (yes, it IS there in ati parts as well) - but the possibility of adding a second gpu later keeps giving me second thoughts...

 

[RussianSensation]

Originally posted by: Matt2
One thing is undeniable.

If you want a multi-GPU system, there is no other choice but 7900GTX SLI

Why test cards at 4AA only without exposing their true potential? Many people forget that these cards can display 8AA/14AA/ 16AA and still provide playable framerates. If I purchased 2 7900GTX or X1900XT cards i'd surely want to enable as many image settings as I could while still maintaining 50+ frames. With these settings ON Nvidia gets owned:

SLI gets smoked part 1
SLI gets smoked in almost every game part 2
And the latest Firingsquad 7900 gtx sli and xtx crossfire roundup is garbage because they don't use AA at all.

Also, with 2 graphics cards the point of having HDR and AA enabled in games is a strong one since 2 cards can actually handle it. So besides the dongle issues and overpriced Crossifre cards and Xpress 3200 boards, Crossfire destroys SLI for playability factor imo.

 

[CaiNaM]

Originally posted by: RussianSensation

Originally posted by: Matt2
One thing is undeniable.

If you want a multi-GPU system, there is no other choice but 7900GTX SLI

I disagree with this statement entirely. Many people forget that these cards can display 8AA and 14AA/ 16AA and still provide playable framerates. With these settings ON Nvidia gets owned:

SLI gets smoked part 1
SLI gets smoked in almost every game part 2

Also, with 2 graphics cards the point of having HDR and AA enabled in games is a strong one since 2 cards can actually handle it. So besides the dongle issues and overpriced Crossifre cards and Xpress 3200 boards, Crossfire destroys SLI for playability factor.

"destroys"? this is the kind of highly subjective, unsubstantiated, color-tainted adjective that gets people's feathers ruffled and flamefests going.... and frankly, i haven't really seen a use of HDR that really enhances a game. lost coast is perhaps the best implementation so far, but it's only a tech demo (and it uses shaders so those with nv cards CAN apply AA as well).

personally i feel the HQAF is a much more useable feature for ati...

 

[Topweasel]

Originally posted by: nib95
I think what we need to see is 7900 GTX OC'd vs X1900 XTX OC'd results.
because the average review site X1900 XTX OC is 680/1600 and for the 7900 GTX 700/1750.
These kinds of OC's are pretty much garuanteed with both cards.

So the real test would be how these compare.

Nib My problem with that is this, ATI suppliers don't have models that do 680 they are just known to be overclockable to that amount. Nvidia suppliers do provide cards running at higher rates, XFX has one running at 700MHz. I want to see retail vs. retail thats the better option its more truth full then a review doing reviews based off of their own ocing limits. That and it doesn't viod the warranty, which no matter how many times people say EVGA covers OCing they infact don't because any failure even a fan failure can be pointed back to ocing as the cause (eg.. A oced card runs hotter so the fan has to run at the higher speed long making the fan die earlier then projected).

 

[RussianSensation]

Originally posted by: CaiNaM

"destroys"? this is the kind of highly subjective, unsubstantiated, color-tainted adjective that gets people's feathers ruffled and flamefests going.

Please check the benchmarks I actually linked. There is nothing subjective about ATI Crossfire setup consistenly providing faster framerates (still playable) at 14AA/16AA settings while Nvidia's setup struggles.

 

[moonboy403]

it is a fact that ati > nvidia in that department

but when someone's alreayd at 1600x1200

who really needs more than 4aa/16af (i know i don't)?

hmm...but i guess someone would really crave for 8aa..idk

 

[beggerking]

Originally posted by: RussianSensation

Originally posted by: CaiNaM

"destroys"? this is the kind of highly subjective, unsubstantiated, color-tainted adjective that gets people's feathers ruffled and flamefests going.

Please check the benchmarks I actually linked. There is nothing subjective about ATI Crossfire setup consistenly providing faster framerates (still playable) at 14AA/16AA settings while Nvidia's setup struggles.

comparing 7800 gtx 256 sli vs 1900xtx cf isn't quite fair..

 

[moonboy403]

it's actually comparing 7900 gt/gtx sli