GPU options...Time to upgrade

[darrensen]

It's getting to that point of the year where i upgrade my PC.

The options i have are

7900GTX
7900GT
X1900 XT
X1900 XT-X

I have seen a few head to head reviews on the 7900 GTX and X1900 XT-X. It's hard to work out whats best. All depends on what you play?? I did notice that the X1900 XT-X is very loud, is that the same with the XT?

What one do you think is the best card on the market? Please be honest as i know there are a lot of Nvidia and ATi fanboys out there.

Going from what i have read the 7900GT seems best bang for buck.

Thanks all

Darren

EDIT: or worth waiting for the 8 series nvidia?

[Syd]

I'm in the same boat, have a 6800GT thats good, but I feel the itch and want to upgrade, have been thinking about a 7800GTX 256 that our freinds at scan do on today only for about £250 which is cheaper/ very similarto the 7900GT, but the x1800XT are looking cheap too!

[darrensen]

Not sure if i should give ATi a god this time. Not really ever going to use SLI as i'll fall behind with technology if i went with 2 cards. Might as well go with 1 and keep up to date.

I wonder if the X1900XT-X is going to be better than the 8 Series???

Is the X1900XT-X better than the 7900 GTX? The ATi seems better value

X1900XT-X = £405
7900GTX = £468
x1900XT = £292
7900GT = £323

[herulach]

Personally i wouldnt bother with the xtx, its only like an extra 25mhz on the clocks, which is easily done with rivatuner/atitool.

That said, i wouldnt buy a card now anyway. WHo knows whats going into DX10, and you wouldnt want to be stuck with a card without support

[Nox]

my BFG 7900GT was £280 inc VAT, not sure where your 323 price is from?

Nox

[Smokey21]

Personally i wouldnt bother with the xtx, its only like an extra 25mhz on the clocks, which is easily done with rivatuner/atitool.

That said, i wouldnt buy a card now anyway. WHo knows whats going into DX10, and you wouldnt want to be stuck with a card without support

Meh, DX10, and the like will be a ways off, we need Vista first, and DX10 games.

Id go for the X1900XT. It's a great card for the price, though the X1800XT is also a great deal at the moment.

As for noise, well when it spins up on start it's loud, but not really after that and you can easily control the fan speed to your likeing with plenty of progs out there.

[darrensen]

my BFG 7900GT was £280 inc VAT, not sure where your 323 price is from?

Nox

XFX card from Scan.

I think i'll wait until Vista is out then i might do a major upgrade. (Build new machine)

[Barkotron]

Not sure if i should give ATi a god this time. Not really ever going to use SLI as i'll fall behind with technology if i went with 2 cards. Might as well go with 1 and keep up to date.

I wonder if the X1900XT-X is going to be better than the 8 Series???

Is the X1900XT-X better than the 7900 GTX? The ATi seems better value

X1900XT-X = £405
7900GTX = £468
x1900XT = £292
7900GT = £323

£292 for the X1900XT? Where's that?

Dagnabbit, I just bought one for £317 inc. VAT. That was the cheapest I could find.

It is annoyingly loud when it spins up, and it gets very hot, but good god is it a speedy card. Clocks up to 670 core/790 mem easy as you like. I now finally feel ready for Oblivion . I'm going to have at it with some aftermarket cooling so it doesn't break my head in. I may check if just putting some decent TIM on and reseating the cooler leads to lower temperatures (the fan spins up massively at 88 miles per h... um, I mean degrees C ). If not I'll stick something else on it.

[shaithis]

XTX seems to clock a bit higher, might be worth it (was to me).

If your going to leave it at stock though, the XT is the better purchase.

[Barkotron]

XTX seems to clock a bit higher, might be worth it (was to me).

If your going to leave it at stock though, the XT is the better purchase.

I thought I'd get the XT, then clock it up to XTX speeds. Ta-DAH! I've saved £50 . Hooray for me!

[darrensen]

Do you think it's better value than the Nvidia?

[killkoy]

from the reviews iv read it seems to depend on what game you are playing to what has the performance benifit
personaly id get the 1900xt over the 7900gtx as that seems to have th performance benifit in bf2 which i am playing alot of at the moment
however the prices for the 7900gt look v good at the moment
http://forums.hexus.net/showthread.php?t=69899

[Barkotron]

Do you think it's better value than the Nvidia?

From checking around, I bought my XT for £320, and I can't find a 7900GTX within £80 of that, for very similar performance. Also the X1900s (apparently) have better image quality.

I did replace the cooler with the Thermalright one, however, as the reference cooler is a nightmare hosebeast once it gets spun up. I didn't count this in my pricing as I had it hanging around (was meaning to put it on another card for a mate once, they decided to wuss out and stick with the reference ), but you'd need to factor something else in if you decided you cared about the noise. Of course if you game with headphones on, your ears will be too full of earth-shattering explosions and the screams of the dying for you to notice - I'm just over-sensitive to that kind of thing I suppose .