Advice on which 7900GT

[lonewolfxix]

Hey, this is not for me but for a friend really though may influence my purchase in a few months since i desperately need a new card as you can see... I was wondering which would be the best to buy.. the 7900GT 256mb or the 512mb? £80 of diff (well ok it wasn't me who was wondering but more my friend) I said to him all it's going to be really useful for will be higher resolutions which is pretty pointless seeing as his is a 17inch tft only capable of 1280x1024... since he doesn't believe me i thought i'd ask you guys for some assistance... he only plays games by the way, with a little 3d design on the side.. not much to my knowledge... thanks for your help!

[rainbow]

get the 256 one, or scrape together a bit more and get the gtx tbh

[[DW]Cougho]

I've got the 256mb one and i'd certainly recommend he gets it over the 512mb.

1280x1024 tft - check
256mb 7900gt - check

all running good? - check

[lonewolfxix]

Well.. We both need new cards him because his 6800Gt broke me because well i have an old card... lol. i'll show him this topic tomorrow though for some reason he reckons that the 7900GT will be better for when he wants to SLi in future... though to my knowledge.. SLi still hasn't really proved it's use... Thanks for the replies, Hopefully with people from Hexus agreeing with me over getting the 7900GT 256 instead of a 7900GT 512 will persuade him.. He NEVER listens to me... or well... asks then doesn't bother with what i say... also... which company would you go for? I was looking at the XFX or ASUS but a few of my friends have complained about XFX and never really liked ASUS from the fact of their bad capacitors which I don't know if they still use low quality ones? Thanks!

[Madafwo]

I went with a 7900GT for 1280x1024 gaming and it rocks,

Oblivion can get a bit jerky sometimes but with HDR enabled I don't mind at full settings (drops to 20fps during fight scenes).

I switched from a 7800GTX to a 7900GT for the simple fact I can afford a new GT and not another 7800GTX. not regretting the move one bit, with the possible exception of it making more noise, but with a full water set-up coming, I think I can live with it.

I ended up getting a Gigabyte one, nothing wrong with it for the 2 weeks I've had it and I even got Serious Sam 2 thrown in with it, absolute bargain.

[lonewolfxix]

Well.. he doesn't have enough for a 7900GTX so the 7900 series is DirectX 10 ready right? or is that just something nVidia put on the box to make it sell? that's the main reason that I'm interested in this card...

[sawyen]

Why not go for a X1800XT instead? The 256MB variants are dirt cheap and the 512MB are just like £40 more..

[whoatethepies]

so the 7900 series is DirectX 10 ready right?

Unfortuantley not, theres no DX10 cards until christmas/early next year. Only DX9 at the moment, but nVidia have been saying their cards are Vista ready, as Vista won't need DX10 to run.

[lonewolfxix]

Hmm i read the specifications list and it says "directx 10 compatible".. ohwell... That's kind of annoying... Prefer to get one so i can run Halo2 and S.T.A.L.K.E.R. which I have been waiting for since April 2003 may I add! LoL Ohwell such a shame...

Oh btw, this is exchange from SCAN seeing as he bought a 6800Gt back january... it broke.. SCAN couldn't RMA it so he's hoping to spend an extra £40 to get a 7900GT instead of what they offered which is £20 cheaper than what he had the XFX 7600GT XXX