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X1800XT or 7900GT

Soldato
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I'm soon going to be building a PC for a friend and the choice of graphics cards stands at either one of these. The system will be an AM2 and I had originally planned on getting him an SLI board and the 7900GT so that he could add another later to boost his graphics power (as it's always the graphics card that needs updating first). However, I've spotted the X1800XT very keenly priced on OCUK, so my question is, is it worth giving up the prospect of SLI for the X1800XT? Will it offer my friend more power than the 7900GT (he games at 1280x1024)?

Many thanks,

Michael.
 
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All sources I've seen suggest SLi performance boost at 1280x1024 is pretty minimal - you're normally far better off selling your old card and getting a new, faster single card solution. The X1800XT frequently beats the 7900GT in performance and certainly beats it in performance per pound- at that price it's a bargain. If you couldn't tell, I got one the other day. :D The reports of the fan being hideously loud are exaggerated - it's loud for two seconds at startup and then ramps down to a point where it mixes in with all my other case sounds.

And not forgetting nVidia Sudden Death Syndrome with the 7900GT's, much higher than usual failure rate...although I'm not sure if that's been fixed with the latest cards or not?
 
Soldato
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The latest 7900gts use a new pwn chip so shouldn't die mysteriously.
Mines fine though :p

I'd go with the X1800XT, stonking card at a great price. Perhaps get a crossfire board for it so he has the option of going crossfire at a later point.
 
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HicRic said:
And not forgetting nVidia Sudden Death Syndrome with the 7900GT's, much higher than usual failure rate...although I'm not sure if that's been fixed with the latest cards or not?
Don't quote me on this, but I think I read a press release from nVIDIA saying the problem would be sorted by now. But I'm not sure..

But even if it has, the X1800XT is an absolutely cracking buy at the moment. :cool:
 
Soldato
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They were trying to fix the 5% failure rate (highest in the last three years, at least) on the Geforce 7 series by replacing the Samsung memory on them with Infineon memory, and it didn't work. They suspect the problem lies in the voltage regulator, which is ironic considering these aren't really worth buying unless you volt-mod them with a hardware pencil mod.

Unless you volt-mod them, the X1800XT is faster and much cheaper. Not to mention more reliable.
 
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LoadsaMoney said:
x1800 XT, faster than the 7900 GT, and its cheaper, will easily cope at 1280x1024, mine does, throws everything around maxed out. :)

Yup Ditto, runs all my games max res - all good :D

And its on special offer and will out perfrom the 7900
 
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HicRic said:
All sources I've seen suggest SLi performance boost at 1280x1024 is pretty minimal - you're normally far better off selling your old card and getting a new, faster single card solution. The X1800XT frequently beats the 7900GT in performance and certainly beats it in performance per pound- at that price it's a bargain. If you couldn't tell, I got one the other day. :D The reports of the fan being hideously loud are exaggerated - it's loud for two seconds at startup and then ramps down to a point where it mixes in with all my other case sounds.

And not forgetting nVidia Sudden Death Syndrome with the 7900GT's, much higher than usual failure rate...although I'm not sure if that's been fixed with the latest cards or not?

Yeah, that's true about the startup noise but it comes back loud when you start playing a game for five minutes. I find it really annoying hearing the drone of the card, is there anything I can do to quieten it without replacing the cooler?
 
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Scottie2004 said:
Yeah, that's true about the startup noise but it comes back loud when you start playing a game for five minutes. I find it really annoying hearing the drone of the card, is there anything I can do to quieten it without replacing the cooler?

Perhaps it's your case airflow? I've played Oblivion on it for hours on end (lovely with maxed out graphics too, I might add!) and the fan never gets back to that vacumn-cleaner 100% racket that you hear at startup. I believe it might increase above the idle RPM but doesn't seem too loud, still seems to mix in okay with my stock AMD CPU cooler, PSU fan, and 120mm case fan. Then again I game with headphones on so I imagine I'm pretty oblivious to the case noise anyway!

edit: oops, I notice you have the sonata II piano black case, I've got that too...so I'm not sure why it's doing it for you. :confused: How did your graphics card install go by the way? My x1800xt's securing bracket won't go anywhere near the place it's supposed to screw in at the back of the case.
 
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You can set the fan settings manually in ati tool if you want just watch the temps.Its never gone to 100% yet playing oblivion for hours in scorchio weather but i know i couldn`t stand that,consider an aftermarket cooler if you play a lot of games.
 
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no_1_dave said:
7900 GT is way more overclockable.
Only if you pencil-mod it.

no_1_dave said:
Gives off less heat & uses a lot less power.
And has the highest failure rate of any card in 3+ years (5% RMA is nothing to be taken lightly), not to mention that it's lacking in features.

no_1_dave said:
Definatly the better buy!
Sure, if you like playing Russian Roulette, and spending more money for less features and less performance.

Besides, he already decided on the X1800XT. :) He obviously knows how to make a logical decision based on all available evidence.
 
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LoadsaMoney said:
x1800 XT, faster than the 7900 GT, and its cheaper, will easily cope at 1280x1024, mine does, throws everything around maxed out. :)

I have to agree, bought one of these myself, went from 6600GT > X1800XT. I'm now running almost everything at max :D

I just can't believe what a massive improvement I'm getting compared to my old GC.

I also can't believe how quite this thing is, I was expecting it to sound like an aeroplane taking off, but it's actually dead quite :eek:
 
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Mang0 Tree said:
I have to agree, bought one of these myself, went from 6600GT > X1800XT. I'm now running almost everything at max :D

I just can't believe what a massive improvement I'm getting compared to my old GC.

I also can't believe how quite this thing is, I was expecting it to sound like an aeroplane taking off, but it's actually dead quite :eek:

Yeah mines dead quiet to, they do spin at full speed for about 2 seconds on start-up which is loud, but then the drop down to their 2D speeds which you cant hear, and mine hardly picks up from that, even when gaming for an hr or so, only hits about 71 underload.

From a 6600 GT i bet the performance increase was awesome, it was when i went from an x800 XT PE. :cool:
 
Soldato
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Funny you should say that as my friends PC has a 6600GT right now, so it's the same 'step up' that many of you have taken already. He's not very likely to be overclocking the card, so the best performance at stock is what matters.
 
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