Buying decision.

[Alaa]

Originally posted by: Elfear

Originally posted by: Alaa
if u care about heat-power consumption-drivers then i will be too hard to decide..can any X1900XT owner tell us about the 3 aforementioned? cuz many ppl are having troubles..n i will be considering a 7900/x1900xt purchase next june if no new cards were released

Here's my .02 to answer your question.

1) Heat - The X1900XT runs at about 75-90C under load depending on case airflow and ambient temps. Because the hot air is exhausted out the back of your case, temps inside your rig will be unaffected and might even be lower than with a 7900GT. While the temps might seem high, a lot of the high end cards in the last 2 years have run at those temps (X850XT PE ran at ~80C and 7800GTX ran at ~75-80C with no issues).

2) Power consumption - Honestly the only people for whom this will be a concern are those running on a generic "400W" PSU or those worried about the extra $0.75 a month it will cost you to run this card over a 7900GT. If the former, you should really get a new PSU anyway no matter what card you get, and if the latter, than you probably aren't the type of person to buy a $350-450 video card.

3) Drivers - Have never had a problem with them at all. I've gone through 6 Nvidia cards and 3 ATI cards in the last 1.5 years and I've honestly had less problems with the ATI drivers than I have the Nvidia ones. Nvidia drivers still worked well, I just had more issues with them.

1)i have no problem with airflow inside my case i almost leave my case open all the time, the problem is the weather is hot here-- summer temp 35 C + that 90 C means thy i will have fire in my case--i really hope they release an x1900xt with less heat..

2)is it only .75$? 240-290 W at load!?

3)i think Nvidia's interface is better..! isnt it? does ATi drivers have the Digital Vibrance like the one in Nvidia color correction?
---
i think the x1900xt is the best price/performance i can get--actually, i can only upgrade next june not be4 it not after it so i will have to stuck with anything available at tht time

 

[pakigang]

how about get the 7900gt & add in the extra 1 gb mem for the extra money.

 

[framerateuk]

As a single card, its hard to be the X1900. Although if you plan to go SLI then the nVidia might be a better choice (although im seriously considering getting a X1900 master card as ATI have made massive improvements in Crossfire and its really keeping up with SLI these days, and beating it in shader heavy games).

I bought an X1900XTX and ive been comfortably playing every game in 1920x1200 without any problems. Great card,

 

[Sunrise089]

Originally posted by: Alaa

Originally posted by: Elfear

Originally posted by: Alaa
if u care about heat-power consumption-drivers then i will be too hard to decide..can any X1900XT owner tell us about the 3 aforementioned? cuz many ppl are having troubles..n i will be considering a 7900/x1900xt purchase next june if no new cards were released

Here's my .02 to answer your question.

1) Heat - The X1900XT runs at about 75-90C under load depending on case airflow and ambient temps. Because the hot air is exhausted out the back of your case, temps inside your rig will be unaffected and might even be lower than with a 7900GT. While the temps might seem high, a lot of the high end cards in the last 2 years have run at those temps (X850XT PE ran at ~80C and 7800GTX ran at ~75-80C with no issues).

2) Power consumption - Honestly the only people for whom this will be a concern are those running on a generic "400W" PSU or those worried about the extra $0.75 a month it will cost you to run this card over a 7900GT. If the former, you should really get a new PSU anyway no matter what card you get, and if the latter, than you probably aren't the type of person to buy a $350-450 video card.

3) Drivers - Have never had a problem with them at all. I've gone through 6 Nvidia cards and 3 ATI cards in the last 1.5 years and I've honestly had less problems with the ATI drivers than I have the Nvidia ones. Nvidia drivers still worked well, I just had more issues with them.

1)i have no problem with airflow inside my case i almost leave my case open all the time, the problem is the weather is hot here-- summer temp 35 C + that 90 C means thy i will have fire in my case--i really hope they release an x1900xt with less heat..

2)is it only .75$? 240-290 W at load!?

3)i think Nvidia's interface is better..! isnt it? does ATi drivers have the Digital Vibrance like the one in Nvidia color correction?
---
i think the x1900xt is the best price/performance i can get--actually, i can only upgrade next june not be4 it not after it so i will have to stuck with anything available at tht time

1 - I guarantee no card sold will set your case on fire. These are matter of degree issues, there are tons of X1900XT users here at AT, and none of them have had to really change their computing experience due to heat output.

2 - Those are the load figures for the entire system, not just the card

3 - Come on, how often do you really access the interface, both ATI and nVidia's will be fine. Choosing by drivers and interface over performance is insane. I understand back in the day these issues could be so important as to superceed performance, but now whichever company has the weaker drivers, they are still 99% as good as the other.

 

[framerateuk]

3 - Come on, how often do you really access the interface, both ATI and nVidia's will be fine. Choosing by drivers and interface over performance is insane. I understand back in the day these issues could be so important as to superceed performance, but now whichever company has the weaker drivers, they are still 99% as good as the other.

I agree with you on that.

I prefer the nVidia interface to the CCC myself, but im quite used to the CCC by now and can do the same with it as the nvidia interface. Deffinately dont choose a card because of the interface, that you will probably only use once every now and then when making a new profile or overclocking the card.

 

[Alaa]

so anyone can confirm the availability of Digital vibrance on ATi drivers?

 

[Munky]

Originally posted by: Alaa
so anyone can confirm the availability of Digital vibrance on ATi drivers?

Is "Digital Vibrance" Nv's fancy term for color profiles/adjustment? Or is that some special feature?

 

[Alaa]

Originally posted by: munky

Originally posted by: Alaa
so anyone can confirm the availability of Digital vibrance on ATi drivers?

Is "Digital Vibrance" Nv's fancy term for color profiles/adjustment? Or is that some special feature?

its in the color correction, it makes colors really better, it makes the pc shine!

 

[amheck]

Don't know if its been mentioned, but I think the $350 deal above is dead. It now seems to be $400 AR, which makes is $130 more than the 7900GT

 

[A5]

Originally posted by: munky

Originally posted by: Alaa
so anyone can confirm the availability of Digital vibrance on ATi drivers?

Is "Digital Vibrance" Nv's fancy term for color profiles/adjustment? Or is that some special feature?

Basically makes the colors look brighter - there's ways to get an equivalent effect for ATi cards, but it's a simple slider for nvidia. Not worth any real thought IMO.

 

[AntiStatic]

If you care at all about running Linux in the future then the Nvidia is the only way to go. Ati linux drivers ftl.

 

[imported_Dhaval00]

Originally posted by: Sunrise089

Originally posted by: hans030390
While the x1900xt is a better card, I'm not sure its worth the extra $90.

Oh it is, $90 is only about 33% more money, and long term the XT might be a lot faster. I know it might not work out on a strictly price/performace ratio, but if we are too strict about that sort of thinking we would all only be buying $155 X850XTs.

Well... how much is that extra cash worth? And define "long term." I upgraded from X850XT to 7900 GT just for the reason that spending extra 90 bucks is not justified - mostly because within 6 months X1900XT will become obsolete. Plus what about the HDMI debacle; what will you do when VISTA ships and you need to buy a new video card? I think spending an extra $90 then would be justified. My 7900 GT cost me $260 @ DELL and it overcloced to 560 MHz. It is maybe 10 FPS slower than the X1900XT.

Also ATI hasn't and won't fix the "Aspect Ration" issue. You can easily run games in windows at lower resolutions on a widescreen display using nVIDIA's drivers, but not ATI's. Have you worked with multiple desktops using nVIDIA's drivers? It's an amazing makeover and specially useful if you multi-task a lot. I have my Visual Studio on desktop 1, Winamp and Streams on desktop 2, SQL*PLUS on desktop 3, and so on. I think both ATI and nVIDIA drivers are stable, but nVIDIA gives you more functionality. I have owned cards from both companies - in this case I just think 7900 GT is the better option. If you are not going to upgrade within the next 6 months and not install VISTA, go with the X1900XT.