Anything really wrong with the 7900 series cards?

[deathwalker]

So...Is there really anything inherently wrong with the 7900 series of graphics cards? I ask this question in true interest. I had be considering the purchase of a 7900GT card, but upon reviewing user feedback at newegg on all the various brands and configurations (clocks speeds and such) there appears to be a very real unhappieness amoung many of the 7900GT buyers. These seems to be less related to realtime performance (frame rates and such) and more related to possible design issues effecting reliability and quality. Yes...there are many favorable reviews..but also many seemingly unhappy buyers. Are these based upon unrealistic expectations, or manufacturing outside of Nvidia's reference design specs, or poor system environments(cooling/power/etc.)? Or, did Nvidia just drop the ball trying to push ahead with the 7900 series of cards in trying to forces increased performance while trying to reduce the power requirements of this series? Opinions? ...or perharps there is not a problem and we are just runing amuck in rookie system builders and such that dont know how to make demanding hardware run properly within there system build!

 

[LittleNemoNES]

evga HAD a lot of problems with their cards I think due to the memory chips. They changed them now so if you get a new one, it should be defect free. The problem was mostly with the Factory OCed variety.

 

[dug777]

Nothing inherently wrong...

It just seems that the X1900XT & XTX are better performers in most areas with AA/AF ladeled on, and who isn't using AA/AF with a top end card these days?

AA+ HDR is very nice too, and as that article floating around shows, it's definitely useable. I'm amazed we haven't had a big poo with that issue in Video yet, it's x800 vs 6800 again, only this time the ball is in the red corner...

I'm plugging away with my 6600GT on an AGP system still

 

[CP5670]

It just seems that the X1900XT & XTX are better performers in most areas with AA/AF ladeled on, and who isn't using AA/AF with a top end card these days?

I often don't actually, I prefer the extra frames. Althoguh I do agree that the X1900s are better overall cards.

 

[dug777]

Originally posted by: CP5670

It just seems that the X1900XT & XTX are better performers in most areas with AA/AF ladeled on, and who isn't using AA/AF with a top end card these days?

I often don't actually, I prefer the extra frames. Althoguh I do agree that the X1900s are better overall cards.

:Q

that's a smoking system you have there :Q

I can't live without AF at the very least myself, and even in older games where i can use my 6600GT at 1600x1200 i still like 2xAA if i can get it...i mainly play at 1024 with 2xAA/8xAF...

*hugs his 21" CRT*

 

[CP5670]

Well, I use the HQ AF everywhere since that has basically no performance hit. It's mainly AA I was talking about. I don't like the jaggies, but the speed drops in heavy fights annoy me much more. I guess I'm a bit of a framerate junkie.

 

[nitromullet]

IMO, most of the problems associated with the 7900GT's are becasue the boardmakers and endusers both mistakenly assumed that the 7900GT and the 7900GTX were the same and treated them as such. Had boardmakers and endusers left their GT's closer to where NVIDIA said they would run, I doubt that you would have seen the number of problems that you do.

I also think that articles like this, while interesting are somewhat irresponsible. They take a hand picked sample sent to them by NVIDA and overclock the snot out of it, and all of a sudden it becomes the expected clocks for the card... It is ridulous to expect retail cards to run at 65/80% (core/mem) over stock. if they all could run that high, don't you think NVIDIA would know?

 

[JBT]

While the 7900 GT's had their problems if I didn't have my card right now and was purchasing a new one it would be SLI'd 7900GT's.

 

[Noubourne]

7900GTs are good overclockers, and lots of people are upset when they get one that doesn't do 700Mhz on the core. Factory overclocked cards also tend to have a higher rate of failure - eVGA for one, has fixed their issues by upping stock 3d voltage and has re-released their cards in new revisions that are much less likely to artifact or lock up under stress.

Probably lots of people have poor cooling and cheap-o PSUs too, which won't help for a high end card clocked to its limits.

As for the X1900XT/XTX performing better w/ more AA/AF enabled etc, uhhhh, well yeah that's true. 7900GTXs also do better though. You see, the X1900XTs cost almost $400, and the X1900XTXs cost OVER $400. That's a specious comparison, and I don't see the point of making a statement like that in this thread. Heck, you can get a 7900GT for $230 after mail-in-rebate!! A $400 card is faster? Ummm - DUH!

 

[JBT]

Originally posted by: Noubourne
7900GTs are good overclockers, and lots of people are upset when they get one that doesn't do 700Mhz on the core. Factory overclocked cards also tend to have a higher rate of failure - eVGA for one, has fixed their issues by upping stock 3d voltage and has re-released their cards in new revisions that are much less likely to artifact or lock up under stress.

Probably lots of people have poor cooling and cheap-o PSUs too, which won't help for a high end card clocked to its limits.

As for the X1900XT/XTX performing better w/ more AA/AF enabled etc, uhhhh, well yeah that's true. 7900GTXs also do better though. You see, the X1900XTs cost almost $400, and the X1900XTXs cost OVER $400. That's a specious comparison, and I don't see the point of making a statement like that in this thread. Heck, you can get a 7900GT for $230 after mail-in-rebate!! A $400 card is faster? Ummm - DUH!

Actually you can get a Sapphire XT for about $325ish...

 

[Pens1566]

Originally posted by: Noubourne
7900GTs are good overclockers, and lots of people are upset when they get one that doesn't do 700Mhz on the core. Factory overclocked cards also tend to have a higher rate of failure - eVGA for one, has fixed their issues by upping stock 3d voltage and has re-released their cards in new revisions that are much less likely to artifact or lock up under stress.

Probably lots of people have poor cooling and cheap-o PSUs too, which won't help for a high end card clocked to its limits.

Not true. EVGA "fixed" the issues by having boards made with different memory chips (infineon instead of samsung). The samsung chips were rated for 1.8V when the reference design had them @2.0V. The stock 3d voltage increase did absolutely nothing, except increase temps, as it wasn't a problem with the cores. The artifacting stops for a while if you downclock the memory to below nvidia spec.

 

[deathwalker]

Originally posted by: Pens1566

Originally posted by: Noubourne
7900GTs are good overclockers, and lots of people are upset when they get one that doesn't do 700Mhz on the core. Factory overclocked cards also tend to have a higher rate of failure - eVGA for one, has fixed their issues by upping stock 3d voltage and has re-released their cards in new revisions that are much less likely to artifact or lock up under stress.

Probably lots of people have poor cooling and cheap-o PSUs too, which won't help for a high end card clocked to its limits.

Not true. EVGA "fixed" the issues by having boards made with different memory chips (infineon instead of samsung). The samsung chips were rated for 1.8V when the reference design had them @2.0V. The stock 3d voltage increase did absolutely nothing, except increase temps, as it wasn't a problem with the cores. The artifacting stops for a while if you downclock the memory to below nvidia spec.

Ok...so they have new memory...how do you know when you are buying online if you are not getting old stock with the Samsung memory?

 

[Pens1566]

Part #s are blah-blah-58x instead of blah-blah-56x. The 'egg has some of the new models.