How does my 7900gt SLI setup compare to ATI x1900 series cards in shader intensive games?

[MonkeyFaces]

Sadly enough, i am not like many x1900xt(or better) owners who can brag they can play age of empires 3 at max settings at some uber high resolution. At 1280x1024, on my stock BFG 7900gt OC cards, I have to settle for medium shader quality and low anti aliasing to have performance suitable for online play. *okay, enough bitching ends here*

My question exactly is, was I stupid for spending $600+ for 7900gts in SLI when i could have spent $300 for better shader performance on an x1900 card? Also, how does my setup compare to ATI's high end cards in terms of shader performance?

 

[evolucion8]

The X19x0XT/ X19x0XTX will smoke any 79x0GT/GTX series in shader intensive games any day. But if you really want the best of the best in shader performance, you may go to the GeForce 8800 series, otherwise the X19x0 series. Your investment made on those geforce are not bad, is a great card. It may beat the X19x0 series in some games, but overall ATi is the winner. So is not a stupid inversion, but you should read more before buying, so you will know which one is more suitable for your needs.

 

[josh6079]

The X1900XT(X) will do pretty good but a 7900GT SLI setup will almost always crank more frames out - Click

 

[evolucion8]

Originally posted by: josh6079
The X1900XT(X) will do pretty good but a 7900GT SLI setup will almost always crank more frames out - Click

That article is quite old, with recent driver optimizations the gap has been closed, the SLI scales a bit better than crossfire anyways. But if you look here you will see that the gap is no longer like it used to be. http://www23.tomshardware.com/graphics....elx=33&model1=520&model2=546&chart=219
http://www23.tomshardware.com/graphics....elx=33&model1=520&model2=546&chart=203 http://www23.tomshardware.com/graphics....elx=33&model1=520&model2=546&chart=215 http://www23.tomshardware.com/graphics....elx=33&model1=520&model2=546&chart=223
You can search for more and compare.

 

[XNice]

tomshardware.com... :roll:

 

[TheRyuu]

Overclock them like mine and you won't have a problem (look at sig)

 

[ArchAngel777]

Originally posted by: evolucion8

Originally posted by: josh6079
The X1900XT(X) will do pretty good but a 7900GT SLI setup will almost always crank more frames out - Click

That article is quite old, with recent driver optimizations the gap has been closed, the SLI scales a bit better than crossfire anyways. But if you look here you will see that the gap is no longer like it used to be. http://www23.tomshardware.com/graphics....elx=33&model1=520&model2=546&chart=219
http://www23.tomshardware.com/graphics....elx=33&model1=520&model2=546&chart=203 http://www23.tomshardware.com/graphics....elx=33&model1=520&model2=546&chart=215 http://www23.tomshardware.com/graphics....elx=33&model1=520&model2=546&chart=223
You can search for more and compare.

There is something majorly wrong with those benchmarks. Let us take a look at them.

First of all, compere the difference between a 7900 GT in SLI to a 7800 GTX, both are essentially the same cards (7900 GT is a tad faster actually). Now, take a look... Not much of a difference in any of the games is there? It is almost as if SLI is broken in those tests. I wouldn't TRUST tomshardware after looking through these, something wasn't tested correctly.

LOL, check this out... Turn the Benchmark to Half Life 2, highest setting and compare the 7800 GTX to the 7800 GTX in SLI and you get a huge 0 frames per second difference! In fact, SLI does nothing at all according to them! :thumbsdown: I would be very careful to link to those ever again.

Edit ** I compared two indenticle cards, one in Sli, the other not and came up with these results on their website

41% Increase from SLI in Prey (highest settings)

33% Increase from SLI in Oblivion (highest settings)

0% Increase from SLI in Half Life 2 (highest Settings)

0% Increase from SLI in Hard Truck Apoc (highest settings)

77% Increase from SLI in 3d Mark 2006 (highest settings)

Now, I am NOT an owner of an SLI system, but I am pretty damn sure that 1) Half Life 2 and Hard Truck Apoc will seen an increase in framerate, no matter what and 2) That the increase in Prey and Oblivion are quite low... I think they scale better than that in those two games. Again, I wouldn't trust these benchmarks one bit.

 

[MonkeyFaces]

Originally posted by: wizboy11
Overclock them like mine and you won't have a problem (look at sig)

Overclocking wont give me a realistic performance boost (maybe up to 10 fps, but I still wont be playing shader intensive games to the max). To get your clocks, I would need a voltmod. I am really not up for physically modifying my cards' pcbs, though I probably do have adequate cooling with my 2 vf-900s. Still, every way I look at it, I should have opted for an ATI video card. However, at the time, a $270 7900gt looked like a much better buy than a $400 1900xt.

Im still wondering if it is a rare thing that I can't play many of the newest games at max settings at 1280x1024 with SLI (AA+AF maxed too). I was expecting a little more because 2 card setups were supposedly overkill for my resolution. I only added the second card for future proofing, but they are showing their age pretty quickly.
Regarding AA and AF, do ATI cards receive the same performance hit with them turned on compared to Nvidia cards? I recall reading that the xbox360 gpu has the ability to crank them out without a loss in frames, i'm just wondering if it's the same for Ati's video cards.

 

[TheRyuu]

Originally posted by: MonkeyFaces

Originally posted by: wizboy11
Overclock them like mine and you won't have a problem (look at sig)

Overclocking wont give me a realistic performance boost (maybe up to 10 fps, but I still wont be playing shader intensive games to the max). To get your clocks, I would need a voltmod. I am really not up for physically modifying my cards' pcbs, though I probably do have adequate cooling with my 2 vf-900s. Still, every way I look at it, I should have opted for an ATI video card. However, at the time, a $270 7900gt looked like a much better buy than a $400 1900xt.

Im still wondering if it is a rare thing that I can't play many of the newest games at max settings at 1280x1024 with SLI (AA+AF maxed too). I was expecting a little more because 2 card setups were supposedly overkill for my resolution. I only added the second card for future proofing, but they are showing their age pretty quickly.
Regarding AA and AF, do ATI cards receive the same performance hit with them turned on compared to Nvidia cards? I recall reading that the xbox360 gpu has the ability to crank them out without a loss in frames, i'm just wondering if it's the same for Ati's video cards.

The reason the Xbox 360 can do that is because of the (i think) 16mb of on-die ram or something to that affect.

ATI cards do have a similar performance decrease although sometimes it is slightly less but then your just splitting hairs.

Your fine with what you have. I'm surprised that your cards don't perform that good at your resolution. Give an example of a game?

Also, it really isn't that hard to vmod the card. Just get some special ink and some time and you can do it with the cards in your case if you so choose to. The safe part is the vmod on the core. What kills everyones cards was the vmod on the memory (which is why my memory really isn't that high in speed as some other vmodded 7900GT's).

Take a look at the 7900GT Vmod thread.
I'd recommend you do the 1.4 or 1.45 vmods. Anything over that is overkill on the voltage.

Trust me going up by 100mhz+ on the core can do wonders.

For all of $20 for the things that you need (less if you have them already) you can make your cards faster (noticeably faster too)

 

[ArchAngel777]

Originally posted by: wizboy11

Originally posted by: MonkeyFaces

Originally posted by: wizboy11
Overclock them like mine and you won't have a problem (look at sig)

Overclocking wont give me a realistic performance boost (maybe up to 10 fps, but I still wont be playing shader intensive games to the max). To get your clocks, I would need a voltmod. I am really not up for physically modifying my cards' pcbs, though I probably do have adequate cooling with my 2 vf-900s. Still, every way I look at it, I should have opted for an ATI video card. However, at the time, a $270 7900gt looked like a much better buy than a $400 1900xt.

Im still wondering if it is a rare thing that I can't play many of the newest games at max settings at 1280x1024 with SLI (AA+AF maxed too). I was expecting a little more because 2 card setups were supposedly overkill for my resolution. I only added the second card for future proofing, but they are showing their age pretty quickly.
Regarding AA and AF, do ATI cards receive the same performance hit with them turned on compared to Nvidia cards? I recall reading that the xbox360 gpu has the ability to crank them out without a loss in frames, i'm just wondering if it's the same for Ati's video cards.

The reason the Xbox 360 can do that is because of the (i think) 16mb of on-die ram or something to that affect.

ATI cards do have a similar performance decrease although sometimes it is slightly less but then your just splitting hairs.

Your fine with what you have. I'm surprised that your cards don't perform that good at your resolution. Give an example of a game?

Also, it really isn't that hard to vmod the card. Just get some special ink and some time and you can do it with the cards in your case if you so choose to. The safe part is the vmod on the core. What kills everyones cards was the vmod on the memory (which is why my memory really isn't that high in speed as some other vmodded 7900GT's).

Take a look at the 7900GT Vmod thread.
I'd recommend you do the 1.4 or 1.45 vmods. Anything over that is overkill on the voltage.

Trust me going up by 100mhz+ on the core can do wonders.

For all of $20 for the things that you need (less if you have them already) you can make your cards faster (noticeably faster too)

The XBox has 10mb of EDRAM. However, there are arguements whether this is employed on even one single game on the Xbox 360. I won't get into the details, but if you do a search I am sure you will find much more than you wanted to know.

 

[MonkeyFaces]

Originally posted by: wizboy11

Originally posted by: MonkeyFaces

Originally posted by: wizboy11
Overclock them like mine and you won't have a problem (look at sig)

Overclocking wont give me a realistic performance boost (maybe up to 10 fps, but I still wont be playing shader intensive games to the max). To get your clocks, I would need a voltmod. I am really not up for physically modifying my cards' pcbs, though I probably do have adequate cooling with my 2 vf-900s. Still, every way I look at it, I should have opted for an ATI video card. However, at the time, a $270 7900gt looked like a much better buy than a $400 1900xt.

Im still wondering if it is a rare thing that I can't play many of the newest games at max settings at 1280x1024 with SLI (AA+AF maxed too). I was expecting a little more because 2 card setups were supposedly overkill for my resolution. I only added the second card for future proofing, but they are showing their age pretty quickly.
Regarding AA and AF, do ATI cards receive the same performance hit with them turned on compared to Nvidia cards? I recall reading that the xbox360 gpu has the ability to crank them out without a loss in frames, i'm just wondering if it's the same for Ati's video cards.

The reason the Xbox 360 can do that is because of the (i think) 16mb of on-die ram or something to that affect.

ATI cards do have a similar performance decrease although sometimes it is slightly less but then your just splitting hairs.

Your fine with what you have. I'm surprised that your cards don't perform that good at your resolution. Give an example of a game?

Also, it really isn't that hard to vmod the card. Just get some special ink and some time and you can do it with the cards in your case if you so choose to. The safe part is the vmod on the core. What kills everyones cards was the vmod on the memory (which is why my memory really isn't that high in speed as some other vmodded 7900GT's).

Take a look at the 7900GT Vmod thread.
I'd recommend you do the 1.4 or 1.45 vmods. Anything over that is overkill on the voltage.

Trust me going up by 100mhz+ on the core can do wonders.

For all of $20 for the things that you need (less if you have them already) you can make your cards faster (noticeably faster too)

An example of a game that my cards struggle on is Age of Empires 3. To have generally smooth performance, i have to set my shaders to high and AA to low (probably 4x, application doesn't specify). It does slow down considerably with smoke effects. To get absolutely flawless performance, i have to set the shaders to medium with no AA. There's also Oblivion and GRAW, but im sure everyone struggles with those.

Im probably still not going to risk a volt mod because my warranty would be void and they are both one of the early models which could possibly have problems with their memory.

 

[josh6079]

Regarding AA and AF, do ATI cards receive the same performance hit with them turned on compared to Nvidia cards? I recall reading that the xbox360 gpu has the ability to crank them out without a loss in frames, i'm just wondering if it's the same for Ati's video cards.

Is there an Xbox360 game that has AA applied when running on the 360? I've been playing GoW and even it for being haled as one of the best looking games doesn't have AA (or if it does it is 2xAA).

 

[TheRyuu]

Originally posted by: MonkeyFaces

Originally posted by: wizboy11

Originally posted by: MonkeyFaces

Originally posted by: wizboy11
Overclock them like mine and you won't have a problem (look at sig)

Overclocking wont give me a realistic performance boost (maybe up to 10 fps, but I still wont be playing shader intensive games to the max). To get your clocks, I would need a voltmod. I am really not up for physically modifying my cards' pcbs, though I probably do have adequate cooling with my 2 vf-900s. Still, every way I look at it, I should have opted for an ATI video card. However, at the time, a $270 7900gt looked like a much better buy than a $400 1900xt.

Im still wondering if it is a rare thing that I can't play many of the newest games at max settings at 1280x1024 with SLI (AA+AF maxed too). I was expecting a little more because 2 card setups were supposedly overkill for my resolution. I only added the second card for future proofing, but they are showing their age pretty quickly.
Regarding AA and AF, do ATI cards receive the same performance hit with them turned on compared to Nvidia cards? I recall reading that the xbox360 gpu has the ability to crank them out without a loss in frames, i'm just wondering if it's the same for Ati's video cards.

The reason the Xbox 360 can do that is because of the (i think) 16mb of on-die ram or something to that affect.

ATI cards do have a similar performance decrease although sometimes it is slightly less but then your just splitting hairs.

Your fine with what you have. I'm surprised that your cards don't perform that good at your resolution. Give an example of a game?

Also, it really isn't that hard to vmod the card. Just get some special ink and some time and you can do it with the cards in your case if you so choose to. The safe part is the vmod on the core. What kills everyones cards was the vmod on the memory (which is why my memory really isn't that high in speed as some other vmodded 7900GT's).

Take a look at the 7900GT Vmod thread.
I'd recommend you do the 1.4 or 1.45 vmods. Anything over that is overkill on the voltage.

Trust me going up by 100mhz+ on the core can do wonders.

For all of $20 for the things that you need (less if you have them already) you can make your cards faster (noticeably faster too)

An example of a game that my cards struggle on is Age of Empires 3. To have generally smooth performance, i have to set my shaders to high and AA to low (probably 4x, application doesn't specify). It does slow down considerably with smoke effects. To get absolutely flawless performance, i have to set the shaders to medium with no AA. There's also Oblivion and GRAW, but im sure everyone struggles with those.

Im probably still not going to risk a volt mod because my warranty would be void and they are both one of the early models which could possibly have problems with their memory.

Thats why you don't do the memory vmod but what ever man.

I play Oblivion at 1680x1050, 4xAA/16xAF all settings maxed out.
Can your 7900GT's do that? I just have to watch what visual mods I put on it. Some of them eat up video ram very quickly.

 

[evolucion8]

Originally posted by: ArchAngel777

Originally posted by: evolucion8

Originally posted by: josh6079
The X1900XT(X) will do pretty good but a 7900GT SLI setup will almost always crank more frames out - Click

That article is quite old, with recent driver optimizations the gap has been closed, the SLI scales a bit better than crossfire anyways. But if you look here you will see that the gap is no longer like it used to be. http://www23.tomshardware.com/graphics....elx=33&model1=520&model2=546&chart=219
http://www23.tomshardware.com/graphics....elx=33&model1=520&model2=546&chart=203 http://www23.tomshardware.com/graphics....elx=33&model1=520&model2=546&chart=215 http://www23.tomshardware.com/graphics....elx=33&model1=520&model2=546&chart=223
You can search for more and compare.

There is something majorly wrong with those benchmarks. Let us take a look at them.

First of all, compere the difference between a 7900 GT in SLI to a 7800 GTX, both are essentially the same cards (7900 GT is a tad faster actually). Now, take a look... Not much of a difference in any of the games is there? It is almost as if SLI is broken in those tests. I wouldn't TRUST tomshardware after looking through these, something wasn't tested correctly.

LOL, check this out... Turn the Benchmark to Half Life 2, highest setting and compare the 7800 GTX to the 7800 GTX in SLI and you get a huge 0 frames per second difference! In fact, SLI does nothing at all according to them! :thumbsdown: I would be very careful to link to those ever again.

Edit ** I compared two indenticle cards, one in Sli, the other not and came up with these results on their website

41% Increase from SLI in Prey (highest settings)

33% Increase from SLI in Oblivion (highest settings)

0% Increase from SLI in Half Life 2 (highest Settings)

0% Increase from SLI in Hard Truck Apoc (highest settings)

77% Increase from SLI in 3d Mark 2006 (highest settings)

Now, I am NOT an owner of an SLI system, but I am pretty damn sure that 1) Half Life 2 and Hard Truck Apoc will seen an increase in framerate, no matter what and 2) That the increase in Prey and Oblivion are quite low... I think they scale better than that in those two games. Again, I wouldn't trust these benchmarks one bit.

Remember that if the game doesn't have an SLI Profile, simply no boost in performance will happen, look at the 6800GT in SLI, no new games has been added in the SLI profile for the 6800 series (Correct me if I'm wrong) and that's why in newer games, even a single Radeon X1800GTO can outperform it in that game. My friend bought a pair of Radeon X1650XT and did Crossfire and runs faster in games like Oblivion and F.E.A.R. Considering that a single 6800GT will outperform easily a X1650XT.

 

[Cookie Monster]

Originally posted by: XNice
tomshardware.com... :roll:

Agreed. Tomshardware are full of BS (my belief was concreted when they couldnt even use pure video properly)

If your looking at benchmarks, Hothardware, xbitlabs, firing squad, behardware are just to name a few. (Hardocp/bit-tech is also great)

Anyway, what driver are you using? What are your remaining specs?

A 7900GT SLI will beat any single X1900 series cards. (including the X1950XTX). Ocing the cards will give you much more performance even without vmod. The 256mb of Vram maybe a limiting factor for your GT SLi setup.

How about selling those GT SLIs and grab yourself a 8800GTS?

 

[termac50]

Lol. Ever notice on Tom's vga chart how an X800xl and a 7600gt have the EXACT same performance. Makes you wonder.

 

[Cookie Monster]

Originally posted by: termac50
Lol. Ever notice on Tom's vga chart how an X800xl and a 7600gt have the EXACT same performance. Makes you wonder.

That comparison part is BS!

Warning to people especially beginners..
Please DO NOT use that chart because it is VERY misleading.

 

[ArchAngel777]

Originally posted by: evolucion8

Originally posted by: ArchAngel777

Originally posted by: evolucion8

Originally posted by: josh6079
The X1900XT(X) will do pretty good but a 7900GT SLI setup will almost always crank more frames out - Click

That article is quite old, with recent driver optimizations the gap has been closed, the SLI scales a bit better than crossfire anyways. But if you look here you will see that the gap is no longer like it used to be. http://www23.tomshardware.com/graphics....elx=33&model1=520&model2=546&chart=219
http://www23.tomshardware.com/graphics....elx=33&model1=520&model2=546&chart=203 http://www23.tomshardware.com/graphics....elx=33&model1=520&model2=546&chart=215 http://www23.tomshardware.com/graphics....elx=33&model1=520&model2=546&chart=223
You can search for more and compare.

There is something majorly wrong with those benchmarks. Let us take a look at them.

First of all, compere the difference between a 7900 GT in SLI to a 7800 GTX, both are essentially the same cards (7900 GT is a tad faster actually). Now, take a look... Not much of a difference in any of the games is there? It is almost as if SLI is broken in those tests. I wouldn't TRUST tomshardware after looking through these, something wasn't tested correctly.

LOL, check this out... Turn the Benchmark to Half Life 2, highest setting and compare the 7800 GTX to the 7800 GTX in SLI and you get a huge 0 frames per second difference! In fact, SLI does nothing at all according to them! :thumbsdown: I would be very careful to link to those ever again.

Edit ** I compared two indenticle cards, one in Sli, the other not and came up with these results on their website

41% Increase from SLI in Prey (highest settings)

33% Increase from SLI in Oblivion (highest settings)

0% Increase from SLI in Half Life 2 (highest Settings)

0% Increase from SLI in Hard Truck Apoc (highest settings)

77% Increase from SLI in 3d Mark 2006 (highest settings)

Now, I am NOT an owner of an SLI system, but I am pretty damn sure that 1) Half Life 2 and Hard Truck Apoc will seen an increase in framerate, no matter what and 2) That the increase in Prey and Oblivion are quite low... I think they scale better than that in those two games. Again, I wouldn't trust these benchmarks one bit.

Remember that if the game doesn't have an SLI Profile, simply no boost in performance will happen, look at the 6800GT in SLI, no new games has been added in the SLI profile for the 6800 series (Correct me if I'm wrong) and that's why in newer games, even a single Radeon X1800GTO can outperform it in that game. My friend bought a pair of Radeon X1650XT and did Crossfire and runs faster in games like Oblivion and F.E.A.R. Considering that a single 6800GT will outperform easily a X1650XT.

I don't know enough about SLI to confirm your statement. But I was under the impression you can force alternate frame rendering on any game you want, it just will not give a huge performance advantage as the other method in some games.

If what you say about SLI is true, then I consider it a rather worthless product. I mean no offense to those who own it, but if a game has to be specifically written for or supported to see an increase, then I don't see the value of it so much.


Besides, HL2 does indeed support SLI, so those numbers are bogus and I was pretty damn certain it scaled better than Tom's HW showed.

 

[MonkeyFaces]

This may not be the right place to post this, but I am now considering selling my 7900gts like cookie monster suggested. Would their value be depreciated much since I misplaced the original box and packaging? Considering those factors, how much could I realistically expect to receive for each 7900gt if they have an led version vf-900 on them?

 

[Wreckage]

Originally posted by: evolucion8

Remember that if the game doesn't have an SLI Profile, simply no boost in performance will happen,

ATI also relies on profiles. Often if it does not have a profile the default render mode will not give you a boost either and in some cases can run worse than a single card.

 

[Cookie Monster]

Originally posted by: MonkeyFaces
This may not be the right place to post this, but I am now considering selling my 7900gts like cookie monster suggested. Would their value be depreciated much since I misplaced the original box and packaging? Considering those factors, how much could I realistically expect to receive for each 7900gt if they have an led version vf-900 on them?

You could sell them for 200 each considering you have the vf900 on them which makes it look much more appealing. Sell them to enthusiasts who are looking for an upgrade.

With the cash you could go buy a 8800GTS because prices are falling on the GTX/GTX. (On average by 50 dollars already) A GTS can be had for 400 dollars AR.

In Newegg theres loads of 8800GTS AR from $395 to $410

 

[ArchAngel777]

Well, you guys just convinced me to never go SLI at this point. 2X the cost, for a potential gain of nothing to 50% gains on average. Seems to me I will be sticking to single cards for cost reasons.

 

[MonkeyFaces]

I have had one major advantage with SLI, which is image quality. Using SLI anti aliasing, you can force applications to render much smoother textures, althought this will reduce performance significantly in addition to weak shader performance.

 

[Cookie Monster]

Originally posted by: MonkeyFaces
I have had one major advantage with SLI, which is image quality. Using SLI anti aliasing, you can force applications to render much smoother textures, althought this will reduce performance significantly in addition to weak shader performance.

By no means nVIDIA has no weak shader performance. Considering nVIDIA's 24 Pxiel shaders do just fine against 48 Pixel shaders of the R580, you cant say they have weak shader performance.

 

[evolucion8]

Originally posted by: Wreckage

Originally posted by: evolucion8

Remember that if the game doesn't have an SLI Profile, simply no boost in performance will happen,

ATI also relies on profiles. Often if it does not have a profile the default render mode will not give you a boost either and in some cases can run worse than a single card.

ATi's approach on crossfire profiles is to select the best frame rendering method that gives the best performance on a game, if for some reason your game is not on the profile, you still able to take advantage using the afrfriendlyd3d blah blah blah, or in the Catalyst Control Center Option. nVidia's SLI doesn't have much options in frame rendering modes, so their approach relies only to let the game run on sli. Crossfire is more flexible.