IS 1900XTX worth it for the long run?

[trance247]

My system is below. I am going to return 7900gt (artifact'r'us, black flcker screen) and I have to pay $150 to get either XTX or 7900GTX. I have no problem getting new psu for this install. My main questions:

Games I am looking forward to: Crysis, STALKER, PREY, UT07, HUXLEY etc is getting one of those cards going to be waste, while nothing good comes out any time soon?

Is my system going to have problems with 1900xtx, small case but I have extra cooling and will use non-oem fan. I don't feel very good about GTX since it might have same issues as GT is having. Also performance wise, there's some room for OC but I'd rather not.

 

[nitromullet]

Crysis, STALKER, PREY, UT07, HUXLEY...? It's pretty much impossible to say how they will run on an XTX, since they are all based on new engines, except Prey (is STALKER actually ever going to come out?). Prey will probably run fine on either an XTX or a GTX, although it will most likely run a bit better on a GTX because it is OpenGL (Doom3 engine). As far as heat goes inside your case, that isn't really any issue with the Radeon becasue it exhausts the heat outside of the case. The main drawback to the ATI heatsink/fan is that it's not very quiet. It can be replaced with something quieter, but you void your warrantee and none of the third party coolers exhaust the heat out the back so the heat stays in your case. IMO, after having used both, I think the XTX is a better card for the money than the 7900GTX. That being said, there are some that would disagree with me, and honestly, they are both really nice and very capable video cards.

 

[thilanliyan]

The X1900XTX should be great for those games. I'd rather get the X1900XT though seeing as how it's not much slower but definitely cheaper. However, planning for games that will come out is a bit of a crapshoot.

Apparently Crysis was running on X1900 crossfire at E3, however the other games you listed may not fare so well with current hardware. You might as well get a replacement 7900GT cause that's a decent card and wait for G80/R600 (next gen NVidia/ATI hardware) to come out cause those games will run a lot better on that hardware I'm guessing.

By the way, how is the X-Qpack?? I'm debating whether to get that case. How has the PSU stood up so far and can you replace it with your own PSU?? Is there room for all your gear or is it all cramped??

 

[dguy6789]

Besides the 7950GX2, the Radeon X1900XTX is the fastest single card out there right now. If you were to buy one now, it would last you a good while. Think about when the 9700 Pro came out. The people who bought it when it first came out got the best bang for the buck. For $400, they had four years of gaming at absolute maximum settings. While the X1900XTX may not last that long, it may be comparable.

 

[hardwareking]

the x1900 xt will play all those games well or better than the gtx.the gtx will be better in stalker though.
Get the HIS x1900 xt iceq 3 card.it's got a better and quiter cooler,and can be easily oced to 700 in core clocks.
And even when dx 10 comes out,it'll take a while before games start usin it.
And does anyone know which card halo 2 will have a preference to?(u know,like nvidia cards run better in opengl games and ati in directx)

 

[trance247]

i love the case, i've removed the stock psu which blew out, added quiet yate loon fan and soon gonna put in 80mm fan in floppy slot to cool HD which is in special lian li bracket in 5.25 bay, temps seem good and air circulation is decent


i am thinking to try another 7900 gt, maybe replacemnt won't have issues, i already bought vga silencer...gonna call BB in a bit, find out what's the best way since they don;t carry those cards in stores

 

[trance247]

ps speaking of STALKER...there's a alpha in russian making rounds on the net, played it and ofcourse not much to see gfx wise, but physics are cool, esp the anomalies

 

[beggerking]

hard to justify buying a card for future games..but currently, 1900xt has the best performance/price in the class.

7950 is still a bit expensive...

I'd say wait until the games are out..

 

[Ika]

Originally posted by: beggerking
hard to justify buying a card for future games..but currently, 1900xt has the best performance/price in the class.

7950 is still a bit expensive...

I'd say wait until the games are out..

agreed. also, 7950 is reported to have problems in some games where it isn't detected as a dual-single-card and runs like a 7900GT would. X1900XT would get you the best value, as the X1900XTX is double the percentage more expensive than the X1900XT as it is more powerful. did you get all that?

 

[nitromullet]

Originally posted by: guoziming

Originally posted by: beggerking
hard to justify buying a card for future games..but currently, 1900xt has the best performance/price in the class.

7950 is still a bit expensive...

I'd say wait until the games are out..

agreed. also, 7950 is reported to have problems in some games where it isn't detected as a dual-single-card and runs like a 7900GT would. X1900XT would get you the best value, as the X1900XTX is double the percentage more expensive than the X1900XT as it is more powerful. did you get all that?

Not to get off the OP's topic, but do you have link for that? I have not heard about that at all and would be interested to read about that.

 

[beggerking]

guoziming.. I think you are referring to running 7950 on a mb w/o an updated bios (2nd GPU not detected)...

if you have an updated bios, you should have no problem running it.

7950 is very good and well priced if you need the extra performance over 1900. Both have great performance/price ratio.

 

[Nightmare225]

Prey uses a DirectX version of the Doom engine, so ATI might be better this round.

 

[nitromullet]

Originally posted by: Nightmare225
Prey uses a DirectX version of the Doom engine, so ATI might be better this round.

Again, not to go off topic, but you got a link for that?

 

[trance247]

link for what?



anyway I just did 3dmark06, newest build. 1280 x 1024 and got 4183 or something. 0 artifacts, how is it? i am thinkign maybe the card is not messed up after all, only game that really looked messed up and only after exit is F.E.A.R....everythign else looks good, except temp is getting high 60s after gameplay, but my silncer is ETA tomorrow, we'll see if fresh XP install and etc will fix the problem, also bios updates and etc.

 

[nitromullet]

Originally posted by: trance247
link for what?



anyway I just did 3dmark06, newest build. 1280 x 1024 and got 4183 or something. 0 artifacts, how is it? i am thinkign maybe the card is not messed up after all, only game that really looked messed up and only after exit is F.E.A.R....everythign else looks good, except temp is getting high 60s after gameplay, but my silncer is ETA tomorrow, we'll see if fresh XP install and etc will fix the problem, also bios updates and etc.

A link to something talking about the modified DirectX based Doom 3 engine that is supposed to be used in Prey.

Hopeful news about your card though. I would run it through it's paces in FEAR as hard as you can and run 3DMark06 more than once to push the card. I had an XTX in the past go bad, and the artifacting was intermitent in the beginning, but it gradually got worse and worse. Regrettably, if the artifacts aren't a driver issue, they won't fix themselves. On a brighter note, at least you are dealing with BFG, who is very reputable and will get you a replacemnt card (should you need it) in a decent amount of time. My XTX was an HIS card, and they've had my RMA'ed card for over a month now.