Is trading down 2 7900 GT's for a 7900GTX worth it?

[krotchy]

Well as you can see from the main rig in my system (Opteron 170 @2667) I have a pretty decent gaming rig, however I have one problem. I love to use dual monitors when working, and I contstantly have to disable SLI to use the 2 monitors, and then re-enable it when I want to play Oblivion or any intensive game. Using only 1 7900GT owns counterstrike, hitman and most things, and I dont care about going from 90 FPS to 140, so I play using only one card in all of those games, just cuz im too lazy to enable the second. Also I have a bit of a problem that the 7900 GT's stock cooler is the loudest thing in my computer.

My thoughts are this, I cannot fit 2 7900 GT's with any form of after-market cooler, due to having a sound card and a wireless card, so losing two of my 3 open PCI slots isnt an option. I am thinking, just for continuity sake I might try to trade my 2 7900 GT's for a 7900GTX (factory overclocked maybe to fix the price difference?), thus giving me After-market cooling options, and permanent use of two screens.

However I am wondering, how much of an FPS loss do you think I will incur due to this "downgrade", and does anyone else think its worth it?

 

[imported_Crusader]

Depends on what games, what resolution ect.
In some cases, a GTX is equal to 2 GTs. Some cases, faster due to 512MB and faster speeds. Its hard to generalize.
Ive used SLI in the past, and have found I prefer to spend my money on the top end card.. esp since I use triple buffering which uses more memory than usual.. top that on with some AA/AF and you have yourself (in some games) a true memory hogging experience.

I run 8xS/16X in most of my games with TB+vsync and I'm sure if I tested with riva tuner that uses a lot of memory. In many cases, prob more than 256MB.

But i think in certain scenarios, the 256MB limitation can be more of a hold back than the raw power than SLI setups like 2x7800GTs. You have the raw power, but in some cases prob simply not enough memory.

The benchmarks are typically tested in something like 1600x1200 and higher resolutions, high AA/AF levels but thats it.
No transAA, no triple buffering, no vsync ect. If you use settings as I do, you really owe it to yourself to try out a GTX for example.

Or a GX2 since its a 2x512MB card. But on team green, the GTX is the fastest multimonitor card available. ATI has some decent cards as well, but I've always found NV cards to be far better in their multimonitor support than ATI. Though the ATI cards can match Nvidia with 3rd party apps. The multimonitor support in forceware is pretty damn good stuff (pretty much the only way to go for hardware accelerated multimonitor gaming if you were to play with triple or quad monitors in Flight Simulator for example, two GTXs in a SLI mobo WITHOUT SLI enabled would be the best case scenario for that game).

So to summarize, for you, I'd suggest moving to a GTX. For a multimonitor user like yourself, its tough to beat.

 

[Ichigo]

As long as you get some money out of trading 2 GT's for a GTX, I think it's worth it in your situation.

 

[imported_Sincity]

I got rid of 2 7800GTs for 1 7900GTX. Less heat and in my case, I regained BIOS controls of the fans for a silent run rig. For some reason, my Abit mobo disbale BIOS controls of the fans in SLI.

 

[Cookie Monster]

Its a shame when SLi doesnt work well with dual monitors.

I suggest you move to the GTX since NV has awesome multi monitor support compared to its competiton.

 

[TanisHalfElven]

doesn't nvidia have custom profile support for each game ? (i don't know since i use ati but i am curious)

anyway i think 512 mb vram would really help..

 

[akshayt]

7900GT SLi>7900GTX at all/most times

http://xbitlabs.com/articles/video/display/nvidia-gf7950gx2.html

 

[Ichigo]

He's not doing this for performance reasons. Did you bother to read his post? It makes sense for him to get a GTX.

 

[krotchy]

Looking at those scores, I dont think the performance drop is near bad enough to warrant not doing this, especially since I dont use my computer 100% for gaming, and definitely love dual monitors more than anything else. Plus the ability to throw an aftermarket cooler on and quiet down my comp is really appealing.

Anyways have any idea how much money I should get back if I found a direct trader?

 

[keldog7]

At the very least, the GTX will be MUUUCCCHHH quieter than the 2 7900GT setup.

 

[DidlySquat]

I also prefer a single GTX to dial GTs but the thing is you can get X1900XT for less than a 7900GTX, and no matter what what the moron reviewer at Anandtech say, X1900XT is better than a 7900GTX, especially with AA/AF (big time) which most high end gamers want. Proof that AT reviers are morons is the new video card buyers guide articel which puts the 6800GT/Ultra in the "high end" segment, even though they perform worse than 7600GT which is in the mainstream segment. Why in the hell even include the 6800GT/Ultra in this article and put it in the wrong section ? Also AT is consistently wrong in saying X1800XT is equal to 7800GTX which is obviously wrong cause X1800XT owns the 7800GTX, escpecially with AA/AF (but even without). I think they are still stuck in the past when ATI OGL driver was bad and Nvidia had a huge advantage in Q4/D3 engine games, which ois not the case any more. In summary there are lots of morons here, including the ones running the site. But the bottm line is that you should get X1900XT + Accelero instead of a 7900GTX.

 

[darkswordsman17]

I would personally recommend an X1900XT as well. Its faster and for quite a bit less money. Power isn't an issue since you've been running the dual 7900GTs fine. As for noise, since you were planning on an aftermarket cooler to begin with, then you're not any worse off. Of course, if you went 7900GTX, I don't think you'd really need to replace the stock HSF as it'll be a good deal quiter over what you've got now.

ATi's dual monitor support in my experience hasn't been any worse than nVidia's and you'd likely use something like UltraMon for whatever either companie's drive won't let you adjust.

 

[akshayt]

1800XT is equla to the 7800GTX which equals a 7900GT just as 1900XT equals 7900GTX

just AA and AF can't be made the criteria, there are games where nvidia has a huge lead like Serious Sam 2 and even GRAW to some extent.

 

[TanisHalfElven]

yeah like stupid GRAW is a great benchmark. stupid game doesn't support AA.
anyway a single x1900xt would be slower BUT you can get one for 330 on newegg so it should cost you nothing more and you might just save some cash because 2x7900gt are bound to sell for mopre than 330.

 

[DidlySquat]

Originally posted by: akshayt
1800XT is equla to the 7800GTX which equals a 7900GT just as 1900XT equals 7900GTX

just AA and AF can't be made the criteria, there are games where nvidia has a huge lead like Serious Sam 2 and even GRAW to some extent.

y u little fool.......X1800XT is a little faster than 7800GTX even without AA/AF and significantly faster with AA/AF. Only the 7800GTX-512 is faster than X1800XT. I recommend you try to learn to read.....

 

[keldog7]

Fanboy rants aside, there is *one* reason you might definitiely want the 7900GTX... And thats if you ever plan on running linux. ATI linux drivers are stuck in 1998...