MSI RX1900 or EVGA 7950GT

[grtmoby]

I was wondering which of these cards is the better performer mainly in games (both are 512MB). I never intend to do SLI or crossfire.

The other question is, is it possible to use an ATI card in an nvidia chipset mobo and vice versa or not.
thanx for your help

 

[Ruptga]

ATi is currently the best in single-card performance(unless you get a GX2, but that's 'cheating'), though nVidia seems to be better in the bang/buck area. But I'd wait until someone else verifies that because I'm not sure on all the little details of that.

Anyway, what I do know is that you can't run an ATi and nVidia card at the same time, their drivers try to kill each other. Whether that's true with chipsets as well, I have no idea; you might just need to uninstall some driver that came with it, you might not need to do anything, or there might not be anything that anyone in the world can do for it.

 

[40sTheme]

Yes, you can run either card in most chipsets. Also, which X1900 model is this? XT, XTX? Both of them are better than the 7950GT, though, so if you can run the dual slot cooling then get the X1900.

 

[grtmoby]

the XT model is the one I am asking about. What about when vista shows up, will it be able to run the aero interface or not as I think I heard that the video card must support HDCP to do so.

 

[Ruptga]

That's HTCP and you don't need that for Aero. What you might need it for is watching movies, HTCP is a DRM thing that encodes the signal between computer and monitor so you can't simply record the protected movie as you're watching it. HDMI is the new connector that's something like DVI plus audio, and it's higher quality. I haven't heard anything about needing HDMI for Aero.

 

[40sTheme]

Definitely get the X1900XT. And, if you can find and/or afford upgrading to a 512 MB XT, that would be even better.

 

[Smartazz]

Will the realease of the 8800GTX and GTS drive down the prices of these cards? If they do, it might be worth waiting.