Which is better for Bioshock/Oblivion....... GeForce 7950GT 256MB or Radeon X1950GT 512MB ??

lavmorc

Junior Member
Sep 16, 2007
8
0
0
Btw, my system:

* Intel Core 2 Duo e6750
* GIGABYTE GA-P35-DS3L LGA 775 Intel P35 ATX Intel Motherboard
* 2 GB DDR2-800
* 430W Antec Power Supply
* Windows XP Pro

And I'm not going to upgrade to Vista, so I don't want a DX10 card. Thx.
 

Keysplayr

Elite Member
Jan 16, 2003
21,209
50
91
I would imagine the 7950GT would be better in all games over a 1950GT. But for 20 bucks more, I would go with Tuteja1986's suggestion on that X1950XT. Although that gamespot link does not show how a 7950GT does in Bioshock. Just a 7900GS which is about two steps down from a 7950GT. 7900GS > 7900GT > 7950GT. I'll have to look around for benches where a 7950GT is tested in Bioshock. Shouldn't be too hard to find.

EDIT: N/M. 7950GT doesn't best a X1950XT. There ya go.
 

MarcVenice

Moderator Emeritus <br>
Apr 2, 2007
5,664
0
0
The 7950gt costs 140$ AR, the XT costs 200$ :p

For 200$ you might as well buy a 8800gts 320mb. Btw, if the 2900pro is launching at the end of the month, it might be wise waiting for that card. If it costs 200-220$ it would definately be a very good bang for buck card.
 

lavmorc

Junior Member
Sep 16, 2007
8
0
0
Thanks guys! That was pretty helpful, though I don't want to get the X1950XT because of noise, I only have a 430W power supply, and price. (mainly price).

It sounds like in a head-on comparison, the 7950GT is better than a X1950GT. True?
 

milesl

Member
Oct 11, 2004
103
0
0
I am getting the 7950gt 256mb.Have one on the way.From my research performance is faster than the X1950GT and x1950pro, and slightly slower than the x1950XT.Also draws a LOT less power and is quieter than the X1950 series cards.
 

lavmorc

Junior Member
Sep 16, 2007
8
0
0
Thanks milesl... that's exactly what I was hoping to hear. Don't suppose you know any good websites with benchmarks for the 7950gt 256mb? Thanks again.
 

alcoholbob

Diamond Member
May 24, 2005
6,271
323
126
Originally posted by: MarcVenice
The 7950gt costs 140$ AR, the XT costs 200$ :p

For 200$ you might as well buy a 8800gts 320mb. Btw, if the 2900pro is launching at the end of the month, it might be wise waiting for that card. If it costs 200-220$ it would definately be a very good bang for buck card.

Can you get a 8800GTS for $200? I thought they were all very close to $300.
 

aka1nas

Diamond Member
Aug 30, 2001
4,335
1
0
If you want to play Oblivion with a high-resolution texture pack, than go with a 512MB card. Otherwise, the 7950 is slightly faster as others have already mentioned.
 

cmdrdredd

Lifer
Dec 12, 2001
27,052
357
126
Originally posted by: lavmorc
Thanks guys! That was pretty helpful, though I don't want to get the X1950XT because of noise, I only have a 430W power supply, and price. (mainly price).

It sounds like in a head-on comparison, the 7950GT is better than a X1950GT. True?

1) the 1950XT isn't that loud. The fan NEVER spools up to 100% and you can barely hear it most of the time and definately won't notice it when you're gaming. People need to remember that putting the fan at 100% and saying "it's loud" is NOT and I repeat is NOT a real life scenerio that you will experience when in actual usage. I hate people who think that because it's loud at 100% that it's loud all the time. You can put an Nvidia card that uses a 2slot system at 100% fan speed and it will be loud too. Again, real world usage...the fan is not spooling up to anywhere near that level unless there is some extreme problem with your case airflow. For refrence I run my HD2900XT at 780/950 overclock and when running Real Time HDR tests and DX10 demonstrations at high resolution with AA and AF on, and running any game I have available to me (Bioshock, oblivion with high res texture pack, Quake 4, Quake Wars Demo, Half-Life 2 etc) it never gets over 85c which is not enough to even push the fan over 38%. That's a fair bit quieter than what you hear at 100%, and even with sounds off and the fan spooling to about 40% it's hard to notice over ambient noise. I'm sure Nvidia cards are similar. So unless you plan on running in a situation where it will somehow get to 100c+ it won't get to 100% fan speed so noise wouldn't even come into play.
2) Your PSU would be enough for it, just not enough for 2 cards.
 

lopri

Elite Member
Jul 27, 2002
13,209
594
126
Never mind. (OP: I thought you're looking for a single-slot card just from the first post)
 

myocardia

Diamond Member
Jun 21, 2003
9,291
30
91
Whatever you do, don't buy a 256 MB card these days, unless you get a really good deal on a used one. Every year, the leading games require more and more VRAM, and with Crysis, Alan Wake, etc coming out soon, you'll wish you had spent a few dollars more for a card with more VRAM, I promise you. 1680x1050 is fairly high resolution, assuming you are like the average gamer, and like using a bit of AA with their LCD's, which seem to almost require it.
 

lavmorc

Junior Member
Sep 16, 2007
8
0
0
Thanks myocardia. To be honest, given my budget, I don't have much hope of playing Crysis with my current machine. Maybe next year when I can look at the game benchmarks and handpick a card for that game. Plus I'll probably upgrade to Vista by then too, and a quad core maybe. Anyway, thanks for the warning.
 

Munky

Diamond Member
Feb 5, 2005
9,372
0
76
Originally posted by: Astrallite
Looks like, if we are just talking about Oblivion, X1950XT has a slight advantage, about 20%

http://www23.tomshardware.com/...0&model2=726&chart=297

But overall, the 7950GT is about 30% faster than the X1950XT

http://forums.anandtech.com/me...=2096764&enterthread=y

I think you have the 1950xt confused with something else. Overall, the 1950xt is about 30% faster than a 7950gt, even more so in Oblivion. But unless your power supply cranks out 30+ amps on 12v, I wouldn't consider a 1950xt. The 7950gt is a good alternative for those with a weak PSU.
 

Laminator

Senior member
Jan 31, 2007
855
2
91
I'm selling an X1900 XT 512MB for $150 + shipping if you're interested. But aside from that, the 7950GT is faster than the X1950 GT except in two games: Need for Speed: Carbon and Oblivion. The X1950 GT/Pro have only 12 TMU's, half of that of the 7950GT, but have 36 pixel shaders (the 7950GT only has 24). In extremely shader-dependent games, the X1950 GT will be faster. But for the most part, the 7950GT is a faster card.

The X1950 XT is a beast of a card that will be faster than the 7950GT (it has 16 TMU's but 48 pixel shaders) but is much more expensive; the less-expensive ones have only 256MB of memory which is finally starting to become inadequate. And, yeah, I don't know about that 430W PSU...is that an Antec Earthwatt or whatever? You can look around online to see who else is using that PSU and what video card they're running. Unless we know everything about your system, though, it's tough to decide.