X1900XTX CF vs 7800GTX512 SLI?

[therealnickdanger]

I expected this to be the review battle-royale of the century or something yet the only review I've read contains driver failures and is from a site I'm not familiar with. Hexus says they have one in the works, but it's been a while. Nothing in sight from Tom's or AT... are we just waiting in limbo for the 7900 or something? Is it just the lack of 7800GTX 512 boards?

 

[darXoul]

Man, just look around. There are many reviews comparing CF to SLI. I'll just give you three, from sites I like:

http://www.behardware.com/articles/605-...0-xt-and-x1900-crossfire-in-tests.html

http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/ati_radeon_x1900_crossfire_performance/

http://www.digit-life.com/articles2/video/cf2.html

 

[crazydingo]

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/display/radeon-x1900xtx.html

Most reviews dont have the 512MB GTX cause its very hard to get which they admitted in their conclusions. Here is an excerpt from Firingsquad ..

NVIDIA?s not going to sit around and watch though. Their refresh for the GeForce 7800 GTX is right around the corner, and it?s rumored that NVIDIA?s going to be integrating more shaders into their next part as well. But until they can get their availability issues resolved with GeForce 7800 GTX 512MB, ATI?s Radeon X1800 XT and X1900 XT/XTX cards are essentially competing with the GeForce 7800 GTX 256MB. And in this battle, ATI?s the clear winner.

 

[deadseasquirrel]

Originally posted by: therealnickdanger
I expected this to be the review battle-royale of the century or something

It isn't likely that we'll be flooded with these kind of comparisons since dual-GPU solutions are an extreme niche market. Not too many are willing to spend that much on video cards-- most hate even spending $500 on a single card! 2 512GTXs are gonna set you back $1500 right now. 2 19XTs, while much better, are still gonna hit $1000.

And, with the rate new cards have come out lately, the mid-range SLI doesn't even make as much sense anymore since you'll be spending $550ish on SLI 7800GTs vs. a single 19XT that, in most cases, matches them in performance, and for $50 less.

Don't get me wrong-- I'm a fan of dual-GPU (I've been running SLI 6800GTs for over a year now)-- but there are just no bang-for-buck dual-gpu solutions at the moment. The cheapest SLI solution you can get that outperforms a single x1900XT is 256GTX SLI. But, at $800 compared to $500, I don't think the extra performance is enough to justify. Drop those 256GTXs to $300 a piece, and then you have a very good bang-for-buck SLI solution that beats the x1900xt for only $100 more. That could be worth it.