Yet another X1900XT vs. 7800GTX thread.....so torn!

[kwo]

I know there have been a million threads concerning these cards...but I am just so torn...

After trying to read a number of reviews and threads, etc....I have come to the conclusion that I can't decide.

Here's what I've gleaned:

1. The X1900XT (PowerCooler 512mb X1900XT for $539 @ NewEgg)
a. Newer generation card (?)
b. Drivers (overall) have stability issues possibly due to incomplete support for new hardware
c. Relatively loud fan

2. 7800GTX (XFX 256mb 7800GTX for $509 @ NewEgg)
a. Older generation hardware (?)
b. More stable drivers
c. Relatively quiet fan

Here's the KEY: This is a long distance build for a friend that I am *flying out* with to setup for him in 2 weeks. March 1st is when I'm going. As such, I will NOT have easy access to the system for tweaking and what not. I am doing the initial build at my house, then shipping out components to reassemble once I arrive...

In addition, he wants a *quiet* system - and the reports about a loud fan on the ATI card have me concerned, as I'm not going to be replacing the stock fan anytime soon... (he won't be overclocking....)

With that in mind, I am leaning towards the 7800GTX so that I can minimize potential issues. He wants to load games and run them...period. Not play with drivers and what not.

If it was *my* system, I would get the ATI Powercooler X1900XT because I don't mind playing with drivers and such...but he does *not*. (How could I not for the minimal price difference?)

So, would I be incorrect in saying that, for stability purposes and relative 'ease of setup', that I should get the 256mb 7800GTX for him?

Thoughts would be much appreciated......

Thanks!

 

[Munky]

Just get the gtx and tell him "it's on par with the xt", heh heh...

 

[Sonikku]

Originally posted by: kwo
Newer, louder card + buggy drivers or older, quieter card with more stable drivers?

Wow, that's flame bait if I've ever seen it.

 

[M0RPH]

Originally posted by: kwo

If it was *my* system, I would get the ATI Powercooler X1900XT because I don't mind playing with drivers and such...but he does *not*. (How could I not for the minimal price difference?)

So, would I be incorrect in saying that, for stability purposes and relative 'ease of setup', that I should get the 256mb 7800GTX for him?

I'm not sure why you think that the 1900 cards have stability problems or are harder to set up. There are people here running the cards without any problems. And Cat 6.2 will be out within a week and should clear up any driver issues that there might be.

 

[Cooler]

Originally posted by: Sonikku

Originally posted by: kwo
Newer, louder card + buggy drivers or older, quieter card with more stable drivers?

Wow, that's flame bait if I've ever seen it.

Its not like drivers are ready every time a new card comes out would you like buggy drivers i would think not.

 

[kwo]

Originally posted by: M0RPH

I'm not sure why you think that the 1900 cards have stability problems or are harder to set up. There are people here running the cards without any problems. And Cat 6.2 will be out within a week and should clear up any driver issues that there might be.

Thanks for replying. This is an impression from reading threads and people's experiences on multiple forums for about an hour last night in trying to decide.

Is it completely objective, no. More of an impression I received from just reading post after post...... sort of like an informal tally in my head....

 

[tuteja1986]

x1900xt no doubt



I have played few video High Quality Video Trailer H246 1080 Trailer and it worked perfectly.

Right Now the ATI driver support for R580 isn't the best but the CAT 6.2 will rock which come out sometime in feb.

ATI AVIVO converter rocks and i do use to encode video for my Ipod video and it does them extremely fast , faster than any 3rd party software i have ever used.

I would how ever recommend that you change to cooling system to an Arctic Cooling Accelero X2 because it keeps the temp down without making alot of nosie.

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/ArcticCooling/AcceleroX2/6

I think it is an awesome cooling system and makes less nosie than 7800GTX 512mb stock cooler.

Also i don't have a issue with CCC , all thoes people with memory leak problem are just crazy :! CCC never take up more than 17MB -20MB (for me anyways) to run it and i can live with that :!

http://www.ewiz.com/detail.php?name=AT-X1900XT&src=Deal $499 for ATI X1900XT

 

[BenSkywalker]

Thanks for replying. This is an impression from reading threads and people's experiences on multiple forums for about an hour last night in trying to decide.

As someone who has been running ATi in his main rig for a couple of years now I can say without hesitation I would not build someone else a rig using one of their boards.

As a singular current example B&W2 is totally screwed up right now on the 1900xt- its' performance is horrific at best. Now, this is going to be fixed by ATi but by the sounds of it you don't want to have to try and direct someone on how to install drivers properly(I know how bad that can go when they are close by and totally screw it up.....) or download the latest hotfixes. Also you are stuck using CCC as of now which is a resource hog(if this doesn't change I don't think I would consider their parts for my own rig either) and very poorly designed.

 

[Frostwake]

x1900xt manages the same performance as gtx sli in some cases, so its a no brainer.. about drivers morph said it already..

 

[kwo]

Originally posted by: BenSkywalker
As someone who has been running ATi in his main rig for a couple of years now I can say without hesitation I would not build someone else a rig using one of their boards.

As a singular current example B&W2 is totally screwed up right now on the 1900xt- its' performance is horrific at best. Now, this is going to be fixed by ATi but by the sounds of it you don't want to have to try and direct someone on how to install drivers properly(I know how bad that can go when they are close by and totally screw it up.....) or download the latest hotfixes. Also you are stuck using CCC as of now which is a resource hog(if this doesn't change I don't think I would consider their parts for my own rig either) and very poorly designed.

Thanks for your thoughtful reply. In addition, how is the noise level on that ATI card? The system I'm putting together is going to be in a Lian Li PC60Aplus case with, most likely, a heatsink only cooled chipset MB (remember, no OC'ing) and a Zalman CNPS7700 Cu CPU cooler, so I think his system is going to be relatively quiet......

 

[M0RPH]

Originally posted by: kwo

Originally posted by: M0RPH

I'm not sure why you think that the 1900 cards have stability problems or are harder to set up. There are people here running the cards without any problems. And Cat 6.2 will be out within a week and should clear up any driver issues that there might be.

Thanks for replying. This is an impression from reading threads and people's experiences on multiple forums for about an hour last night in trying to decide.

Is it completely objective, no. More of an impression I received from just reading post after post...... sort of like an informal tally in my head....

How about all of the countless reviews that generally praised the 1900 cards? Did you see any that mentioned stability or setup problems? Getting an impression of a product solely from reading forums is usually not a good idea. The few people that have problems with new cards are always the ones starting threads and complaining the loudest. Those people who are having no trouble normally don't go to forums to start threads saying 'hey, just got the card and installed it and it works great.'

 

[tuteja1986]

Originally posted by: M0RPH

Originally posted by: kwo

Originally posted by: M0RPH

I'm not sure why you think that the 1900 cards have stability problems or are harder to set up. There are people here running the cards without any problems. And Cat 6.2 will be out within a week and should clear up any driver issues that there might be.

Thanks for replying. This is an impression from reading threads and people's experiences on multiple forums for about an hour last night in trying to decide.

Is it completely objective, no. More of an impression I received from just reading post after post...... sort of like an informal tally in my head....

How about all of the countless reviews that generally praised the 1900 cards? Did you see any that mentioned stability or setup problems? Getting an impression of a product solely from reading forums is usually not a good idea. The few people that have problems with new cards are always the ones starting threads and complaining the loudest. Those people who are having no trouble normally don't go to forums to start threads saying 'hey, just got the card and installed it and it works great.'

The complain get even louder when fan from otherside take it to next level making it look like everyone is having these problem.

 

[kwo]

Originally posted by: M0RPH
How about all of the countless reviews that generally praised the 1900 cards? Did you see any that mentioned stability or setup problems? Getting an impression of a product solely from reading forums is usually not a good idea. The few people that have problems with new cards are always the ones starting threads and complaining the loudest. Those people who are having no trouble normally don't go to forums to start threads saying 'hey, just got the card and installed it and it works great.'

Fair enough - it is true that most satisfied people do not initiate threads, so I am seeing a skewed selection of all x1900 owners.

How 'bout the sound issue - is it indeed louder than most? I suppose I could put a new heatsink/fan on it, like that one that 'tuteja' linked earlier....when it becomes available....

Hmmmm.....

 

[DoobieOnline]

kwo, if he really wants a quiet system you should get him the 7800 GTX. I have the X1900XT and love it, but it sounds like a hairdryer for a few seconds when you first boot up the PC. I can hear the fan on the X1900XT even when it runs at normal speeds (which is pretty much all the time after boot up). This is with two 120mm 80 cfm fans in my case and my case is under my desk. If he doesn't want to mess with driver updates, you would be doing him a great service to get a card like the GTX that has much more mature drivers.

This is all coming from someone who sold his GTX after picking up the X1900XT. I don't mind tinkering with my stuff so driver updates aren't an issue for me. The noise doesn't bother me because I game with headphones on and that's what I use my PC for 90% of the time.

It just sounds to me like your buddy would prefer to have the GTX based on everything you've said and everything I know about both cards. Good luck!

 

[Wreckage]

If you are worried about noise, heat or power draw you would be better off with the GTX.

Some people don't want or need a dual slot monster in their computer and they don't care about an extra 10fps here or there (don't get me wrong, many people do).

If you are happy with the benchmarks and want a cooler running quite single slot card it's probably the fastest out there.

The 512 which appears to be back in stock would be a little better than the XTX but it's dual slot and much higher cost would rule it out overall.

 

[M0RPH]

Doobie's advice sounds reasonable. However, you may want to let your friend know that you're buying him a card that is going to be significantly slower (even more so in future games) than one you could have gotten him for the same price. Let him decide if this is worth the tradeoff for a slightly quieter fan.

Edit: And you can get a BBA retail 1900XT for $499 at eWiz

 

[Ronnie]

Alright here are my thoughts, I'm coming from a 6800 SLI setup and upgraded to a 1900xt. I have had the card for just 3 days and the drivers on the cd run flawless.

As for the fan you can set this with ati tool to whatever speed you like. I ran it on full speed just to try some benches and yes on full speed it is extremely loud close to what a tornado sounds like. Benchmark wise this card broke 40k in 3dmark01, 12k in 05 and 6k in 06.

For the money I think the 1900xt is a decent card and would pick it over the 7800gtx.

 

[Munky]

Originally posted by: Ronnie
Alright here are my thoughts, I'm coming from a 6800 SLI setup and upgraded to a 1900xt. I have had the card for just 3 days and the drivers on the cd run flawless.

As for the fan you can set this with ati tool to whatever speed you like. I ran it on full speed just to try some benches and yes on full speed it is extremely loud close to what a tornado sounds like. Benchmark wise this card broke 40k in 3dmark01, 12k in 05 and 6k in 06.

For the money I think the 1900xt is a decent card and would pick it over the 7800gtx.

How loud is the fan under load when you just leave it at stock settings?

 

[Ronnie]

honestly I could not hear it, The rest of the system is kinda loud.

 

[nib95]

Lol, some people must have very sensitive ears, or very poor thin casing on thier towers. I do not find these ATI coolers overtly loud at all.
In any case, in my opinion there is no comparison, get the XT over the 256mb GTX anyday of the week.
Infact i'd take it over the GTX 512mb with ease, so against the 256mb at only $30 difference?

You'd be a fool to go with the GTX.
However, if you like Nvidia more, you should just wait for the 7900 GT. Which I assume would be priced accordingly.

 

[nitromullet]

Cat 6.2 will be out within a week and should clear up any driver issues that there might be.

That is an extremely speculative statement, and not one that I would be willing to make about any company's drivers. I hope that people reading your advice take it with a grain of salt.

That being said, between the X1900XT and the GTX, I would still probably go with the ATI card... If you're willing to pay that much for a GTX, what about an X1800XT...? It lands somewhere in the middle performancewise, but has a bit more maturity than the new ATI card. I haven't had any issues with mine whatsoever. You can actually even get an X1800XT at compusa for $499, while I'm not normally a huge proponent of comp, they do have a fantastic guaranteed 2-year replacement policy for $79, which might be worth it in this situation provided that they have compusa in your friend's area. I've brought back stuff to comp with compatability issues before under this program, and never had a problem. Regrettably, they only sell the X1900XTX for $650, so you don't have that option unless your friend wants to pay consdierably more.

 

[Creig]

Originally posted by: kwo
If it was *my* system, I would get the ATI Powercooler X1900XT because I don't mind playing with drivers and such...but he does *not

Why not simply explain to your friend the differences between the X1900XT and the 7800GTX and let HIM decide if he wants faster/louder or slower/quieter? Then you can't be blamed for making the "wrong" choice if he later wishes you'd chosen the other card.

 

[imported_Finny]

Hmm... If you were to get him the GTX, I'd actually recommend the one at ( http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?Item=N82E16814130248 ) over the XFX one. I've heard better things about EVGA than XFX, and it's far cheaper (You could also just OC a tidbit to the XFX's speeds to make up for the lost speeds easily, unless you're COMPLETELY deadset against any overclocking).

Now, I don't think the preformance difference is as drastic as M0RPH would like you to believe, but the difference is there nonetheless, and if your buddy would prefer the top-tier preformance over the sound/heat/driver issues, then by all means, the 1900XT.

'Course, it sounds like you wouldn't have any chances of helping him if there were any problems with it (i.e. questions about the loudness, issues with certain games, etc), so maybe you should just leave it at the GTX.

Regardless of what you do, I'm pretty sure you can feel confident that your buddy would be pleased with either.

 

[kwo]

As always, y'all have been helpful in my decision making process..

Thanks for taking your time to post!

(no, I haven't quite decided yet..... )

 

[mooncancook]

for $30 difference I'll definately get the XT over the GTX. At stock speed it scores over 10k in 3DMark05. and don't forget about its AVIVO feature. I just watched a 1080i trailer, it keeps my CPU around 30%-40%+ usage compared to above 60% all the time with my previous X800XL.