7600 GT v 7900 GT value for money?

[Jagdpanther]

I can get an MSI / Leadtek / Gigabyte 7600 GT for 325AUD or 232 USD

At 485 AUD or 346 USD I can get a Forsa 7900 GT is that worth it?

I can see that it is towards the high end of price comapred to newegg but I am in Australia and thats the cheapest around.

the main thing is that the 7600 will probably meet all my needs, playing Oblivion etc.

The only reason why I'd get the 7900 is that in two years time when I plan my next upgrade I can keey the 7900 cause it can still play new stuff and just swap CPU or RAM or something.

So what do you think I should do?

thanks

 

[jbscotchman]

Obviously a 7900GT will last longer, but at the moment the 7600GT is the best price to performance ratio card.

http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1697,1945705,00.asp

 

[Fox_granit]

Do you have a SLI motherboard? The reason I ask is becuase down the line you'll be able to add another 7600 gt if its just not enough horsepower to run everything. Many people disagree with SLI, but for me its a cost saving measure down the road. I don't have to have the biggest baddest on the market, just enought to do what I want. Thats why i opted for the 7600 gt. The only difference I can really find is the 256mb interface with the 7900 vs the 128 interface with the 7600.

If you don't have SLI or you don't plan to buy another card for a long time, invest in the 7900. If your tight on money, and have SLI then invest in the 7600 gt. Prices will only come down with time, so when you need another 7600 gt, it will be much cheaper. It all comes down to time and money.

 

[cleeve]

SLI is not a good long-term upgrade path, it has proven itself so for 2 reasons:

1. Running dual cards rarely gives you double performance, in fact it is sometime a very small increase, and

2. New, cheaper, higher performance cards come out all the time.



Let's look at someone who two years ago bought a $200 6600 GT, as an example. They plan to upgrade:

1. They could buy a second 6600 GT for $130 to use in SLI mode. Notably better performance in some games, slight boosts in others.

2. They could get a 7600 GT for $180, and sell their used 6600 GT for $40. Total cost $140, with higher performance in pretty much every single benchmark than two 6600 GTs.


SLI/Xfire is not a good value proposition...
That's not to say it's bad, but it's pretty much a tool for someone with a no-holds-barred budget to get ultimate performance. Cost effective though? No, not really.

On a side note, in addition to the inferior memory bus (128-bit vs the 7900 GT's 256-bit), the 7600 GT has 12 pixel pipelines, and the 7900 GT has 24 pixel pipelines... twice the pixel pushing power for stressful games.

 

[Dr_asik]

7900GT is like twice as better than the 7600GT. If you have the money, go for the 7900GT.

It might be twice as good, or maybe twice better, but certainly not twice as better

If you want to go the cheap way, by all means, don't take the 7600GT. You should go for something even cheaper such as 6800GS (169$ on newegg) or X800GTO (141$ on newegg for the 512MB version!) and upgrade again in two years or so.

Just think about it: buy a 170$ video card now and buy another one in two years: that makes 4 years of high-quality gaming for 340$.
If instead you bought a 340$ video card now, that's 3 years of high-quality gaming and then you have to upgrade again.

So, the cheap path gives you 4 years of gaming for 340$ while the top-notch path gives you only 3 years for the same price. Kind of a no-brainer to me

 

[Rugger]

Or spend $170 now for a single card and get 2 good years of performance. Then spend $170 on a new gen card in 2 years and get better performance than an additional $170 spent to SLi the old gen card.

 

[cleeve]

Just think about it: buy a 170$ video card now and buy another one in two years: that makes 4 years of high-quality gaming for 340$.
If instead you bought a 340$ video card now, that's 3 years of high-quality gaming and then you have to upgrade again.

So, the cheap path gives you 4 years of gaming for 340$ while the top-notch path gives you only 3 years for the same price. Kind of a no-brainer to me

You forget some important factors:

1. In the first two years, your gaming experience will be much better than with a single $130 card, and

2. Even with a second card, you are not guaranteed to scale past the performance of the single $340 card

3. You can sell the $340 card for substantially more and upgrade to an even better card.


It's a no brainer to me too, but the other way; buy the best card you can afford, SLI/Xfire is a waste...

 

[icbluscrn]

For value it no question 7600gt,. I think it depends what your used to and like. Do you play games at resolution of 1200 or 1600 do you need to have everything turned on maxed.
maybe you should look for something inbetween the 2 like a x1800gto.

 

[mdd1963]

The 7600GT is indeed good value for the money spent these days, being about midway between a 6800GS and 7800GT, performance-wise....

I'd go that route, with intent to replace it in 12 months with the next sub-$250 performance/value card, which will surely be Direct X 10.0/SM 4.0 capable, unless you really like playing FEAR at 1280x960, and with AA/AF, today....

(personally, I find AA/AF a bit overrated/overhyped in first person shooters, as, short of staring at fencelines when standing still, I can't really notice the improvement otherwise)

 

[Dr_asik]

When I said "buy another one in two years", I didn't mean another identical card, sorry for the confusion. I meant a similarly priced card 2 years from now.

Yeah, SLI and Crossfire aren't worth crap, I agree.