X1800Xt or 7900Gt

[waelt]

Hey all....
I own ASUS EN6600GT and i think its time to change it ... so i need ur opinions what is the best ? X1800 series or 7900GT ??

 

[dvdpiddy]

Depends really but the general rule is you want overclockabilty get the 7900gt you want better picture quality get the x1800xt. I sya get the x1800xt cause they both trade blows in most games but it's usually cheaper.

 

[waelt]

which is better 4 games ?
i see that x1800 has 16 ultra efficient extreme pipelines but 7900gt has 24 ?? wat is the difference ?

 

[dvdpiddy]

Damn man i'm not that good with gpu's but this site should help you. Damn if paul,grape,cleeve,or gw were on you'd get a better answer.

 

[ikjadoon]

X1800XT. Hey, you don't mention me?!?! lol, I'm just kidding. Check out this review, and take HL2 and Quake with some salt: they both favor one brand over another.

Read this review:

REVIEW

~Ibrahim~

 

[Vinny]

I was wondering that same thing not too long ago... it's too bad TH doesn't have numbers for any for the 7600 or 7900 cards, that would've made things easier.

But anyway, I'd go with the X1800XT. It doesn't really matter though since both cards are awesome...

 

[prozac26]

Both cards are great, you can't go wrong with either.

7900GT will overclock better, while the X1800XT can do AA + HDR, and has features such as AVIVO.

 

[dvdpiddy]

X1800XT. Hey, you don't mention me?!?! lol, I'm just kidding. Check out this review, and take HL2 and Quake with some salt: they both favor one brand over another.

Read this review:

REVIEW

~Ibrahim~

Your name is too hard to pronounce and remember for me.

 

[ikjadoon]

haha, tru!

~Ibrahim~

 

[TheGreatGrapeApe]

Two recent reviews to consider (you have to dig fro the figures, because most often nowadays people talk GT vs GT);

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/display/powercolor-x1900gt.html

http://www.pureoverclock.com/article39.html

 

[pauldh]

I like this one also, because it has the 256MB X1800XT paired with the 7900GT and X1900GT:

http://www.legionhardware.com/document.php?id=550

 

[enforcerfx]

Im going to go with X1800Xt on this one folks, xt supports HDR, avivo and AA while GT only has AA. Plus, if you're into MMOs, the Xt is the best between the two, hands down.

 

[ikjadoon]

Yeah, I like the X1800XT better. Hopefully the HDR/AA thing will be fixed soon, that is losing nVidia customers!

~Ibrahim~

 

[Heyyou27]

That's a hardware issue that can't be fixed. Nvidia cards can already use OpenEXR HDR and antialiasing simultaneously, the only problem is most developers won't take the extra time for the work around. (Seen in Age of Empires III)

 

[necroshine67]

If you choose to go with the 7900gt be sure to get they NEW EVGA version.
All the other 7900's have a very good chance of being a bad egg. it's so bad XFX closed it's forum.

 

[bliq]

One other factor to consider is SLI. It's why i"m leaning towards the 7900GT myself. I think I want to buy one card now and add a second maybe next year to keep my system relatively current, instead of buying the next super expensive card. If I can last out 3 years, I'll be really happy.

And I'm sure there are people on both sides but I really think SLI is a more mature technology than crossfire, plus crossfire boards are more expensive and there aren't as many of them.

 

[TheGreatGrapeApe]

That's a hardware issue that can't be fixed. Nvidia cards can already use OpenEXR HDR and antialiasing simultaneously, the only problem is most developers won't take the extra time for the work around. (Seen in Age of Empires III)

Well it's because (like I thought) it's calculated in software (CPU) not in hardware by the VPU. Using this method you could achieve OpenEXRHDR+AA on an FX5200 or R9200 because there would be a host component.

This is the best description I could find of the method which we didn't have at the time we first discussed this;

Even if it is based on FP16 for the GeForce, HDR can be coupled to AntiAliasing. How is this possible? It isn´t a multisampling but a supersampling processed by the game engine where the image is calculated at 2.25 times the resolution, or 1.5 times bigger in each dimension (2400 x 1800 instead of 1600 x 1200 for example). If it makes FSAA available for the GeForce, we have to keep in mind that AntiAliasing quality is much lower compared to Radeon X1000 4x multisampling.
The method used for the GeForce is very power greedy and performances are reduced.

The other interesting this I found ou was that for ATi they use FX10 because it's faster and can be done in software. And while they could do FP16+AA the image quality is the same (since it's still no int8 it has 2 bit trans-range info). Very interesting implementation, but it's not even the hardware work around we've talked about before with 2 loops, but the SSAA is done in software. The performance difference is huge and the IQ as stated worse. I wonder what the performance would be like using 2 loops instead, I wouldn't think it could be much worse than this (keep in mind 2XSSAA vs 4XMSAA);

 

[Heyyou27]

I'd like to see the article you're getting this from; also awhile back I said Nvidia could use OpenEXR HDR with Super Sampling antialiasing but everyone though I was an idiot. :lol:

I'm also unsure how accurate the performance stated is; with Nvidia's latest drivers I've gotten a solid 10FPS more per second on Age of Empires III on 1680x1050 with minimized UI enabled. In general super sampling should actually be higher quality than multisampling when comparing the same level; when using it my performance on games like F.E.A.R. is not much worse than Multisampling, if any noticeable difference. I would like to think this could be attributed to Nvidia's unused pixel processing power which could help to keep super sampling moving, although this may not really be the case.

 

[TheGreatGrapeApe]

I'd like to see the article you're getting this from; also awhile back I said Nvidia could use OpenEXR HDR with Super Sampling antialiasing but everyone though I was an idiot. :lol:

I remember that thread, but I doubt it was I or Cleeve who would've thought you were an idiot, just wanting to know how it was done. I remember we discussed it 8 ways from Sunday! I had a feeling that it was done in software, because you could do that as explained above, but it requires more coding from the developer, moure CPU resources, and it's much slower than native (although may be faster than 2 loops required to do it in nV's GPU hardware). Man I tell you that original discussion set me off, on a very difficult journey to try and find out WHY it was possible, and what the owrk around was, and what the physical difference were that made it possible for ATi but not nV. And it's still not truely possible for FP16 throughout in hardware, but this would explain how they do it in software and I would imagine this would allow it to be FP16 throughout as well.

As for where I got it, you want me to reveal my secrets, after I spent so much time searching after that other thread!

It was in a recent GF7950GX2 review I saw, I'll pull it up again when I get home from work.

I'm also unsure how accurate the performance stated is; with Nvidia's latest drivers I've gotten a solid 10FPS more per second on Age of Empires III on 1680x1050 with minimized UI enabled. In general super sampling should actually be higher quality than multisampling when comparing the same level;

But it's NOT the same level, re-read their statement it's 2X (2.25) SSAA (as determined by software) versus ATi's MSAA levels (in this case they compared 4XMSAA to the software's 2XSSAA, and they said the hardware 4XMSAA > software 2XSSAA. Sure if it was hardware 2XSSAA versus 2XMSAA then yes you'd expect it to be better. But considering they are limited to the implementation it's not surprising. Heck ATi could probably do 6XMSAA with better performance, and it would be a factor better still, but they likely thoguht this was the closest comparison between the two (I assume 2XMSAA on the ATi would be faster still).

when using it my performance on games like F.E.A.R. is not much worse than Multisampling, if any noticeable difference.

But remember it's a different implementation, and it's also involving HDR, and it doesn't mention if the HDR is done before or after the SSAA increase and then filtering. The filtering process would involve the use of edge half-tone detection that might mess with the HDR implementation. something a little more detailed would be great.

I would like to think this could be attributed to Nvidia's unused pixel processing power which could help to keep super sampling moving, although this may not really be the case.

Except for the fact that in this case the SSAA would be at the software level done by the host, not the GPU, so nV's unused processing power would not be available. And since it's HDR that is another performance hit, you likely don't have much unused performance left in the ROPs which is where the SSAA would be done in hardware. Like I said the only two options are Software which is the way it is done in AOE3 or Hardware using 2 full loops through the ROPs using int8 targets for the second loop.

In effect the software method AOE3 uses might offer better IQ than the 2 loop method at the same setting (but it would let you choose 4XSSAA, unlike the software method), but both take a performance hit, the question is just how much each takes, and whether the IQ differences are enough to matter.

EDITed broken quote.

 

[Heyyou27]

Another question: why would they choose to use the software adaptation over a hardware one? Was the software based solution that much easier to program for? ( I still want to see that article )

 

[TheGreatGrapeApe]

They would use the software adaptation because the typical hardware one isn't available so then it's a question of nV telling them how to do it in 2 loops, and then decide which method they prefer.

As to why they prefered it I don't know.

And don't get your panties in a bunch I'll post the link when I get home.

You could always just goggle the quote and see what come up (likely bring you right to that review).

HAha; Googled the first sentence, and voila! Seriously was that so hard? :tongue:
http://www.behardware.com/art/imprimer/627/

 

[Heyyou27]

Thanks.