one 7950GT or run two 7900 GS in SLI?

[Swamper33]

I'm Building a new system for gaming. I pretty much have everything picked out but not sure which is the best way to go.
Should I got with the NVIDIA 7950 GT by itself or Run 2 NVIDIA 7900GS in SLI?

 

[Mousemonkey]

As I run two 7900GT's in Sli I can see you've got a toughie there, what about the 'SLi on a stick' 7950GX2?, that's surly got to be in the same price range.

 

[Swamper33]

Just another 150-200 bucks difference. The choice between 2 7900GS and on 7950gt is 30 bucks.

 

[cleeve]

Two 7900 GS will be faster at higher resolutions and eye candy.

At lower res the 7950 GT will probably be faster.


But the 7950 GT isn't much faster than a single X1950 PRO. So if you're going the single card route that's alot cheaper.

If you're going dual cards, you're looking at an SLI mobo if you don't have one already, twice the heat and power, etc. But if you know what you're getting into the performance can be quite good for the $$.

 

[Swamper33]

Not knocken Radeon, I've had them before and ran great. I just perferr Nvidia. The MOBO I have is setup for Nvidia.

GIGABYTE GA-M59SLI-S5 Socket AM2 NVIDIA nForce 590 SLI MCP ATX AMD Motherboard -

Probably just stick with the single 7950gt and get a second later down the road.

 

[Mousemonkey]

Odd that, are you in U.S perhance?, because in UK 2x7900GS £300ish Vs 7950GT £200ish or all out 7950GX2 £350ish. In this respect if I had the dosh for two 7900GS's I would go the extra £50 quid, of course if you're not in the UK it's a moot point anyway.

 

[cleeve]

If you already have an SLI mobo and a good PSU, I'd seriously consider the two 7900 GS instead if the 7950 GT.

The 7950 GT is overpriced, and two 7900's will give you good high res performance. Besides, will you really want anothewr 7950 GT 6 months down the road when the DirectX 10 generation cards are out?

Just something to think about.

Here's a good review at firingsquad showing that two 7900's are pretty good, and can even put a hurting on the 7900 GTX in some cases:

http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/radeon_x1950_pro_crossfire/page4.asp

 

[Swamper33]

I see your point. I might go with the 7900GS running SLI. 30bucks more to run SLI over the 7950GT and better performance. Chances are I'd better get the 2 vid cards now. My luck I'd never get around to getting another 7950gt. The radeon puts out some sweet numbers but I still will stay with NVIDIA. I'm running a 450W Thermaltake PSU. Think that will be enough juice? one or two HD and 2 ROMs.

 

[jamesgoddard]

The 450W should just be enough, but it is close... What CPU are you running, if a C2D at stock speed I would say you should be OK... If you have not got the PSU yet I would try to add an extra 100W to be on the safe side.

 

[godman]

what about the 7900gto? Exactly the same as the 7900gtx but slower memory, overclock the memory fairly easily and you have a 7900gtx, the 7900gtx is still (i think) suposed to be faster than the 7950gt....

This card is more or less identical to any other 7900 GTX on the market accept for two differences. The first is its memory is clocked slower and secondly look at the price. Performance wise these cards are only approx 3-5% slower than a 7900 GTX with full speed memory, but you can easily overclock these cards as well. So when you consider the price these are an amazing deal. Be quick! Stock will soon be gone!

taken from overclockers.co.uk i know its a shop but still....

the 7900gto should be close in performance to a 7950gt and around the same price (or cheaper) .... :?

 

[minty]

Just another 150-200 bucks difference. The choice between 2 7900GS and on 7950gt is 30 bucks.

Just out of curiosity, what prices are you finding for the 7900GS's and a 7950GT? I seem to see 7900GS's for right around $200, versus 7950GTs for a bit under $300, which would make the difference more like $100. Just wondering if there's a better deal out there than I'm finding, since I'm considering the same choice at the moment.