X1950XT or 8800GTS ??

8800, no contest.

you do know that Crysis comes out in March don't you?
personally I'll not be waiting till MAY to see what ATI come out with

I also can't see an overclocked 8800GTS 640mb becoming unplayable at 1280x1024 in the next 6 months, hence why I have one already (though granted I got mine at trade price)

March? Sorry to ruin your day, but that's not gonna happen. No need to be thinking Crysis now as there will be better cards from both companies before the game is out. We'd be lucky to have it by Summer. EBGames lists 9-4-07 as a release date.
http://www.ebgames.com/search.asp? [...] crysis&N=0

X1950XT 256 is great for the money!

I am not overly impressed by nvidia.

you do know that Crysis comes out in March don't you?
personally I'll not be waiting till MAY to see what ATI come out with

I also can't see an overclocked 8800GTS 640mb becoming unplayable at 1280x1024 in the next 6 months, hence why I have one already (though granted I got mine at trade price)

Other than the Crysis release date, I agree with Andy. There's no point waiting for the new DX10 to get a decent graphics card, there already are good DX10 cards. Regardless of the whole DX10 thing, for that kind of money it's better than any DX9-only card. It's not like it'll be obsolete in 6 months anyway.

I can guarantee you, if you wait until the new series of DX10 cards are released, SOMEONE is going to tell you to wait until their prices drop. Waiting is silly.

I played Oblivion the other day on an 7900GS + E6400.
And guess what? 7900gs cant play oblivion! (at good fps)

BTW my x800xt runs it at 50% more FPS than an 7900gs.

My advice 8800 gts awesome

From my understanding in the past ATI has been the faster GPU maker. Nvidia just beat ATI to the punch with releasing a DX10 card sooner. You said that you are building a new machine. I would choose a crossfire MB, get the 1950XT now, and later (when it can't hold its own anymore which will be awhile) you can upgrade to another ATI card with the option of crossfire.

7900gs ia piece of crap no mater how high you clock it.

x1950pro or even a 1950xt is a FAR better buy.

you do know that Crysis comes out in March don't you?
personally I'll not be waiting till MAY to see what ATI come out with

I also can't see an overclocked 8800GTS 640mb becoming unplayable at 1280x1024 in the next 6 months, hence why I have one already (though granted I got mine at trade price)

Other than the Crysis release date, I agree with Andy. There's no point waiting for the new DX10 to get a decent graphics card, there already are good DX9 cards. Regardless of the whole DX10 thing, for that kind of money it's better than any DX9-only card. It's not like it'll be obsolete in 6 months anyway.

I can guarantee you, if you wait until the new series of DX10 cards are released, SOMEONE is going to tell you to wait until their prices drop. Waiting is silly.

thought i had better correct that. unless i am mistaken we have no idea if any card can do dx10 games well yet.

and that reply was to me because....

Yeah, no duh. The 8800GTS rocks. But that superclock 8800GTS they used is also 50% more money than the X1950XT. The 320MB 8800GTS is obviously better than the X1950XT and also the X1950XTX. It's an outstanding buy and the card the OP should go for. But for those who want to spend $200 not $300, the X1950XT takes that price bracket with ease. The X1950XTX like the OP talks about has completely lost it's place since G80 launched. They needed an instant $100 price drop to keep it a valid buy, and that never happened.


Side note, I really like [H], but their Oblivion settings just plain suck. Who would play Oblivon on an X1950XT with grass turned off? And then they keep shadows maxed including self shadows, shadows on grass, and tree canopy shadows. and shadow filtering on high? That's just completetly stupid tweaking IMO. No grass completely changes the game, but shadow filtering set to low is hardly noticeable. Turn off self shadows as they look hideous, and for performance turn off shadows on grass. Then I'd rather turn down interior/exterior shadows to 50% and keep grass distance up. Or tweak grass height if more shadows are desired. Anyway, I have grass at 100% on my X1950XT, and I am running 4xaa + HDR + 8xHQAF at 1280x1024. Funny, come to think of it, they have shadows on grass turned on, but grass turned off.

your turning into robx2

I can't help it man; the card is amazingly fast and I haven't even overclocked it yet.

I'm not going to post any screenshots.

i still play at a higher res than you , nah nah nah-nah nah.

8800 huh, oh yeah well you should see my 68gt on oblivion at 1680x1050.

it plays (not so good)

yeah i got this new 16x10 monitor a couple of weeks ago
fear,bf2, and farcry play good but fsx and oblivion=no,no.

within a few weeks or so im getting an 8800gts
probably the 640mb version.

well yeah nada,s x800 doesnt do hdr and sm3.0.
the 7900 does so that will slow it down.

Um... No.
x1950pro vs 7900gs
Looks to me that, yes, the x1950pro does win most of the benchmarks, but in no way does the 7900gs suck. It holds its own ground easily. And when overclocked, that gap gets hair thin. They are both good cards.

I don't believe that. Doing some research the only time I could find anything close to what your saying is here. But even then it doesn't say if they are using HDR or not. I'm going to assume they are. So thats not even a fair fight, 7900gs w/ HDR vs x800xt w/ bloom (or maybe turned off completely). 7900gs is a better videocard then the x800xt in Oblivion.

Seems to me someone has some hatred towards Nvidia.

Yeah, no duh. The 8800GTS rocks. But that superclock 8800GTS they used is also 50% more money than the X1950XT. The 320MB 8800GTS is obviously better than the X1950XT and also the X1950XTX. It's an outstanding buy and the card the OP should go for. But for those who want to spend $200 not $300, the X1950XT takes that price bracket with ease. The X1950XTX like the OP talks about has completely lost it's place since G80 launched. They needed an instant $100 price drop to keep it a valid buy, and that never happened.


Side note, I really like [H], but their Oblivion settings just plain suck. Who would play Oblivon on an X1950XT with grass turned off? And then they keep shadows maxed including self shadows, shadows on grass, and tree canopy shadows. and shadow filtering on high? That's just completetly stupid tweaking IMO. No grass completely changes the game, but shadow filtering set to low is hardly noticeable. Turn off self shadows as they look hideous, and for performance turn off shadows on grass. Then I'd rather turn down interior/exterior shadows to 50% and keep grass distance up. Or tweak grass height if more shadows are desired. Anyway, I have grass at 100% on my X1950XT, and I am running 4xaa + HDR + 8xHQAF at 1280x1024. Funny, come to think of it, they have shadows on grass turned on, but grass turned off.

I absolutely agree with everything you said. But I believe the extra 50% cost is justified, and you will gain more then 50% performance over the x1950xt. And the settings they decide to turn off in there benchmarks with Oblivion are silly. Same with NFS Carbon, I rather have 1280x1024 w/ motion blur, then 1600x1200 w/o motion blur...