what card should i get? hd 2900xt 512mb or 8800gts 640mb superclocked

Well I guess both are really good, but I think the 8800 has a slight edge over the 2900 in that it runs cooler, quieter and draws less power. However, some people believe that there is a lot of potential in the 2900 cards that will soon be seen when more dx10 games come out.
In benchmarks though, both cards perform almost similarly.
I'm talking here about 8800gts stock speed btw, I don't know how much better the superclocked version would be.
Oh and that PSU, I am not sure it will handle these cards, it depends on how many components you've got in your pc.

I don't think you realise how much power X2900XT draws. Your config with 7900GTX need a 360W PSU (according to PSU Calc) to be in the safe zone. It actully doesn't draw more then 240W according to Anadtech review but if you were to work your PSU to the max 24/7, it wouldn't be very safe

So.. PSU Calc:
Calculations made for:
High End Desktop mobo
E6600 Full load, no OC
2X1GB DDR2 RAM
2 Harddrives
2 Optical Drives
1 PCI Card (Dual-TV Tuner)
Xi sound
2 80mm Fans

Your config with:


7900GTX (Assuming that is what you have now): Safe = 360W
8800 GTS OC : Safe = 392W
X2900XT: Safe = 436W


With a 375W powersupply you will be chancing it with X2900XT (asking for it really). Unless you are willing to invest in a new PSU, 8800 GTS is a clear choice, mind you you will be taxing your PSU even with 8800.

Yeh 2900xt needs 2x 6pin PCI-E connectors JUST to work and even then you cant overclock it at all. Get the 8800GTS 640mb.

grapeape, your linky's not working. Looks like you have a space or two in there that shouldn't...

These are the ones he was posting methinks:

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/v [...] cture.html

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/v [...] games.html

But power draw is a concern... and if you are at all sketchy then go w/ what the 'ape and others have said and get the 8800. Of course even THAT may be too much. ??

Just a reminder, you can overclock the card with just the 2 6pin connectors, you just can't use the easy 'Overdrive' tool to do it, but instead use tools like the AMD's GPU clock tool, ATiTool, ATiTrayTools, Rivatuner, etc.

So basically the 8-pin power plug is a safety-barriers for n00bs, but not an actual barrier to overclockers who would use the other tools instead of Overdrive anyways.

first off, did you have an ati card before? You should completely uninstall all previous gpu drivers and hardware before installing the new one. Only once all drivers are uninstalled and the comp reboots w/ just default vga drivers from windows do you then install the new ones.

If you have done that, then try a complete uninstall and reinstall again just for giggles.

I have seen that happen w/ new cards installed on various games. There could be specific issues w/ that game as well as BF games are notoriously buggy but I would do the reinstall first.

No removing the catalyst software just removes the utility, not the driver. To remove the driver, go to the control panel, then go to add/remove programs, and remove the display driver. After that, remove all the ati stuff left in the list, but remove the ATI uninstall utility LAST. If you installed the NVIDIA drivers and had not uninstalled the ATI drivers first, which it sounds like you did, I'd remove the NVIDIA drivers for a fresh install. As a side note, there is a free utility out there called Driver Cleaner Pro. This helps makes sure all the files from the previous drivers and software are actually removed. I usually run this after I do all the add/remove program stuff, just to be sure. If you still have problems after all this it might be something else, but right not sounds like you just have two drivers conflicting with each other.