Video Card Help...

[F1N3ST]

I have already bought a ECS P965 Motherboard. It has 2 PCI-e X16 slots. And i know that the new catalyst supports that chipset for crossfire. I need to know which card i should get, the 7900GTO, 7900GT, X1900XT (256Mb), X1800GTO, or X1800XT (256Mb). I already also bought 2gb of Cas-4 RAM, and im gonna buy a E6400 Smile. So, any help on which card i should buy, thanks. There also is a 75$ off making 175$ for a X1900GT....

 

[riekmaharg2]

They're all good choices, however you might want to add X1900GT to your list. It is alot cheaper and plays all the latest games, like Ghost recon- advanced warfighter, GTR2, and Company of heros.

 

[Sharkfood]

You're going to find that the choice between NVidia and ATI 3d cards is more akin to religious followings vs. people making objective determinations about hardware.

As previously noted, quality from both vendors has improved dramatically over the past 3-4 years which makes a "win-win" whichever way you choose. Both have dedicated themselves to solid driver support, excellent quality hardware and competition has kept their prices aggressive for the technology level.

I'd say go with whatever you can find easily and affordable. Right now, the highest end Radeon's have a slight advantage on shader performance speed (48 pixel shaders vs. NVidia's 24) and NVidia's highest end Geforce has a slight advantage on fillrate performance (NVidia's 24 pixel pipelines vs. ATI's 16).

Your gaming choices will best determine your needs.

 

[F1N3ST]

Ok, my games are CS:S, HL2, DoD:S, FEAR, and BF2. Which would be the best for that set of games, thanks

 

[F1N3ST]

8|_|/\/\|>-bump-b|_|/\/\p

 

[Sharkfood]

Well, I'd personally go with an X1900.. either XT or GT. They are very similar.

X1900GT = 12 pixel pipelines, 36 pixel shaders
X1900XT = 16 pixel pipelines, 48 pixel shaders

The 7900 series is 24/24.

Pixel shaders are for executing shader code. BF2 makes light use of shaders, Source Engine makes light to medium use of shaders. Newer games like Oblivion make massive use of shaders, as do the number of new pixel-shader rich games on the horizon.

Pixel pipelines are for rendering pixels/normal textures and accomodate fill-rate. Shaders execute first so a shader rich 3d engine may not be able to achieve it's full fillrate potential if there is a bottleneck in the shader pipelines. This is where ATI has focused their products- assuming more and more complex shaders will replace fat, beefy bitmap/textures for game assets.

I'd probably lean more towards the GT mainly to save cash. Realize whatever you buy today may be obsolete in 2-6 months as the new DirectX 10 hardware hits the market.