7600gt or 7900gt

M

MrGlobe

Gawd
Joined
Jul 10, 2006
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Alright, i have a few questions. I am going to build a new rig, its a budget rig so my options are limited.

OPTION 1: SLI m/b (to add 2nd card later) , 7600gt, 3800+

OPTION 2: NON-sli m/b , 7900gt, 3500+

Will the gfx card bottleneck the 3800+? Will the 3500+ bottleneck the 7900gt?

Which would you pick and why?

Thanks

MH
 
i would pick the 3700+ (i think they are very close in price to the 3500+) and a 7900GT. either way, most definitaly the 7900GT. you will most definitaly see an improvement over a system with a 3800+ and a 7600GT.
 
wow, so that only took like 3 mintues, thanks guys, i'm gonna look into the 3700+, i dont think newegg has one but i bet zzf or monarch will.
 
well, mine 3800+ x2 with 1 SLI 7600GT the graphic works well
if u want to put 2 card to make it SLI ...no word ...WOW :D
 
I have a 7600gt and im going to pick up another one soon.. its a great card.
 
I am thinking the same thing, that i would be fine for now with a single, especially with a proc like that. And later, in a few months, i could spend $100 (they'll obviously drop in price) and get sli. This would theoretically give me about the same power as a 7900gt. I am worried that i will end up not needing all of the power that a 7900gt would provide, and that it might be a waste to get one now.
 
MikeHunt988 said:
I am thinking the same thing, that i would be fine for now with a single, especially with a proc like that. And later, in a few months, i could spend $100 (they'll obviously drop in price) and get sli. This would theoretically give me about the same power as a 7900gt. I am worried that i will end up not needing all of the power that a 7900gt would provide, and that it might be a waste to get one now.
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Its not a "waste", but it IS a waste to not get an SLI board. In the future, when you do another upgrade, you will have that option available to you.

Honestly, I get all the power I need out of my 7600gt. I have a normal CRT 21" monitor so I dont need to run things at SUPER high resolutions. I turn on most eye candy in my games and pull up the resolution up to my native res (1280x1024, my monitor supports 1600x1900 too) and I dont have any problems. The 7600gt is really a little powerhouse and suits me fine. I am upgrading to SLI soon just because I have a powertooth but don't want to drop another $300 for a 7900gt that will probably give me problems.

P.S. Another great reason is that 7600gt SLI setups are RARE. There is only 1 person on [h]ard who has registered in the 3dmark thread with an sli setup using 7600gts.
 
So what would you guys think if instead of the non sli mobo, i got a 7900gt and an sli mobo? That way, in the future i could get another 7900gt. But i still find myself wondering if i need it. Could anyone here post what fps they get in CS:S (and plz list proc/mem) with their 7600gt? That is what i play most, and if a single can handle it, i could save some money.
 
I have a non-SLI mobo for which I chose the eVGA 7900GT KO, for the sake of longevity. I was also looking at the 7600GT and I shall report back about the 7900GT KO, when I get it. (Second day'd it for newegg yesterday)
 
id get a non sli board with a x1800xt since the x1800xt will outperform a 7900gt and has better IQ :)
 
I thought about that for a long time. I was in the battle between the x1900gt, x1800xt, and the 7900gt. They way i ended up on the 7900gt was that it is only single slot,(2slots=no sli/cf) so that narrows it down to the 7900gt and the x1900gt, and the 7900gt runs cooler and consumes less power. I have always had computers with AMD and ATI, mostly because i've like their cards better, but with this build, nvidia seems to be in the lead.
 
well if you get a x1800xt, you wont be using crossfire anyways with a single slot board and if you do decide to, there are many boards out there that will allow dual slot cards and in this build, ati would be winning, x1800xt > 7900gt performance wise and this is coming from an nvidia boy ;)
 
Definately go for a 7900GT. I had a 7600GT and was disappointed with the performance when using high levels of anti-aliasing and anisotropic. In the end I changed it for a 7900GT. The 3500+, 3700+, 3800+ and the 4000+ are within £30 of each other here in the UK, so I would spend a little bit more and go with the 3800+ or the 4000+
 
Alright, a new competitor has surfaced. ATI AIW x1800xl. Single slot, AIW. Is this crossfireable? How does it stack up to the other cards?
 
MikeHunt988 said:
Alright, a new competitor has surfaced. ATI AIW x1800xl. Single slot, AIW. Is this crossfireable? How does it stack up to the other cards?
Click to expand...
Crossfire is going to take a beefier PSU than even SLI....is your current power supply up to the task?
 
my current one is nowhere near powerful enough, but i would be getting a new one. if i wanted to crossfire the aiw x1800xl, would the 2nd need to be an aiw too?
 
MikeHunt988 said:
my current one is nowhere near powerful enough, but i would be getting a new one. if i wanted to crossfire the aiw x1800xl, would the 2nd need to be an aiw too?
Click to expand...

I dont think you can crossfire an aiw... besides, you cant just pair up 2 cards, you need to shell out the $$$$$$$$$ for the "crossfire edition" of your ATI card.. those dont come cheap either... usually pretty close to MSRP from ati (Compusa/Bestbuy/Frys prices)
 
Exactly what is your budget?

The difference between the Orleans AM2 3500+ and the 3800+ is ~$30 - hardly enough money gained to go from a 7600 GT to a 7900 GT. The price difference between those cards is ~$90.

That is unless you were referring to the AM2 X2 3800+, which is $180 more than the 3500+.

Personally, I would wait the two weeks for the X2 to jump down to $169, then snatch up the 7900 GT. Certain games are starting to show a decent bump in perfomance on dual core processors, such as BF2. Any future titles will surely benefit from it, and your general PC performance will be a lot more pleasing.
 
Also, do not buy an SLI motherboard for upgrade reasons. SLI is not a practical upgrade solution, monetarily or hardware-wise. It is only practical as a solution to higher performance than the highest end single card.
 
MikeHunt988 said:
So what would you guys think if instead of the non sli mobo, i got a 7900gt and an sli mobo? That way, in the future i could get another 7900gt. But i still find myself wondering if i need it. Could anyone here post what fps they get in CS:S (and plz list proc/mem) with their 7600gt? That is what i play most, and if a single can handle it, i could save some money.
Click to expand...

CS:S is not a relatively very GPU stressful game. A 7600 GT should be good up to 1600x1200 with AA and AF in CS:S.
 
Like Stellar said, multi card soulutions aren't practical. It's a way for nvidia to double profits without doubling performance. The 7600gt and 7900gt are great cards for the money and the priceLperformance ratio is about the same on both (7900gt provides a little more performance for your money), it just depends on your budget. I don't know what cpu you have right now, but if it's an amd 64 that can clock to 2.4 ghz, you shouldn't be to worried about bottlenecking
http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/article.html?art=MTAwMiwxNiwsaGVudGh1c2lhc3Q= .
 
MikeHunt988 said:
Why does life have to be so difficult. (Well selecting a video card anyways) :)
Click to expand...

If youre building a new box(cpu,mobo,memory) why not wait to see what the intel camp has to offer ;)
 
First off, you guys rock, thanks for all the info. I think i will wait for conroe, if only to buy a cheaper proc. I think i am going to get a single pcie slot mobo, as it will save me a little more money. I was shooting for under $450 for gfx card, proc, and mobo. So with that in mind, do you guys have any better suggestions? Right now the setup is:

ECS RX480-A (1.0) Socket 939 ATI XPRESS 200P ATX AMD Motherboard - Retail

@ 56.99 its cheap and its got great reviews

AMD Athlon 64 3800+ Venice 2000MHz HT Socket 939 Processor Model ADA3800BPBOX - Retail

@ 147.99 Its the fastest i can get for the money

XFX PV-T71G-UDF7 GeForce 7900 GT (470MHz) 256MB GDDR3 PCI Express x16 Video Card - Retail

@ 229.99 after rebate this rounds out the best of my price range

Tell me what you guys think, changes?

EDIT: Oh i was gonna add, i'm going with 939 over am2 because i already have a gig of memory (184 pin) so thats gonna say me a hundred bucks.
 
spicey said:
Definately go for a 7900GT. I had a 7600GT and was disappointed with the performance when using high levels of anti-aliasing and anisotropic. In the end I changed it for a 7900GT. The 3500+, 3700+, 3800+ and the 4000+ are within £30 of each other here in the UK, so I would spend a little bit more and go with the 3800+ or the 4000+
Click to expand...

yea, i have a 7600GT KO. good card, but if you've got the budget, get out of medium range. It's an okay card, but the 128 bit memory bandwidth is bs, lol. I say, if you want to save money, go X1800XT. Same performance, and you can run HDR, AA, and AF all together at once while saving a little money (Nvidia GPUs for some reason weren't coded to run all of those together, so you usually lose HDR, or you lose AA or AF, lol). I say HIS X1800XT. look around, they've got some pretty messed up overclocking potentials depending on company (if you're overclocking).
 
I think an evga 7900gt is a better value than an x1800xt, namely because you can step it up. Some would argue that the x1800xt could be sold later, but you can trade in the 7900gt for the price you purchased it for. If you sold the card, you would most likely be dealing with a stranger rather than a large company. I would trust a product from a large company far more than a stranger, even if they have good heatware.
 
I would rather get a new proc with hsf. (i would buy used, but it would have to be a good deal) and i read some reviews, and the pd805 gets smoked by the 3500+. That is a good reason to buy evga, plus they are clocked a little higher than others. I'm still worried about power draw, heat, and stuff with the x1800xt. How long does the evga step up program last? if it is a decent amount of time, i think i would go with that. if its only a month or so, i wouldnt bother, and would just go with the x1800xt.

Thanks guys

MH

EDIT: Just looked at price drops, and i think that the final setup might be.......


eVga 7900gt, ecs mobo, and X2 3800+ (since it should only be like $20 more)

Does that sound like a good idea to you guys? And i'm pretty sure it will, but do you guys think this thing will be able to own source?
 
I dont mean to throw another variable into the decision process, but atm if you buy an eVGA 7900GT you get Halflife2: Ep. 1 and Hitman Blood Money in the box, I think newegg.com is included the retailers supporting this too.
 
No, if you get it at monarch, you will get HL2 episode one, age of empires 3, and I think if you register on their website, you will get hitman blood money. Anyway, you will get a better deal with a sufficient cpu and an awesome video card. Cpus don't affect gaming performance as much as they used to. As such, a killer cpu would only come into play if you run at low resolutions and no eye candy turn on. At resolutions of 1600x1200 and maybe even 1280x1024, an athlon 64 fx-60 would be lucky to have a 10 fps difference between a 3.0ghz p4 (presuming eye candy is turned to the max on a high end video card). Even if the fps difference was a solid, consistent, 20 fps it wouldn't justify the $1000 price of the fx-60 vs the $150 p4.
 
Alright, I am still worried that buying an uber (well, fairly uber) setup (3800+, 7900gt ko) is going to be too much for me. So if i went with a 3500+ and a 7600gt (evga so i could step up), do you think that this setup with be worth the $200 its going to cost me? (after selling old parts)

Here is what i am coming from:

AMD athlon xp 2800+
x800xt AIW

Do you think i will see much change?

Thanks for all your help

MH
 
azuldenial said:
I dont mean to throw another variable into the decision process, but atm if you buy an eVGA 7900GT you get Halflife2: Ep. 1 and Hitman Blood Money in the box, I think newegg.com is included the retailers supporting this too.
Click to expand...


Hmm, mine just came with Hitman Blood Money, I want HL2 Episode 1 too! :(
 
MikeHunt988 said:
Alright, I am still worried that buying an uber (well, fairly uber) setup (3800+, 7900gt ko) is going to be too much for me. So if i went with a 3500+ and a 7600gt (evga so i could step up), do you think that this setup with be worth the $200 its going to cost me? (after selling old parts)

Here is what i am coming from:

AMD athlon xp 2800+
x800xt AIW

Do you think i will see much change?

Thanks for all your help

MH
Click to expand...

Given the choice now, I would go for an 3800+ X2 processor. Windows is more responsive with a dual core. For pure gaming a single core 3800+ is much faster than a 3800+ X2 but it is less future proof. The cost of an X2 is double that of single core - it really depends on what you're using your PC for...

On the graphics front it may be worth going for a cheap 7600GT now and when DirectX 10 cards come out upgrade to that. It's all about knowing what's around the corner and if you're will to sacrifice a little performance for not having the latest hardware.

As a gamer my 3800+ tempered with a 7900GT is blisteringly fast at 1280 x 1024 with everything maxed (HL2 EP 1, Hitman Blood Money and Prey). That is good enough for me. I just wish Windows performance was a little slicker with a single core. My 3800+ is comparible to my old 2.53ghz P4 in 2D Windows, not exactly thrilling!
 
Alright, the biggest thing that i use my computer for is gaming. And i am pretty sure now that the 7600gt is going to be enough for me. Plus i can just step up later if it isnt.(Whereas i dont think i could step DOWN from a 7900gt) And i would rather have good game performance than good windows performance, as i usually only run 1 or 2 programs at a time. (also, this proc will be much faster than my old one)

Thanks for helping me decide guys

MH

Oh, and how much slower would the x2 3800+ be in gaming than the 3800+?
 
MikeHunt988 said:
Alright, the biggest thing that i use my computer for is gaming. And i am pretty sure now that the 7600gt is going to be enough for me. Plus i can just step up later if it isnt.(Whereas i dont think i could step DOWN from a 7900gt) And i would rather have good game performance than good windows performance, as i usually only run 1 or 2 programs at a time. (also, this proc will be much faster than my old one)

Thanks for helping me decide guys

MH

Oh, and how much slower would the x2 3800+ be in gaming than the 3800+?
Click to expand...

Head over to Tomshardware and have a look at The Mother of All CPU charts 2005/2006 under the CPU section The benchmark to note is the DirectX 9 comparisions. The 3800+ Venice outscores a 4800+ X2 Toledo in Farcry. The 3800+ X2 is like running a 3200+ judging by the mhz speed.
 
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