Is 2900XT Crossfire worth it?

C

ChristO

Limp Gawd
Joined
Sep 17, 2005
Messages
138
Ok, I ended up ordering 2 of these cards, one was for me and the other for a friend. My friend had a change of heart and now I am stuck with an extra 2900XT. (He is not answering my calls) It cost me about $490 Canadian per card with taxes in.

I am running the one card now and am happy with the performance. My games play fine at 1920x1200 resolution.

Basically I have 2 questions.

1. Has anyone had any positive experiences running these cards in crossfire,

2. Would my OCZ 700w Game Xtreme powersupply be enough to push these cards.


Thanks and please don't flame me.


2900xt.jpg
 
Forget crossfire at this point. Extra heat/power draw isn't worth the performance. Stick with single card for now and return/sell the extra card.
 
I'd only send the other one back if ur hurting for the $$. You can always buy another later down the road when they are cheaper and the drivers have matured.
 
BTW a 700w PSU would not be enough power for your whole system for those 2 cards.
 
I have had positive and negitive experiences with crossfire so far. The drivers are buggy, when crossfire does give a performance boost it is great and the there are the times when a single card would do the exact samething. With two 2900xt in my case under normal conditions it stays at the same temp as when I had two 7800gtxs in there. Under load the temps do go up a bit but not excesive.

For the people that say the 2900XT run to way hot are the same people that start 3dmark and crawl under their desk and hold their finger against the exhust of the card. Then yes it is hot.

In the end it is your money and you should spend it how you want
 
debello_64 said:
I have had positive and negitive experiences with crossfire so far. The drivers are buggy, when crossfire does give a performance boost it is great and the there are the times when a single card would do the exact samething. With two 2900xt in my case under normal conditions it stays at the same temp as when I had two 7800gtxs in there. Under load the temps do go up a bit but not excesive.
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Did you try one card alone and how does it compare to a single 7800GTX?
 
As far as I am conserned the 2900 performs alot better the my 7800gtx under Vista. The 7800 always felt like it was hanging up,.
 
ChristO said:
Basically I have 2 questions.

1. Has anyone had any positive experiences running these cards in crossfire,

2. Would my OCZ 700w Game Xtreme powersupply be enough to push these cards.
Click to expand...

1. No one has anything positive about the X2900XT. It is a 'good' card in terms, but there are 'better' cards right up it's ally. The bad things outweigh all the good things.

By bad things, I mean:
The temperatures.
The power draw.
Inferior performance to the 8800GTS 640MB.

But, I am interested how they perform in crossfire.

What are your system specs?

2. No. Your powersupply WILL NOT handle 2 cards.
My bad?
 
I agree with the above post.

xbit says the it pulled 161W and AMD says the max can be 215W per card. The system in my sig without a videocard and a different MB with on-board video pulled about 320W under load , but seeing how it was a P965G chipset dont really know how much different this 680i MB power usage is different, but even if we say without a videocard, system in my sig pulls 350W under load and your were to put 2900XT in it it would pull about:

350W+161W=511W and with AMD max=565W

Two cards:

350W+322W=672W and with AMD max=780W

So for the system in my sig, no a 700W PS would not work.
 
trxjw said:
Wow is right. I never thought reading a graph could be so difficult. :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

And all this time I thought that was card power consumption. I am very sorry. That was very dumb on my half. I didn't read the fine print.
Sorry.
 
If it takes 500+ watts to run a video card, something is seriously wrong.... That is so inefficient it's not even funny. I mean hell, my last experience with video cards is my 9800pro 128mb, so I'm a little outdated, but I'm sure my cloths dryer from the '80's is more efficient if one of those cards if it *requires* 500+watts.
 
I think if you plan to run everything @ stock you should be ok with 700W for Crossfire, and when I say stock, I mean the CPU as well. Otherwise bring out the 1KW+ LOL
 
marka211 said:
So for the system in my sig, no a 700W PS would not work.
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ChristO's sig doesn't mention his HDDs. You had a real handful there including a couple of Raptors. ;)

It's really hard to compare numbers like that though, especially to the PSU's overall wattage. It's the +12V limit that you are going to run into with these cards and that overall wattage includes everything. Besides the 215W spec is, I believe, peak draw. Those numbers can be a bit deceptive and often you'll not hit them anyway under "real" usage. The 8800 Ultra is speced a couple watts lower than a GTX but you'll typically see it using more power in actual use.
 
ChristO said:
My friend.... (He is not answering my calls) It cost me about $490 Canadian per card with taxes in.
Click to expand...
Huh, 'friend'? What an odd spelling for "this dirtbag I hang out with". ;)

P.S. PM sent, check your Inbox.
 
FlatLine84 said:
If it takes 500+ watts to run a video card, something is seriously wrong.... That is so inefficient it's not even funny. I mean hell, my last experience with video cards is my 9800pro 128mb, so I'm a little outdated, but I'm sure my cloths dryer from the '80's is more efficient if one of those cards if it *requires* 500+watts.
Click to expand...

No. I was just very dumb and wrong.
 
Hey guys thanks for the replies.


I guess I am going to be cutting it close with this powersupply and I would like to have some headroom for overclocking. I have 1 Raptor 150 2 seagate's 320's, Tv wonder 650, Audigy 2 zs platinum with the drive bay and 2 dvd burners, There are also 4 120mm fans in my case.

Apollo, Comparing it to a 7800GTX i can't because I never had one but this weekend I will be bringing my work computer home and try benchmarking it against my 8800gts

The only thing I ran for fun was 3dmark 2001, I got 44000 with the 2900xt and 24000 with the 8800.

I am going to have to look around and see what powersupplies are available
 
Yeah, count on nearly $300 (Silverstone has a sub-$300CDN one, but I haven't seen any reviews of it). Big jump going from a couple hundred for a 850W PSU.

Another option is one of those new external supplemental PSUs that'll cost you about 1/3 of that. They are marketed specifically for this sort of thing. But I don't know much about the ins and outs of adding a second PSU to your system.
 
http://www.guru3d.com/article/Videocards/432/1/

Provided you have a setup that heat isnt a problem, they seem to do pretty well. They trade punches with the 8800Ultra in many circumstances. Considering they range about the same price its an even comparison (not considering all the extra heat and power though).
 
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