Need a Good Card for BF2

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Roman79

[H]ard|Gawd
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I've played Battlefield religiously since the demo for BF1942 came out. I fully intend to buy BF2142 when it comes out.

I'm trying to decide on a video card for my next build. Pretty much narrowed it down to either a 7900GT or a 1900GT.

Price seems about the same.

The 7900GT seems to be faster in most things, and it looks like they are easily volt modded to near GTX speeds.

The 1900GT is not as fast as a 7900GT but seems to be faster in BF2 from the reviews I've read. That and I hear it the image quality is much better....especially the grass when AA is turned on.

Opinions? Experience? Thanks!
 
That's actually a tough decision. As hyped up as the x1900 GT is, it is actually slower than the x1800 XT. This is thanks to the architecture: it has the same 3:1 ratio of pixel shaders to texture / Z / ROPs as the other x1900 cards, but it only has 36 shaders. Thus, it only has 12 texture / Z / ROP pipelines, significantly less than any other card in its price range.

This, combined with the lower clock speed (575 versus 650 MHz), means it has significantly less texturing and ROP power than the x1800 XT. This wouldn't be a problem, except that even pixel shader-fests like BF2 and Oblivion still use LOTS of textures.

Have a look at this review to see what I'm talking about.

The 256MB x1800 XT can be found for around $250, same price as the 7900 GT, and cheaper than the x1900 GT.

If you LOVE BF2, you want an x1800 XT or x1900 GT.
 
ATI cards currently seem to run better when AA and AF is turned on.

If you plan on using those (4x AA or higher) -- get a X1800 XT.

If you want maximum fps and won't be using AA and AF or running them very low (2x AA), get a 7900GT.
 
I guess you have 2GB of ram? if you want to run the game with high textures and high resolution this is a must.

If not spend less money in the gfx and put 2 GB ram and you will be able to run the game with highest settings with an old 6800 GT or GS like me ;)
 
matadorluis said:
I guess you have 2GB of ram? if you want to run the game with high textures and high resolution this is a must.

If not spend less money in the gfx and put 2 GB ram and you will be able to run the game with highest settings with an old 6800 GT or GS like me ;)
Click to expand...

QFT
 
I run two 7600GT's in SLI on my 24" DELL with everything high and BF2 runs smoooooooth. :)
 
7900GT ay 1280x1024 with 2gb of ram runs BF2 maxed out, (AA and AF) with no FPS lag.
 
defaultluser said:
The 256MB x1800 XT can be found for around $250, same price as the 7900 GT, and cheaper than the x1900 GT.
Click to expand...

Yeah I wish the x1800 XT was an option, but they're hard to find here in Canada, and if you do find them they're as much as an x1900XT
 
got lucky on my x1900xt, purchased a retail sealed ati card for $300 on ebay but gotta becareful and read the descriptions, too many scammers there.
 
Roman79 said:
Yeah I wish the x1800 XT was an option, but they're hard to find here in Canada, and if you do find them they're as much as an x1900XT
Click to expand...

Hmmm. Makes the decision even tougher then. When I bought my 7900 GT, ZTI still hadn't responded in the US by dropping the price of the x1800 XT 256MB below $300. Now they're $250, and a damn good deal.

For the long-term, single card, you ought to get the one with more shader power (x1900 GT). But if you want to upgrade to SLI at some point in the future, 7900 GT is the way to go.
 
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