Upgrade from 7900GT

E

EET

Limp Gawd
Joined
Nov 14, 2006
Messages
200
I'm currently running an eVGA 7900 GT CO at stock speeds, and I'm thinking about upgrading. I won't be doing a major one, but I want to up the ante from what I currently have. I plan on staying on the cheap side, and I won't be going with a DX10 card unless I need something powerful enough to run the newer games at or near their highest DX9 settings (currently at 1280x1024, but I'm not ruling out a 22" or 24" monitor some time in the future). 3 avenues I was thinking are:
SLI the 7900
1 7950 GX2
1 7900 GTX

What performance increases would I see with each? I will probably make the full-on switch to Vista and upgrade to a DX10 card at the same time.
 
EET said:
I will probably make the full-on switch to Vista and upgrade to a DX10 card at the same time.
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then you best bet will be the 8 series cards.. id suggest the 8800 with 640 or the 8600 with 512 if oyu can find it. Or you can always wait till you need the card.. the 7900 should be fine @ 1650.. may not have all the candy turned on but it will work till you can get a better card. my 7800 is fine @ 1440 with most of the eye candy on in UT3 crysis.. well nothing but the res. but that game wants the 8800.. anyways thats my 2 cents worth.. i hope it helps.
 
I need to add some detail I forgot :eek: I won't be moving to Vista for a while :rolleyes:
 
I doubt a 7900GTX will give you a huge increase over what you have already. The 7950GX2 is basically two 7900GTs in SLI, just on one card, so if your going to SLI what you have, consider the cost of 1 GX2 vs 2 7900GT's.

My advice is to wait a few weeks, see if nVidia brings something new out, and what it is. If the rumors turn out to be true, and it is a midrange, it may be right up your alley. If nVidia ends up holding to there statements, and its high end, it may push current prices down to a point where you might be ok to spend.

At one point i wanted to SLI my 7900 GTX, but it was more worth it to just get a 640mb GTS, which i ended up not doing since my 7900GTX is still pretty ok. Dont rule out a DX10 card if your only playing DX9. I always kind of saw the 8800's as a high end DX9 card with DX10 support, and not so much a DX10 card, if you know what i mean.

Have you considered just OCing what you have?
 
7900gt is still no slouch.wait a few more days an see what comes down the pipe.ati has some new stuff out and maybe some more on the way.unless you have deep pockets or money burning a hole in your pocket,then upgrade.peace
 
EET said:
I'm currently running an eVGA 7900 GT CO at stock speeds, and I'm thinking about upgrading. I won't be doing a major one, but I want to up the ante from what I currently have. I plan on staying on the cheap side, and I won't be going with a DX10 card unless I need something powerful enough to run the newer games at or near their highest DX9 settings (currently at 1280x1024, but I'm not ruling out a 22" or 24" monitor some time in the future). 3 avenues I was thinking are:
SLI the 7900
1 7950 GX2
1 7900 GTX

What performance increases would I see with each? I will probably make the full-on switch to Vista and upgrade to a DX10 card at the same time.
Click to expand...

I think you are a little confused.

A US$290 ish DX10 Card like the 8800GTS 320MB will out perform a US$399 7900GTX significantly on 95% of all DX9 games, running in DX9 mode in Windows XP at 1280x1024.

A US$400 ish DX10 Card like the 8800GTS 640MB will be about the same as a US$440+ 7950GX2 on DX9 games, running in DX9 mode in Windows XP at 1280x1024, depending on the game.

Now you could buy another US$225% ish 7900GT for SLI , that will match a 8800GTS 640 in most DX9 games, but with NO DX10 future proofing.

Translation- there is no good reason to go 7950 GX2 or 7900 GTX, and 7900GT SLI is a poor decision imo (even assuming your board can do it).

My Advice, wait to see what new G92 cards hit the market in the next few weeks, flog off that 7900GT and buy one, should have much better performance than now and be DX10 future proofed.
 
I would probably not suggest any of those cards and perhaps suggest selling it off and putting it towards an 8800GTS.
 
I guess that's another detail I should've added. If I do in fact upgrade, it will be to a used card. I wouldn't be silly enough to buy a 7 series card when I can get a better 8 series that has DX10 capability should I even choose to use it. If I had the money for a new card, yes, I would go 8 series for sure (probably an 8800 GTS 320 or even a 640). But my searches (solely on eBay for a loose idea) have pulled up $120s tops for a 7900GT, $150-$160 for GTX, and close to $200 for a GX2. So maybe that gives a better idea of where my price range is. I'm planning to stay sub-$200. I probably won't be upgrading very soon anyway, but at the same time I know I'm not going to be making leaps and bounds in performance either.
 
Battleneter2 said:
My Advice, wait to see what new G92 cards hit the market in the next few weeks, flog off that 7900GT and buy one, should have much better performance than now and be DX10 future proofed.
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Seconded. From what the moles are chattering, the 8800GT 512MB will make life woefully painful (read: bitch-slap) for both the 8800GTS 320MB and 640MB, and will give an 8800GTX a run for it's money until you crank the AA at really high resoultions because it only has 2/3 the memory bus capability, but keep in mind that the GT's memory clocks will be about 2.4GHz (DDR) so there won't be a drastic difference (extra memory on the GTX withholding).

Current rumored specs as follows:

700M transistors on 65nm process
600MHz core clock
1.8-2.4GHz memory clock (DDR)
~1.5GHz shader clock
256-bit memory bus
112 super-scalar stream processors (yeah, that's right)
20 ROPs/TMUs
DX 10.1 support (rumored)
comes in 256M/512M/1G* configurations
PCIe 2.0 compliant

Scores about 13K in 3DMark06

*1GB cards will be introduced by certain nVIDIA partners
 
In reference to guerilla's post, I know the GTS is a fairly good price right now, but I'm skipping the 8 series altogether most likely when it comes time for a major upgrade (this 7-series update would be much more incremental, but still offer a benefit over no upgrade at all). I'm with Bluntman (if nothing else in the very least) when it comes to waiting for a G92 card. My next big video card upgrade will be to a G92-spec'd card or better. To give you an idea of how long I go between major updates/upgrades, I ran my Socket A system up until the spring of 2006 when I built my current one. When I move to a new socket, I'd most likely sell my current mobo in lieu of a more basic one with onboard video (same with the ram) for use as a server, and run whatever video card in the new system (unless the PCI-E becomes outdated).
 
I pondered this as well. I finally decided to pick up a second 7950GT and SLI them. The benchmarking for DX10 has been strangely lacking, and my total outlay for the two 7950GTs was less than $400.

The Demo of COD 4 was running in the 70-80 fps range, so I'm pretty happy with my choice. I would think two 7900s wouldn't be that much behind.

With the 8800 series cards you are going to need to consider the possibility of a Power supply upgrade if you aren't pushing 500-600 watts
 
MurphysLaww said:
I pondered this as well. I finally decided to pick up a second 7950GT and SLI them. The benchmarking for DX10 has been strangely lacking, and my total outlay for the two 7950GTs was less than $400.

The Demo of COD 4 was running in the 70-80 fps range, so I'm pretty happy with my choice. I would think two 7900s wouldn't be that much behind.

With the 8800 series cards you are going to need to consider the possibility of a Power supply upgrade if you aren't pushing 500-600 watts
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Uh, same goes for SLI two 79xx series. Its something like 35amps on the 12v rail. Although, 2 7900GTXs beats an 8800GTS most of the time at 16x12, but cant touch a GTX.
 
I was running my 7950s just fine with an antec 430 true power trio. It is a much more efficient card than the 8800s, but I'm sure you know that.
I think the GTS is like twice the wattage, and the GTX is almost three times
7950gt 49 Watts
8800 GTS 103-106 watts
8800 GTX 132-163 watts

I can see what your saying but you can get two 7950s now for a little over $300, bout half of a GTX.

I punched out 10.5k 3dmark 06 which is pretty close to a GTX.

That said, it seems like Crysis has an issue with SLI, at least 79xx, or 7950xxx SLi. I saw on one of their forums a screenshot posted by a guy running a 7950GX2 that had the same issues I had, clipping graphics and one half of the screen showing white silhouettes in place of tree renders. This was only on medium settings all of the time, and low about half the time. It went away when I turned it to high, but the game only ran at about 10fps., LOL.
 
Overclock that 7900GT - as in volt mod it as your "upgrade" ;)

I've been running mine at 665/900 for a while now, and I can tell you there is a pretty noticeable boost going from 520/750 (my XFX stock clocks) to my current overclock. The only game that brings my card to it's knee at 1680x1050 currently is modded Oblivion. Everything else still runs fine.

You could probably find a VF-900 on Ebay for $25, which will be cheaper than buying a new 79x0 card, and reselling your old 7900GT.
 
MurphysLaww said:
I was running my 7950s just fine with an antec 430 true power trio. It is a much more efficient card than the 8800s, but I'm sure you know that.
I think the GTS is like twice the wattage, and the GTX is almost three times
7950gt 49 Watts
8800 GTS 103-106 watts
8800 GTX 132-163 watts

I can see what your saying but you can get two 7950s now for a little over $300, bout half of a GTX.

I punched out 10.5k 3dmark 06 which is pretty close to a GTX.

That said, it seems like Crysis has an issue with SLI, at least 79xx, or 7950xxx SLi. I saw on one of their forums a screenshot posted by a guy running a 7950GX2 that had the same issues I had, clipping graphics and one half of the screen showing white silhouettes in place of tree renders. This was only on medium settings all of the time, and low about half the time. It went away when I turned it to high, but the game only ran at about 10fps., LOL.
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Yeah the Crysis thing was only a beta though, it will likely improve. Anyway though, i have a 7900GTO flashed to a GTX, and i looked into SLI but it turned out the SLI beat the GTS most of the time, by not much at all, and the GTS beat the SLI some of the time, but not by much. It was 175ish for another GTO at the time, and 350ish for a GTS. It became such a toss up i stopped caring and decide to wait and see what November brought. Also, my psu would have been on the very fringes running SLI, and i wasnt comfy with that.
 
MurphysLaww said:
I pondered this as well. I finally decided to pick up a second 7950GT and SLI them. The benchmarking for DX10 has been strangely lacking, and my total outlay for the two 7950GTs was less than $400.

The Demo of COD 4 was running in the 70-80 fps range, so I'm pretty happy with my choice. I would think two 7900s wouldn't be that much behind.

With the 8800 series cards you are going to need to consider the possibility of a Power supply upgrade if you aren't pushing 500-600 watts
Click to expand...



If he waits a few weeks to see what crops up, we will probably find the "8800GT" will use considerably less juice than the current 8800's, which is probable from its single slot design and smaller heat sink fan (assuming the recent pictures are correct).
 
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