Hey everyone,
I'm building a new system and was looking for some advice on what graphics solution to go with. I'm finally upgrading my P4 2.6ghz and IC7-MAX3.
Should I go with a single X1900XT or two 7600 GTs in SLI?
Unless my memory is failing the X1900 is easily faster.
The real question is what games do you play?
In most cases a single 7900 would be the best bet.
Yep, definitely don't count out the 7900's as sledge mentioned. They have some clear advantages over the X1900s (mainly being significantly lower power consumption). The 7900GT is a great bang for the buck too!
DDR2 is a hot item as AMD has jumped to DDR2. Before it was just Intel and that was when AMD was owning the market with DDR based CPU's, but now that DDR2 is the high demand and DDR is on lower demand the price points have changed.... I paid $150.00 per 1GB chip on my Corsair XMS2's "But they are on the higher end of performance"
G.Skill makes good products and I have seen some great OC'ing with these chips... But I also want to point out the companies like OCZ, & Corsair have proven they have the bleeding edge tech, and are driving it to new levels G.Skill is very much on Par with Corsair and OCZ and have some great timings on their chips, I did notice they use a bit more voltage.
With the life time warrenty you can't go wrong either way
Dual channel is always better then single. It is just that simple. As for 2 x 512MB and 1 GB chips the joy of having dual 512MB in a pair is that you have usually a matching pair and the serial numbers are not off, allowing the chips to be pretty much 100% the same... built at the same time and were inline next to each other during manufacturing. does this make a difference? I don' think so, but some people like to think so.
When I bought my 2 1GB Corsair XMS2 chips I bought 2 individual 1GB chips not the set as the set was $50.00 more... and these babies have been able to purr at 1200MHz now running at 1080MHz.
Also to note having 1GB chips is always nice as if you have 2 512MB chips and 1- 1GB chip you will not be able to run Dual channel unless you add 2 new 1 GB chips
<< When I bought my 2 1GB Corsair XMS2 chips I bought 2 individual 1GB chips not the set as the set was $50.00 more >>
I'm gonna do the same (buy seperate 1 gb sticks, not in a set). I can get by on 1 gb of memory for now and wait for the prices to drop before I throw a second 1 gb stick in.
Seems pointless to pay a $50 premium just to have modules that rolled off the assembly line back-to-back. I guess it would ensure they are almost identical. I don't know how much that really matters though. Seperate sticks of the same model should work fine for me.
The 256 mb XT only performs like 5-10 FPS slower than the XTX and would save me over $100. I'm afraid it won't scale well with future games having only 256 mb of memory.
Comments
The real question is what games do you play?
In most cases a single 7900 would be the best bet.
Do you already own a 7600?
Unless you already have a single 7600GT as edcentric mentioned, I'd lean towards the x1900.
AW9D-MAX
Sapphire X1900 XTX
1 GB DDR2
E6300 Conroe
(BTW, Whats up with these outrageous prices for memory?!? It's ridiculous.)
Greg
Greg
With the life time warrenty you can't go wrong either way
Seems like the 1 gb sticks should cost more b/c they only take up 1 DIMM, allowing for future upgrades...
Does running 2 x 512 mb modules in dual channel have a signifigant performance advantage or is it just how the prices are working out right now?
When I bought my 2 1GB Corsair XMS2 chips I bought 2 individual 1GB chips not the set as the set was $50.00 more... and these babies have been able to purr at 1200MHz
Also to note having 1GB chips is always nice as if you have 2 512MB chips and 1- 1GB chip you will not be able to run Dual channel unless you add 2 new 1 GB chips
I'm gonna do the same (buy seperate 1 gb sticks, not in a set). I can get by on 1 gb of memory for now and wait for the prices to drop before I throw a second 1 gb stick in.
Seems pointless to pay a $50 premium just to have modules that rolled off the assembly line back-to-back. I guess it would ensure they are almost identical. I don't know how much that really matters though. Seperate sticks of the same model should work fine for me.
Greg
SAPPHIRE 100150L Radeon X1900 XTX @ $354.99 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814102672)
or go with the
SAPPHIRE 100168L Radeon X1900 XT 256MB GDDR3 @ $249.99
(http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?item=N82E16814102051)
The 256 mb XT only performs like 5-10 FPS slower than the XTX and would save me over $100. I'm afraid it won't scale well with future games having only 256 mb of memory.
Here are some benchmarks of the 512mb X1900 XTX vs. the 256mb XT:
(http://anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2821&p=6)
Any thoughts?
Greg