ATi 1900 XT and XTX reviewed.

LoPo · 01-24-2006, 09:56 AM

http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=4477

yummy.

Capt. Insane · 01-24-2006, 12:39 PM

what about the nvidia geforece 7800? you can get a 512mb version of one. you can get it with alienware's ALX desktop. of course, the computer alone is over $4000 at its base price

ChemicalWarrior · 01-24-2006, 03:36 PM

The X1900XT/XTX is a X1800XT with its shader ALU's tripled. We wont see this 300% theroritical performance enhancment for a good while in games though, as most games are a little bit away from being that shader heavy, but shaders are the future.

As for the 7800, the GTX in 256MB has a good value, but its image quality is VERY lacky compared to ATi, same goes for the 512MB version which just happens to be impossible to get for a normal consumer and even if you find it instock you'll be paying around $800 for a card out performaned by the X1900 serious which is cheaper.

Nvidia will be launching a 7900 soon, we'll see how it performans, but that means jack **** if they dont improve their image quality soon. Nvidia has bad texture filtering and also has bad cases of texture poping and shimmering on textures. So we'll see how that turns out.

Overall a good launch for ATi.

Also, those who are interested in more a technical article and in depth explanation (with assumed knowledge of how a GPU architecture works) might enjoy the Beyond3D article here:http://beyond3d.com/reviews/ati/r580/

Also, here's the HardOCP article, usually good game tests etc, but their summaries show their complete lack of knowledge beyond reading numbers off a FPS counter: http://hardocp.com/article.html?art=OTUzLDE=

Capt. Insane · 01-24-2006, 03:49 PM

interesting, chem. so what can i expect for the summer? im planning on building a new computer then (since i doubt ill ever get my free computer). though i need a job first. you think this x1900 will be down in price by then? im going to try to get my new comp around $1000 or less if possible. i count on just using it for games so that when vista comes out, i wont have to worry about saving much info

ChemicalWarrior · 01-24-2006, 03:55 PM

Summer? Oh such a bad time to build, at least hold off till Fall. Why? DirectX10/Unified Shaders.

I'll avoid a technical discussion about it really, its a bit above my head, but basically in a graphics card there are two different parts that handle vertex shaders and pixel shaders, in a unified shader architecture these parts are combined into one, there's a lot more to it than that, but its the easiest way of describing it.

R600 and G80 (or Nv50, Nvidia and there weird codes) will be unified at the very least at driver level, speculation says that G80 from Nvidia might have seperate vertex and pixel shaders though. We'll see how this goes for performance.

The next card recommendations depend highly on how DirectX10 works with DirectX9 and when Vista launches.

Capt. Insane · 01-24-2006, 05:37 PM

sounds expensive. would i still be able to play my oldie-but-goodie games with dx10 (hl, hl2, d3)? in fact, i just started playing privateer again

ChemicalWarrior · 01-24-2006, 07:26 PM

Really its unknown at this point to the general public. And it'll probably be just like current card series are, a high end, mid range, and low end.

d-fragger · 01-24-2006, 09:06 PM

http://www.tomshardware.com/2006/01/...xel_pipelines/

I still follow Tom's Group to the end of the Earth.

My Only issue is I can build a decent rig for the price of one of these cards.

Capt. Insane · 01-24-2006, 09:24 PM

you could build a decent rig for $700? that cant include a monitor. but yeah, that is a really is an expensive card

LoPo · 01-24-2006, 09:30 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Capt. Insane

you could build a decent rig for $700? that cant include a monitor. but yeah, that is a really is an expensive card

Most people don't replace their monitor when they upgrade..... and yes its easy to do it for $700 if you recycle some of your existing parts, i.e. case, ps.