Final Words
While this has been quite a lot of information to absorb, we will do our best to sort it all out. Not only is the X1900 GT a better performer in most cases than the stock 7900 GT, but with this week's price cuts the ATI part offers an incredible value advantage. Essentially, this week we are able to get $300 performance for $230. With the recent price cuts (and if you can find one in stock), the X1900 XT has set the (just over) $300 performance mark much higher than the stock 7900 GT is able to reach. They key here is finding a card in stock, as it seems everyone wanted a piece of the action when prices dropped.
Overclocking does help the 7900 GT get closer to the performance of the X1900 XT in some games. If you've got a little extra money, there isn't any reason to buy a product that pushes the envelope of its design just to be nipping at the heels of its closest price competitor in terms of performance. The X1900 XT leads the high end of the midrange market at this point in time, but if your spending limit is set hard at $300 an overclocked 7900 GT that comes in with 550+ core clock speed can be a very good option. With the price difference between the stock 7900 GT and overclocked 7900 GT being just about $15, there is no reason to settle for the significantly slower performer.
On the low end, we've got the stock 7600 GT for just over $160, which offers playable midrange performance at a low price. While the X1600 XT is about $15 cheaper, performance is abysmal. There is no reason anyone should purchase an X1600 XT at this point. With a really tight budget, the 7600 GT offers adequate gaming performance. Overclocked 7600 GT parts are just not worth the price as they don't offer any significant performance gain for the $30 premium. The X1900 GT, however, offers a whole lot more value for the additional $60 over a stock 7600 GT.
To break to it down into cut and dry recommendations, here is our take on what card to buy for each price range from 150-350.
$150 - $220: GeForce 7600 GT (stock)
$230 - $280: Radeon X1900 GT
$290 - $320: GeForce 7900 GT (overclocked 550/775 +)
$320 - $370: Radeon X1900 XT
As AnandTech reader mpc7488 brought up in the comments, we didn't include any rebates in our price analysis. This is due to the fact that rebates take time to receive, not everyone follows through on them, and they aren't always being offered. We will have to leave it up to the reader to make a judgement call on what to buy when rebates are factored in, but it can make a difference. Depending on the current state of rebates offered on the overclocked 7900 GT, it could become a much better buy. Unless the stock 7900 GT can be had for less than the price of the X1900 GT, we would still shy away from it.
For those looking to upgrade, the 6600 GT is getting a little long in the tooth. A 7600 GT would offer a good performance advantage for not a lot of money. Anything lower performing would not be an upgrade at all. Ideally, the X1900 GT would be a great purchase for the value conscious user. Owners of the X800 GTO may have a little more life left in their card depending on how overclocked the card is, but even at stock clocks, it might be wise to hang on for another product cycle if possible. At this point, we would be looking at the X1900 GT as a minimum recommendation for an upgrade from either the 6800 GS or X800 GTO class of cards.
The X1800 GTO still has some life in it and there's no reason to upgrade at this point. Performance is passable in most cases, and with the initial cost of the card figured in, an upgrade would not be worth the money at all. Our recommendation for X1800 GTO owners is to hold on until the DX10 era of cards comes along.
The price cuts that came along this week almost caught us by surprise. We spent the past couple days going back and adding a few more tests and changing our recommendations based on the new price structure. With things that come seemingly out of nowhere like this, we tend to get a little suspicious. This type of price dropping is usually associated with inventory clearing designed to get the market ready for something new. If you have to upgrade now, we certainly can make recommendations. However, our gut tells us that it might be a little more prudent, if possible, to hold off a few weeks and see what comes down the pipeline.
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gmallen - Friday, August 11, 2006 - link
Most of the PC enthusiast population interested in mid-range cards are still running AGP motherboards (this is based on sales of pci motherboards vs. agp motherboards). Where are these cards?Josh7289 - Friday, August 11, 2006 - link
They don't exist.
arturnowp - Friday, August 11, 2006 - link
HiIt's written that all card in oblivion was tested with HDR Lighting with X800GTO doesn't support. I think your results are misleading. The same with SC: Chaos Theory...
BTW: Who plays Oblivion with Actor Fade at 20%, Item Fade at 10% and Object Fade at 25% you get better graphics and performance setting those option to 50-60% and turning off grass with consums a lot of power and doesn't look good. In foliage it's better to see your enemies from greater distance the say with a horse ;-)
arturnowp - Friday, August 11, 2006 - link
OK there's writen about SC: Chaos Theory but all in all conclusion are misleading "Owners of the X800 GTO may have a little more life left in their card depending on how overclocked the card is, but even at stock clocks, it might be wise to hang on for another product cycle if possibl" where GeForce 6600GT performe on par with X800GTO. It would be better to exclude X800GTO from charts or mark it as SM 2.0 card. What's better GeForce 6600GT should be tested in SM 2.0 mode...nv40 - Friday, August 11, 2006 - link
Don't why?http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/display/pow...">http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/display/pow...
Some difference of test are so large that it almost shocked me
For instance:
7900GT@84.21 with FX-60 can run 54 FPS avg in 1600x1200 with 4xAA 16xAF in X-bit lab
7900GT@91.33 with X6800 just be 35 FPS ave in 1600x1200 with only 4x AA in Anandtech
Problem of 91.33? Intel 975X? X6800? nVidia?
more than 40% performance difference despite X6800 is far superior to FX-60
coldpower27 - Friday, August 11, 2006 - link
They probably aren't running the same time demo sequences.nv40 - Friday, August 11, 2006 - link
Maybe... but only 9% dif in X1900GT (41 vs 38)And 7900GT test in Anandtech definitely performed much worse then X-bit lab in general
nothing with which is correct or not, but if both are right, the the conclusion may be probably draw like below:
1. Driver problem: 91.33 is much slower than 84.21 (nV Cheat, or 91.33 problem)
2. CPU problem: X6800 is much inferior than FX-60 in game (Rediculous, and far from true in every test)
3. Platform problem: nVidia cards perform much worse in intel chipset (975X)
Sharky974 - Friday, August 11, 2006 - link
I agree. I clearly remember Xbit declaring the 7900GT to win the vast majority of benches vs the X1900GT.In fact overall the X1900GT wasn't warmly recieved. I really feel this deserves some looking into.
For example, I'll have to go look, but I think Firing Sqaud also showed the X1900GT as inferior to the 7900GT.
As it stands now, it's like Anand's platforms are somehow ATI biased, on the other hand I believe Xbit platform is Nvidia biased. Xbit reviews nearly always show Nvidia winning.
Sharky974 - Friday, August 11, 2006 - link
http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/sapphire_radeo...">http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/sapphire_radeo...I started on the first page of benches.
As one glaring example:
Firings squad: Quake 4 1280X1024 4XAA 8XAF 7900GT-87.2 X1900GT-60.6
http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/sapphire_radeo...">http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/sapphire_radeo...
Anand: Quake 4 1280X1024 4XAA 7900 GT-45.1 X1900GT-49.8
http://images.anandtech.com/reviews/video/roundups...">http://images.anandtech.com/reviews/video/roundups...
With similar settings, FS has the 7900GT getting nearly double the frames Anand does. The X1900GT also gets significantly more in FS review, from 49 to 60 FPS, but nowhere near the change the 7900GT sees, with the net effect the X1900GT eaks out a win at Anand, but loses by nearly 27+ FPS at FS.
The X1900GT is definitly a better card than I had remembered, even at the FS benches though.
Also, FS was using a FX-57. Anand a much more powerful CPU, making results all the more puzzling.
In addition to some of the other suggestions, I'd question drivers. FS was using older drivers on both since it is an older review. Perhaps Nvidia drivers have seen a large performance decrease, or ATI's a similar increase? This seems fairly unlikely, though, as I dont think you normally get huge differences from driver to driver.
Unless Nvidia really was cheating RE 16-bit filtering as the INQ claimed a while back, so they fixed it causing a massive performance decrease? :) Again though, that suggestion is made half-jokingly.
This definitly needs a lot of looking into I fell. Anand's results are quite different than others around the web at first blush.
JarredWalton - Friday, August 11, 2006 - link
Levels can make a huge difference in performance. For example, Far Cry has segments that get about 80 FPS max on any current CPU (maybe higher with Core 2 Extreme overclocked...), but other areas of the game run at 150+ FPS on even a moderate CPU like a 3500+. I don't have a problem providing our demo files, but some fo them are quite large (Q4 is about 130 MB if I recall). SCCT, FEAR, and X3 provide a reference that anyone can compare to, if they want. The only other thing is that ATI driver improvements are certainly not unlikely, especially in Quake 4.