Best value 7900 GT in stock at Overclockers?

Branoic

Hey guys,

I'm going to replace my ATI X700 Pro with a nice new shiney nvidia 7900 GT.

I've had a look at http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatalog/7900_Series.html - could anyone tell me what they reckon would be the best deal there in terms of value to performance?

The second one listed, BFG GeForce 7900 GT OC 256MB £240.82 inl VAT looks good, plus its been overclocked for a little extra oomph.

Then I was also looking at the XFX GeForce 7900 GT Extreme Edition at £264.32.

Which of those two would people go for? Also, are there any of the cards which aren't in stock at the moment which would really be worth waiting for over the ones above?

thanks for the help

8T8

Stock speeds:
Core:450MHz
Mem:1320MHz

BFG OC (roughly an increase of 2-4% in performance)
Core:475MHz
Mem:1360MHz

XFX Extreme Edition (roughly an increase of 5-10% in performance)
Core:520MHz
Mem:1500MHz

Overclocked out of the box versions usually don't add too much on top to the performance the card but the XFX EE parts are clocked more aggressively but as a consequence they program the fan to spin at a higher RPM to counter the heat from the higher clocks just so you know. You shouldn't hear it inside the PC while gaming with speakers or headphones & the fan only spins up briefly at boot and only when a 3D application starts it is quiet during normal usage.

If you are not playing at very high resolutions (greater than 1280x1024) where the extra clock speed would make a difference I would go with the BFG or the stock version.

Branoic

Thanks for the reply, that's helpful.

I don't tend to play at uber high resolutions or anything, so if an overclocked card won't make that much of a difference in normal usage I'll probably just go with a regular stock.

The one they have available at the moment is the MSI for £234 - i'll probably go with that.

TuneR

I was also thinking of the BFG because it has a lifetime warranty. Would it be worth it for this? If i was getting one i would get another in a few years time to have use of the Sli functionality

8T8

TuneR wrote:

I was also thinking of the BFG because it has a lifetime warranty. Would it be worth it for this? If i was getting one i would get another in a few years time to have use of the Sli functionality

For the warranty sure I guess but the stark reality is that after 2+ years you will most likely have either retired this card or sold it on to someone else.

The upgrade in a few more years time doesn't really pan out with SLI as the continual evolution of GPU's mean that you would get something faster by just buying a current generation graphics card even one from a future medium range.

What SLI is largely used for is bleeding edge performance and running games at insanely high resolutions with large displays. Yes it is useful for an upgrade in certain scenarios but in the long term one, not really...

TuneR

Sorry for thread-jacking, just saw this and thought it looked fairly good price wise. Any opinions would be appreciated on whether it would be a good buy or would a higher spec be worth more.

XFX GeForce 7800GT Extreme Edition 256MB GDDR3 VIVO TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (PVT70G-UDF7) (GX-070-XF)


Price: £176.19 on OCUK


Also i had my previous card for nearly 4 years without upgrading which about to do now, so i suppose a lifetime warranty aint really worth it....

8T8

4 years! you certainly got your moneys worth I guess

What were you running with for the past 4 years by the way out of interest ?

I wouldn't go for that 7800GT you can for just a little more get a 7900GT at £222 for the sole reason in that if you are going to be hanging on to this thing for a long time then you way as well get something a touch faster. A 7900GT is on par with the former 7800GTX performance wise.

TuneR

AMD XP 2400+
MSI KT4
512mb RAM
Geforce 4 MX440 8x AGP

Not a bad setup and is a bit outdated now but it still plays any of the new games i've gotten. Starting to run a bit slow on big battles though

Giblet

8T8 wrote:

4 years! you certainly got your moneys worth I guess

What were you running with for the past 4 years by the way out of interest ?

I wouldn't go for that 7800GT you can for just a little more get a 7900GT at £222 for the sole reason in that if you are going to be hanging on to this thing for a long time then you way as well get something a touch faster. A 7900GT is on par with the former 7800GTX performance wise.

I ordered that card a few days ago, shipped today. It's DAMN cheap! 350 euro incl delivery.

Psycopat

You could get a radeon X1900XTX for £350 atm because of nvidias 7900, its supposed to amazingly fast and a good bit faster than the 7900GTX which is the same price. radeon will be the one ill get when im buyin one soon

8T8

I agree with you the X1900XTX is a faster card but price wise it is much more expensive than a 7900GT.

Cheapest X1900XTX at OcUK €514
Cheapest 7900GT at OcUK €319

The X1900XTX is on par with a 7900GTX but the only place where it really is able to pull ahead is in very shader heavy games which will be most future games so its a better longer term investment. But because both cards are so powerful unless you like to run games at high resolutions with lots of AA and AF you wouldn't notice the difference so much in most games.