What is the fastest single video card?

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Keetha

Limp Gawd
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Aug 16, 2004
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What is the fastest single video card on average? The card will be playing almost any game made, but mostly FFXI. I've been looking at the 7900GTX, 7950GX2, and the X1950XTX but I seem to get constantly conflicting results.

Also, is there a official release date for the G80 other than "November"?
 
No official release date. It is tentatively set for "mid-November" as I understand it. Right now the fastest single card should be the 7950GX2. It costs around $550 or so and MSRP's for $600.00.

The X1950XTX on the other hand is more than capable of handling any game with high settings and resolutions and costs a mere $450 MSRP, with cards being actually available as cheaply as $429.99. (That I have seen)

Best bang for your buck right now is the X1950XTX. Though the most powerful will be the 7950GX2.

Another option is to grab some eVGA 7900GTO's. They are 7900GTX's in disguise and will out run a single 7950GX2. Plus those cards are about $265 each.
 
Dan_D said:
Another option is to grab some eVGA 7900GTO's. They are 7900GTX's in disguise and will out run a single 7950GX2. Plus those cards are about $265 each.
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By "grab some" Dan_D means buy two and use them in SLi. Just wanted to clarify that.
 
Dan_D said:
Right now the fastest single card should be the 7950GX2.

The X1950XTX on the other hand is more than capable of handling any game with high settings and resolutions

...the most powerful will be the 7950GX2.
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If the X1950XTX is more capable, why would the 7950GX2 be more powerful exactly? Pricing is irrelevant because I am building this computer for my boss... he just wants to avoid SLI/CF.
 
my 6200LE flashed to 6600 and clocked up to gt speeds is smokin

it's watercooled lol
 
Keetha said:
If the X1950XTX is more capable, why would the 7950GX2 be more powerful exactly? Pricing is irrelevant because I am building this computer for my boss... he just wants to avoid SLI/CF.
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He didn't say more capable, he said "more than capable"...
 
Oh. So in other words, either the 7950GX2 is more than needed, or, the X1950XTX is enough?
 
Keetha said:
If the X1950XTX is more capable, why would the 7950GX2 be more powerful exactly? Pricing is irrelevant because I am building this computer for my boss... he just wants to avoid SLI/CF.
Click to expand...

I said it was more than capable of doing what you were asking for. The 7950GX2 is a more powerful card, and will out perform the X1950XTX in some games, and the X1950XTX will out perform it in others. There is also a debate about the image quality of the X1950XTX being better than that of the 7950GX2. Since I don't own a 7950GX2 I can't speak to that point. Overall, I do believe that the 7950GX2 is a faster card than the X1950XTX. Not as significantly as you might think though.

Lets think this through. The 7900GTX is about 20% faster than a 7900GT right? The 7950GX2's GPU's are known to be slightly slower than the 7900GTX and slightly faster than the 7900GT. Therefore we'll say that it about 5% faster than a single 7900GT. Benchmarks show that the 7900GT SLi is about the same if not slightly slower than a single 7950GX2. We also know that the 7950GX2 is slower than the 7900GTX SLi configuration. Probably by as much as 30% in some cases.

Ok, the X1900XTX is about 15% faster than a single 7900GTX right? Right. Therefore the X1900XTX is about 30% faster than a single 7950GX2 GPU. Given communications overhead in the 7950GX2 might amount to a 10% hit in performance, I'd say that the difference between the two GPU's is about 40% in favor of the X1900XTX. Well a single 7950GX2 has two GPU's and therefore is about 60% faster than a single X1900XTX. Meaning that the 7950GX2 isn't even twice as fast as a single X1900XTX.

Ok, then bring in the X1950XTX. That card is about 20-30% faster than the previous X1900XTX due to memory controller changes and new GDDR4 memory running at a much higher clock speed. Therefore, the difference between the 7950GX2 and a single X1950XTX isn't as big as people might think that it is. The card should only be about 20-25% faster if that. Given the fact that Quad SLi seems to have even more overhead than regular SLi, that amount drops off more. That's why the [H] review of the X1950XTX Crossfire setup was so close to the 7950GX2 Quad SLi setup. In some cases slower, and other cases faster. Now driver updates could in fact change that, and Quad SLi could in fact become more efficient as time goes on.

Now that's Crossfire and Quad SLi. In reference to single cards, the added overhead of Quad SLi doesn't apply. Meaning that the single X1950XTX is probably about 30-35% slower than a single 7950GX2. Though in actual game play, the two might be a bit closer.

So for single cards, the 7950GX2 will definitely be faster, but do you think it is $100 faster? I don't.

I am sure my math isn't dead on here and I didn't average every benchmark out there in order to put this post together, but you get the idea.
 
Keetha said:
Oh. So in other words, either the 7950GX2 is more than needed, or, the X1950XTX is enough?
Click to expand...

The X1950XTX is enough for your needs.
 
The most powerful single slot video card on the market is the 7950GX2, however this runs like an SLI set up and technically has 2 cores, 2 sets of memory etc, this means all the SLI set up in the drivers apply to get the most from the card.

I've not had to tweak the SLI set up once with my card so far, but then again I dont use dual monitors or anything.
 
Frosteh said:
The most powerful single slot video card on the market is the 7950GX2, however this runs like an SLI set up and technically has 2 cores, 2 sets of memory etc, this means all the SLI set up in the drivers apply to get the most from the card.

I've not had to tweak the SLI set up once with my card so far, but then again I dont use dual monitors or anything.
Click to expand...

The 7950GX2 is a dual slot video card. It is the fastest single card there is this is true, and I stated that above.
 
The 7950 is two cards running in SLI. The only difference between that and other SLI setups is that it uses one PCIE slot instead of two.
 
Obi_Kwiet said:
The 7950 is two cards running in SLI. The only difference between that and other SLI setups is that it uses one PCIE slot instead of two.
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I've wondered but haven't looked into it...

But does it need an SLi motherboard to run?
 
BlackTigers91 said:
I've wondered but haven't looked into it...

But does it need an SLi motherboard to run?
Click to expand...

No it doesnt, and im not sure if its still an issue but when it was released there were stories of some motherboards not being able to run it.
 
Lazy_Moron said:
No it doesnt, and im not sure if its still an issue but when it was released there were stories of some motherboards not being able to run it.
Click to expand...

There are quite a few compatible motherboards, a lot of them require BIOS updates to run a GX2.
clicky
 
Obi_Kwiet said:
The 7950 is two cards running in SLI. The only difference between that and other SLI setups is that it uses one PCIE slot instead of two.
Click to expand...

I was noticing the same thing. If his boss doesn't want to play with X-Fire or SLI, then he shouldn't be looking at the GX2, because regardless of the fact it is only physically attached by one PCI-e slot, it is none the less an SLI configuration.
 
If you don't want to deal with SLI or CRossfire, just pick up an x1950 XTX or a 7900 GTX, depending on your preference. The x1950 XTX is faster, but more expensive. Both are very capable cards.
 
Un4given said:
I was noticing the same thing. If his boss doesn't want to play with X-Fire or SLI, then he shouldn't be looking at the GX2, because regardless of the fact it is only physically attached by one PCI-e slot, it is none the less an SLI configuration.
Click to expand...
We are considering the 7950GX2 a single card. We were both under the impression that it was much simpler to set up the SLI and all that with a 7950GX2 than a real SLI setup.
 
Keetha said:
We are considering the 7950GX2 a single card. We were both under the impression that it was much simpler to set up the SLI and all that with a 7950GX2 than a real SLI setup.
Click to expand...
See that is what I don't understand: From everything that I have heard on this forum (which is not much 'cause I could care less for SLI at the moment) setting up SLI is about as hard as installing a stick of RAM, which means that either you consider exclusively single GPU driven cards or have a no hold barred competition.
 
The only difference is you don't plug in a second card and slap a bridge between them....drivers etc will be the same. Setting up SLi is easy tho so dunno what the problem would be.

Go for the x1950 if you want to avoid the 'hassle' of multple cards. On the flip side I got an email saying G80 was going to 'launched' at Geforce Lan 3 which can't be that far away.
 
The only caveat I've got with the 7950 is that you have to wait for drivers from NV to properly support new games in some cases. With an X1950 XTX you would never have to.
 
dnottis said:
The only caveat I've got with the 7950 is that you have to wait for drivers from NV to properly support new games in some cases. With an X1950 XTX you would never have to.
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This is a misconception. With nVidia you can create your own SLi profiles and setup the card however you want. The only problem with that is you have to do the testing to find out what settings work the best.

With the ATi card, you can only override the default settings on any game if it is a Direct 3D game, or a title with that feature supported in the driver. So out of the box, Crossfire won't always work the best with every game out of the box.
 
malicious said:
my 6200LE flashed to 6600 and clocked up to gt speeds is smokin

it's watercooled lol
Click to expand...



? 6200le FLASHED TO 6600? Never heard of that one....
 
Yeah, I thought that flash trick only worked on regular 6200AGP cards with the NV41 chip in them.
 
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