7900GT is on it's last leg, 8400GS comparable?

C

Chrisman5000

Gawd
Joined
Oct 5, 2001
Messages
606
I have a second PC system here, i'd like for simple games to work on it for when company is over. It's currently running a 7900gt (vista, 1G RAM, AMD64 4000+), the card is going bad, I have insane artifacts all over the screen and I tried everything to fix it. I want to replace it but I am not sure which card to get at this point for the price. I'd like to go as cheap as possible with this new card.

I would THINK the 8400 series is better than the 7900? The stupid consumer in me thinks higher = better? I don't want explosive performance, i'd like an even swap if possible.
 
Would say 8600gts around same performance, around $70 used in FS/FT forums.
 
defintely do not bother with anything in the 8500 or 8600 line. get either the 9600 or the 8800.
 
8800 GS, 9600 GT and the 8800 GT will all be around a 7900GS from nVidia
HD 3850 & HD 3870 are about on par from ATi

If you're in the sub $100 arena, a HD 3650 would be my pick (unless you pick up a used card)
 
RikkAndrsn said:
8800 GS, 9600 GT and the 8800 GT will all be around a 7900GS from nVidia
HD 3850 & HD 3870 are about on par from ATi

If you're in the sub $100 arena, a HD 3650 would be my pick (unless you pick up a used card)
Click to expand...

all of those are above a 7900
 
/guessing. http://www.gpureview.com/show_cards.php?card1=384&card2=529# The 7900GT is more powerful. the "0 GFLOPS" is a glitch, if you change the core clock (a feature right below the picture) it will kick it back into shader ops mode. the 8400GS does theoretically have more shading horsepower, so if a game was created that contained no verticies (2D) and 100% shaders, and had a max resolution of 640X480... and had few textures, the 8400GS might edge out the 7900GT. In any normal situation the 7900GT would pumble the crap out of the 8400GS. the 7900GT regularly outperforms the 8600GTS. the only real upgrade would be to an 88 or 98 series card.

RMA your 7900GT.

Nvidia's naming scheme for the past 5 years (up until the 9 series :mad:) has been thousands place value is series (7000 is 7 series, 8000 is 8 series etc), hundreds place value is relative performance in that series (800 or 900 is enthusiast 600/500 is performance 200/300/400 is mainstream), tens place is a revision (7900GT to 7950GT was almost the same card save a couple tweaks), and the suffex is sorta the relative performance in that target group (from best to worst suffex's order is GX2 -> Ultra -> GTX -> GTS -> GTO -> GT -> GS -> GSO).

So using this information lets disect a couple: 7900GT. This means its ~middle performer, of the first revision, of the enthusiast section, of the 7 series. The 8400GS is the lowest performer, of the first revision, of the mainstream section, of the 8 series. Its simply the best older technology vs the worst newest technology, and in this example the best older technology wins out without breaking a sweat.

Many of the Video card nuts (such as my self) were calling for the currently known as 9800GTX to be called the 8850 as it brings no substantial performance increase over current G80 based 8800 cards.
 
RikkAndrsn said:
8800 GS, 9600 GT and the 8800 GT will all be around a 7900GS from nVidia
HD 3850 & HD 3870 are about on par from ATi
Click to expand...
all those cards are easily much faster than the 7900gs or even the 7900gt that the op has. heck the 8600gt is even faster than the 7900gs in all modern games.

op you really need to look at the 8800gs or 9600gso(same card different name) as being the lowest you will go. the 9600gt at around $110-$130 after rebates is really hard to beat though.
 
Thanks for the replies, glad I checked here with the experts first...I was about to buy the 8400gs.

I think the price on the 8800gs makes it a keeper for me!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top