I noticed MWave has them listed, but arrivals may be next month. I get sticker shock just looking at the ads. I haven't been shopping for any. http://www.mwave.com/mwave/skusearch.hmx?scriteria=3000415 XPCgear has the MSI in stock. http://www.xpcgear.com/nx78gtx512.html So, it appears they're in the US.
Before I spend that kind of money on a vid card I'm springing for the VapoChill. I think that we can all agree that this is not only faster but a better deal http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814102003 There are a couple that are even less but I prefer this manufacturer.
Me too. I've had two Sapphire cards now, both great, although the X800pro doesn't seem to like being overclocked at all, which is a shame. Good software bundle though.
To All, Well, I read all the results for the video cards. What I see mostly is redundency. I can't justify paying $600 for a video card that is marginally superior. Lets face it the ATI card does better in 19 of the tests, but not better enough to warrant my running out and buying one just for bragging rights! There just isn't that much difference in most areas of the tests. This is what I would like to have: XFX PVT70FYDF9 Geforce 7800GTX 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 VIVO PCI Express x16 Video Card - Retail * Model #: PVT70FYDF9 $749.00 (USD) I've also compared it to this: HIS Hightech H190XTX512DVN Radeon X1900XTX 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 VIVO PCI Express x16 Video Card - Retail (limit 2 per customer) * Model #: H190XTX512DVN $649.00 (USD) After reviewing both video cards I would choose the XFX. I think that because of it's lower core speed (580 vs 650MHz), it will tend to run more stable in OC'd machines. I've seen 7800s with core clock speeds of up to 650MHz so there's room to play. Then it supports 24 Pixel Pipelines compared to the 16 (+ the 48 "Phantoms") on the ATI. Don't get me wrong, I've seen a demo of the 48 pixel shader processors and it is very impressive. I also have a loyalty to XFX. Every XFX video card since the XFX400 that I've bought has given me little or no problems in setup and I've only ever had one fail. seems that I had a bad sensor in the power supply which raised the voltages because the sensor told it that the voltage was too low. Picture hearing something beeping and on walking in the room you see DENSE dark gray smoke pouring out of the back of one of your computers. It took out everything but the hard drive and the CPU. An AthlonXP 3200+. The AsusProbe recorded everything on the hard drive right up to meltdown! The CPU temp was in the low 80s, and it survived. The computer wouldn't shut down. The power supply had done so much damage to various parts of the computer that it wouldn't reset or shut down. It was still running at "Damn the Torpedos, Full speed ahead! I pulled the power plug! I've used XFX cards in all my builds unless the customer requests something else. For me, they have been a "bullet-proof" video card. The few minor installation problems that I ever saw were addressed very quickly by them. Besides, the price is sure to go down when Nvidia fires back! And fire back, they will. They always do! Happy Computering! theonejrs
LOL Short version: "Though XFX caused one of my PCs to meltdown to the CPU and HD, I still prefer them because I've used them forever and that was the only problem encountered". But what a problem. Hey Soph, I'm practicing short. LOL Too bad it doesn't work with my own posts. LOL
Wow, i would never buy a brand again after an incident like that! I had one as a matter of fact, and Qtec, as they should always have been, are now on my no-buy list. Fortunately i was installing hard disks at the time, so I could see the smoke at the first opportunity. Room still took two days to stop smelling, though. All I lost (well so far) was a RAM chip (the other two semi-survived, I'm a little dubious over their stability now, and occasionally they aren't picked up at POST, mind you they're cheap elixir sticks, so make your own mind up. The main stick that went was a Samsung, so maybe that hid the stability issues from before, maybe not), 1.5 hard disks (One was permanently destroyed - WD2000SE IDE, the other was just erased - Maxtor DM+8 40GB IDE, fortunately the two I was going to install seemed to survive too, whether they got erased or not I've no idea, because they hadn't been formatted yet), a floppy disk drive - where the smoke came from, and I don't think the front panel lights on my case seem to work, although i can't see if they're connected. That experience was enough to put me off using a PSU like that again. I'm surprised you can get a 512MB XFX that cheap, but in personal opinion I'd prefer the X1900XTX, it's faster, and you save $100. Apparently it does have a bit of OC headroom as well.
theonejrs I believe that I left a post that had links to XT1900's that are priced around $500. That's considerably less than the $750 for a 7800 that XT1900 thrashed two of. Then isn't time yo had a change? I owe allegiance to no company, I buy what's best all around at the time. Speed isn't the only factor, ATI's tend have better and sharper picture quality even when they're pushing less frames.
Thrashed might have been a little overstated but here are some of the benchmarks. To be fair. Thre are other shots but they require a graph for each configuration or they are duplicates in different resolutions. Even where the XT1900 lost against the 7800 SLI it was still to close to have any real world impact. So why spend $1300 to $1400 on an SLI setup if one XT1900 will do?
Absolutely. I can't speak for american sellers, but for me getting the two 7800GTXs costs three times what one X1900XT costs, and I can't actually get any 512MB 7800GTXs at all atm, they're all out of stock or pre-order, the only 7800GTX available is the 256MB XE. Looks like ATi aren't the only people to suffer from the all talk no trousers issue, and what's more, on this occasion ATi's launch went perfectly, and within a week of seeing the article on tom's hardware, the in-stock icon was up on all my hardware supplier's websites, and has stayed up, less than could be considered for the 7800GTX. I might also point out a few things from the article that hasn't appeared (image not found on all screens) In Doom 3 1024x768, the SLi combo is rock bottom, and the same for far cry in the sense that the lowly 1900XT can best it. It all changes at 1600x1200 of course, but if you crave image quality that much, then you're better off looking at ATi anyway, or so I've heard. By this forum's rules, however, that has to be disregarded until anyone can prove it. The article also highlights that Half-life 2 is pointless for benchmarking, because it's all CPU limited, EXCEPT that the only setup that gets a low frame rate is, low and behold two 7800GTXs, at any resolution. OK, the game is fairly ATi-oriented, but the single card scores far more fps ATi cards: 93,93,92,93,93,93,93,93,92,93,92,93,92,93,91,92,91,92,88,90 Single 7800: 91,92,90,90 SLI: 76,77,66,66 It's terrible! At 66fps, arguably you could see some serious visual slowdown during big events, since it's an average, whereas a card that costs a quarter as much (an 1800XT) can beat it hands down. Black & White 2? the SLi combo is at the top but scores 1.7 more fps (average) than an XTX, and a mere 2.9fps (average) more than the XT. Is it worth it? Considering we're playing with low fps here anyway (around the 40 or 50 mark) it certainly isn't. Don't think that this will change soon due to new games technology. B&W2 IS new game technology. Pretty much the only game in the benchmark suite THG have used that sees the 7800GTX in SLi have an advantage in FEAR, and crossfire still beats it. Do we need a conclusion? I;m sorry for all this GPU talk in a CPU thread, but it had to be said. LOL typically, as soon as I post that, sophocles' images work again. Wrargh!
Good way of sneaking it in. We like to have proof when available, especially when speaking of concrete figures such as percentages and when doing head on comparisons. However, we're not going to be sticklers to the point a person can't make a casual statement from personal observations; as long as it is stated as such. However, the preference is toward documented sources for comparisons.
Sophocles We've been talking about mobos for the socket 478 P4, what do you think of this one in comparison to the P4P800-E Deluxe. http://www.xpcgear.com/asusp4pc800e.html I know it's probably more than it's worth, but this one has the 875P chipset, which is newer than the 865 chips. Newer not necessarily meaning better. You understand the nuances of the Asus boards better than I do, so your opinion would be appreciated.
Brobear, That is a lot of money difference for the newer chipset. As you know, I have the P4P-800-SE MB and I'm now running my 3.0 CPU at 3.70 with memory settings of 2 2 2 5. So far it is rock solid with no problems. Idle temp is 44C with a case temp of 33C. I think this is pretty good bang for a lot less bucks. I don't know what the difference is between the 865 and 875. The only advantage I see is that it supports more SATA drives (4) while the 865 only supports 2. I would love to find a 3.4 Northwood for it and see what it can really do. I think i have reached the practical limit for this CPU as it will run at 3.75 (25% OC) but occasionally craps out under load. Still a 22% or so OC is pretty impressive to me, especially with a Prescott. All of this gives me more "Real World" speed. In fact, it's the best it's ever run! I also turned on the Q-Fan control in the setup with the ratio of 13/16. Now the CPU cooler only runs at max when needed. Ah, blessed silence (comparitively speaking of course). More than quiet enough in spite of 6 fans running. Here's my memory & cache benchmark. Sophocles can probably tell you more technical stuff about the MB as he purchased one, refurbished. The $89 price tag for a new one makes it an excellent buy and highly recommended by me. And it supports both Northwood and Prescott CPUs. Sophocles, Hows that Intel build going??? Any hot tips? theonejrs
The difference betweem the 875 and the 865 for practical use aren't even worth talking about. To pay an extra $122 for a legacy board in my view is throwing away good money, and I'm the king of throwing away good money. But since I've made the statement I have to prove it so I did a little surfing and here's what I found. http://www.linuxhardware.org/article.pl?sid=04/02/06/2010235&mode=thread Theonjrs I finshed the build on Friday and so far it's over clocked to 3.192 Ghz (14%)2-2-2-5. Since I'm only using it for a backup (I threw in my old Samsung 16X DVD/52 CDRW and my old Sony DRU-500A DVD burner (top burn speed 4X) and it all seems to be in top shape. I probably won't bother pushing it any more since there's no purpose. I updated the boards bios, the firmware on boh drives and then did a few encodes and burns with no problems. I have to tell you brobear that this board is a jewel for overclocking and the Deluxe is the same board one step up.
Sophocles, Yours and mine have P.A.T. as well. I left all of those settings on auto, but some day I "will" play with them! I couldn't justify a $209 purchase when I can do virtually the same thing with the $89 purchase! It's a hell of a motherboard for socket 478 P4s and it's now "ROCKING"! Here's the benchmarks. Happy Computering! theonejrs
Theonejrs I told you where to get the 3.4GHz Northwood. I'll point it out again; StarMicro has them. It's interesting that the Northwood at the stock 3.4GHz has nearly as good scores as the Prescott OC(ed) to 3.7GHz (something near 3%). Even with the tweaked settings with your timing of 2-2-2-5 the Northwood system is handling the memory better, even though the Dell board is locked with timing at 3-3-3-8. CPU Arithmetic Benchmark Memory Bandwidth
Brobear, As of yesterday the only 3.4 StarMicro has is the 3.4 Extreme Edition! It's way too expensive! Can you quote your own quote??? The XFX didn't cause my system to go up in smoke, a faulty sensor in the power supply did. The line regulator just kept calling for more voltage until poof! The XFX card was one of the victoms! theonejrs
I was just going by the listing on their website where I bought the one I have. http://www.starmicro.net/detail.aspx?ID=543 Did you call and ask? The online ordering system is still taking orders.
Ah sorry theonejrs, I didn't realise that was how it happened (though it seems more likely), it just didn't sound like it, the way you phrased it.
