The ATI Radeon X1900 XTX CrossFire and Nvidia GeForce 7900 GTX SLI dual video card setups represent the pinnacle of gaming-video-card technology. Both setups require bleeding edge motherboards and power supplies to function, so don't think that you can buy two of each card and be on your merry way. You're likely going to have to upgrade your motherboard to an SLI- or CrossFire- certified motherboard. Then, if you actually want your system to turn on, you're also going to have to buy a beefy 550 watt or greater power supply. If you can pay more than $1000 for the video cards, another $200 for the motherboard, and an extra $100 for the power supply, prepare yourself for gaming nirvana.
All told, the barrier to entry is enormous; but once you're there and running your games at 1920x1080 with 4x antialiasing and 16x anisotropic filtering, any regrets you might have had about spending a small fortune will be thrown out the window. We're sure that one of these setups offers a better experience, however. The two could differ in terms of raw performance or the subtleties of image quality depending on the game. Either way, if you're going to lay down the smack for the best performance, we're going to make sure you get it.
GeForce
7900 GTX |
Radeon X1900
XTX |
|
| Core Clock | 700/650MHz |
650MHz |
| Memory Clock | 1600MHz |
1550MHZ |
| RAM Size | 512MB |
512MB |
| Pixel Shaders | 24 |
48 |
| ROPs | 16 |
16 |
| Vertex Shaders | 8 |
8 |
| Texture Units | 24 |
16 |
| Manufacturing Process | 90nm |
90nm |
| Transistor Count | 278M |
384M |
Who's the king of the roost--Nvidia's SLI or ATI's CrossFire? No one test could tell us this answer, so we decided to run five of them. We also assembled a spread of image-quality tests to go along with the raw-performance numbers. Read on to find out who gets to take home the chickens -- ATI or Nvidia.
Grudge Match: SLI vs CrossFire
Nvidia's GeForce 7900 GTX SLI vs. ATI's Radeon X1900 XTX CrossFire. Who comes out the victor?
