[CP5670]

I meant 60fps without AA. I don't think AA is really a standard thing (or ever has been) in the latest games on single cards, unless you're willing to compromise on either the framerate or resolution (of course, many people are, including obviously the HardOCP editors ). That's basically what dual card systems are for.

That being said, two of the 550/800mhz 7900GTs don't cost too much more than a single high end card, but will give 98% of the performance of two 512 7800 GTXs and will often get averages much greater than 60 at 16x12 with 4x multi AA. The current high end cards seem pretty pointless to me (unless you're buying two) given how the dual midrange card setups completely dominate them in modern games.

[ToecrusherHammerjaw]

<reads thread>

Dammit, my dad just bought an XPS with a 7800 over break, and now its out of date already!?!  Oh well.  I agree with Frag, the video card industry is too fast.  My laptop is barely three years old, and already it's three generations behind.   

[Kosh]

16x12

My cell phone can do more FPS at a higher resolution.

[deftonesmx17]

I don't think AA is really a standard thing (or ever has been)

I have one word and three numbers for you

Xbox360

It has a standard of 4xAA.....................


And if AA has not become a standard thing, why are Nvidia and ATI so obsessed with who has the GPU with faster and cleaner AA....................

[Sandwich]

AA is important for consoles, since they generally run at a resolution way lower than PCs. The higher the resolution, however, the less the need for AA. Personally, I like full AA (6x) on anything up to 1280x1024, 4x at 1600x1200, and 2x at 1920x1200 (yeah, I'm a pretty picture hog).

[CP5670]

I have one word and three numbers for you

Xbox360

It has a standard of 4xAA.....................


And if AA has not become a standard thing, why are Nvidia and ATI so obsessed with who has the GPU with faster and cleaner AA....................

What Sandwich said. The AA is used everywhere there because of the low resolutions (and from what I've seen of my brother playing, the performance doesn't seem to be so hot either). As for the companies "obsessed" about AA, these days they are mainly just hyping up the special AA modes that are exclusive to SLI and Crossfire.

I should have probably worded that differently: AA has never been a standard thing for people that are sensitive to framerate drops. A lot of people use AA as well as decent resolutions, but then again, a lot of people also find occasional dips below 15fps to be an acceptable tradeoff for the better image quality and so are quite satisfied with midrange or even low end cards.

16x12

My cell phone can do more FPS at a higher resolution.

When you write those same numbers over and over again a hundred times, you tend to start abbreviating them.

By the way, speaking of cell phones, here is what the future holds.

[MatthewPapa]

on paper the 7900 appears barely superior to its younger brother
the main improvement seems to be memory clock frequencies

but on paper is one thing; actual performance is another.

anyone here actually compared the two?

[deftonesmx17]

anyone here actually compared the two?

I havent, but this review did, http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/article.html?art=MTAwMSw2LCxoZW50aHVzaWFzdA==

As you can see from almost every benchmark, the 7900 is not really better than the 7800, we are talking 5-10 more fps

[IceFire]

on paper the 7900 appears barely superior to its younger brother
the main improvement seems to be memory clock frequencies

but on paper is one thing; actual performance is another.

anyone here actually compared the two?

Its not a huge improvement....the biggest thing about the 7900 series is that its on a smaller die and therefore it puts out less heat, lower voltage, and is cheaper for nVidia to make.  The big boon of that being that it means that we get it for cheaper and we don't have a portable space heater in our desktops.  That said...its not all that much cooler.

[Scuddie]

I'm wondering if nV and ATi will ever jump on the power conservation wagon.  It's quite embarassing when one device uses over three times as much power as the rest of the system combined .

[Mefustae]

Stuff putting money into power conservation, make 'em bigger, much more powerful, and with a tiny, nuclear power-cell built in.