7900 vs 7950

some people say the 7950 is the same as the 7900 but OC'ed, so wouldn't gettting a 7900 and clocking it be be the same as a 7950, but, set you back about 100$ less?

 

Yes, you can do that. However, since the Go 7900 GTX is more or less reaching the maximum clockspeeds it can handle, it may not be able to get as far as the standard clockspeeds of the Go 7950 GTX. Performance difference between the Go 7900 GTX and Go 7950 GTX will not be much different anyway, so you may jst want to consider buying the Go 7900 GTX, and sticking with it. Its by no means a slow graphics card, and is only slightly slower than the Go 7950 GTX. Overclocking will also void the warranty.

 

What a bout the 7800? can you achieve similar performances with a clocked 7800?

 

7800's are a bit dated by now, I would stick to the 7900 or 7950.

 

The Go 7800 (GTX) was quite a hot card, and overclocking with that will be difficult. The Go 7900/7950 GTX cards are much more efficient and run cooler than the Go 7800 (GTX), and they are more able to overclock if you still feel the need to. I would take usapatriot's advice, and keep with the Go 7900/7950 GTX.

 

The 7950GTX is basically an overclocked 7900GTX. The 7800's are a little dated but still quite good cards. The 7800GTX has the same number of pixel pipelines as the 7900GTX and 7950GTX (24) but just has slower core and memory speeds. If you want a good efficient card, I'd recommend finding something with the 7900GS. It is amazingly efficient when comparing it to the 7900GTX which uses loads more power. I have read about people volt moding their 7900GS cards and overclocking past 7900GTX speeds!

 

do either of these cards feature DirectX 10? For that matter,are there any laptop cards that feature direct x 10?

 

No, none of the graphics mentioned so far support DX10. Some newer DX10 cards will be coming out not to long from now, and in time for Santa Rosa, however, they will not includeany high end card like the 7900 GTX. The fastest will be the Go 8600, which should perform somewhere in between the current Go 7700 and the Go 7900 GS, but it likely to have performance similar to the Go 7900 GS.

 

Do you think a 8600 card with DX10 will perform faster than a 7900gtx? What's the point of even releasing a card if its not going to be any faster :/

 

A Go 8600 probably won't be faster than the Go 7900 GTX. Even though the Go 8600 will be fast card, and will be architecturlly strong, it still won't be fast enough to surpass the brute power of the Go 7900 GTX. The Go 8800 that should be built on the 80 nm process, probably will perform faster, but that card has not be confirmed yet and a release date is not avilable. It appears that nVidia is having trouble with it working on a 90 nm process, so it may a while yet.

 

Man, that sucks, I've been waiting to get a gaming laptop (spending $2000+), waiting for SantaRosa, for the DX10 cards and the faster processors. Thats pretty sad that better graphics cards aren't coming out then... I've been waiting for 3 months, and am really really sick of waiting...

 

I got tired of playing the waiting game so I went ahead and bought my laptop a few months ago.

Alienware

 

me too and although i feel somewhat sad theres always the asus xg