Absolute best Performance/Dollar GPU, Any Generation - January 2013

[Satsuki]

Hello fellow geeks!

Does anyone have insight or resources on what video cards have the best performance/cost ratio on the market, including previous generations.

I feel that the Radeon 6870 ($150) is still a great price for the benchmarks. Even more than the Radeon 7000 series cost/performance.

Thanks

 

[TheGreatHoylando]

The new HD 8000 series, released next quarter are supposed to be excellent 'bang for their buck', but I can't seem to find much info on them, sorry...

 

[Goodeggray]

Hard to say, prices are always changing, but 660ti can be had for $200 now.

 

[mouse24]

I would probably say a second hand 480 from ebay if its absolute performance per dollar. They seem to be fairly cheap at around 100-150 ish

 

[DEY123]

No expert but I think the 7870 Tahiti for $260 (240 with rebate) is better perofrmance for price
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814131484

The cheapest 6870 I could find was 180 (150 with rebate/ your lik was back ordered and 260) So the 7870 costs 44% more without rebate and 60% to factor rebate in
on Performance benchmark the 6870 scores an 82.5 and the 7870 tahiti was a 127 (54% faster).
http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/2012-vga-gpgpu/19-Tom-s-Hardware-Index-B-Performance,2976.html


on the extreme benchmark the score is 60.3 for the 6870 and 111.3 for the 7870 tahiti for an 81% difference)

http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/2012-vga-gpgpu/19-Tom-s-Hardware-Index-C-Extreme,2977.html

Of course maybe other cards are better but I think I would take the 7870 tahiti over the 6870
Of course on other benchmarks who knows how it would change.

 

[bigshootr8]

I do like the limited edition 7870 LE card basically a gimped 7950. I do not like the older cards because they lack the DX11 support to power the more demanding games that are currently out there. I feel that value in a graphic card goes beyond what raw performance a card has but the tech it supplies as well.

 

[DEY123]

Hard to say, prices are always changing, but 660ti can be had for $200 now.

Can you post a link to this prioce..would love to pick one up for $200 if that was without rebate. Cheapest I see is $240 with rebate and $270 without (and that is with stock cooler).

 

[JJ1217]

7870 LE/7950 are probably best bang for buck, along with the 660.

 

[bigshootr8]

Can you post a link to this prioce..would love to pick one up for $200 if that was without rebate. Cheapest I see is $240 with rebate and $270 without (and that is with stock cooler).

Was probably near 200 during the weekend sales. And I agree with JJ on the best valued cards. I believe the best value high end card is the 670 though.

 

[Goodeggray]

Newegg had the PNY 660ti for $199 after $20 MIR two weeks ago. Frys has the same card for $220 after$20 MIR till 1/24.

 

[bigshootr8]

Ah a PNY card that sure explains it. I'm very iffy about them they keep going on sale there reference cards makes me really feel like they are prone to a high rate of failure RMA's

 

[ingtar33]

the 7870 Tahiti is easily the price/performance champ these days. That or an actual 7950.

Pretty much the sweet spot for GPU performance/dollar right there.

 

[Satsuki]

No expert but I think the 7870 Tahiti for $260 (240 with rebate) is better perofrmance for price
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814131484

The cheapest 6870 I could find was 180 (150 with rebate/ your lik was back ordered and 260) So the 7870 costs 44% more without rebate and 60% to factor rebate in
on Performance benchmark the 6870 scores an 82.5 and the 7870 tahiti was a 127 (54% faster).
http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/2012-vga-gpgpu/19-Tom-s-Hardware-Index-B-Performance,2976.html


on the extreme benchmark the score is 60.3 for the 6870 and 111.3 for the 7870 tahiti for an 81% difference)

http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/2012-vga-gpgpu/19-Tom-s-Hardware-Index-C-Extreme,2977.html

Of course maybe other cards are better but I think I would take the 7870 tahiti over the 6870
Of course on other benchmarks who knows how it would change.

Thanks for the great follow-up.
I can't seem to find the # of cores the Radeon 7870 LE has. Does it vary greatly due to defects and that's why it's considered LE or budget?

 

[JJ1217]

Thanks for the great follow-up.
I can't seem to find the # of cores the Radeon 7870 LE has. Does it vary greatly due to defects and that's why it's considered LE or budget?

haha, AMD sort of screwed up the naming big time when it came to the 7870. Its actually a downgraded 7950 (Uses a Tahiti GPU rather than the normal Pitcairn on the 7870 models), a 7930 if you would, not a downgraded 7870 like some people think. The naming is stupid, I know. Tinytomlogan did a review on the Club3D 7870 LE and it got higher scores than a 7950. Probably just a bug though. The performance difference between a 7930 and a 7950 is very miniscule, maybe about the difference from a 670 to a 680. The 7950 has much better overclocking potential, the clocks on the 7950 are very conservative.

 

[ingtar33]

Thanks for the great follow-up.
I can't seem to find the # of cores the Radeon 7870 LE has. Does it vary greatly due to defects and that's why it's considered LE or budget?

no... it's not budget... it's "limited edition". the HD 7870 LE is basically just a hd 7950 slightly nerfed.

I mean the HD 7870 LE will only crossfire with 79XX gpus... it won't even xfire with the 78XX line. That's because it uses the 79XX line of gpu, only slightly nerfed.

so jj1217 is right, they misnamed it. It really should be named 79XX something or other not 7870 LE.

 

[bigshootr8]

Hmm very odd I think they wanted to appeal to a larger crowd the crowd looking for a cheaper card so they went with the 7870 LE because people probably think the 7900 cards are out of there price range.

 

[Satsuki]

Best answer selected by Satsuki.