Best Graphics Cards For The Money: April '09

[Onus]

Thanks for all your efforts on these articles, Cleeve.

 

[mikewalker]

Cleeve, I appreciate the quick edit and follow-up after my second post. I was a bit impatient earlier because it seemed to me that it would not matter what I typed at all - needless to say, I am glad to have been wrong. Congratulations on your excellent, accurate article... now if only we could go back to the good'ol days when the Best Graphics Cards For The Money articles are released on the first of the month or very shortly thereafter? Bah, that's wishful thinking!

 

[cleeve]

[citation][nom]mikewalker[/nom] now if only we could go back to the good'ol days when the Best Graphics Cards For The Money articles are released on the first of the month or very shortly thereafter? Bah, that's wishful thinking![/citation]

I'm working on it, Mike.

 

[Proximon]

Things change so fast.... I think it's best to just wait for the right moment, whenever that happens to be.

 

[mikewalker]

Glad to hear it, in that case I will be checking back here for the "Best Graphics Cards For The Money Article, May 2009 article at exactly 12:00 am, midnight, your time, on May 1st. Hope you work well under pressure! =)

 

[mikewalker]

[citation][nom]Cleeve[/nom]I'm working on it, Mike.[/citation]

Glad to hear it, in that case I will be checking back here for the "Best Graphics Cards For The Money" May 2009 article at exactly 12:00 am, midnight, your time, on May 1st.

Hope you work well under pressure! =)

 

[realcyberghost]

Just want to add that you should test more mmorpg's, because they tend not to work very well with SLI or Crossfire.
Also windowed mode does not work with SLI ( at least not with the games I tried ), talking about WoW, WAR, EVE Online, ...

 

[hixbot]

[citation][nom]Cleeve[/nom]It's not like the old days where SLI and Crossfire would fall over in half the titles out there; now, it's hard to find a popular game where they *don't* work properly. That means multi-card is now fair game for a price/performance comparison.[/citation]
Microstuttering is still very real and a big nuisance for pro gamers.

 

[CeruLucifus]

realcyberghost 04/26/2009 2:14 PM

Just want to add that you should test more mmorpg's, because they tend not to work very well with SLI or Crossfire.
Also windowed mode does not work with SLI ( at least not with the games I tried ), talking about WoW, WAR, EVE Online, ...

I've had very good experience in MMOs with my SLI setup. I'm running 2x 8800 GTS 512, on AMD 9850 BE with nVidia 560 chipset, so not an expensive motherboard. I always run windowed with a second monitor enabled. Great performance in Age of Conan and LOTRO. The one exception at first was WAR ... I had a bad stuttering problem in every mode (dual monitors, single monitor, windowed or full screen) -- I wouldn't call it "micro" stuttering, the game halted down to 0 FPS a couple times a minute. This didn't happen with SLI disabled, though then the frame rate was lousy. But I fixed this by -- believe it or not -- upgrading to Vista. I went for the 64-bit version and treated myself to a RAM upgrade to 8 MB. WAR looks great and runs very smooth.

I agree with Cleeve's comments about SLI. It works well with everything now.

 

[seaborn96]

[citation][nom]RazberyBandit[/nom]This article is always a good read.I must admit I'm a little disappointed to see another month with no changes in recommendations, even with two new releases thrown into the mix. There's really only one change I expect for next month, and that totally depends on whether or not the 47XX card(s) from ATI goes gold and displaces the 4830. I suppose if it's enough of a performance increase over the 4830, it could potentially take over part of or the entire ~$80 to ~$130 range of recommendations.I suppose we wait and see.[/citation]

Toms doesn't have any control over what the companies release. Don't be disappointed with Toms, the article, or recommendations. Be disappointed with AMD and nVidia for not making the new cards worth the price.

 

[mbm]

i know this may seem like a very easy question to some of you, but not to me and hopefully not to others struggling with the same issue. the footage from my Sony HD EX1(1080P HQ)Camera looks like crap on my computer's LCD monitor. is doesn't matter if i'm viewing it in the Sony Clip Browser or in Adobe Premiere Pro. it just looks awful. why is this? here's my computer specs if it helps decipher or explain the reasoning:

Dell Inspiron 530 Intel Core2 Quad processor Q6600 @ 2.4 Ghz 8mb cache
3GB DDR2 SDRAM at 800Mhz
128MB ATI Radeon HD 2400 Pro PCI Express x16
22" Flat Panel 1680x1050


ok, i'm pretty sure its the video card. can someone recommend a video card can handle playing 1920x1080 video and make it look like its actually HD? i also work with Adobe CS3, soon to upgrade to CS4. i hear the memory is important, ie: 512MB. i think the interface is key as well, ie: PCI Express x16 or x16 2.0.

I only have 350W of power supply.

thanks in advance.

 

[Onus]

I'm sure if you start a thread in the forum, you will get many useful responses.

 

[jshanaa]

were is article of may ?

 

[boudy]

were is article of may ?

It should come out near the end.

 

[Guest]

THIS IS AWSOME!
That resumes a lot of work. Very usefull. Please, continue the great work. Also, it would be very good if you guys could collect more mobile graph chipset data.

 

[Guest]

This is a brilliant article, but I would of loved it if it was D/L-able as a PDF.