Best Graphics Cards For The Money: January 2010

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skora

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Have you done any benchmarking of the 5770 in CF? Seems like the low 128bit bus might stifle performance too much if trying to run it hard at 1920 or at all at 2560.

Great article, thanks for keeping this updated every few months!
 

neiroatopelcc

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Not much new since last year really. Except availability changes.

How much slower are two 4870-512 cards in cf in comparison to two 4790-1gb cards ? Do the 512mb memory in general hinder them @ 1680 or 1920 ? (the 'how much vram yada yada' article doesn't deal with cf far as I remember)
 

zinabas

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I can tell you that a 4850 512mb can get slowed down on memory hungry games all the down at 1280x960. Oblivion would be my case and point. (Texture packs do that for those of you wondering.)
 
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Nice article but the Heirarchy chart at the end is screwed up badly. If you are going to pretend the 5850 is the same speed as a gtx280 (seriously now), then at least pretend the 5870 is the same as the gtx295.

I can assure you the 5870 is a lot closer to the gtx295 than either the gtx280 or gtx285 is to the 5850.

Either give the 5850 it's own level in the chart or move the 5870 into the gtx295/4870x2 position please. The gtx280 should also be moved down a notch from the 4850x2/gtx285 I feel.
 
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I wonder what Fermi will do to this chart in the near future? Hopefully we'll see some ATI 5870 price cuts and we'll all be happy, only time can tell since we have no real information =(
 
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Heh, I have 8800GT (G92 chip). I can't believe it's been more than two years since I bought it and it's still a competitive piece of hardware (both 9800GT and GTS 250 are essentially the same card).
 

shubham1401

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Heh, I have 8800GT (G92 chip). I can't believe it's been more than two years since I bought it and it's still a competitive piece of hardware (both 9800GT and GTS 250 are essentially the same card).


Both 9800Gt and GTS250 are very different cards.
GTS 250 is faster.

You should say 8800GT and 9800GT are essentially the same cards. :sarcastic:
 

AMW1011

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The same thing, the GTX 295 has no place in the market and the "notable gains" you speak of are not very notable at all.

The GTX 295 has no place between the 5870, 5970, and 5850 crossfire.

Also the 5870 is a far better deal than 2 4890s, Tom's seems to completely ignore the benefits of a single card over a dual solution:

1. Higher minimum FPS = the single card tends to be smoother.
2. Less bugs and glitches from SLI or CFX
3. Much more linear scaling instead of SLI and CFX being all over the place at times.
4. That whole cooler running and less power consumption can mean much better overclocking.
5. Since the 5xxx series is new you CANNOT ignore that they will get better with time with driver improvements, the GTX 280 went from being beaten by the 9800 GX2 to tying with it and coming out on top at times with driver improvements, however the GTX 2xx and 4xxx series are at their peaks.
 

notty22

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^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
The person above has no way to prove her conclusions, she just can't accept that the GTX 295 is a elite video card. That the 5870 is not as fast as it, end of discussion. Its why ATI came out with the 5970. Get over it. The hype surrounding the 5850 in part was its price point, and performance that equaled a much more expensive gtx285, but then ATI decided to gouge its fans an extra 50 bucks. 309.00 instead of the initial 269.99
 
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You're an idiot notty, the 5850 is at least 20% and more like 30-40% faster than the gtx280. The gtx295 is about 5-10% faster than the 5870 in selected titles.
 
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Notty = absolute tool. He is logging on his forum alts and giving people thumbs down. Randomizer caught him logging on forum alts last night too.

IP ban this sad tool please.
 

neiroatopelcc

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[citation][nom]psycho sykes[/nom]The said article deal with it as it's known that CF/SLi don't double memory.[/citation]
No it doesn't deal with it!
You know cf doesn't doublt vram. Good! That's EXACTLY my point.
The article concludes that 512mb is enough for most cases. But the article doesn't deal with CF, and therefor does not deal with the effect of doubling the performance - which enables higher resolutions and more AA. 512mb is enough for 1680x1050 and 4xAA - fine - but what if you were to run at 1920x1280 with 8xAA and 16xAF ? Would 512mb still suffice in AFR mode on modern games? There's so much texture data these days that I'm not sure it does.
 

cleeve

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[citation][nom]AMW1011[/nom]The same thing, the GTX 295 has no place in the market and the "notable gains" you speak of are not very notable at all.The GTX 295 has no place between the 5870, 5970, and 5850 crossfire.[/citation]

I disagree. I encourage anyone who wants to dig deeper to do their own research and check out a few 295 reviews.


[citation][nom]AMW1011[/nom]Also the 5870 is a far better deal than 2 4890s.[/citation]

Based on the benches I've done two 4890's will show a very large improvement over a 5870 in the great majority of cases. Once again I encourage interested parties to check out some reviews for themselves.


[citation][nom]AMW1011[/nom]Since the 5xxx series is new you CANNOT ignore that they will get better with time with driver improvements.[/citation]

Actually, as a responsible reviewer I CANNOT base recommendations on something that 'might happen'.

If the drivers improve to that extent, the article will reflect that.
 

cleeve

Illustrious
[citation][nom]neiroatopelcc[/nom]Would 512mb still suffice in AFR mode on modern games? There's so much texture data these days that I'm not sure it does.[/citation]

512 MB is ample as long as the user doesn't go crazy with the rare games that take advantage of gobs of memory. And even then, they have to select the highest possible settings, with AA, and at the highest resolutions possible to see a 512 MB limitation.

And even then, it's difficult to find a game where it makes a sizable difference:

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/graphics-ram-4870,2428.html
 

neiroatopelcc

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[citation][nom]Cleeve[/nom]512 MB is ample as long as the user doesn't go crazy with the rare games that take advantage of gobs of memory. And even then, they have to select the highest possible settings, with AA, and at the highest resolutions possible to see a 512 MB limitation. And even then, it's difficult to find a game where it makes a sizable difference:http://www.tomshardware.com/review [...] ,2428.html[/citation]
Goodie ; so I'll go get another 4870 or 4890 when one's cheap (second hand)
 
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