Best Graphics Cards For The Money: January 2012 (Archive)

[ingtar33]

this is total BS..
everywhere , even here on toms hardware it shows 770GTX as being faster than a ghz 7970, yet it is still sitting one tier lower than the ghz,,,,that 7970ghz is not that faster than the vanilla 7970, just like there isnt much diffrence between a 680 and a 770 yet they're both on the same tier....
Tom please lower the ghz version back to the vanilla 7970 tier....
trust me it will look RIGHT !

you are wrong. The problem and understandable confusion comes with the unexpected effectiveness of a new tech when benching the new nvidia cards. See they both come with a really cool and effective product called Turbo Boost II, which is an adaptive turbo boost which automatically upclocks the card according to the card's temps. So if you bench this card in a very ac'ed room on a test bench, you'll get vastly different benching results then a webpage which tests its cards in a case with a less ac'ed room, which again might be a vastly different result then someone at home with their new nvidia 770 and no ac and a case with no airflow.

Generally speaking outside of the most ideal situations, the 770 clocks about 5% slower on average then the 7970GE (and about 5% faster then the base 7970). when you disable both the radeon's boost (if it has one) and the 770's the radeon is almost 15% faster, and when the 7970 is overclocked (GE or otherwise) the turbo boost II effect vanishes completely, and as a result the radeons will TEND to (tend mind you, depending on cards and overclock results) to score a little higher, consistently higher, then the 770.

Remember this is a close match, and there will be titles where the 770 will score higher, so average results can be influenced by the games used to bench a little more than normal because the cards are so close to eachother.

 

[sarinaide]

Following Toms is like following the pied piper, you only going to get led into the water.

Following Toms will cause a disease.
It is known as "Upgrade Fever"
symptoms included constant reading of reviews,drooling over Newegg ads,taking money from the kids college fund,trading with shady characters on Craiglist,lying to your spouse etc
devastating disease
very costly
can even ruin marriages

I am already poor, may as well compound it.

 

[brendonmc]

Unlike CPUs, where spending $1000 is a total waste of money for gaming, spending extra for multi-gpu configurations is worth the money for increased performance. So I don't agree with just cutting off at second from top single graphics card. Not a valid conclusion...

 

[refillable]

Nice to see nvidia dominating AMD. We want to see next gen AMD cards ASAP.

 

[mr91]

Just a minor correction the GTX 780 has 768 more Cuda cores than the gtx 680 /770 which means Nvidia added an extra 50% of the cuda cores of the 680 to the current 7 series flagship not 25%.

 

[Raheel Hasan]

how long amd will it take to release 9000.

 

[Onus]

nVidia is not "dominating" AMD. In fact, at the low end (where most of the volume is), nVidia has few if any options. At the upper end, performance is so great that the differences really don't amount to much, except perhaps in those one or two titles that are a dealmaker/breaker issue for an infinitesimal number of gamers. That said, afaik Crossfire is still broken, so if a multi-card configuration is on the table, that should be nVidia. For certain features, I'd probably prefer to run nVidia cards myself for games, but because I was bitmining, AMD was the only viable choice. I have absolutely no performance-related reasons to feel compelled to switch to nVidia.

 

[Sakkura]

Nice to see nvidia dominating AMD. We want to see next gen AMD cards ASAP.

AMD gets 5 recommendations, Nvidia only gets 4.

 

[JackNaylorPE]

Nothing new here, nVidia dominates the high end and AMD the low end .... tho this generation, since the introduction of the 650 Ti Boost, the dividing line is $150-ish instead of $200-ish.

The domination that matters tho is in who is buying what .... if ya don't think AMDs financial woes tell that story....

http://finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=AMD+Interactive#symbol=amd;range=2y;compare=;indicator=volume;charttype=area;crosshair=on;ohlcvalues=0;logscale=off;source=undefined;

.... just look at the installed base of DX11 GPUs

http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/videocard/

nVidia has 7 of the top 10 DX11 cards, AMD has 2

nVidia has 13 of the top 10 DX11 cards, AMD has 6
5 of nVidias 13 are newer 6xx series .....
2 of ATIs 5 are newer 7xxx series

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660 - 2.57%
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 670 - 2.37%
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660 Ti - 1.97%
ATI Radeon HD 7850 - 1.87%
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680 - 1.85%
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 650 - 1.65%
ATI Radeon HD 7770 - 1.49%

Total outta top 20 - NVIDIA = 10.41% / AMD = 3.36 %

 

[ralanahm]

It would be awesome to have the APU listed too even if you just put the equal video chip with parenthesis like "Integrated: HD 7660D (a10-5800k)" so they can be found and compared. I know this is video card comparison, but some use to decide on upgrades or build new to see what is best for the money and use even for small business use with minimal Adobe work. Because seeing that 5800k is 4 steps higher then i7 the money is better for 5800k or 6800k. Robert H.

 

[Sakkura]

.... just look at the installed base of DX11 GPUs

Steam's Hardware Survey is known to be inaccurate. And look at the changes - the share of Radeon HD 5770, 6870, 6850, and 6950s are growing faster than the share of 7850s or 7770s.

 

[Onus]

My point was that you can't use a comparative term like "dominates" when talking about an entire company, but you certainly can about specific cards at specific prices. For example, until the market corrected, at the same $169 launch price, the GTX650Ti Boost dominated the similarly-priced HD7790. As Cleeve has said before though, there are really no longer any bad cards, just bad prices.

 

[ingtar33]

My point was that you can't use a comparative term like "dominates" when talking about an entire company, but you certainly can about specific cards at specific prices. For example, until the market corrected, at the same $169 launch price, the GTX650Ti Boost dominated the similarly-priced HD7790. As Cleeve has said before though, there are really no longer any bad cards, just bad prices.

couldn't agree more. 7770GE here... not feeling the bug to upgrade past it. It's plenty enough card for my needs. and the price was perfect ($84), had i seen a 650ti or 7790 for less then 100 i would have jumped on them instead... but i'm surprised at all the power this card brings to the table.

 

[king smp]

I agree with Onus.
When I am looking at purchasing a GPU I consider the price point and then what I am using the card for.
When i was buying a gaming card about six months ago I had a $300 budget which at that point the 660Ti was the best choice IMHO.
I also do Folding at Home
http://folding.stanford.edu/

so how many points a GPU gets is important to me along with power usage and heat since the F@H cards fold 24/7.
so I picked up two 7770s since for their price/power/heat they made a nice folding setup

really it depends not only on price but what feature set you need from a card.
example is:
3D - Nvidia
OpenCL - AMD
CUDA - Nvidia
dual GPUs - Nvidia
gaming - either depending on price point
bitming - AMD

somehow having an emotional attachment to company seems silly to me
I might like a company because I had a good experience with their product but that doesnt over ride logic

the amount of rampant fanboism on this site is getting ridiculous
cant even make a recommendation without getting trolled by a fanboy

 

[Killroyjenkins]

7970's can be had for $300, yet they don't make the list? The $100 more GTX 770, which was 2.6% slower got the recommendation though.

 

[ingtar33]

I agree with Onus.
When I am looking at purchasing a GPU I consider the price point and then what I am using the card for.
When i was buying a gaming card about six months ago I had a $300 budget which at that point the 660Ti was the best choice IMHO.
I also do Folding at Home
http://folding.stanford.edu/

so how many points a GPU gets is important to me along with power usage and heat since the F@H cards fold 24/7.
so I picked up two 7770s since for their price/power/heat they made a nice folding setup

really it depends not only on price but what feature set you need from a card.
example is:
3D - Nvidia
OpenCL - AMD
CUDA - Nvidia
dual GPUs - Nvidia
gaming - either depending on price point
bitming - AMD

somehow having an emotional attachment to company seems silly to me
I might like a company because I had a good experience with their product but that doesnt over ride logic

the amount of rampant fanboism on this site is getting ridiculous
cant even make a recommendation without getting trolled by a fanboy

I know. i was working with someone on their build the other day. they WANTED a Radeon gpu, and he was given a solid rec for a 7950. In stormed 3 nvidia fanboys trolling the crap out of the thread spamming "760, 770, 780!" all day long. I ignored them till one of them said the 770 was so much faster then the SLOW 7950 that it could max crysis3 at 1080p and 60fps and the 7950 could only hit 30fps on it.

That was the point i finally had to say SOMETHING about their rampant fanboyism, as it was patently false, and they were just trolling at that point. Its a bit annoying sometimes. I like both companies cards, my fav all time video card is an nvidia, 9800gt, that guy worked forever, flawlessly and was strong enough to last years. i liked that card so much it was hard for me to go to AMD for this 7770, and i'm glad i did. it's a real leap forward in gpu power, much quieter then that old nvidia and i've had none of the driver issues i hear so much about. Both companies make awesome cards. not sure why there is so much hate around here.

7970's can be had for $300, yet they don't make the list? The $100 more GTX 770, which was 2.6% slower got the recommendation though.

They don't count rebates in pricing these out, nor "last minute sales" they take a 30 day average price of the whole "type" of card.

 

[Killroyjenkins]

7970's can be had for $300, yet they don't make the list? The $100 more GTX 770, which was 2.6% slower got the recommendation though.

They don't count rebates in pricing these out, nor "last minute sales" they take a 30 day average price of the whole "type" of card.

Well that's a clearly flawed method. Old technology doesn't always go on sale, and just because some cards are priced at $450, doesn't mean anyone in their right mind would be one when they've been fluctuating around $300 on the low end for months. Some cards never really underwent the price cuts, and are clearly outliers. It's not like there are a shortage of the cards forcing people to pay more than the minimum current price.

 

[littleleo]

Once again you have to scroll thru comments from Dec. 2012, Really! That is ridiculous why do we have to go thru all these old post that aren't even relevant any more? Can we get rid of the post older then 3 months?

 

[jrstriker12]

7970's can be had for $300, yet they don't make the list? The $100 more GTX 770, which was 2.6% slower got the recommendation though.

7970's for $300? Where? Lowest I've seen is $375 in a combo or $389 alone with a rebate. Keep in mind that Tom's reviews don't count rebates or used/open box sales.

 

[hasten]

7970's can be had for $300, yet they don't make the list? The $100 more GTX 770, which was 2.6% slower got the recommendation though.

7970's for $300? Where? Lowest I've seen is $375 in a combo or $389 alone with a rebate. Keep in mind that Tom's reviews don't count rebates or used/open box sales.

.... the egg has two listed at $349.99 (rebated down to $320). A 20 second search would have shown you that...

 

[hasten]

I agree with Onus.
When I am looking at purchasing a GPU I consider the price point and then what I am using the card for.
When i was buying a gaming card about six months ago I had a $300 budget which at that point the 660Ti was the best choice IMHO.
I also do Folding at Home
http://folding.stanford.edu/

so how many points a GPU gets is important to me along with power usage and heat since the F@H cards fold 24/7.
so I picked up two 7770s since for their price/power/heat they made a nice folding setup

really it depends not only on price but what feature set you need from a card.
example is:
3D - Nvidia
OpenCL - AMD
CUDA - Nvidia
dual GPUs - Nvidia
gaming - either depending on price point
bitming - AMD

somehow having an emotional attachment to company seems silly to me
I might like a company because I had a good experience with their product but that doesnt over ride logic

the amount of rampant fanboism on this site is getting ridiculous
cant even make a recommendation without getting trolled by a fanboy

I know. i was working with someone on their build the other day. they WANTED a Radeon gpu, and he was given a solid rec for a 7950. In stormed 3 nvidia fanboys trolling the crap out of the thread spamming "760, 770, 780!" all day long. I ignored them till one of them said the 770 was so much faster then the SLOW 7950 that it could max crysis3 at 1080p and 60fps and the 7950 could only hit 30fps on it.

That was the point i finally had to say SOMETHING about their rampant fanboyism, as it was patently false, and they were just trolling at that point. Its a bit annoying sometimes. I like both companies cards, my fav all time video card is an nvidia, 9800gt, that guy worked forever, flawlessly and was strong enough to last years. i liked that card so much it was hard for me to go to AMD for this 7770, and i'm glad i did. it's a real leap forward in gpu power, much quieter then that old nvidia and i've had none of the driver issues i hear so much about. Both companies make awesome cards. not sure why there is so much hate around here.

7970's can be had for $300, yet they don't make the list? The $100 more GTX 770, which was 2.6% slower got the recommendation though.

They don't count rebates in pricing these out, nor "last minute sales" they take a 30 day average price of the whole "type" of card.

Do you own a 770? Sure sounds like you sit on the low end of video cards. I happen to own 2, had a 7950, and for the sake of argument (to prove I'm not a rampant fanboy as you say) have a 7870 and 660. The 770 is much faster. Neither card can max Crisis 3 in single card, heck 2 x 770s hardly can and not drop below 60. But that said the 770 is a much better card.

On a side note to end another argument the 7870 is faster than the 660 - something for NVidia fanboys to weep over.

 

[jrstriker12]

7970's can be had for $300, yet they don't make the list? The $100 more GTX 770, which was 2.6% slower got the recommendation though.

7970's for $300? Where? Lowest I've seen is $375 in a combo or $389 alone with a rebate. Keep in mind that Tom's reviews don't count rebates or used/open box sales.

.... the egg has two listed at $349.99 (rebated down to $320). A 20 second search would have shown you that...

Where do you think I got the initial numbers in my post? Prices may have changed, but the the last search I did earlier today showed $389 with rebate.

EFX is $320 with rebate but has 3 eggs - looks like people had some issues.

Powercolor version at $330 with rebate looks decent.

 

[rramstad]

Not to be a grump, but has this article really been updated?

I bought a 1 GHz edition Radeon HD 7770 for $99.99 the other day with $20.00 MIR.

The listed price of $115 might be the current price at some vendors, but the 7770 routinely sells for $100 if you pay attention at all to the day to day price fluctuations.

Because of this I wouldn't recommend the 7750 any more... The best price for those is usually right around $80 and since you can get a 7770 with MIR at the same price, you'd be foolish to buy a 7750. (That and the extra $20 is clearly worth it, anyway, in terms of performance per dollar.)

Just MHO, of course, but the whole point of this article being updated is that well, it's supposed to be updated 😛

 

[jlwtech]

Other Recommendations:

$80 = Radeon HD 5770/6770 1GB
$100 = GeForce GTX 460 1GB
$140 = GeForce GTX 560ti 1GB
$150 = Radeon HD 7850 1GB OR GTX 650ti Boost 1GB
$160 = GeForce GTX 650ti Boost 2GB OR Radeon HD 6970
$350 = Radeon HD 7970 3GB

Temp - Here is a link to a 2GB 7850 for $150 on the egg:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814131473

 

[Onus]

The HD7750 is useful where people have weak PSUs that can't handle a HD7770 and they lack the budget to replace it. Also, there are single-slot and low profile versions that will fit in limited spaces that won't take a HD7770.
Oh, and you've got to watch the cheap HD7750s...some of them are abominations made with DDR3 instead of the GDDR5 they're supposed to have. The XFX single-slot one is decent though: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150612