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

[sarinaide]

I am buying a HD7730 to test it covertness in supporting AMD dual graphics, perfect card for that if it works out.

7730, Do you mean 7770 ?

HD7730

No HD7730 the direct update to the HD6670's around double the performance all GCN based with UEFI BIOS's and software Crossfire support.

Since the HD7750 and 7770 are nearly EOL'd the HD7730 and HD7790 replaced them.

 

[Onus]

HD7750 is EOL? I hope not, that's a great entry level card. How does the HD7730 compare to it?

 

[Ceee9]

is there any 780 5gb? future?

 

[sarinaide]

HD7750 is EOL? I hope not, that's a great entry level card. How does the HD7730 compare to it?

According to the WCCTech bench *no official benchmarks yet* it is about twice as fast as the HD6670 so by trite I would say very close to the HD7750 as the HD7750 is around 2.5 times faster than the HD6670.

As to the EOL issue I read that so it may be rumour but the reason is sound, Cape Verde and Pitcairn are very complex processes, yet Bonaire is more simplified and cheaper, add to that AMD releasing a new series soon and with Cape Verde and Pitcairn basically selling out, it is a cheaper alternative to having something to sell.

 

[Onus]

I'm still on the fence about building myself a low-power mini-itx "daily driver" for everything but games (I really only have time for [non-casual] games on weekends), and I was going to use a HD7750 if I built it. Wait for 8000-series or get the HD7750 before they're gone?

 

[sarinaide]

I'm still on the fence about building myself a low-power mini-itx "daily driver" for everything but games (I really only have time for [non-casual] games on weekends), and I was going to use a HD7750 if I built it. Wait for 8000-series or get the HD7750 before they're gone?

Prodigy
A10 5800K
ASRock FM2A85X ITX
Sapphire HD6670 GDDR5 Low Profile
SeaSonic Platinum FL430
Kuhler 620 with Gentle Typhoons

I ran that as a media/casual gamer system in the living room for a while, just waiting on the frame pacing drivers to release to assess Dual Graphics support but should it work then it is a knock out system. I will be doing a video on the rumoured HD7750 dual graphics support and tempted to get a HD7730 to see if it being a match up to the A10 6800K HD8670D whether the more efficient GCN cores (opposed to Turks based cores on the 6670) are feasible and whether it works in dual graphics mode.

 

[Sakkura]

HD7750 is EOL? I hope not, that's a great entry level card. How does the HD7730 compare to it?

According to the WCCTech bench *no official benchmarks yet* it is about twice as fast as the HD6670 so by trite I would say very close to the HD7750 as the HD7750 is around 2.5 times faster than the HD6670.

As to the EOL issue I read that so it may be rumour but the reason is sound, Cape Verde and Pitcairn are very complex processes, yet Bonaire is more simplified and cheaper, add to that AMD releasing a new series soon and with Cape Verde and Pitcairn basically selling out, it is a cheaper alternative to having something to sell.

Huh? Bonaire is more complex than Cape Verde.

 

[Onus]

No, I'd build it in one of those slim InWin cases (not quite willing to step all the way down to the Antec ISK that Paul used) to be as small as possible. I've already got an ASRock Z77E-ITX sitting on a shelf (back from a RMA), a spare optical drive, mSATA SSD, HDD, RAM, and a Pentium G860. The only pieces I'm missing are OS and graphics card. I've even considered Linux for it, but I do want be able to play some casual and/or older games.

 

[sarinaide]

HD7750 is EOL? I hope not, that's a great entry level card. How does the HD7730 compare to it?

According to the WCCTech bench *no official benchmarks yet* it is about twice as fast as the HD6670 so by trite I would say very close to the HD7750 as the HD7750 is around 2.5 times faster than the HD6670.

As to the EOL issue I read that so it may be rumour but the reason is sound, Cape Verde and Pitcairn are very complex processes, yet Bonaire is more simplified and cheaper, add to that AMD releasing a new series soon and with Cape Verde and Pitcairn basically selling out, it is a cheaper alternative to having something to sell.

Huh? Bonaire is more complex than Cape Verde.

die size of the BonaireXT is smaller than the Pitcairn Pro HD7850 and not much bigger than the Cape Verde XT HD7770 yet is around 20% faster and about 10%-15% slower than the HD7850 at the same power window as the HD7770. Bonaire process is simpler than particularly Pitcairn.

 

[Sakkura]

die size of the BonaireXT is smaller than the Pitcairn Pro HD7850 and not much bigger than the Cape Verde XT HD7770 yet is around 20% faster and about 10%-15% slower than the HD7850 at the same power window as the HD7770. Bonaire process is simpler than particularly Pitcairn.

Bonaire is 30% larger than Cape Verde, yet the 7790 is only 20% faster than the 7770. If anything is superior there, it's the 7770.

Of course the performance gap between the 7790 and the 7850 is smaller than the GPU sizes would suggest, but that's just because the 7850 features a cut-down Pitcairn. The performance gap between the 7870 and the 7790 is larger. You can't retire the 7870 in favor of the 7790, which means Pitcairn will stay in production. That means there will still be a supply of defective Pictairn GPUs that can be sold as 7850. There is no sane reason why AMD would choose to throw those GPUs away instead of selling them.

 

[JPNpower]

All this jumble makes me glad that I only buy Nvidia cards...

hey CUDA prison ain't that bad after all!

 

[Sakkura]

Meh, Nvidia are even worse when it comes to confusing product lineups. Rebadge ALL the cards!

 

[JPNpower]

yeah, how many times was the 8800gt rebadged?

 

[b737lvr]

got my 7970 ghz edition for $370

 

[cypeq]

I like american market where nVidia products are competitively priced with AMD... In here you get to pay 10-20% more for nVidia card just because majority of customers are uninformed and think nVidia means better card -_-' while infact it varies more than moods of chick on period.

 

[cypeq]

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.

Nvidia is absolutely dominating AMD across the board in sales. I see them out sell AMD 10 to 1 from low-end to the high-end. The AMD Fan boys only buy one or two cards every 2-3 years. Business buy 5-10 Nvidia cards every month. AMD has improved their drivers but its still seen as a big weakness, and resellers don't want headaches over drivers. I've had High-end AMD cards returned over drivers before, but I've never has an Nvidia returned for drivers they just work. I've used both and I've had much better luck with the Nvidia, so I tend to stick with them. I don't care which customers buy as long as they buy.

Yeah nVidia drivers just "work" if they don't nVidia will lie to you tell you that all is ok and it's your configuration to blame. Nothing like quality build on a lie. If there are still people like you I guess nVidia made right move lying to their customers. I remember how huge power efficiency and temperature problems had their cards just few years back. Good they still have biggest army fanboys ever seen.

Unfortunately sales are driven by marketing not performance and quality. This two go together randomly. I respect amd for consistency and very seldom confusing branding tricks. I guess now nVidia went for decent pricing in USA but I can't say that about my local prices for few years now. This is local issue but I'd love to ask some local nVidia representative why their products pricing don't reflect performance of the product.

 

[anthony8989]

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.

Nvidia is absolutely dominating AMD across the board in sales. I see them out sell AMD 10 to 1 from low-end to the high-end. The AMD Fan boys only buy one or two cards every 2-3 years. Business buy 5-10 Nvidia cards every month. AMD has improved their drivers but its still seen as a big weakness, and resellers don't want headaches over drivers. I've had High-end AMD cards returned over drivers before, but I've never has an Nvidia returned for drivers they just work. I've used both and I've had much better luck with the Nvidia, so I tend to stick with them. I don't care which customers buy as long as they buy.

Yeah nVidia drivers just "work" if they don't nVidia will lie to you tell you that all is ok and it's your configuration to blame. Nothing like quality build on a lie. If there are still people like you I guess nVidia made right move lying to their customers. I remember how huge power efficiency and temperature problems had their cards just few years back. Good they still have biggest army fanboys ever seen.

Unfortunately sales are driven by marketing not performance and quality. This two go together randomly. I respect amd for consistency and very seldom confusing branding tricks. I guess now nVidia went for decent pricing in USA but I can't say that about my local prices for few years now. This is local issue but I'd love to ask some local nVidia representative why their products pricing don't reflect performance of the product.

I completely disagree. nVidia has a 'compatibility' window in the GeForce experience showing you which games respond well with the current set of drivers and which ones don't. They even go so far as to tell you why a game may behave incorrectly, stating the exact issue the drivers have with the game-engine. And there are literally hundreds of games in that list. How is that lying at all? Also there's nothing confusing about nVidia's line up. One new card replaces one old card with a lower first digit - pretty simple (with the exception of GTX 650 TI Boost; that was a pretty stupid naming scheme but still a necessary card). "Re-branding" tricks.. the new cards are in all cases better tuned better performing successors to the last generation. And you talk about rebranding cards as if Radeon doesn't do the exact same thing. Talk about nVidia's marketing, you have Radeon releasing douchebag commercials literally bashing a GeForce card accusing them of not working correctly and having to give free software away to entice consumers. Radeon cleverly plays on the "fanboy" subculture in an attempt to boost sales. But that didn't solve their biggest issue driving sales back in the mid-high end GPU war - Frame time latency in benchmarks. Selling a card under the guise that it will delivery 100 FPS @ 1080p on high settings, and only delivering half of that by the time the frames go through the pipeline - Now that's a lie.

 

[17seconds]

Speaking of rebranding.... anyone have one of the new AMD HD8000 series? They've been out for quite a while now. Someone must have one.

 

[JPNpower]

I thought that was just OEM. And most of us chaps are builders

 

[oxford373]

For those who still asking whether it's possible to enable PhysX with AMD graphics cards or not ,I think I have the answer , I tested best GPU accelerated PhysX games using HD 7870 with core i5-3470 for that purpose and this is the results I found.
1) Batman arkham asylum: I couldn’t find option to enable PhysX so I forced the game to enable it, the average frame rate was 20FPS when PhysX set to medium and drop to 6 FPS when PhysX set to high, either way the game wasn't playable.
2) Mirror's edge: the game frame rate was 60FPS until soldiers start shooting on glass which made the frame rate drop to 6FPS, I tried to find a tweak to disable this effect but I couldn't.
3) cryostasis sleep of reason: I couldn't enable PhysX in this game.
4) Batman arkham city: the game was fast enough to play, with PhysX set to high the frame rate was 35 FPS, I expect better results with overclocked i5, also make sure to download the latest update for this game to fix DX11 bug.
5) Metro 2033: there is only option to enable or disable PhysX, the average frame rate in this game was 45FPS when PhysX enabled.
6)mafia II : the game wasn't playable with PhysX set to high, with PhysX set to medium the average frame rate was 28FPS using built in benchmark tool ,I got 35FPS after I deleted this file(CO_Beton_gen_01.aea) from the game folder which disable certain PhysX effect.
7) Alice madness returns: the frame rate was 60avg-30min when PhysX set to medium and drop to 30avg-12minFPS when PhysX set to high.
8) Borderlands 2: the average frame rate was 55FPS with PhysX set to high but in some parts of the game the frame rates drop to 15FPS so I suggest playing this game with PhysX set to medium.
9) Metro last light: I don't have this game yet, but according to this benchmark CPU PhysX won't be playable. http://physxinfo.com/news/11524/metro-last-light-physx-benchmarks-roundup/
IMO you can enable PhysX in half of GPU accelerated PhysX games on core i5 with AMD graphics card, or you can get GTX 660 and play all physx games with 40+FPS except metro 2033 and metro last light.
EDIT:all games tested @1080P maxed out settings some with 2xAA others with 4XAA,built in benchmark used in batman arkham city, Alice madness returns enable Vsync by default and the only way to disable it is through "DefaultEngine.ini"file in the game folder ,this game might be playable with Physx set to high when Vsync disabled.

 

[king smp]

From what I understand if you enable PhysX with an AMD card then the CPU actually handles the PhysX and not the GPU

 

[jessterman21]

From what I understand if you enable PhysX with an AMD card then the CPU actually handles the PhysX and not the GPU

Correct, and contrary to what many people will tell you, no game that's meant for GPU-PhysX is playable like this...

 

[Novuake]

I really could not care less for PhysX, as with TressFX. It's just a gimmick. Does not even work that great on mid range Nvidia cards and only looks good in 2 titles I have ever played.

 

[jessterman21]

I really could not care less for PhysX, as with TressFX. It's just a gimmick. Does not even work that great on mid range Nvidia cards and only looks good in 2 titles I have ever played.

Definitely a gimmick - but looks and runs great on my new card.

 

[Novuake]

I really could not care less for PhysX, as with TressFX. It's just a gimmick. Does not even work that great on mid range Nvidia cards and only looks good in 2 titles I have ever played.

Definitely a gimmick - but looks and runs great on my new card.

What game and what card?