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

[Raheel Hasan]

Its confusing

1. 280x($300) is placed one tier above GTX770($400) then

2. GTX770 is also mentioned in recommendations

 

[rohitbaran]

Please include Radeon 8750M in the hierarchy charts

 

[Novuake]

Please include Radeon 8750M in the hierarchy charts

There are no mobile GPUs on this chart.

Check here : http://www.notebookcheck.net/AMD-Radeon-HD-8750M.87147.0.html

 

[de5_Roy]

There are no mobile GPUs on this chart.

Check here : http://www.notebookcheck.net/AMD-Radeon-HD-8750M.87147.0.html

the gfx card hierarchy chart? it has mobile gpus. listed under 'mobility' in the amd column. afaik, the 'mobility' gpus usually mean discreet mobile gpus and 'discreet' means discreet desktop gpus.. igpus are differently listed under 'integrated' label.

 

[Novuake]

There are no mobile GPUs on this chart.

Check here : http://www.notebookcheck.net/AMD-Radeon-HD-8750M.87147.0.html

the gfx card hierarchy chart? it has mobile gpus. listed under 'mobility' in the amd column. afaik, the 'mobility' gpus usually mean discreet mobile gpus and 'discreet' means discreet desktop gpus.. igpus are differently listed under 'integrated' label.

How did I miss that? My apologies.

 

[Sakkura]

THERE IS NO SENSE paying 650 for the 780 when the 7990 can be found for 600.
Titan, even though it's the fastest single GPU around, does not make sense at that money.
GTX690? No. JUST NO.

The 7990 is still affected by the Crossfire problems. Those have been largely solved when running DX11-mode games on a single monitor, but DX9 and multiple monitors are not supported by the fix. So if you want DX9 and/or multiple monitors, then Nvidia is a better choice.

 

[Sakkura]

Mantle is not PC-only, in fact, Mantle is what is being used in XBone and is rumoured to be used in the PS4 to boot (both consoles are AMD based so it is highly likely that this low-level API also will be used in the PS4).

No. It has been confirmed that the Xbone does not support Mantle, and that Mantle is PC-only.

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/amd-mantle-api-xbox-one-directx-11.2,24691.html

Ok, you win, it is not Mantle per se, but the API for the XBone is based on the Mantle API, or shall we say closely related to the Mantle API for the PC. It isn't too hard to guess what that will do for porting console games to the PC and what that will do for AMD...

No, the API for the Xbone is Direct3D.

 

[ingtar33]

I have a question about the 280x vs the 770. You rank the $400 version of the 770 as more powerful than the 280x. Does the extra gigabyte of VRAM on the 280X give it an advantage in any situation, or is the 2GB 770 always better for gaming?

neither the 7970/280x or the 770 are fast enough to "use" more then 2gb of vram. even in games which need more ram, there is no ram bottlenecking on either card.

HOWEVER, in SLi/xfire those cards are MORE then fast enough to use more then 2gb of vram. We're seeing it right now in BF4 beta, that 2gb 770s, 670s and 680s in SLi or the 690 are being RAM bottlenecked, because at 1080p and full graphic splender, that game consistently uses a little more then 2gb of vram.

The result is xfired 7950s/7970s and the 7990 consistently kick out far higher frame rates and much better frame latency numbers their their nvidia buddies. It's a vram issue not an SLi issue. the high end 2gb cards have too little ram for games that use massive amounts of vram.

that said, as far as i can see that's the only game (thus far) that is being ram bottlenecked by high end nvidia cards.

 

[Moonspell]

"As an aside, the entry-level Radeon HD 7730 disappeared from Newegg."

As far I can tell there are very few 7730 cards out there being sold by retailers. I can only find one by MSI as of today. Did AMD kill this product? Are they ever coming to market or did manufacturers pass on the 7730 product?

 

[littleleo]

Never seen this model mention by any of the AMD partners, ASUS, Sapphire, HIS, MSI, or Powercolor. May have been a very limited run for an OEM and they sold off the extra quickly.

It's a great time to be buying a video card with price/performance the way it is now.

 

[ingtar33]

i suspect the 7730 is being re-branded as one the 240x

 

[gity69]

This list does not make any sense.

The 7950 boost can be find always substantially cheaper than the 760, so it earns the recommandation there.
THERE IS NO SENSE in paying 100 $ more for the 770 when the R9-280X is just as fast or faster.
THERE IS NO SENSE paying 650 for the 780 when the 7990 can be found for 600.
Titan, even though it's the fastest single GPU around, does not make sense at that money.
GTX690? No. JUST NO.

That is no kidding why the hell would you recommend a 770 for $100 more when the r9 trades blows with it in your own bench test? That is ludicrous.

 

[Someone Somewhere]

I wonder how the GPU performances will be affected when AMD releases the Mantle API for the PC platforms? Rumour has it that Mantle will make the AMD GPUs beat the crap out of the nVidia GPUs in terms of gaming performance and will force nVidia to dramatically reduce the prices of their GeForce cards as soon as in this November.

Mantle needs each game to be coded for it. So far, zero games support Mantle. BF4 will eventually support Mantle, but that's just one game. Since Mantle is PC-only

Wrong. It's the API used for the new consoles - which will make it take off rather quickly.

 

[17seconds]

I wonder how the GPU performances will be affected when AMD releases the Mantle API for the PC platforms? Rumour has it that Mantle will make the AMD GPUs beat the crap out of the nVidia GPUs in terms of gaming performance and will force nVidia to dramatically reduce the prices of their GeForce cards as soon as in this November.

Mantle needs each game to be coded for it. So far, zero games support Mantle. BF4 will eventually support Mantle, but that's just one game. Since Mantle is PC-only

Wrong. It's the API used for the new consoles - which will make it take off rather quickly.

I guess you missed this little news item:

"AMD Mantle Not Meant for Xbox One and PlayStation 4"
http://www.tomshardware.com/news/amd-mantle-api-xbox-one-directx-11.2,24691.html

 

[ojas]

Mantle is not PC-only, in fact, Mantle is what is being used in XBone and is rumoured to be used in the PS4 to boot (both consoles are AMD based so it is highly likely that this low-level API also will be used in the PS4).

No. It has been confirmed that the Xbone does not support Mantle, and that Mantle is PC-only.

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/amd-mantle-api-xbox-one-directx-11.2,24691.html

Ok, you win, it is not Mantle per se, but the API for the XBone is based on the Mantle API, or shall we say closely related to the Mantle API for the PC. It isn't too hard to guess what that will do for porting console games to the PC and what that will do for AMD...

No, the API for the Xbone is Direct3D.

Yup it's D3D.

AMD caused a lot of confusion about Mantle, and AnandTech pretty much added to the confusion.

 

[ojas]

I wonder how the GPU performances will be affected when AMD releases the Mantle API for the PC platforms? Rumour has it that Mantle will make the AMD GPUs beat the crap out of the nVidia GPUs in terms of gaming performance and will force nVidia to dramatically reduce the prices of their GeForce cards as soon as in this November.

Mantle needs each game to be coded for it. So far, zero games support Mantle. BF4 will eventually support Mantle, but that's just one game. Since Mantle is PC-only, it's extra effort for the game developers, so I'm not convinced it will gain much traction.

In any case, it won't really be relevant within the next few months. The rumored Nvidia price drop has more to do with the simple price/performance ratio AMD offers on their products, regardless of Mantle.

I pretty much agree with what you're saying. i think Glide is the perfect example of why Mantle isn't a great idea, and PhysX is the perfect example of why Mantle may not gain wide traction.

Anyway, 9x greater draw calls means little if the GPU is the bottleneck, imo. The real advantage from Mantle will be seen by GCN APUs.

 

[phxrider]

For October the real bargain is the Powercolor 7870 Myst (Tahiti LE) going for $180 on Newegg. Surprised you missed that.

(Even better are the refurbs going for $135, out of scope for this article, but holy #$%^ what a deal!)

 

[Dax corrin]

Looks like my HD7770 1GB is roughly equivalent to my old GTX 460 1GB with the exception of DX11 support and hopefully less power usage than the 460.

 

[Sakkura]

For October the real bargain is the Powercolor 7870 Myst (Tahiti LE) going for $180 on Newegg. Surprised you missed that.

(Even better are the refurbs going for $135, out of scope for this article, but holy #$%^ what a deal!)

You can get a 7950 for $180, so a 7870 XT for the same price is a bad deal.

 

[VincentP]

The GeForce GTX 770 is recommended at $400. This card was excluded from the Radeon R9 208X review benchmarks, but mentioned as Nvidia's higher performing card in the article. It is also shown as outperforming the Radeon R9 280X on the performance per dollar chart. Why is the GTX 770 shown as one tier below the 7970 GHz edition and R9 280X on the hierarchy chart?

 

[VincentP]

The GeForce GTX 770 is recommended at $400. This card was excluded from the Radeon R9 208X review benchmarks, but mentioned as Nvidia's higher performing card in the article. It is also shown as outperforming the Radeon R9 280X on the performance per dollar chart. Why is the GTX 770 shown as one tier below the 7970 GHz edition and R9 280X on the hierarchy chart?

 

[hardware user too]

Your price of $ 104.99 does not match newegg's price as advertised for the Radeon HD 7790

 

[tuffjuff]

Ever since NewEgg screwed [H] a few years back, it's Amazon all the way.

A shame, too. I've spent over $25k with NE in the past 8 years.

 

[Roger Rogers-1382392]

Really hoping the upcoming GTX 780 Ti will drive down the price of the stock GTX 780 price by 10-15%. If its 10% faster than the stock card, and the same price, the 780 Ti will be uber-desirable for us 3D fans.

 

[saint19]

Really hoping the upcoming GTX 780 Ti will drive down the price of the stock GTX 780 price by 10-15%. If its 10% faster than the stock card, and the same price, the 780 Ti will be uber-desirable for us 3D fans.

I would not think that you can get a big performance increase on that Ti model because it's still based in the same core of the current GTX 7xx models.