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

[Sakkura]

It seems like we just keep seeing small incremental improvements. I'm going to continue to hold off until we get a big leap. If not, then I guess we'll just be able to keep a GPU for ~3 years before having a worthwhile upgrade. My 20 month old 7870 (which was only ~$320 new I think) is still considered "Serious Upper Mainstream Performance".

Well, you can get the same performance for less than $150 today. Twice as much bang for the buck? Sounds like progress to me.

 

[spentshells]

Sakkura I just saw that today, the funny part is this

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814103240

That's over 1 dollar per MHz of core speed ROFL and thats the cheapest one on the egg

 

[shahrooz]

these graphs are shouting R290

 

[ManicMonkOnMac]

Why is there no GTX 780 in the november issue of this article?

 

[AMKANMBA]

Cuz it's nothing compared to the 290X

 

[ManicMonkOnMac]

well that makes me really sad, I can't pick up R9 290X, because of the reference design (can't buy R9 290 either because of that), so i decided to buy GTX 780(MSI lightning or EVGA classified), this article screws my head again.

 

[Novuake]

OK this has been posted 2 days now and no one fixed the 290X and 290 getting the same price?
And the second link for 290x takes you to the 290 being sold anyway???

 

[AMKANMBA]

When mantle comes out the 290 will be faster than the 780 ti. Can't wait.

 

[Novuake]

When mantle comes out the 290 will be faster than the 780 ti. Can't wait.

Don't hold your breath...

 

[Memnarchon]

well that makes me really sad, I can't pick up R9 290X, because of the reference design (can't buy R9 290 either because of that), so i decided to buy GTX 780(MSI lightning or EVGA classified), this article screws my head again.

Well if you want a GTX780 thats great and its the alternative of 290(X) is:
Gigabyte GTX 780 GHz Edition
Which is:

For instance, the GHz Edition card was just as impressive providing nearly 20% more performance than a standard GTX 780 on average, which works out to about 5% slower than the standard GTX 780 Ti and 4% faster than the Radeon R9 290X. Despite those massive gains from factory, we extracted another 8% from each card by overclocking them further and what's most impressive is that we didn't have to adjust the WindForce 3X's coolers, which remained extremely quiet during loads -- a rarity on stock high-end cards.

 

[ManicMonkOnMac]

well that makes me really sad, I can't pick up R9 290X, because of the reference design (can't buy R9 290 either because of that), so i decided to buy GTX 780(MSI lightning or EVGA classified), this article screws my head again.

Well if you want a GTX780 thats great and its the alternative of 290(X) is:
Gigabyte GTX 780 GHz Edition
Which is:

For instance, the GHz Edition card was just as impressive providing nearly 20% more performance than a standard GTX 780 on average, which works out to about 5% slower than the standard GTX 780 Ti and 4% faster than the Radeon R9 290X. Despite those massive gains from factory, we extracted another 8% from each card by overclocking them further and what's most impressive is that we didn't have to adjust the WindForce 3X's coolers, which remained extremely quiet during loads -- a rarity on stock high-end cards.

Are you saying Gigabyte GTX 780 Ghz Edition is better than MSI Lightning and EVGA Classified? Do you have a link for the benchmarks?

 

[Memnarchon]

Are you saying Gigabyte GTX 780 Ghz Edition is better than MSI Lightning and EVGA Classified? Do you have a link for the benchmarks?

I already provided you a link of its review.
Gigabyte GTX 780 GHz Edition
Now this card is based on the newer version of GK110 which is used in 780ti too. It has better clocks than classified or lightning (1020 vs 993 vs 980) so its not a surpirse that it should perform better.

 

[saint19]

Higher clocks not always means better performance, you need keep in mind that higher clocks also means more heat and that affect the overall performance of the rig. We usually keep in mind all those stuffs for the final article and not only the pure performance.

 

[RupertJr]

there is bad link in the 290X card.
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-graphics-card-review,3107-6.html
the price/offer link is linked to an 290 offer.

 

[AMKANMBA]

You don't say....

 

[ManicMonkOnMac]

Are you saying Gigabyte GTX 780 Ghz Edition is better than MSI Lightning and EVGA Classified? Do you have a link for the benchmarks?

I already provided you a link of its review.
Gigabyte GTX 780 GHz Edition
Now this card is based on the newer version of GK110 which is used in 780ti too. It has better clocks than classified or lightning (1020 vs 993 vs 980) so its not a surpirse that it should perform better.

Do you know the difference between regular and rev 2 version of the Gigabyte?

these are both ghz edition right?
rev2: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125471
regular: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125488

 

[Memnarchon]

these are both ghz edition right?
rev2: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125471
regular: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125488

Nope. Only the one that you call regular is the GHz edition. The real regular had the same clocks as rev2.
GIGABYTE GV-N780GHZ-3GD is the Ghz edition.

 

[ManicMonkOnMac]

these are both ghz edition right?
rev2: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125471
regular: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125488

Nope. Only the one that you call regular is the GHz edition. The real regular had the same clocks as rev2.
GIGABYTE GV-N780GHZ-3GD is the Ghz edition.

"The real regular had the same clocks as rev2." you mean before Ghz it had the same clock as rev2?

 

[Memnarchon]

"The real regular had the same clocks as rev2." you mean before Ghz it had the same clock as rev2?

Ghz edition and rev1 are different cards:
From Gigabyte's site:
regular: GV-N780OC-3GD BASE:954MHz
rev2: GV-N780OC-3GD (rev. 2.0) BASE:954MHz
Ghz edit: GV-N780GHZ-3GD BASE:1019MHz

So as you can see the 1st card Gigabyte released had 954MHz, the rev2 had 954Mhz too and the Ghz edition that was released a week ago has 1019Mhz.

 

[puppetMaster3]

What is the cheapest card that has display port that works w/ asus 4k 31 monitor?

 

[techngro]

The Provantage link to the 290X is actually for the 290, which is why the price seemed too good to be true.

 

[Stevemeister]

There are lots of people here who don't seem to be able to read or who are getting lost in the weeds. The article prefaces itself by stating the target audience is gamers - not regular users or business users interested in low end graphics [or CAD stations for that matter]. It is also a guideline - not a definitive real time analysis of the best card based on best possible prices available on any given day of the week. For the integrated graphics crowd who work at MacDonalds and can't afford anything better . . . you can argue all day long about which APU is best but you are still arguing about the performance merits of the Hyundai Elantra vs. the Kia Forte when the article is aimed at Nissan 370Z --> Ferrari drivers. . . . sorry but serious gamers use discrete cards and only resort to integrated graphics when we are running business apps. Finally for eisely - the 8800GTS's were good cards in their day (I ran 8800GT's in SLI several years ago) but 5 tiers will represent quite a performance difference plus the older cards don't support DirextX11. . . . but if you want to game acceptably on a budget simply pick up a high end last generation card off eBay . . . but no more than 1-2 years old in terms of technology.

 

[brenro]

Why do we have a new article with year old comments?

 

[Novuake]

Why do we have a new article with year old comments?

Its continues from that date on the comment section...

I don't like it either...

 

[techngro]

There are lots of people here who don't seem to be able to read or who are getting lost in the weeds. The article prefaces itself by stating the target audience is gamers - not regular users or business users interested in low end graphics [or CAD stations for that matter]. It is also a guideline - not a definitive real time analysis of the best card based on best possible prices available on any given day of the week. For the integrated graphics crowd who work at MacDonalds and can't afford anything better . . . you can argue all day long about which APU is best but you are still arguing about the performance merits of the Hyundai Elantra vs. the Kia Forte when the article is aimed at Nizzan 370Z - Ferrari drivers. . . . sorry but serious gamers use discrete cards and only resort to integrated graphics when we are running business apps. Finally for eisely - the 8800GTS's were good cards in their day (I ran 8800GT's in SLI several years ago) but 5 tiers will represent quite a performance difference plus the older cards don't support DirextX11. . . . but if you want to game acceptably on a budget simply pick up a high end last generation card off eBay . . . but no more than 1-2 years old in terms of technology.

Why do we have a new article with year old comments?

Its continues from that date on the comment section...

I don't like it either...