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

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I don't wanna get off topic too much, but just one more thing. Did you have a separate computer running it and just ran it 24/7? Didn't it use a lot of power? I just saw the mention about it, so I thought I would throw a few questions out there.
 
Is it just me or should the comments not be sorted by latest post instead? I have to say, it's very interesting that just this week someone was saying that THW was favoring Nvidia/Intel compared to ATi/AMD, yet most of this thread is Radeon-heavy. The only reason that it hasn't completely been dominated by ATi is because of the latest pricing of their higher-end hardware - had the pricing not changed it looks as though it would pretty much have been a clean sweep excepting for the 760 and probably the 690. So, big ups to both brands. We have a lot to choose from as enthusiasts :)
 


the current flavor of the month is litecoins, that's the reason all the R9 280x's were selling like hotcakes, bitcoins have been taken over by specialized equipment but the 280x's proved to be very good for litecoin mining so small time/independent miners went with that instead
 

As I said, a 770 is as high as I would go. The 6850 was a solid mid-range card, but nothing flashy. If you've been mostly satisfied with it, then I would argue that a 780 is largely overkill for your uses.

If you can, I'd actually wait a month or so. The GTX 800 series should be coming out soon and that should drop the prices on the 700s.
 

Your choice of terms is apt. As what is now considered a lower-midrange card, marginal improvements from a HD6850 might actually be quite noticeable, and may be achieved without spending a lot of money. While I agree with RedJaron on the upper limit, you may not need to go that high to appreciate the improvement. Honestly, I'd look for a good deal on a GTX650Ti Boost or even a HD7790 (especially as the latter is replaced by the R7 260X).

 
I love these articles. I have one critique though, the "Performances" graphs really bother me. They seem completely useless. There are no units. It goes to 100 so maybe it's percentage of whatever highest performing card there is?? Is it an aggregation of some kind? I couldn't find any explanation of what they represent. And you can't compare cards with them with any ease because you have to scroll up and down and go to different pages. I know these are meant to be very very very simple graphs, but you might as well take them out since they don't add anything at all in their current form besides looking pretty and maybe adding perceived legitimacy.At least add a unit in there, or say "% relative to highest currently performing card" or something. And maybe put a number on there so I can scroll up and down and go to other pages and at least remember something to compare by.
 


"Usually ships within 2 to 4 weeks." :heink: Clearly in stock...

In 2-4 weeks we will have a new Best Graphics Cards For The Money...
 

I can see how that might be a problem if you are somewhere where shipping is on the speedier side...however, if you just so happen to be forward deployed military to Japan and it has to go USPS and then through the military mail system to a FPO/APO address and it usually takes 2 to 8 weeks anyways...We'll just chalk it up to "First World problems" I guess... 9.9

Oh and when I ordered my MSI Radeon R9 290 Gaming 4G from Amazon for $539.99 + Free Shipping; well under the reference price for a 290 card with a OEM cooler according to this article, it shipped within a week...that was 5 days before this article posted...so yeah, the pricing is off...or it just wasn't well researched...or they were looking on sites that over-price...there are a bunch of possible reasons...

My point is that you can easily find R9 290's for under $550 - hell, you can find them for under $450... http://www.amazon.com/Asus-R9290-DC2OC-4GD5-ASUS-Graphics-Cards/dp/B00HWQUI02/ref=pd_sim_pc_1/182-9086529-1350266 - and R9 290X's for under $600, let alone $700 or $800...Just be a savvy shopper and look at more sites than just Newegg... 9.9
 


You do realize that "Usually ships in 2 to 4 weeks" means it doesn't even have a chance to hit the USPS system until 2 weeks from now right? So your "2-8 weeks" doesn't actually start until 2-4 weeks from when you order that product.
 
Please, why don't you include Intel HD4600 in the chart, they've been out for 7 months now.I play Starcraft 2 on Haswell Pentium HD just fine XD
 


And let me point out that mine shipped within 2 days, despite what it says now with the amount of time for it to ship...remember I bought the card at around the same time they were likely researching for this article...I would blame the high demand for R9 cards that still does exist, even though it is not as drastic due to a wider availability, on Litecoin mining and would suggest to anyone that when you find one at a good price and can get it relatively quickly do so if you are at all interested in getting one...They kinda tend to sell like hot cakes...

And yes, my 2-8 weeks does count for that. Assuming 4 weeks to ship and then the average 4 weeks of shipping time to get over here equals 8 weeks...math... 9.9
 


My apologies then. I thought you were referring strictly to the ship time when you said "it usually takes 2 to 8 weeks anyway". Simple math, if a shipment "usually" takes 2-8 weeks, would place arrival of something not expected to ship for another 2-4 weeks all the way out at 4-12 weeks.
 
Anyone tried going into Microcenter or any other brick and mortar store and offering the $550 MSRP price for the reference 290x? At least in Denver, they are now in stock and don't appear to be flying off the shelves. Probably another month and they will be under MSRP.
 
Where do Intel HD 4200/4400/4600/5000/5100/5200 and Bay Trail fit into this lineup? What about Richland, Kabini, Temash, and Kaveri graphics?
 


My question too, please update 😱)
 


its hard to classify the intel HD graphics because their performance is tied tightly to the performance of the cpu as well. the APUs are easier to classify because generally AMD sticks different onchip graphics on each different model. intel likes a one size fits all. but as to your question...

Richland A10 is the same as the Trinity A10 graphics.
HD 4600 will land somewhere between hd4000 and A10 graphics (igpu HD 7660)
HD 5200 (iris pro) will land somewhere around a GT 640/HD 7730
Kaveri A10-7850k graphics will land about one step higher then iris pro (all the benches seem to put it a little faster then iris pro)
 
Prices increases for the higher-end Radeon cards, and their lower availability, could be due to the increased use they have in mining crypto-currency alternatives to Bitcoin (Scrypt based coins like Litecoin, NOT Bitcoin). The GPU mining comparison charts have Radeons blowing away anything from Nvidia. Miners are stacking up as many GPUs as they can.
 
Might as well drop the 4870x2 off that hierarchy chart. AMD hasn't done anything to support it in a couple of years or more; that means the two cores it offers are worthless on any modern game as you are not going to get a crossfire profile that works with it.
 
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