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

[bassbeast]

one r7 265 aka radeon 7850 showed up on newegg today..
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814202096
...and it's out of stock..

And it will stay that way, along with the crazy prices, until the litecoin fad goes away. in a few months there will be litecoin ASIC miners and then normality will come to the GPU prices but until then the best bet if you want AMD is to stick with the 7 series, the prices are sane and you can find the cards...well most of the time anyway. Looking on Newegg you can get the 7950 for $359 with 3Gb of RAM but the sweet spot on price seems to be the 7770 Ghz edition, going for a crazy low $75 after MIR.

 

[Someone Somewhere]

Litecoin uses Scrypt, which is specifically built to be a horrid algorithm to build ASICs for.

 

[Novuake]

Starcraft 2 hates AMD.

BLIZZARD hates AMD.

 

[Muckster]

I think I noticed a slight drop in prices today, at least for R9 290 cards.

 

[logainofhades]

Starcraft 2 hates AMD.

BLIZZARD hates AMD.

Starcraft 2 just pours the hate on more strongly. :lol:

 

[Wisecracker]

I think I noticed a slight drop in prices today, at least for R9 290 cards.

They cut $50 off the price. That's a nice chunk.

So, they're now only 25% above MSRP launch :lol:

 

[Muckster]

I think I noticed a slight drop in prices today, at least for R9 290 cards.

They cut $50 off the price. That's a nice chunk.

So, they're now only 25% above MSRP launch :lol:

My eye is on the Sapphire r9 290 tri-x. It's been at $599 at NewEgg for a while, but Amazon went from $619 to $595. Still even at $595, that's 32% over MSRP which is $449. I can't even find this card on PCPartsPicker. Let me know if you have any other links/online retailers to look at. I have seen a slight drop in other R9 290 cards using generic searches on PCPartsPicker. I've been waiting since late December. Wonder how much good another month waiting will do? lol

 

[de5_Roy]

i doubt we'll see current lineup of gfx cards from amd and nvidia (both kepler and maxwell) getting cheaper before mining craze calms down. cards with 256bit bus and around 950-1000+ shaders might keep getting bought up by miners throughout 2014. node shrinks will offer better power efficiency (as long as the gpu design can utilize it), so both perf per price and perf per watt will improve over past gen.
imo, the problem might be after the mining craze has died down and miners start to sell their excess gfx cards that survived "mining ordeal". when that happens, it could affect retail prices and the price war between amd and nvidia might start again.

 

[islade]

Could you please add Mac Pro's FirePro D300/D500/D700 to the hierarchy charts

 

[Kushdz]

Going with the 750TI, throw it in a q6600 and a p5k and AI Nos it for now. Until theres a new brand of processors to throw in a mini itx.. Not to mention the MSI gaming version.. Supposedly the quietest & coolest out of the bunch. You guys think it will hold up with that ddr2 ram and vista?

 

[veiledcas]

So let me get this rightThe reason you pulled the AMD cards is because they are more expensive in the US, while the rest of the world enjoy's normal pricing on these cards?As it stands right now the 290 is a mere £320 (sapphire tri x) and the 780 is £400-800 with a small margin for different partner versions.and the 290x tri x from Sapphire which by this site's own admission is quieter and faster than the titan/780 is sub £450 Tell me again how you came to these results?So this review and it's entire content are valid in one country on the planet. Perhaps you shouldn't post this to the World Wide Web.Wonderful.

 

[Novuake]

So let me get this rightThe reason you pulled the AMD cards is because they are more expensive in the US, while the rest of the world enjoy's normal pricing on these cards?As it stands right now the 290 is a mere £320 (sapphire tri x) and the 780 is £400-800 with a small margin for different partner versions.and the 290x tri x from Sapphire which by this site's own admission is quieter and faster than the titan/780 is sub £450 Tell me again how you came to these results?So this review and it's entire content are valid in one country on the planet. Perhaps you shouldn't post this to the World Wide Web.Wonderful.

Toms is based in America. Should they consider pricing differences for each of the world 150+ countries?

Besides, Toms can post whatever the hell they want and if you do not like it then go elsewhere, its that simple.

 

[Someone Somewhere]

Read the first page. It explicitly states that "The list is based on some of the best U.S. prices from online retailers. In other countries or at retail stores, your mileage will almost certainly vary."

They do a UK version, though. And have a German site, but I can't find the equivalent article (going largely on the pictures, though. My german isn't very existent).

 

[Kubiak]

In UK you can get R290 50GBP cheaper than GTX780, and around 40GBP cheaper if we talking about non-reference cooling.That makes it $60-$80 cheaper that GTX.Would that change recommendation back to R290? Just asking as I am planning to buy graphics card soon...

 

[verma1891]

The Asus r9 290x is about $619. Means about the performance of the 780ti maybe a bit less, but at a price $80 less, I think it too deserves a mention.

 

[mr91]

The Asus is $829 in Toronto Canada and a reference 780 ti can be found for under 700.

http://www.canadacomputers.com/product_info.php?cPath=43_1200_557_558&item_id=065923

"Bitcoin"

 

[Someone Somewhere]

Litecoin. Big difference.

Blame the designers of it - it's built around SCrypt, which is made specifically not to be able to use ASIC miners for.

 

[mr91]

cryptocurrency in general however I agree Litecoin is one of the most popular options because AMD cards are not efficient with Bitcoins.

The Designers are making more money for AMD lol This ALT Coin Mining frenzy hasn't effected me because I prefer Nvidia however i feel bad for gamer's that have spend a lot more more money to buy a AMD card

 

[novaguy]

Going with the 750TI, throw it in a q6600 and a p5k and AI Nos it for now. Until theres a new brand of processors to throw in a mini itx.. Not to mention the MSI gaming version.. Supposedly the quietest & coolest out of the bunch. You guys think it will hold up with that ddr2 ram and vista?

I had a radeon 7750 in a sandy bridge i5 box (i5-2320) and in an OptiPlex 745 (q6600 at 2.4) at the same time and in some games, there was a difference (sonic racing, the first version, would stutter on the q6600, but not the i5-2320) but in others it seemed fine (Arkham Asylum, Darksiders). I did not test that many games, though, and didn't bother to get FRAPS, etc. So depending on how thread optimized the game is, you might have problems if the q6600 is at stock.

Are you overclocking the q6600?

 

[verma1891]

Two months in a row not a single AMD card recommended over the $120 range. Not even an honorable mention. Even the "assorted multi-card configurations" is only referring to Nvidia SLI options.

I can spend $400 for an AMD 7950/280X or I can spend $250 on an nVidia GTX 760 and get the same gaming performance... I don't see any reason I would choose the AMD option right now, and the LiteCoin miners are the obvious cause of the AMD price hike.

Are you kidding? r9 280x is out of the league of 760.

 

[lunyone]

I would say that if you find a R9 290/290x for less than a competing product (Nvidia 780/780Ti) than I would seriously consider getting one. I would opt for the non-referenced cooling options on them though, because the reference cooling just plane sux!

 

[Kushdz]

Going with the 750TI, throw it in a q6600 and a p5k and AI Nos it for now. Until theres a new brand of processors to throw in a mini itx.. Not to mention the MSI gaming version.. Supposedly the quietest & coolest out of the bunch. You guys think it will hold up with that ddr2 ram and vista?

I had a radeon 7750 in a sandy bridge i5 box (i5-2320) and in an OptiPlex 745 (q6600 at 2.4) at the same time and in some games, there was a difference (sonic racing, the first version, would stutter on the q6600, but not the i5-2320) but in others it seemed fine (Arkham Asylum, Darksiders). I did not test that many games, though, and didn't bother to get FRAPS, etc. So depending on how thread optimized the game is, you might have problems if the q6600 is at stock.

Are you overclocking the q6600?

Yes I am gonna be overclocking it with a p5k, for now if it wont play on max ill have to settle with less. I was thinking about getting the 4440 with a h81 mini itx but i would rather wait till theres a new line of processors to go into mini itx, unless thats being postponed for some reason.

 

[Valaska]

... Really? The 690 over the R9 290x? ... Really?

 

[Valaska]

GTX 780 didn't beat out the R9 290x in virtually... Well;http://www.pcpro.co.uk/reviews/graphics-cards/386182/amd-radeon-r9-290x-vs-nvidia-geforce-gtx-780Quite a damn few of the tests.

 

[Weak1ings]

[strike]Why is the GTX 660 not listed? it's currently got superior specs to the 750 ti and for the same current price of generally $190. also all of the nvidia features.[/strike]
now that I read the topic it did show up not on the front page but within. I'm glad they caught it.