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

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Amazed to see Titan in this list at all.
Its not the "best GPU" for any price range. $1000 spenders are better off with 2xHD7970 or 2xGtx680.
For the most part, the Titan is a gimmick.
 
Amazed to see Titan in this list at all.
Its not the "best GPU" for any price range. $1000 spenders are better off with 2xHD7970 or 2xGtx680.
For the most part, the Titan is a gimmick.
Click to expand...
The article details exactly when the Titan is the best card available, which are fairly specific instances.

Also, at least when I look, Newegg and many sites do have one or more 7990/7970X2 cards. I do not recommend buying them, but I see them around. Powercolor is not the only company making them; there are several others such as Asus.
Click to expand...
The various 7990s still receive only passing mention from the monthly roundup, despite there now being only a few on the market. I guess the limited quantities and outrageous cost of ASUS ARES II cards produced, alleged poor quality of the Powercolor 7990 and vaporware HiS x2 just made Tom's wash their hands of the concept. At least it makes the Hierarchy Chart, now.
 
In your article you state that a GTX 690 comes equipped with 2 GK110s. Aren't these the chips that come in the Titan, and aren't GTX 690s equipped with 2 of the same processors as the GTX 680, the GK104?
 
So I got a HD6850 and I am not sure if I should get a second to crossfire or should I get something else. I am starting to regret ever buying the 6850.
 
So I got a HD6850 and I am not sure if I should get a second to crossfire or should I get something else. I am starting to regret ever buying the 6850.
 
[citation][nom]mayankleoboy1[/nom]Amazed to see Titan in this list at all.Its not the "best GPU" for any price range. $1000 spenders are better off with 2xHD7970 or 2xGtx680. For the most part, the Titan is a gimmick.[/citation]

The Titan does have a few rational reasons for existing.
 
The article lists the price of the 7970 at $400, then references it as $360, and then again inside a paragraph at $385. You guys should write a new article every month instead of changing numbers in a template :)
 
Absolutely loving the "Gaming GPUs: Performance Per Dollar" page.

(Forgive me if this has been around for the last couple iterations but it is new to me today)

It seems to me that a decent group of people will be looking to upgrade from an HD3000 or HD4000 integrated graphics to one of these solutions. They had enough money to purchase the build and some time later they would drop some coin on a dedicated GPU.

Would it be beneficial to show folks how those solutions generally fare on the char as well? So we could quantify the performance gain going from stock integrated to something better.

For those who game but don't have time to figure out cards/models/release dates/performance/etc into a hierarchy that makes sense to them - would that info on the "Gaming GPUs: Performance Per Dollar" chart may be helpful as a baseline?

Keep up the good work!
 
First page, fourth paragraph in the March Updates section:

[citation] Otherwise, the news coming from Nvidia involves price reductions. The GeForce GTX 650 Ti is down to $175. That's better, but still high compared to the faster Radeon HD 7850 1 GB. The GeForce GTX 670 now sells for $360, which is a $10 drop, making it an even more impressive deal on such a high-performance card. Finally, the GeForce GTX 680 is also down $10 to $450, though it's still too pricey compared to most Radeon HD 7970s. With that said, it's almost on par with the Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition now. [/citation]

That shouldn't be $175 for the GTX 650 Ti, should it?

Also, as others have said, the third paragraph of the same section incorrectly states that the GTX 690 uses GK110 GPUs.
 
I like this series as the recommendations are good. However, it is stupid that the performance data is a percent of GTX 690. It would make much more sense to give frame rates because it is useful to know the frame rates a card can get, not how it compares to a 690. When I buy a 7750 for my friend, he cares that he can run basic games at a reasonable frame rate, not that he can play it with an unknown frame rate that isn't as good as the GTX 690's
 
[citation][nom]adgjlsfhk[/nom]I like this series as the recommendations are good. However, it is stupid that the performance data is a percent of GTX 690. It would make much more sense to give frame rates because it is useful to know the frame rates a card can get, not how it compares to a 690. When I buy a 7750 for my friend, he cares that he can run basic games at a reasonable frame rate, not that he can play it with an unknown frame rate that isn't as good as the GTX 690's[/citation]

The problem is that doing it like you suggest is pretty much impossible whereas comparing cards to other cards is easy.
 
Does THW have any methods of including AMD's APUs?

By just comparing them in the CPU department, total price and disregarding the GPU, they suck as pure CPUs.

By just comparing them in the GPU department, total price and disregarding the CPU, they suck as pure GPUs.

In short, THW's current system of CPU comparison and GPU comparison leaves no room for CPU+GPU on chip.
 
[citation][nom]A Bad Day[/nom]Does THW have any methods of including AMD's APUs?By just comparing them in the CPU department, total price and disregarding the GPU, they suck as pure CPUs.By just comparing them in the GPU department, total price and disregarding the CPU, they suck as pure GPUs.In short, THW's current system of CPU comparison and GPU comparison leaves no room for CPU+GPU on chip.[/citation]

I find that many of the APUs actually have great value even used as CPUs, ignoring the GPUs. The A10-5800K, for example, is only very slightly behind the FX-4300 in most workloads including most games, yet they're priced similarly and the A10 has a GPU that's fairly comparable to that of the Radeon 6670's GPU.

[citation][nom]tourist[/nom][citation][nom]blazorthon[/nom]First page, fourth paragraph in the March Updates section:[citation] Otherwise, the news coming from Nvidia involves price reductions. The GeForce GTX 650 Ti is down to $175. That's better, but still high compared to the faster Radeon HD 7850 1 GB. You can buy a gtx 650 TI for 100 bucks after rebate. Normal price is around 145 not sure where TH is getting there pricing info, OLD ? Although slower than the 7850 1gb most will not notice the difference in performance compared to the price difference. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 27710-L06CI think the bench formula is working fine, very easy to look and see x card is xyz% slower or faster than the y card backed up with game benches of star craft and farcry you can get a good idea how the card will perform over a good cross section of games. Starcraft for cpu bound games and farcry for gpu bound games.[/citation]

I think that it was just a typo because Tom's has it listed properly everywhere else.

I think that the difference between the 650 Ti and the 7850, although not really like night and day, can be no less noticeable than the average price difference.
 
In case you mine this with social media analytics tools (or actually ready to page 11 of comments)

The new price / performance graphs are wonderful. Outstanding. Love them. (How about a automated tool that would let us compare any two cards this way simply? The existing charts are harder to use than some other hardware compare sites)

Keeping older cards in the hierarchy chart is excellent. Incredibly useful. The information there let's me upgrade with some confidence that I'm actually upgrading. For example, my gtx260 --> hd7850 upgrade.

The power supply requriement should have an "actual" number or should say "stupid manufacturer recomendation". The concept that you need 500W to drive an HD7850 and any cpu/mb/memory/disk combo is crazy. Even my older x58 + i7-920 space heater uses less than 300 at the wall gaming with the 130W TDP HD7850, and that includes the monitor.
 
[citation][nom]Glen Welch[/nom]Can you include crossfire into the Hierarchy?[/citation]

It'd be a little more generalized and less accurate than the single GPU placements, but it's possible. Do you have any particular cards that you want to compare?
 
The HD 7870 should not be in a tier above the GTX 660. In all your benchmarks you have shown them to be very similar and even trade positions depending on the game.
 
Hey guys, maybe you can help me out? The 7870 LE tahiti MYST edition is recommended, but the Ghz EZ version is the one linked at a lower price. I of course prefer the lower price but I think that the Ghz EZ is not actually a Tahiti. I can't find it listed anywhere other than NewEgg, and the, PowerColor AX7870 2GBD5-2DHPPV2E, name can't be found for sale anywhere else. Also on PowerColor's website, http://www.powercolor.com/us/products_search_VGA.asp?Bus=&Generation=&Series=HD+7870+Series&MemerySize=&MemoryInterface=&ByIntention=&ByUniqueFeature=PCS+Series&submit=Search , they don't have the v2e in existence, but do have one that looks identical with a pitcair core. Any ideas? I am looking to buy one of these as soon as I figure this out.
 
[citation][nom]dkjravn[/nom]Hey guys, maybe you can help me out? The 7870 LE tahiti MYST edition is recommended, but the Ghz EZ version is the one linked at a lower price. I of course prefer the lower price but I think that the Ghz EZ is not actually a Tahiti. I can't find it listed anywhere other than NewEgg, and the, PowerColor AX7870 2GBD5-2DHPPV2E, name can't be found for sale anywhere else. Also on PowerColor's website, http://www.powercolor.com/us/produ [...] mit=Search , they don't have the v2e in existence, but do have one that looks identical with a pitcair core. Any ideas? I am looking to buy one of these as soon as I figure this out.[/citation]

Neweg lists the memory as 1.5GHz and GPU frequency as 925MHz whereas none of the Radeon 7870s with Pitcairn from Powercolor's webstie have those frequencies, only the Tahiti LE model does. It might simply be a mistake and Powercolor hasn't added it to their website yet or maybe you're right and Newegg gave the wrong specs. It's also worth sayign that Newegg often has products that others have and the opposite is true as well.
 
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