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

[ingtar33]

I don't see how the 7950 boost is better than an msi 660ti power edition.

it is.

stock the 7950 and the 660ti are pretty close... the difference comes in overclocking. The 7950 is and has been a fantastic overclocker for most of it's life. The 660ti, even the SC or PE versions don't overclock well. The result is even a base 7950 with a moderate overclock will edge out a 660ti in most tasks... then there was the one little word in their recommendation.

"compute"

Nvidia mostly disabled most of their compute functionality in the 6xx series... where as AMD left all the compute power in their radeons. The 7xxx lineup are awesome with compute... so good infact they're almost as good as quatros (the firepro is a bit better then the quatro right now), making the 7xxx radeons the compute champs of the desktop gpu. The 7950 has long been the bitcoin miner gpu of choice... and it's performance in compute is about on the level with many mid ranged quatro industrial gpus...

so while in gaming the 660ti and 7950 are pretty close to identical, the 7950 a heavyweight compute gpu, throw in its good overclocking headroom more ram and wider memory bus, and you end up with a superior card to the 660ti at about the same price point.

 

[Sakkura]

And then how in the world is the HD 7970 50$ more expensive than the GTX 770?
http://www.superbiiz.com/detail.php?name=XFX-797ABC&c=CJ
The HD 7970 GHZ Edition is actually CHEAPER than the GTX 770.


And then honestly guys, the HD 7750 @ 90 dolars simply does not deserve a place on the list when a HD 7770 can be had for just 10 dolars more.

That's a regular 7970, not a GHz edition. The problem is, the GHz editions are expensive but pointless for overclockers, because you can get the same overclocked performance from either version of the 7970. But overclocking is basically ignored in this article.

As for the 7750, it is the best choice for a very specific purpose, which they mention loud and clear: IF you don't have a 6-pin power connector, it is the fastest graphics card on the planet.

 

[Onus]

I'd like to see the DDR3 version of the HD6670 go away, to be replaced with the GDDR5 version. And, special cautionary mention might be needed to avoid the pseudo-HD7750 abominations with DDR3 instead of GDDR5.

 

[littleleo]

I'm a little confused about you listing the GTX 770 one tier below the 7970 Ghz edition. In your article on May 30th: "The GeForce GTX 770 Review: Calling In A Hit On Radeon HD 7970?" and in the summary in that article you (Chris/Igor) said:

"GeForce GTX 770 is a 52.4 FPS card. The Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition lands at 53.8 FPS". "These two are as close to even as you can get when it comes to gaming on one GPU. If that’s you, the choice is between 770’s $50 discount, quieter operation, great industrial design, and a pretty solid suite of tuning tools"

So why do you put the GTX 700 one tier below the 7970GHz model, so does 1.4 fps real put the cards in two different tiers? Since as you said (Chris/Igor) "These two are as close to even as you can get"

 

[Sakkura]

I'd like to see the DDR3 version of the HD6670 go away, to be replaced with the GDDR5 version. And, special cautionary mention might be needed to avoid the pseudo-HD7750 abominations with DDR3 instead of GDDR5.

Mwell, right now the cheapest GDDR5 version of the 6670 is $70 while the cheapest DDR3 version squeezes under $50. Once you're at $70 you can just get a 7750 with GDDR5, making the 6670 pointless.

 

[Onus]

That involves a rebate, which is a crapshoot, and specifically excluded in the analysis.

 

[littleleo]

It really sucks having to scroll through posts from last year to see what is said in the current post. How about reversing the order of the listings and showing the newest 1st?

 

[mikenygmail]

Yeah, this is totally ridiculous. Don't you guys realize that this is bad for the site? Less people comment, less interest - fix it already!

 

[mikenygmail]

What makes matters worse is that once I scrolled down to June 2013's comments and posted the above, I would have to scroll down AGAIN to see any new comments! This is the most absurd thing I've ever seen on any website.

 

[Sakkura]

That involves a rebate, which is a crapshoot, and specifically excluded in the analysis.

Same goes if you ignore rebates; the GDDR5 6670 is too expensive.

 

[de5_Roy]

....
As for the 7750, it is the best choice for a very specific purpose, which they mention loud and clear: IF you don't have a 6-pin power connector, it is the fastest graphics card on the planet.

just for comparison's sake, i wonder how this slot-powered 7850 will fare for that title (despite being oem):
http://www.tomshardware.com/news/Triplex-HD-Radeon-7850,22903.html

 

[slomo4sho]

That involves a rebate, which is a crapshoot, and specifically excluded in the analysis.

What does? The SAPPHIRE Radeon HD 7790 OC has been sitting at $130 before rebate... The post-rebate price has been fluctuating between $110-120.

 

[Onus]

I was referring to his HD7750 link.

 

[slomo4sho]

I was referring to his HD7750 link.

I am definitely not understanding their choices this month. Their "updated" hierarchy chart and the recommended cards at specific price points are currently in conflict.

 

[babernet_1]

Really Tom? Do we really need many months worth of old posts to wade through? I think the software to do this was available at least 13 years ago. Let's join the 21st Century, okay?

 

[mapesdhs]

babernet_1, indeed. Atm the only sensible way to get to the most recent comments is
to select Tracked Threads from the profile drop-down menu, choose the thread so that
one is moved to the .co.uk site, click Newest to get to the most recent comments page,
and then go back 1 page at a time to find where the comments relating to the current
article begin. Maybe it's complicated or something to do a complete overhaul, but
surely it should be very easy to include one simple link to go straight to the end of
the comments, or reverse the date order to have newest first, or - better still - jump
to the first post in the list which has a date stamp that is newer than the publish
date/time of the article (that should be easy to implement). Not an ideal solution,
but a much better temporary measure until the comments system can be fully redone.
If it wasn't the for .co.uk way of getting to the end of the comments, I wouldn't bother
reading them at all atm.

Meanwhile, I assume I'm not the only one who's noticed the post voting mechanism is
very broken (usually says there's been an error & nothing happens).

I know the site authors are aware of these issues, but it does seem to be taking way
too long to even add a simple temporary workaround such as the above.

Either way, I really don't like the 'display more comments' thing. Just have selectable
pages like the .co.uk toms site, and any other site. Simpler, faster, etc.

The 'top comments' area is also unnecessary.

Or how about including a couple of new options in one's account profile? Show
'top comments': yes/no; style of comments display: silly-new/sensible-old, etc.

Ian.

PS. Just to try and stay on-topic... I don't quite get why the article keeps saying
Titan is hard to find. That certainly does not seem to be the case in the UK, eg.
Scan has 7 different brands/models listed that are all in stock atm; I just wouldn't
buy any of them at the current whacko prices.

 

[scout62]

Glad I bought my wife's 7870 3 weeks ago before the bundle ended.

 

[Llorelie]

You put some SLI configurations in your honorable mention, but could you include the mini chart to show how they do in your benchmarks? You could even separate them to fit into the other price catagories.

 

[ingtar33]

You put some SLI configurations in your honorable mention, but could you include the mini chart to show how they do in your benchmarks? You could even separate them to fit into the other price catagories.

the general rule of thumb for xfire/SLi is this.

SLi - assume roughly 75%-85% of the 2nd card's performance will be added to the first cards full performance.

Xfire - broken, don't bother with it... however... assuming it's fixed without a hit to performance: assume roughly 85%-95% of the 2nd gpu's performance will be added to the 1st gpu's performance (xfire was always more efficient at adding the gpu's combined computing power together then SLi... of course since it's broken, that might just be because they cut corners)

 

[MasterMace]

Don't believe the GTX 690 should receive any honorable mention at all. 2 - 770s take up the same amount of slots, perform better, and cost less than the 690, by a considerable margin.

 

[slomo4sho]

Don't believe the GTX 690 should receive any honorable mention at all. 2 - 770s take up the same amount of slots, perform better, and cost less than the 690, by a considerable margin.

I am not sure how two 770s (which are dual slot cards) take up the same amount of slots as a single 690 (which is a dual slot card)...

 

[jrstriker12]

The 7950 Boost is a great card for the money - however, if I want to make sure I can play some of the upcoming games (like BF4 or Titan Fall) at 1920X1080 at high or ultra settings, should I step up to a GTX 670- or 770, or would that be overkill?

 

[Colin Ionita]

My Big issue is that the HD 7850 doesn't start at $190, they can be found on Newegg for $150 or lower.

 

[CharlesCotto]

Why you don't recommend the HD7790? It cost than same($130) than the GTX 650 Ti and has a better perfonmance. Also you recommend the GTX 660 when the HD7870 is better and cheaper.

 

[cirslevin]

Weird, 660 is $194@newegg, the faster 7870 is $189@newegg, and you recommend the former?