Best Graphics Cards For The Money: June 2010

[banthracis]

[citation][nom]nforce4max[/nom]Why bother buying most of the cards on that list for the exception of the 5850/5870 when one can get dirt cheap 3870/4850/4870 on the second hand market. Even a 4870x2 is cheaper than a 5830. I'll stick with my 3870, 8800gtx, and my two 9800gt 1gb editions.[/citation]

PC parts degrade in performance over time. A 2 years old heavily used 4850 for example, will have much worse performance than a brand spanking new one.

No way to tell if the cost savings is worth the performance drop w/o testing...after you buy it.

 

[tommysch]

Im getting a 470 as soon as the non-standard designs are available!

 

[tommysch]

[citation][nom]banthracis[/nom]PC parts degrade in performance over time. A 2 years old heavily used 4850 for example, will have much worse performance than a brand spanking new one. No way to tell if the cost savings is worth the performance drop w/o testing...after you buy it.[/citation]

No they dont... But the design/stepping/improvements can impact performance.

 

[fausto]

so does anyone know where all the old top of the line cards end up? i would like to see if any deals can be had on a GTX 295 or HD 4870 X2 or gtx 285. i can't fine but one or 2 online. you can't tell me every last one of the sold....and what about refurbs?

 

[fausto]

[citation][nom]The_King[/nom]The best investment I made my 4870x2 and really if you own one why upgrade? Still awesome too bad there was not a 4890x2 ![/citation]


buying top of the line has benefits, too bad most of us can't afford that.

 

[fausto]

[citation][nom]xc0mmiex[/nom]4850 & 4870 are still the kings of value, and it doesn't seem they are going away anytime soon[/citation]


well....those cards are all in the same bracket
Discrete: 9800 GX2, GTX 260, GTX 275, GTX 465
Discrete: HD 4870, HD 4890, HD 5770, HD 5830

almost all the old gen cards can be had for under or slightly over $200. hard to find them new though. where are the refurbs with warranties and the old stock that didn't sell?

 

[fausto]

[citation][nom]bebangs[/nom]err i guess gtx 260 and gtx275 has been removed. mostly ati are the winners in terms of value.[/citation]

microcenter sells the gtx 275 for $220 and the gtx 260 for $180

i just don't know if those cards are worth buying, we need something solid at $250 dollars. i want biggest bang for the buck but i also don't wanna have the urge to upgrade next year.

 

[ta152h]

[citation][nom]mitch074[/nom]Two years after it single-handedly swept the market, the 4850 is still a recommendation.Long term investment usually doesn't rhyme with It, but dang, is it reaching for the name of '440BX of GPUs'!(note: the 440BX, although limited in tech, was sold en masse for more than 3 years after it came out due to its unparalleled performance and incredible stability - even on a +70% overclock)[/citation]

The 440BX was nothing special, it was just a 100 MHz version of the 440LX, and a slightly emasculated 440GX. What made it sell was not what it was, but due to Intel. Ironically, it was not due to Intel's successes, but to their failures.

Rather than following the 440BX with a part that was better, they tried to force RDRAM on the market and came out with the i820, which was faster at 133 MHz than the BX was at 100 MHz, but actually slower at 133 MHz. RDRAM was poorly suited for Pentium III, and extremely expensive at that time. So, 440BX wasn't a great choice, especially since you were running AGP at 89 MHz if you ran the processor at 133 MHz, but, it was better than the super expensive i820 with RDRAM.

Intel did come out with the i840 as well, which was even more expensive and needed two channels of memory installed, but was very fast and a fine product. It was never sold into the mainstream.

VIA sold a SDRAM version, but it was dreadfully slow, and well, VIA. It actually sold pretty well just because the BX sucked by that time, and other Intel solutions were too expensive.

Eventually Intel released the i815, but naturally degraded performance so it would not be too attractive vis-a-vis the i820. Strangely, it ran faster at 100 MHz than the 440BX, but slower at 133 MHz. It did overclock better, and had better features, but Intel made sure to impose a limitation of 512 MB on it, just so the i820 would have a reason to exist. But, the i815, even though marginalized, was enough to kill the 440BX.

Intel did release SDRAM conversions for the i820 and i840, the MTH, but they were slow (especially on the i820), and had problems that created a fiasco for Intel.

By the time RDRAM came down in price, no one cared, and it died. It's kind of ironic that it was the best memory for the Pentium 4, and by that time was no more expensive than DDR, but the market had just come to hate RDRAM and wouldn't buy it anyway.

Anyway, the moral of this story isn't that that 440BX was so great that it lasted forever, it's that Intel orchestrated a move to an expensive technology that made no sense for the platform, and by doing so created a situation where there weren't good replacements for it, artificially extending its lifetime by their blundering.

 

[nforce4max]

[citation][nom]TA152H[/nom]The 440BX was nothing special, it was just a 100 MHz version of the 440LX, and a slightly emasculated 440GX. What made it sell was not what it was, but due to Intel. Ironically, it was not due to Intel's successes, but to their failures. Rather than following the 440BX with a part that was better, they tried to force RDRAM on the market and came out with the i820, which was faster a 133 MHz than the BX was at 100 MHz, but actually slower at 133 MHz. RDRAM was poorly suited for Pentium III, and extremely expensive at that time. So, 440BX wasn't a great choice, especially since you were running AGP at 89 MHz if you ran the processor at 133 MHz, but, it was better than the super expensive i820 with RDRAM. Intel did come out with the i840 as well, which was even more expensive and needed two channels of memory installed, but was very fast and a fine product. It was never sold into the mainstream. VIA sold a SDRAM version, but it was dreadfully slow, and well, VIA. It actually sold pretty well just because the BX sucked by that time, and other Intel solutions were too expensive. Eventually Intel released the i815, but naturally degraded performance so it would not be too attractive vis-a-vis the i820. Strangely, it ran faster at 100 MHz than the 440BX, but slower at 133 MHz. It did overclock better, and had better features, but Intel made sure to impose a limitation of 512 MB on it, just so the i820 would have a reason to exist. But, the i815, even though marginalized, was enough to kill the 440BX. Intel did release SDRAM conversions for the i820 and i840, the MTH, but they were slow (especially on the i820), and had problems that created a fiasco for Intel. By the time RDRAM came down in price, no one cared, and it died. It's kind of ironic that it was the best memory for the Pentium 4, and by that time was no more expensive than DDR, but the market had just come to hate RDRAM and wouldn't buy it anyway.Anyway, the moral of this story isn't that that 440BX was so great that it lasted forever, it's that Intel orchestrated a move to an expensive technology that made no sense for the platform, and by doing so created a situation where there weren't good replacements for it, artificially extended its lifetime by their blundering.[/citation]

There was a few rare examples of DDR support for the P3 which added 10% performance on a per clock bases. I got the cut down IGP Cle266 I think it is called but supported up to 1gb of DDR with almost any socket 370 cpu I had at hand. There is another that did support up to 2gb in four slots but I have yet to find one in the second hand market in the past decade. As for shopping for second hand deals most people need to learn how to shop.

 

[fausto]

[citation][nom]nforce4max[/nom]Why bother buying most of the cards on that list for the exception of the 5850/5870 when one can get dirt cheap 3870/4850/4870 on the second hand market. Even a 4870x2 is cheaper than a 5830. I'll stick with my 3870, 8800gtx, and my two 9800gt 1gb editions.[/citation]


if you want to play bfbc2 on the highest settings at 60 fps....none of those cards will deliver that on a full server. time to upgrade buddy

 

[JohnnyLucky]

Wondering if prices will be dropping in the near future.

 

[nforce4max]

[citation][nom]fausto[/nom]if you want to play bfbc2 on the highest settings at 60 fps....none of those cards will deliver that on a full server. time to upgrade buddy[/citation]


Not every one plays for FPS and not every one plays that one game.

 

[fausto]

[citation][nom]nforce4max[/nom]Not every one plays for FPS and not every one plays that one game.[/citation]


if you are spending more than $250 on a video card there are very few games that need that much power today. any $200 card will do anything but the most demanding games out today on the highest settings. i know everyone does not play that one game but there are other demanding games out there. the old guard is not good enough for those.

 

[ta152h]

[citation][nom]nforce4max[/nom]There was a few rare examples of DDR support for the P3 which added 10% performance on a per clock bases. I got the cut down IGP Cle266 I think it is called but supported up to 1gb of DDR with almost any socket 370 cpu I had at hand. There is another that did support up to 2gb in four slots but I have yet to find one in the second hand market in the past decade. As for shopping for second hand deals most people need to learn how to shop.[/citation]

There was the Apollo Pro 266, which I have, which was DDR, but it was no faster than i815 in almost all benchmarks. It was not just an Apollo Pro 133, because it ran SDRAM much faster as well.

It was roughly the same speed as the i815, but did support multiprocessors, and did support more than 512 MB.

The Pentium III couldn't use more than the bandwidth of PC133, so adding more did nothing, except for instances where AGP was being pegged, since it shared bandwidth with the processor. In those very rare situations, it could help some. i840, however, was always faster in those anyway, although Intel never did update it to support Tualatin, whereas VIA did update the Apollo Pro 266, with the Apollo Pro 266T.

If you don't believe me, I'm sure the articles are still here.

 

[ta152h]

[citation][nom]banthracis[/nom]PC parts degrade in performance over time. A 2 years old heavily used 4850 for example, will have much worse performance than a brand spanking new one. No way to tell if the cost savings is worth the performance drop w/o testing...after you buy it.[/citation]

That's not true at all. Where do people get this stuff from? It's weird.

What is true is that the maximum you can overclock a processor can lower over time, but if you're running your GPU at normal speed, and don't change it, it will run the same.

Hmmmm, I think I know why you'd think that. In a word, Microsoft. They manage to keep making slower software, which gives the impression the hardware is slowing down. Fighting against Microsoft software is like a salmon swimming upstream. If it stops, it moves backward. But that doesn't mean the salmon is swimming backwards.

 

[Onus]

If I played more FPS I might feel differently, but ~$150-$160 seems to be about the most I can stomach spending on a video card. I'd rather it be less, but that $150 is probably buying more future-resistance for me.

 

[nforce4max]

[citation][nom]TA152H[/nom]There was the Apollo Pro 266, which I have, which was DDR, but it was no faster than i815 in almost all benchmarks. It was not just an Apollo Pro 133, because it ran SDRAM much faster as well.It was roughly the same speed as the i815, but did support multiprocessors, and did support more than 512 MB.The Pentium III couldn't use more than the bandwidth of PC133, so adding more did nothing, except for instances where AGP was being pegged, since it shared bandwidth with the processor. In those very rare situations, it could help some. i840, however, was always faster in those anyway, although Intel never did update it to support Tualatin, whereas VIA did update the Apollo Pro 266, with the Apollo Pro 266T. If you don't believe me, I'm sure the articles are still here.[/citation]

I have two I815 boards and the one DDR board that I had out performed the I815 boards by 10% in memory and they were on par with that is typically seen for that chip set.

 

[MU_Engineer]

[citation][nom]mitch074[/nom]Two years after it single-handedly swept the market, the 4850 is still a recommendation.Long term investment usually doesn't rhyme with It, but dang, is it reaching for the name of '440BX of GPUs'!(note: the 440BX, although limited in tech, was sold en masse for more than 3 years after it came out due to its unparalleled performance and incredible stability - even on a +70% overclock)[/citation]

The fact that Intel basically sold the same CPU during those three years didn't hurt either. Neither did the fact that Intel wanted really badly to move to RDRAM and the 440BX was basically your only option if you wanted an AGP slot an SDRAM until the i820 chipset spectacularly flopped.

 

[MU_Engineer]

[citation][nom]amdfangirl[/nom]Mmmf!I don't think the GTS 250 is 65nm.[/citation]

It isn't, all 9800GTX+ and GTS250s are 55 nm G92bs. Some of the 9800GTX (no plus) units are 65 nm though.

 

[mitch074]

@MU_Engineer: the 440BX started with Slot 1 CPUs (PII) and ended with Socket370 ones (PIII) - starting at 266 MHz and ending up at one GHz (except some very limited samples that could reach 2 GHz - a friend of mine ended up with one through military contacts, and you couldn't get much better at the time than his 2 GHz PIII - I know, I couldn't believe it either until I saw it).

The reason I say 440BX ran like a champ, is that when the i815 came out (it was a PIII chipset), it actually had worse RAM performance than the BX! I'm not kidding, THG's benchmarks of the time are still online - it shows i815 beating the BX only on those cases where an AGP 4X interface was required not to bottleneck the GPU...

And, yes, the Rambus thingie was a debacle; I dare say that, had Intel not entered that deal with Rambus, AMD would probably not raised from the boonies of IT so much (regardless of how good the K7 was, the truth is that Rambus cost an arm and poor students had to buy their GHz machines somewhere...)

 

[ta152h]

[citation][nom]nforce4max[/nom]I have two I815 boards and the one DDR board that I had out performed the I815 boards by 10% in memory and they were on par with that is typically seen for that chip set.[/citation]

What you're saying makes no sense to begin with. A Pentium III was 64-bits wide, and ran at 133 MHz. That would give it 1066 MB/s, the same as SDRAM rated at 133 MHz, which also was 64-bits wide. Why would increasing bandwidth help? The answer is - it generally wouldn't.

You can talk smack, but here's the review - http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ddr-pentium-iii,283-11.html .

I'll give you a quote from Dr. Tom " It might still be really cool to own a Pentium III system that is equipped with the funky DDR-SDRAM. Still the fact remains, Pentium III ain't gonna gain nothin' from it. "

So, sorry, the fact is, you're wrong. Do a search on other sites as well, including ATs, which shows it in even a worse light (mainly because they used CL2.5 memory, the idiots). But, in theory and practice, DDR didn't do much for the Pentium III. 10%???? Oh my.

 

[foscooter]

Couple dumb questions, I admit:

1). What is "Fermi"

2). Listed 2nd (from top) is 4870 X2. Is that s single card, or 2 in crossfire? Would 2-5770 in crossfire be (almost) equal?

 

[cleeve]

[citation][nom]foscooter[/nom]Couple dumb questions, I admit:1). What is "Fermi"2). Listed 2nd (from top) is 4870 X2. Is that s single card, or 2 in crossfire? Would 2-5770 in crossfire be (almost) equal?[/citation]

1. Fermi is the new GeForce 400 series architechture, Nvidia's newest DirectX 11 cards

2. The list only has single cards, so it's the single card 4870X2.

 

[triplebug]

[citation][nom]foscooter[/nom]Couple dumb questions, I admit:1). What is "Fermi"2). Listed 2nd (from top) is 4870 X2. Is that s single card, or 2 in crossfire? Would 2-5770 in crossfire be (almost) equal?[/citation]

Fermi is codename if the product.

4870x2 is single card, two 5770 in crossfire provides better performance.

 

[Onus]

nVidia noticed that people were getting too good at cooling the insides of their PCs, so they designed a combination video card / space heater to alleviate that problem, and named it "Fermi." Little did they realize how much of a boon they would be to the power industry, to revive flagging demand for power as more and more people adopted conservation measures.
[/ladle]