Best Graphics Cards For The Money: October 2011

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AbdullahG

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I honestly think the HD 6750 is a great buy for under $100 (it's $99 on Newegg; from Diamond and HIS). Anyway, seems as though not a lot changes in the Best GPUs for the Money until prices drop. Then again, if it isn't broken, don't fix it.
 

Pekish79

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Sep 7, 2011
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I dont understand why at $220 you dont conside at all the GTX560ti

it cost 20 dollar less then HD6950 1gb (20$ over 220 it's almost 10% less)

and not only it's cooler use lot less power when idle is quieter
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according to this it's RARELY 10% slower and in few games is even faster
 

Martell77

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On Newegg the price difference between the 560ti and 6950 1gb is $20, until you add in the rebates, lowering the gap tp $10. Then you add in shipping: 560ti - $7.56, 6950 - Free. Gap closes to $2 for a faster (on average) card.

That is probably why the 6950 gets the recommendation.
 

Darkerson

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Thanks for the updated list! Been starting to plan out my upgrades for tax time, and some new cards to shake things up a little would be nice. Shouldnt be too much longer, hopefully.
 

kyuuketsuki

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May 17, 2011
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[citation][nom]Kyuuketsuki[/nom]So... you just released an article stating there's zero advantage to getting a (single) 6950 2GB. Yet you still give it a recommendation. Wat.[/citation]
For clarification: zero advantage relative to a single 6950 1GB.
 

felduque

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Agree with the lack of 560. I own both a 6950 and a 560. They,re very similar in performance but the 560 is a few inches shorter so it fits nicely in my media center. the 6950 is on my gaming PC. At the very least the 560 should get an honorable mention or more appropriately a tie.
 
nice article. good to see ati amd rocking the charts.
with similar max tdp, radeon hd 6870 is a far better card than radeon 6790. and one can get an hd 6850(lower max tdp than 6790) or a geforce gtx 460 1gb for a new bucks more.
waiting for southern island cards to get released.:)
 

gio2vanni86

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I'm still glad the 580GTX is still considered the fastest single GPU. That makes me glad i bought it 5 months ago =D I could do Sli but Sli never showed me amazing FPS with my 9800GTX+ setup so i will stick with this till the new king is released =D.
 

DSpider

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[citation][nom]stereopsis[/nom]I am hoping the Radeon 7000s will be PCI-e 3.0 enabled.[/citation]
Maybe the high-end ones. Hmmm... Have the HD69XX tapped out PCIe x16 2.0 yet? Because I remember a HD 5870 benchmark (remember that 6870 was a 5850 upgrade, not 5870's successor like the name would imply), where it ran on x16, x8 and x4 slots at various resolutions - meaning the x8 would be the equivalent of PCIe x16 1.0 (half the bandwidth).

The difference? ~1%, 2% tops.

So if they release something that fits in the hierarchy chart lower than a HD 5870 (or GTX 470, GTX 560 Ti)... it would be pretty much pointless to release it on PCIe x16 3.0. Anyway, I would stay away from the first generation PCIe x16 3.0 cards.
 

nerrawg

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For gaming at 1080p the 6870 really appears to be the sweet spot. You pay $15 for a 5-10% increase in performance over the 6850 (sometimes better). Going up to the 6950 1gb the increase is a shocking $80! From what I have seen of benches there is only 10% in it in terms of performance, so you are paying a hefty premium for that larger, hotter, more power consuming chip. Don't understand how this is justified really, other than that it probably costs AMD a lot more to make the silicon, it certainly isn't good value for the consumer, $80 for an extra 10%!? To me it looks like poor marketing, either the 6870 should be more expensive ($200) or the 6950 should be cheaper, obviously as a consumer I would prefer the latter.
 

badtaylorx

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how can there be no "best card" at the 340 dollar range??? this seems counter-productive to me......at 340 you have a couple choices of both 570's and 6970's....how on earth can one not be better than the other....better yet,,, how about a price that actually makes sense!!! 350$ ???

stop it with the cop-outs TH

just pick one already

bTx
 
Should this review have the 3 x 6950 1GB as the best PCIe Card For $720? Given the micro stutter review showing 3 way crossfire having almost no micro stutter. I think even the 2 x 6950 2GB should only be honorable mention.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/radeon-geforce-stutter-crossfire,2995-6.html

Here is the test for 3-way crossfire.
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/crossfire-sli-3-way-scaling,2865-9.html

Given the review showing only a differance between the 1GB and 2GB model in Metro 2033 I think 3 X 6950 1GB setup is the best.

Given the price of the 6870X2, being $500, I understand why its not a great buy for 3-way crossfire.
 
This is probably my favorite general reference at TH. Assuming you have a CPU that can drive the card(s), it more or less tells you where your rig falls in terms of what games it can play well.
Given that newer games look pretty good even on lowered (e.g. "medium") settings, I'd be very interested in a roundup of $80-$120 cards at 1920x1080. What games can they play well on "medium" settings? Or, what games can they simply not handle, even at lowered settings?
 
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