Best Graphics Cards For The Money: October 2014 (Archive)

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Does anyone happen to know about where that souped up 860m that's in the alienware alpha would slot in? I throught I read it has twice the pipes of a normal 860m.
 
Best bang for your buck right now HANDS DOWN is the R7 265. XFX R7 265 2GB 256-Bit DDR5 for $129 with a $20 rebate = $109 for 179+ GB of bandwidth. That's a no brainer. Find something faster for $109 that's not used, good luck.


"I picked up a nice used AMD HD7950 3gb 384bit card for $80 on ebay" <---This is a steal for 240 GB of bandwidth even on a used card.

 

Newegg has an XFX 295X2 for $690 as of right now. Don't forget to always check your price-aggregators all the way to the end, be it PC Partpicker, Amazon feeds, or whatever. You don't always know how often they update themselves. I've seen many prices listed on Partpicker that were linking to recently expired sales, out of stock items, or other problems. Don't just take their reported price as is, follow the link and see if you can actually put it in your shopping cart for that price.

I too am not a big fan of the large price gaps this month. Yes, the 270 and 270X have both gone back up after the winter sales. But I think the 270 should still be listed because the step from a 7790/260X to a 7870/270 is pretty significant for only $30-ish. And with a little luck and a board with the right power cables, you can take the 270 to 270X levels.

I'm not too torn up about the 270X being omitted, but I think the 280 needs to be shown as $180 - $190 since I can consistently find it under $200. With most 270X I'm looking at right now in the $160 - $170 range, yes, I'd go with the 280 as well. Perhaps an honorable mention saying if you can find the 270X at $150 it's a great buy?

And leaving a $140 price gap is far too big between the 280 and 970. I see lots of 290s at the $280 range. At $50 cheaper than the 970, that deserves a spot.

I know Tom's doesn't allow MiR in SBM pricing, but what about here? If a person is just looking for a GPU upgrade alone, and not building a whole computer, I would imagine their budget would be a little more flexible since they don't have to spend as much. Even if you don't want to list the "official" price as the after r
 
^I think the above clearly hits on the major limitation of this article. It is based on local pricing (e.g. Newegg and Amazon), and does not account for what could be major fluctuations in other markets, nor does it account for deals.
The way I would approach this is, given a budget, start here, with the suggested card. Then check your local market area for the actual price, and for deals that put a stronger card at the same or lower price. Also, it is important to consider your specific intended use (in this case, the game(s) you want to play) to see if AMD or nVidia is strongly favored, or if one or the other has known driver issues for those games.
 


Yea, I hate rebates, but even at $129 the 265 is still hard to beat at that price point.
 

I'd like to see something like that. Instead of talking about just a single card, talk about the cards available in each range. Mention the two or three main contenders and their average prices, and give a few recommendations for people based on a firm or flexible budget. This could address the single best card in a price range, but also mention two or three others that might be considered depending on local pricing, even a card that's usually a bit pricier but would be a great grab if on sale.
 


I'd like to see the Iris Graphics 5100/5200, HD Graphics 5300, HD Graphics P4600 (in Xeon CPUs, looks like a slight tweak on the HD4600 based on this), too
 
See below on what boost clocks were actually achieved. EVGA later did an about face and said they would fix it but no cards were returned from sales channels .... it's therefore the luck of the draw whether you get a "fixed" or "defective" unit off the store shelves. I have also not seen a tear down or review of the "fixed" unit.

Getting back to why the aftermarket cards perform better than the reference cards:

a) Different coolers
b) Different means of cooling the VRAM, VRM via direct contact or not
c) VRM design
d) Selection of chokes, caps and other components
e) Use of binned GPUs
f) Size of cable conenctions

But the proof is in the actual results which go well beyond "luck of the draw" averages. There are no EVGA SC reviews breaking 1500 Hz..... at least none that I can find. The Gigabyte and MSI cards almost always do and always outperform the EVGA..... these results are consistent across the board

Gigabyte
http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/gigabyte_geforce_g...
Core Clock 1328 MHz
Boost Clock: ~1516 MHz
Memory Clock: 8002 MHz

MSI
http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/msi_geforce_gtx_97...
Core Clock 1325 MHz
Boost Clock: ~1501 MHz
Memory Clock: 8001 MHz

Asus
http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/asus_geforce_gtx_9...
Core Clock 1264 MHz
Boost Clock: ~1443 MHz
Memory Clock: 8001 MHz

Here again the EVGA comes in last between Asus , MSI and EVGA
http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/graphics/2014/09/19/nv...

But the why can be found on the tear down pages starting here:

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/graphics/2014/09/19/nv...

Quote:
Examining the [EVGA] PCB reveals a 4+2 phase power design – four phases near the rear I/O for the GPU, and two in the bottom right corner for the memory. This is a slight upgrade from the 4+1 stock specification but unlike MSI and ASUS, EVGA does not use any specially crafted components..... On the other side of the GPU is a metal contact plate that partially cools two of the four memory chips on this side, leaving the other two exposed. It also cools the MOSFETs of the power phases serving the memory, but no thermal pads are used, so heat transfer is likely to be limited.


Quote:
The power delivery is the best of any here; it's a 6+2 design. Further, MSI uses its own improved components for both the GPU and the memory power phases. The components are referred to as Military Class 4 since they meet MIL-STD-810G regulations. Specifically, we find Hi-c CAP and Solid CAP type capacitors and Super Ferrite Chokes, which are designed to provide higher stability, lifespan and efficiency......A miniature heatsink takes care of cooling the main GPU MOSFETs near the rear I/O, while a metal contact plate equipped with thermal pads is used to cool three of the four front PCB memory chips as well as the remaining power circuitry including the memory MOSFETs and the VR controllers.


Simply put, a card with a custom PCB will most often easily outperform a reference card in the same way that a "stock" model car can in no way compete with the same car with the "sports package" containing better gearing, tires, fuel injection, suspension, etc. Not only can the reference cards not compete with the factory OC'd versions with custom designs, ..... the EVGA and Asus cards ** because of the differences in design and construction** can not reach the same OCs as the Gigabyte and MSI cards as is readily shown in the reviewers testing. How much of an advantage the custom design provides will vary.... in some cases the differences are very small (as in the SC series). The best example of this on "non-premium" boards was the Asus 670 DCII TOP which offered great design differences and binned GPUs but since then Asus had cut down on the includes design improvements. Other examples of course include the premium designs like the Lightning and Classified.
 
I was eying the GT 730 as an upgrade for my family's PC, I need a low profile card. Recently I've run across an xfx R7 250 which is also low profile, I believe it was about $89 on Newegg. It would be paired with a Q9400 CPU and 8GB RAM. I haven't owned an AMD card in sometime, the last was a HD 4350. Would the R7 250 be a better performer than the GT 730?
 
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