Best Graphics Cards For The Money: September 2010

[Felessen]

Still using my 19 month old 4870 that was purchased for $215. and its still basically holding in at 3rd place, not a bad buy, thanks AMD/ATI.

 

[cleeve]

[citation][nom]shin0bi272[/nom]I really dont understand this roundup style here lately. You give a range of cards then instead of saying hey buy this one card in this price range you say buy one of these 4 cards... ...Please pick 1 card for each 100 dollar price range.[/citation]

Well, in real life there are ties, and in many cases there is more than one solution that offers comparable price/performance at the same price point. That's the way the market is, and that's also a good indication that competition is healthy.

If two or more solutions offer good price/performance I'm not going to choose one arbitrarily because you'd prefer the format that way. All of the recommendations I make offer good performance for the money, and that's my goal.

 

[cleeve]

[citation][nom]ray-ng[/nom]I occasionally see the Radeon 4870 for $99.99 on Newegg. How come it wasn't mentioned??[/citation]

Simple explanation: wasn't there when i put the list together!

 

[cleeve]

[citation][nom]RCPG[/nom]Completely agree with darkerson.Just a minor correction:Middle column, 8th row, HD HD 5670.And as opc said: "What is a GTS 45 ?"Thanks.[/citation]

Thanks, fixed to GTS 450 and HD 5670

 

[foxmulder_ms]

You can buy 5850 for 260$ and so at ~250 price range it is the best in my opinion.

 

[donovands]

Loving my 2x 5770's. Not disappointed with my buy. I know 4870's are much cheaper, but I like to cover my bets and if the industry suddenly picks up DX11, I'd like to be prepared.

 

[jricha51]

I just upgraded from a 7600GT to a 4870 1GB. Looking at the chart, I moved up 11 tiers. Then I looked again, and I moved up 13 tiers?

16th down:
Discrete: 6800 Ultra, 7600 GT, 7800 GS, 8600 GS, 8600 GT (GDDR3), 9500 GT (DDR2)
Go (mobile): 7800 GTX, 7900 GTX

18th down:
Discrete: 6800 GS (AGP)
Go (mobile): 6800 Ultra, 7600 GT, 8600M GT, 8700M GT

Which is it?

 

[jricha51]

Nevermind, one is (mobile)

 

[theoutbound]

Great roundup as always Tom's. Nvidia really needs to get some low cost chips out there. These lists are always dominated by AMD at the lower price points.

 

[husker]

[citation][nom]liquidsnake718[/nom]Ouch 3 months in a row going against the 5850 after being here for 9 months!![/citation]
Unfortunately, the price on these cards hasn't come down all that much from when they were first introduced, which is why they are not a great deal, but still a great card. I have one of these and was planning to xfire with a second one eventually. Still waiting for the right price point.

 

[etrnl_frost]

For the record, a GTX 460 1GB EE (from evga) WILL fit in an Antec NSK1380. It will also run. However, you will need to remove a sidepanel to prevent it (the GPU) from overheating. That is all.

 

[jgiron]

I've been watching logicbuy.com and the price of the 5770 has been coming down to below $150 (sometimes around $130) with the rebates. I also saw the GeForce 460 GTX for about $150 as well. I'm saving my money for BlackFriday and see what deals come out. Prices and video cards should be very competitive by then.

 

[scook9]

[citation][nom]etrnl_frost[/nom]For the record, a GTX 460 1GB EE (from evga) WILL fit in an Antec NSK1380. It will also run. However, you will need to remove a sidepanel to prevent it (the GPU) from overheating. That is all.[/citation]

To further that record, I have a reference 4890 in my Antec Fusion 430 Black htpc case. You just have to bend the metal in the front of the case a hair to fit the power plugs. But technically....the card does fit haha

Having paid $150 after rebate for said 4890 last summer, I am pretty happy with it

 

[iamtheking123]

I always hate how its near impossible to hit a home run with buying a graphics card. I'm kicking myself a bit for buying a 5850 a few weeks before the prices fell a ton because of the 460 (or I could have just bought a 460). But at least I have an AMD + ATI system where I like to pretend the two red's will magically push each other faster.

 

[HavoCnMe]

I would like to purchase the GTX470 and hand down my 9800GTX to the GF. Waiting for Newegg BLACK-FRIDAY to see if thee old 470 will come down a bit more, even if it is for a day.

 

[jonnyboyC]

kinda surprised the gtx 460 didn't' outright beat the 5830 since a quick look at newegg has 3 priced for 170, and a asus directCU for 175,

 

[ismol]

Again a GTX 460 at the same level than the HD4870?? I`ve just quited a 4870 and bought a 460 and they play in different leagues

 

[dallaswits]

I see writing on the walls.

I owned a voodoo 3000, then a few nvidia cards, and now i have made another shift. To Radeon.

The events of the past 3 years caused nvidia to become seperated from a huge segment of its former income base (chipsets), it fell far behind on R&D(think fermi, here but not 100%), and the soon-to-be consolidation of a good % of the discrete GPU market (Think Intel and AMD both integrating game worthy GPU on-die with CPU's).

Nvidia has come full cycle.
They will still be here for a few more years, but without a fresh angle on the market; they will increasingly become marginalized until one day they shut their doors with a whimper like 3DFX did.

 

[dallaswits]

Towards that end, my new XFX 5850 arrives tomorrow to replace my 2x 9800 gtx's. (They wouldn't run in SLI properly anymore...)

 

[presto311]

I always wonder where gtx 285 x2 would stand. Anyone know?

 

[cleeve]

[citation][nom]ismol[/nom]Again a GTX 460 at the same level than the HD4870?? I`ve just quited a 4870 and bought a 460 and they play in different leagues[/citation]

All the data I've seen disagrees with you. Performance is very similar across the board, although in a specific game you might find one will perform better than the other due to the game engine's preference for one architecture over the other.

 

[thegreathuntingdolphin]

To all those complaining that you have found certain cards (such as the 4870) for less than a hundred, realize that Newegg does not always have those cards at that price. For example, right now the cheapest 4870 is $129 (it has a rebate but rebates are not considered because they are temporary and redeeming them is hit or miss).

No. There was a test with 2 480's sli'd with both 16x/16x and 4x/4x, and there were no bandwidth bottlenecks.

GTX 480s in SLI are severely bottlenecked at 4x/4x. Heck the 5870 starts getting bottlenecked at 8x/8x. Anyways the Q9550 overclocked should not bottleneck two GTX 460s.

 

[thegreathuntingdolphin]

There are only 2 DDR3 SLI boards that i could find from almost EVERY major manufacturer for AMD boards.. and next generation will be lucky to have one..

Isn't that because next gen boards can be SLI or CrossfireX like with the Core i7 boards?

 

[Ehsan w]

great job Don

 

[Proximon]

Do two 5770s trump a GTX 470? This is my big question. I'm about ready to spend 300 bucks and replace the old 4870, but nailing this down is hard. Too many significant driver changes make it hard to compare reviews.