The Best Gaming Video Cards for the Money: October 2006

[pauldh]

the only way nVidia is going to compete right now is if they give the 7900GS some cement shoes and drop the prices on the 7900GT because they really aren't competitive at anything above the 7600GT and below the 7900GTX right now.

Problem is, that only applies to those who know the situation, which most buyers do not. Seems daily we get a new post here about someone looking to buy an overpriced card, clueless they can do better for the money.

NV has a good following, and many people fear change or get bad/fanboy advice to only look at one brand card. So to us here NV needs a price drop to buy or recommend many of their cards, but to the average "video card = NV buyer", they'll snatch these cards up at almost any premium. :roll:

 

[madmike]

Are you talking the 24-pipe Gainward? How much can you find that card for?

I got mine for $403.00 shipped from Overclockers.uk and this week they are around $395.00. It got to me in 8 days in Santa Clara, CA. There are still a few out there. Some people are crazy and paying $500+ for them on Ebay!!!

Look here:
Gainward BLISS 7800 GS+ GSa

 

[DangerTobin]

Pardon me guys, but I'm curious what the best card for the money would be for a person with a rig that only has AGP 4X would be

I see the 7600 GT and GS mention 8x but not 4x and after some digging note that around the web a lot of people ask the same question . . .

 

[VillageIdiot]

Pardon me guys, but I'm curious what the best card for the money would be for a person with a rig that only has AGP 4X would be

I see the 7600 GT and GS mention 8x but not 4x and after some digging note that around the web a lot of people ask the same question . . .

Ummm, the best card for 8x will be the same for 4x but your bandwith will be more limited. Fortunately I dont think it will cause much of a performance drop. You can look at benchmarks for things like 4x vs. 8x if you are really curious.


On another note, can we get an article like this one lets say every one or two months? It would be really nice and doesnt seem to be too much. I know they have the usual Tom's graphics card one but its real in-depth. This article is straightforward and to the point and I think it should be continually updated on a regular basis.

 

[kaotao]

You can use 8X in a 4X slot. There wont be any compatibility issues, or noticable performance hits.

 

[muchmore]

Great article! I only have one question that really isn't related to the article, except that it has to do with finding the right (best) video card/cards.

Does anyone know if anyone out there has recommendations based on resolution and game; i.e. I play City of Heroes and City of Villians and I want to be able to play at 1920 x 1200 with a relatively high framerate with all the visual goodies turned up.

Currently I have 2 7800GT's in SLI and they are ok, but I was hoping I could find better.

Thanks for any recommendations.

Muchmore

<Edited for spelling & PC components>


--------------------------------------------------------
AMD Opteron 165 (dual core, 2.0GHz overclocked)
Asus A8N-SLI Premium
2 GB RAM
2 xfx 7800GT's in SLI
74 GB Raptor HD
Dell 2405 FPW 24" monitor

 

[cleeve]

Two 7800 GTs are still pretty decent. To do noticably better than that you'd need at least two X1900 XTXs or two 7900 GTXs... and with a game like city of heroes, you might be limited by your internet connection and server lag, not necessarily your video cards.

If I were you, I'd probably wait and see what the upcoming R600 and G80 can do before buying anything else, like I said... two 7800 GTs are still pretty good.

 

[muchmore]

Two 7800 GTs are still pretty decent. To do noticably better than that you'd need at least two X1900 XTXs or two 7900 GTXs... and with a game like city of heroes, you might be limited by your internet connection and server lag, not necessarily your video cards.

If I were you, I'd probably wait and see what the upcoming R600 and G80 can do before buying anything else, like I said... two 7800 GTs are still pretty good.

Good advice, I am probably being WAY too picky. With the new cards just around the corner, it would make more sense to wait for them since they will probably provide better performance with just 1 card.

Just for grins, though, what recommendation do you have for a single card solution that would perform as well as what I have now for COH at this resolution? Do you think an ATI Radeon X1900 XT 512MB would be close?

Thanks!
Muchmore

<Edited content added below>

Oh - my internet connection is 10Mbps download, 1Mbps upload. could upgrading my processor to a 4800+ be a worthwhile upgrade?

 

[cleeve]

I'd have to check some reviews. My gut feeling tells me that a single X1900 XTX would be close to two 7800 GTs, beating them at lower resolutions pretty easily, but at higher resolutions with lots of AA it might be pretty close.

 

[SandTiger24]

Uhm.. I am starting to loose faith with toms Graphics reviews.

Best $350 card.. 7900GTX!?!?!? Try about $400-450. That's a huge price difference.

Also, I don't see it mentioned anywhere about ATI having defunkt drivers that don't allow aspect ratio on widescreen monitors that dont allow 1:1 pixel mapping. Not a problem if you have the fastest card and a game that supports 1920x1200 with a 24" monitor. But if you have an older game, or need to cut down the resolution to have smooth gameplay.. your SOL about getting black bars on your screen.

That pretty much takes ATI right out of the competition for us WideScreen users

 

[ikjadoon]

I'm too busy to read all these pages, but TG:

WOW. You have no idea how many GPU-related questions this will answer in the Graphics section. THANK YOU!

~Ibrahim~

 

[cleeve]

What are you talking about? The 7900 GTX can be had way under $400 on newegg last time I checked.

Uhm... I'm starting to lose faith with people who post once just to belittle something they know nothing about.

 

[CrapyComputerGuy]

yes these cards are good for your money but the only thing is that im in NewZealand so the prices are double.

Thanx for the notes any way

 

[sojrner]

What are you talking about? The 7900 GTX can be had way under $400 on newegg last time I checked.

Uhm... I'm starting to lose faith with people who post once just to belittle something they know nothing about.

yes, anymore you almost have to ignore them like spam...


...hmmm, I wonder if one could design a n00b-filter or troll-filter? Just like email spam it could stick it in a bulk/spam thread and then you could set up a black-list of sorts... Could take some A.I. programming to read part of the post and see if it fit the bill, but it would be cool.

 

[SandTiger24]

What are you talking about? The 7900 GTX can be had way under $400 on newegg last time I checked.

Uhm... I'm starting to lose faith with people who post once just to belittle something they know nothing about.

Link? I have been following this card for a while as its most likely the one I will get when I upgrade soon.

Right now it is going for about $380 shipped on newegg. Which is the lowest I have ever seen it. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814130058
There are 2 cards below 400, 1 at 430 1 at 460 and 1 at 490.

If you say you have seen it Well below $400, you should be able to provide links right? Also, I checked price grabber, and there are no reliable(non reliable also) merchants that I could find offering it at the $350 like you claimed. Maybe within a month though...

Nothing to mention about the wide screen issue?

I know this isn't a huge thing, just nit picking. But it slightly irks me that the price listed is completely different than what I can find. It's misleading to consumers.

 

[cleeve]

I know this isn't a huge thing, just nit picking. But it slightly irks me that the price listed is completely different than what I can find. It's misleading to consumers.

I can see how that could be irksome.

What irks me is when people come and trash a whole website - and my review - because of nitpicking.

You complain that you can only find the 7900 GTX for $400-$450, and in your next post you provide a link to a $380 card. WTF?

The review said ~$340. The tilde sign means 'about'. Prices will flux, this list lasts an entire month, and I thought I made it pretty clear in the article that the exact prices are basically impossible to nail down because they can change on a daily basis.

I wrote that part to minimize posts like yours. It doesn't always work, unfortunately.

Further to that, it's a guideline... I'm not holding anyone's hand here, if you're buying, I hope to god you have the presence of mind to find the cheapest price you can. If you find an X1900 XTX for $320 and a 7900 GTX for $450, well, use your head for goodness sake. It's not rocket science.

 

[jankerson]

I wrote the article, and I can give you three reasons the X1900 was picked over the 7900 GS:


1. Not all benchmarks tell the same story. At Firingsquad, the X1900 GT consistantly beat even the overclocked 7900 GS, sometimes by a notable margin:

http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/nvidia_geforce_7900_gs/page5.asp

Even in some of the benches you linked to, if you read the whole article - the X1900 GT is neck and neck in moist stuff, but for a few games where there is a significant difference, the X1900 GT is way ahead - check out the Quake 4 benches.


2. Overclocked cards are vendor-specific and do not even have standard clocks between them. I'd have to recommend specific vendors which is beyond the scope of the article


3. The overclocked 79900 GS' tend to be inn the $220 range.
Sure it's only $20 more than the bargain X1900 GTs, but it's also only $20 less than the X1900 XT... who in good conscience would recommend spending $220 for a 7900 GS when they could get an X1900 XT for $20 more?
I even find it hard to recommend the X1900 GT at $200 because of the $240 X1900 XT, and I wrote that in the article.



So there are my motivations. Maybe you don't agree, but at least I hope you can underatand where I'm coming from. But right now, from where I'm standing, it doesn't fit. If the 7900 GS goes down to $180, or the X1900 GT goes up a bit, things will change.

They change all the time now. Come back next month and things might be totally different.

Great review.

On the subject of the X1900gt vers the 7900gs I see a lot of people trying to say the 7900gs OC is better etc. You pointed out the truth that the X1900gt is a better card in general though.

But it seems that people forget that the X1900GT overclocks like a beast.

I have the BBA vers (575-600) of the card and currently run it at 650-700 and it is rock solid at those clocks.

 

[ZimboBEAR]

I don't want to throw a spanner into the works, but it probably needs updating now that the MSI 7900 GTO 512 DDR3 is available here in the UK, it can be bought at www.dabs.com for about £165 with postage and VAT..... and considering that this card is only between 3-5 % slower than a 7900 GTX, and can even be flashed to a 7900 GTX then i would say this is probably the best bang for buck card out there.

 

[cleeve]

Yeah, those 7900 GTOs are nice. But it'll have to wait until next month's article.

I'll update the thread on the forum once it becomes a bit more available.

 

[muchmore]

I'd have to check some reviews. My gut feeling tells me that a single X1900 XTX would be close to two 7800 GTs, beating them at lower resolutions pretty easily, but at higher resolutions with lots of AA it might be pretty close.

Thanks for the guidance. I think I will wait for the next gen cards since they "should" be faster/better. I will of course need guidance then on wether to go nvidia or ATI....

Again, great article and keep up the good work.

Muchmore

 

[TheGreatGrapeApe]

Right now it is going for about $380 shipped on newegg. Which is the lowest I have ever seen it. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814130058
There are 2 cards below 400, 1 at 430 1 at 460 and 1 at 490.

There are 3 cards below $400, 4 including rebfurb.

As for 'shipped' that's a location issue, I can get price matches where I live for online for the price (not shipping), perhaps you need to learn how to shop. :roll:

However even 1 less than $400 negates your post since Cleev provided a Caveat and you didn't.

Nothing to mention about the wide screen issue?

Why bother? It's not an issue if you know what you're doing, been there done that.

Should he mention the crap AF issue of nV too, every last issue on both ATi and nV's problem list in their drivers? Just link to Digit-Life's list of pics of driver issues for both?

Both have their good/bad, but these are minor issues none of which overwhelm the overall benifits of cards to the majority of people, and less so for people who know what they're doing.

I know this isn't a huge thing, just nit picking.

It's beyond nitpicking, it's trolly whining from someone who focuses on minor features and issues and not the overall picture, and can't read all the caveats at the beginning which pretty much negate your statements.

 

[ikjadoon]

Its come to my attention that our very own Cleeve wrote these articles. Nice job, really.

If you need any help, 3D Chipset is a good site for loads of GPU reviews...Just wait for the GPU Roundups, usually 1-3 a week.

~Ibrahim~

 

[pauldh]

Cleeve's written quite a few nice reviews/articles for Tom's now, like the $200 PCI-e shootout and various aftermarket coolers. I'm just waiting to hear what up next.

 

[clockwatcher]

Best AGP Card For ~$175
Geforce 7600 GT
Codename: G73, 90 nm technology
12 Pixel shaders, Five Vertex shaders, 12 Texture units, eight Raster operations processors
128 bit memory bus
560 MHz core, 700 MHz DDR (1400 MHz Effective) Memory

The 7600 GT is an amazing card in this price range, sporting new SM 3.0 technology and very high clock speeds to deliver excellent performance. Its weakest feature is its 128 bit memory bus, but its high memory speeds offset that disadvantage and make it competitive with 256 bit cards like the X800 XT/X850 XT. The 7600 GT is the AGP user's savior, a decently priced card that can actually perform well for the money.

This article really got me thinking that an AGP 7600 GT would help me stave off a major upgrade, but then I went to look for one.

I have found many PCI-e cards that fit the description, but no AGP. I thought maybe I read the article wrong...Can anyone post a link to a reputable vendor with this card (or comparable) for ~$200?

 

[georgebeee]

I appreciate what cleeve does. I know when I see his post I can trust what's being said.

keep it up Cleeve