The Best Gaming Video Cards for the Money: October 2006

[pauldh]

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?

Gotta tell ya, it's looking bad for the 7600GT AGP. First only Leadtek seems to make one. Second, only a handful of sites have carried it. Third it's been out of stock more than in stock. Fourth, the out of stock card link is removed from neweggs site now for the first time since launch...they don't expect more anytime soon. Fifth, the only other site I knew to buy them ( a bit more money) is now aslo out of stock. But here is the link so you can see the card. http://www.cesell.com/product.php?productid=74585

Honestly this card is an exotic and as rare as the AGP X850xtpe.

 

[clockwatcher]

What I forgot to put in my first post: Great article, very informative! Exactly why I have continued to read Tom's hardware for so many years. It's a bummer to me (as an AGP user) to find fewer and fewer upgrade options as Core 2 Duo makes PCIe more and more attractive while many enthusiasts seem to be waiting to see what happens with DirectX 10 and Vista.

/me shakes fist at the sky and waits

System specs (aging gamer rig):
2600+ Barton (Socket A)
2.5 Gig PC 3200 RAM
BFG 6800 GT

 

[cleeve]

Honestly this card is an exotic and as rare as the AGP X850xtpe.

Yeah. It's abummer that my articles have to last a whole month...

Ah well, there's always next month to update. And HOPEFULLY, they've realized tha massive demand for the 7600 GT AGP, and are ramping up production...

 

[pauldh]

Shocked me Cleeve that the link is pulled from newegg now. No expected in stock date or even auto-notify; just gone. Same with the X850xtpe and x850xt.

 

[clockwatcher]

Well, this BFG Tech BFGR76512GSOC Geforce 7600GS 512MB 128-bit GDDR2 AGP 4X/8X Video Card - Retail looks like it might fit the bill @ $139.99

My 2600+ runs at around 2.08 Ghz... How much performance increase could I really expect switching from a 6800 GT? Will the bottleneck simply become my CPU instead?

Edit: man that thing doesnt have a very big HS on it.

Now this AIW: ATI All-In-Wonder X800 XT 100-714200 Radeon X800XT 256MB 256-bit GDDR3 VIVO AGP 4X/8X Video Card - Retail boasts GDDR3 and 16 "PixelPipelines" on AGP for 179.99

/me reaches for wallet and signs a "can we still be friends" card made out to ATI

 

[ikjadoon]

Well, the 7600GT is comparable to the X850XT PE and X850XT PE was faster than the 6800 Ultra, so it is safe to assume you will have a healthy increase. Yet, the CPU may be a bottleneck, probably not. 2GHz on an AMD is good enough.

~Ibrahim~

 

[tjaisv]

Hey where did u see $240 for the X1900 XT 256MB? Cheapest on Froogle is the $250 Sapphire.

 

[pauldh]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814102051

Newegg had it for $240 + shipping, now it's $250 - $15 rebate + shipping. So about $240 shipped if you don't mind the rebate.

 

[pauldh]

Well, the 7600GT is comparable to the X850XT PE and X850XT PE was faster than the 6800 Ultra

I'd say 7600GT is comparable performance to X850Xt, not quite up to the higher clocked X850XTpe though. I can give you a few links to where the platinum edition pulled a win on the 7800GS even. Anyway, while there may be some situations where 7600GT beats 6800U, I say they are pretty equal along with X850Xt and X800XTpe. In Digit-lifes charts the 425/1100 (25 MHz core OC) version of the 6800U beat the 7600GT in almsot every game.

Here is one of those reviews where overall performance X850Xtpe > 7800GS (stock speeds). read paragraph one in the conclusion:
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2686&p=9
I see them as equal, priced the same I'd go 7800GS. But the recent BBA X850XTpe AGP for $175 was a nice deal with cheapest 7800GS being $250 AR.

Here are the digit-life charts that show 6800U OC >= 7600GT most of the time. http://www.digit-life.com/articles2/digest3d/index.html Although some situation 7600GT may be better. I know Cleeve found farcry with HDR to run better on the 7600GT than he remembered with his 6800U. I also found my 6800U OC to be pretty lame at farcry HDR.

 

[tjaisv]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814102051

Newegg had it for $240 + shipping, now it's $250 - $15 rebate + shipping. So about $240 shipped if you don't mind the rebate.

ah cool tx 8)

 

[ikjadoon]

Ah, I see. Thanks for the links!

And that X1900XT for $240 is probably the best deal I've seen in a GPU for a while...

~Ibrahim~

 

[gtr]

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.

Nice Article Cleeve!! I just ordered this Evga 7900GTO card and do not know if I made the right choice since I was deciding between this and the Sapphire X1900XT 256MB. I cannot wait for your review next month and hope for the best :lol:

 

[sojrner]

Ah, I see. Thanks for the links!

And that X1900XT for $240 is probably the best deal I've seen in a GPU for a while...

~Ibrahim~

yes, considering that my 1900xt 512 cost me 500 bones back in Feb. that is a great deal. 8O 8)

 

[ikjadoon]

That is more than a 50% price drop in around 8 months. Still probably the best mid-high end card out there. I've heard rumours about the 7900GTO, but no concrete information. I'm guessing a 24-pipe, 475/1.35 card?

~Ibrahim~

 

[neiroatopelcc]

Ah, I see. Thanks for the links!

And that X1900XT for $240 is probably the best deal I've seen in a GPU for a while...

~Ibrahim~

That card may be better (altho I don't like ati after my x800 experience) when considering an upgrade from let's say a 6600. What I'm wondering tho is, would a 7900gt not make sense for me ?
I've already got one xfx 7900gt (pv-t71g-uder ; 520/750), and upgrading to sli strikes me as a good idea. What would the result be? What'd my performance stack up with? And how muh more performance would I really get from two of those cards.
What I've seen is, that oblivion still doesn't run as well as I'd want at 1280x1024. Outside I'm in places still getting only 20 fps, and also cross racing championship can pretty much bring my rig to its knees.
Would another of those cards mediate those problems?

On a sidenote, how come my 7900gt scores better than a friends 7800gtx in 3dmark06?

 

[neocristi]

DX 10 cards are near, no DX9 card is very good at this point.

 

[ZimboBEAR]

thats only because you need a beast of card to run games in Windows Vista...

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/display/vista-performance-preview.html

mind you they are only using a beta version not even RC1, so hopefully the full release of vista will be better.

 

[neiroatopelcc]

Ya in vista no card's really good enough.
I haven't bothered installing rc1 yet, as the beta 2 installation took a full day (had to unplug and disable stuff to get thru the install) ... but after 3 hours of trying to get a driver mix cooked together enabling me to run 3dmark on vista, I scored about 15% lower there than in my xp sp2 system ....

Anyhow, if I'd add up another 7900gt, what could I compare the performance level to, and how much faster would it work?

I need my pc for work also, so I won't be running vista any time soon anyway, thus obliterating the need of dx10

 

[ikjadoon]

Because I'm lazy and odd, I'm going to answer your last question first. The 7900GT uses a newer manufacturing process, 90nm vs. 110nm = higher clocks...

Well, is Oblivion working well enough for you to plop down nearly $300? It'll be a lot smoother, won't stutter. I mean, 12x10 is a very common resolution and not extremely taxing so the extra card should help plenty, but don't get your hopes up too high. Try it, if it isn't what you expected, just return it and pay $10 or so for a restocking fee, if it isn't waived.

I'd say go for it. ATI's cards, though, are better at Oblivion.

BEFORE YOU MAKE ANY DECISIONS, please look at the VGA charts. It has your answer. If the benefit is what you want, sure. If not, then, no.

We have the charts so you can judge what the increase is and whether it is beneficial.

 

[sojrner]

BEFORE YOU MAKE ANY DECISIONS, please look at the VGA charts. It has your answer. If the benefit is what you want, sure. If not, then, no.

We have the charts so you can judge what the increase is and whether it is beneficial.

amen brother...

 

[neiroatopelcc]

I'd say go for it. ATI's cards, though, are better at Oblivion.

BEFORE YOU MAKE ANY DECISIONS, please look at the VGA charts. It has your answer. If the benefit is what you want, sure. If not, then, no.

We have the charts so you can judge what the increase is and whether it is beneficial.

ATI - better not. The one and only time I've had an ati card was the x800 which was a horror. Great performance when it works, but mostly it doesn't....

Anyhow. Thank you for the reply. I've had some looks on the charts earlier, but don't know how much it can be trusted really. I ran a 3dmark06 with default setup (can't change it in free edition), and scored 4372 points ... that was with icq,msn, irc, dc++ and serveral webpages active in the background...... yet the charts said 2500 points or so for a card with my chip. Granted it runs at only 520/700 or so, while mine is oc'ed at 550/800 ... but the test I compared to were the 1024x768 one with no aa or anything - and the default setup is no aa but 1280x1024 ... so should have a lower score I'd say.
Not sure you'd bother reading this ..... but my point is, I can't compare my score to the chart at all, how do I know the different scores on the chart can be compared?

ps. my rig's not really anything powerful. xp64 3500+ (oc'ed to 2424mhz), 2gb kingston pc3200 (value), a 35gb raptor and some cheapass asrock motherboard (hate asus/asrock, am biased) ... so if anything, should score lower with the same card than the rigs used to benchmark on the site .....

 

[sojrner]

not really sure what you mean by "mostly it doesn't" nor what x800 model you are talking about... but anyway...

3dmark 06 takes cpu and gpu into account. The oc on your card and proc will bump the score up quite a bit. You have to look at the charts as a relative measure, not something to directly compare to. Relative to card X, card Y performs as such. So whatever the 7900gt does next to the others on the list should let you know where it sits in the lineup. Obviously even "minor" changes in systems from mobo chipsets to memory timings can affect the numbers individually...

 

[neiroatopelcc]

not really sure what you mean by "mostly it doesn't" nor what x800 model you are talking about... but anyway...

Doesn't really have anything to do with the 7900gt sli issue ... but I'll briefly try to explain some of the problems I had.
The card in question was a sapphire x800 pro (256mb agp). When I got the card, the catalyst drivers with control panel thing didn't work at all. Or rather the panel didn't - even with new .net runtimes. Think the version was 6.1 or so .... anyhow, once a new driver got out, the panel worked, but every fifth or so time I rebooted, the dual view setup was gone, and I would only have a display on the tv, and when both tv and monitor were connected I'd not get any boot screen (the text based bios stuff), so bios stuff was impossible.
My biggest problem however, was that sometimes (like once a week or every 6 days or so) my system would make a sudden reboot, and when windows got back up atitool would tell me it couldn't find any ati card in the system. Then I'd have to restart again, and all would be 'fine' again.
Also I noticed when I got the card, that my old geforce 4 ti4600 was actually equally fast in most non dx9 games.... so all in all I was rather dissapointed at the card. It ran farcry and the like quite well, but most other games were at least as good with the old geforce.... who's drivers always worked I may add.

So that's pretty much when I lost faith in ati completely. I'm aware that the 1900xtx card is supposed to kick ass, but what's the point if the drivers don't work? really the only positive feature of the ati cards is atitool, which is a thirdparty thing ..... nvidia could use one of those nifty programs ...

 

[sojrner]

well, I have been using the catalyst drivers since the birth of the 9700pro (version 2 I think) and have never had an issue that was tracable back to the ati software. I am currently on an x1900xt 512 and still not worries. Not a fanboy, just enjoyed the cards. Any issues that I have found were always pointing to other apps. I know that w/ the version 6 drivers there were many issues w/ atitool, and there still are. That is a third party app and not the fault of ati when it does not work.

I will be honest that I never connected a TV to any card, so don't know if that is a problem or not, but I ran 2 monitors constantly w/ my 9700pro, and have had 2 monitors at times on this card w/ no issues like what you describe... could be atitool again, maybe another app or it could be legit that TV's creat problems... not sure there.

Whether Nv or ati I do not slam either for not working w/ a 3rd party app... if it was a "standard" windows thing then yes, but a tweak app that may or may not have quality code in it no. (TBH I like atitool and have used it alot in the past... just have not needed it w/ this card. yet. )

 

[neiroatopelcc]

Whether Nv or ati I do not slam either for not working w/ a 3rd party app... if it was a "standard" windows thing then yes, but a tweak app that may or may not have quality code in it no. (TBH I like atitool and have used it alot in the past... just have not needed it w/ this card. yet. )

If you have an ati card, you always need atitool .... it allows you to 'export' temperature data to motherboard monitor, which makes it important for anyone who'd want to know a problem might occur prior to it's actual occurrance.

Anyhow, the sudden reboots happened without atitool too, and the bios problem certainly is/was something with the native handling of multiple displays. I thought at first that it was the tv that couldn't display the bios stuff (old philips thing), but it works just fine with the nvidia card - except I had to tell it to use pal/b manually, but that's a one time thing.