Tom's Graphics Card Guide: 32 Mid-Range Cards Benchmarked

[Hotobu]

Jesus some of the people here are fucking stupid "where are the OC'ed 6950s?" OUT OF THE $100 - $250 PRICE RANGE THAT THIS ARTICLE IS WRITTEN ABOUT.. that's where.

 

[cburke82]

Jesus some of the people here are ******* stupid "where are the OC'ed 6950s?" OUT OF THE $100 - $250 PRICE RANGE THAT THIS ARTICLE IS WRITTEN ABOUT.. that's where.

well alot of the OC 560 ti's are also out of that price range sooooo yeah....

 

[ezareth]

[citation][nom]cangelini[/nom]I still test 2560x1600 in all of our launch stories.[/citation]

Thanks Chris. Maybe I was reading too much into: "After much internal discussion and consulting with some of our readers, we decided not to use the oversized 2560x1600 and smaller 1280x1024 resolutions, as they don't seem to be relevant to many readers any more." as saying you would no longer be running benchmarks for 2560X1600.

I'm still running an overclocked 4870X2 for my 30' and there just hasn't been a card released since that shows an appreciable increase in performance at this resolution given the cost. I was waiting for the 6990 but the thing is too damn loud for my tastes so I'm trying to get data on what my best upgrade route would be. I didn't expect to find it in this article but was trying to see how current "midrange" cards would perform at my resolution to guage how much better a high end card would perform.

 

[cburke82]

Thanks Chris. Maybe I was reading too much into: "After much internal discussion and consulting with some of our readers, we decided not to use the oversized 2560x1600 and smaller 1280x1024 resolutions, as they don't seem to be relevant to many readers any more." as saying you would no longer be running benchmarks for 2560X1600.

I'm still running an overclocked 4870X2 for my 30' and there just hasn't been a card released since that shows an appreciable increase in performance at this resolution given the cost. I was waiting for the 6990 but the thing is too damn loud for my tastes so I'm trying to get data on what my best upgrade route would be. I didn't expect to find it in this article but was trying to see how current "midrange" cards would perform at my resolution to guage how much better a high end card would perform.

Maybe that statement was only meant for this article?

 

[ezareth]

Igor didn't qualify his statement for "this article" which I could have understood, instead he said the resolutions "don't seem to be relevant to many readers any more."

The clarification by Chris seems to imply that Igor was only speaking of this article in particular, I just wanted to let them know there are more than a few of us who have 30 inch monitors(I have 2 friends who have one as well). People like us are the ones who are actually going to be putting down 600-$700 for the greatest cards out there and pushing them to their limits every day.

 

[amk-aka-Phantom]

And where are Crysis 2 DX11 benchmarks?

 

[cburke82]

Igor didn't qualify his statement for "this article" which I could have understood, instead he said the resolutions "don't seem to be relevant to many readers any more."

The clarification by Chris seems to imply that Igor was only speaking of this article in particular, I just wanted to let them know there are more than a few of us who have 30 inch monitors(I have 2 friends who have one as well). People like us are the ones who are actually going to be putting down 600-$700 for the greatest cards out there and pushing them to their limits every day.

I wish I could afford a 30" screen. I bet games look great at that resolution but $1500 just for the screen is a bit crazy unless your using it to make money lol. I know one thing with bezels I will not ever be gaming on 3 screens lol. And I have one question. How are things like writing on a screen with that resolution? I ask because some games I have found that the on screen writing on menus and HUD's in some games is almost to small even at 1080p and alot of games dont have a way to correct that so I would guess there can be a similar issues with the 30" screes only worse?

 

[cburke82]

And where are Crysis 2 DX11 benchmarks?

Im guessing crysis 2 DX11 is going to destroy an entry level card I dont really need a benchmark to tell me that :lol:

 

[amk-aka-Phantom]

Im guessing crysis 2 DX11 is going to destroy an entry level card I dont really need a benchmark to tell me that :lol:

No. My 560 Ti maxes it out (1080p) with V-Sync off (NO TEARING) and I'm overjoyed about it. I don't know how many times I need to post that.

 

[cburke82]

No. My 560 Ti maxes it out (1080p) with V-Sync off (NO TEARING) and I'm overjoyed about it. I don't know how many times I need to post that.

wow so does that mean the benchmarks they did for that game were off? They made it seem like you needed a 570 or higher to run it lol? Do you have one of the uber expensive 560 ti's or the reference version?

 

[amk-aka-Phantom]

No, just a Twin Frozr II OC. I don't think that the benchmarks were off; they just all had V-Sync on. With it on, I get something like 20fps... without, about 30 (finally got fraps and will measure fps later today) Even if there IS tearing, I can't seem to notice it... everything is smooth. Try it yourself. Also, its seems the game is rigged in nVidia's favour, so I'm not sure what'll happen with AMD cards.

 

[ezareth]

I wish I could afford a 30" screen. I bet games look great at that resolution but $1500 just for the screen is a bit crazy unless your using it to make money lol. I know one thing with bezels I will not ever be gaming on 3 screens lol. And I have one question. How are things like writing on a screen with that resolution? I ask because some games I have found that the on screen writing on menus and HUD's in some games is almost to small even at 1080p and alot of games dont have a way to correct that so I would guess there can be a similar issues with the 30" screes only worse?

You can pick up a Samsung 305T+ for around 1100-1200 shipped depending on whether or not it is on sale these days.

Most modern games have a UI that scales with your resolution and they have 2560X1600 texture maps. Some olders games have a smaller UI but nothing I've seen ever really looked bad on it. Web pages seem really small but that text is no smaller it is just like

Really 2560X1600 is just like 4 1280X800 monitors with one running in each corner.

 

[verbalizer]

bottom line is that nowadays you AT LEAST need a GTX 460/560 or better nVidia and a HD 5850/6850 or better AMD Radeon wise to have any fun.
anything less (to me anyways) is only good for HTPC and general usage.
lesser cards, maybe a phys-X card if that's your thing with nVidia.
Eyefinity with anything less than a 5770 is a waste as well.

 

[amk-aka-Phantom]

bottom line is that nowadays you AT LEAST need a GTX 460/560 or better nVidia and a HD 5850/6850 or better AMD Radeon wise to have any fun.
anything less (to me anyways) is only good for HTPC and general usage.
lesser cards, maybe a phys-X card if that's your thing with nVidia.

Pretty much so, yeah. Still, even mid-high $200-300 cards can max out almost everything @1080p. And it's great, in the past you needed much more money to build a decent rig. Now, a $250 card can be enough.

 

[verbalizer]

Pretty much so, yeah. Still, even mid-high $200-300 cards can max out almost everything @1080p. And it's great, in the past you needed much more money to build a decent rig. Now, a $250 card can be enough.

$200 if on eBay...
if not eBay then I check for re-certified / open box from newegg and tiger.
I have no problems with open box or re-certs, so far so good for me.
knock on wood.. LOL

 

[GObonzo]

Also, can you guys do a story on how some classic cards match up to modern games? Stuff like 8800GTX's and 2900XT's which used to cost an arm and leg back in the day. Would be cool to see how the fare today.

I had an awesome HD2600XT as my 1st PCIe GPU. Ran Crysis at Medium-High settings pretty well. Messed up that it's 4 years later and I've just been able to completely max it out with butter-smooth FPS using a 6870.

 

[GObonzo]

The preamble of the review does not explain itself well. The 560 Ti card in this review are overclocked with custom coolers. The 6950 cards are stock reference cards. This gives the 560 Ti a false appearance of superiority.

If overclocked 6950s with custom cooling were included, they would have topped the charts.

I understand that this is a mid-level card review and I understand that the 6950 stock card was included as a reference. I don't understand that the 560 Tis listed in this review are probably about the same price as the overclocked 6950s which were not included int he reviews.

I think it is a very good review, I just think they didn't explain their criteria very well.

Maybe Tom's is just trying to convince AMD and the manufacturers to send them more awesome trial cards by only showing reference vs the suped-up nVidias. I see all types of advanced cooling systems and factory OC'ed on 6800\6900 series cards but none in this review.

 

[verbalizer]

@ GObonzo - nice pic..
A+.