What is meant by "entry level"?

[ulillillia]

The cheapest of video cards are often considered as "entry level" cards. A GT 530 or a Radeon 6670 would be the upper end of "entry level". What does "entry level" mean and what good do they do? What's different about these, besides processing speed, compared to a GTX 590 or Radeon 6970?

 

[nukemaster]

Entry level is what the consider just able to play some games(with reduced settings in many cases). So they are not useless(there are many cards that advertise DX 10/11 support but are TOO slow to be of any use gaming, but still good for video watching), but they will not max everything either. They are more suited to causal gamers as it will provide them more then onbaord video can.

Not everyone can afford to get a 300 dollar card

Think of entry into video gaming

An idea of how a 6670 performs.

http://www.guru3d.com/article/radeon-hd-6670-review/3

 

[ulillillia]

For casual gamers - that I'd expect. I, too, can't afford $300 very well. My next upgrade is probably windows 7 (maybe 8 if it gets that far out), but will take a good fraction of a year to save up for it.

However, I didn't think such low end cards would get 30 fps in any of today's games with those kinds of settings as that link covers. I don't know that game so it's extremely difficult for me to gauge anything. I only know console games from the previous generation and earlier, so I'm far, far behind in gaming in general (2006 is the year of the newest game I have). Zapper is the newest game I played on my computer, but I lost my save file (with 1300 lives too) since I reinstalled Windows later on and I've since lost all interest in computer games, but not console games (2400 hours on 2 Disgaea games in less than 2 years is crazy).

I know what antialiasing is (this makes the otherwise sharp, pixilated edges smoothed out by making the pixels on the edges transparent). I know what frame rates are (the higher, to a certain point (typically 60), the better as it results in smoother motion and better and more precise control). However, I have no idea what anisotropic filtering is or what kinds of settings are present in computer games (besides, perhaps, audio and control configuration). Thus, I have too little to go by to determine anything.

 

[nukemaster]

Anisotropic filtering deals with how textures are displayed and filtered in the distance. It basically makes textures in the distance more clear(by way of having many different sized version of a texture.).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anisotropic_filtering

All the options have a performance hit of some kind. When you are ready, toms runs "Best card for the money" ever month so you can check what is good in a certain budget range at that time.

 

[jsc]

Anisotropic filtering ...

If you do not know what it is, you probably cannot afford it.

Best Graphics Cards For The Money: December 2011
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/fastest-graphics-card-radeon-geforce,3085.html

Because graphics cards and their prices change more quickly than CPU's, this is a regular monthly column.