The Short List: the Best Gaming Videocards for the money - Page 3

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Hi all,


First, please accept my apology, Cleeve, it was not right of me to go personally at you. I was just in a very bad mood when I came home last night, and then saw these posts.

And to you all, please read my entire post before commenting on PCI cards not being for gamers. As my post stated:

I have an ATI Radeon 9800 PRO 128MB (that I will change to a GeForce 6800 GT I hope - to benefit from nView) which I am very satisfied with, and I have two 17" monitors connected to that one, and then I have a horrible old 1MB ATI card in a PCI socket to run outlook on a 3rd 17" monitor.

I do play games, but for me the game quality does not measure in FPS. At this moment I am playing EQ2, a very graphics intensive game, and I normally only play it on one monitor.
I tried a few nights ago to stretch the game, in windowed mode, across the two screens I have on the 9800 Pro card, and it worked out ok actually.

What I simply thought then was that now I want to play it across all three monitors, and I would need a new PCI card for the 3rd screen to do so.

And I started speculating if the performance would be best with one triple-head (Parhelia) AGP card, or with one AGP, and two PCI cards. Or even if I use the 9800 Pro for two, and add a PCI card for the 3rd.

That was all my question was about in the first place, I never intended to say that playing on a PCI card was useful, which I agree with you guys, it probably wouldn't be today.

And thank you, Cleeve, for the last post, where you include a test on PCI Cards, that was VERY helpful. I had been searching everywhere for a PCI Cards test, but with no luck.

Please understand that 2 screens will not do, as it is very annoying to have the center of your view split across two screens. With 3 screens I would still have my character on the center screen, and expand the area for inventory, stats, maps, etc.

And finally... I am talking about PCI cards, to all those of you who tell me to go for a SLI setup... I am not talking about a PCI-E card

I have a Dell 8300 computer, with a P4 3000 MHz HT CPU, 1024 MB Dual Channel RAM, 800 MHz FSB, WD 200 GB 8MB Cache HD, SB Audigy 2, etc. It has one AGP slot and a number of PCI slots.

Thanks again, all, and please accept my apology for being a jerk.


//Xesc

Meh, no harm done. Apology accepted.

For my part. sorry if I responded a bit curtly to your original post.

Best regards,

Jan 26 updates to PCI-express category:

Moved the 6800GS and X800 XL to the $250 - $300 category as newegg offers them in this price category. Removed the regular X800 GTO from the pci-express list as the 6800 GS is notably better now that it's in the same category.

Added the X850 XT in the $200-$250 category as they are going for as little as $209 on Newegg!

Thanks man.

The 7300 GS has a crippled 64-bit memory bus from what I've seen... I think it'll probably perform only slightly better than the 6200.

I doubt it'll come close to challenging the 6600/X1300 for best budget card, but we'll see when the benches arrive.

If you've seen some benches though, shoot 'em my way...

The 7800 GS might be the best AGP card available, but it's nowhere near a best card for the money at $350...

You need to add a zero to the lithography process measures and make them nanometers rather than microns as 1 micron = 1000 nanometers.

Scrap the X800XL, the GTO's are replacing them since Ati is putting the R430 (XL) core in the GTO's

Feb 15, 2006: 7800GS available under $300 USD: http://www.monarchcomputer.com/Mer [...] watch&NR=1

Update perhaps for $250-$300 AGP? Also the 7300 GS is only like $80. Is it really as bad as people say it is? It does have DDR2 or GDDR3 memory in it...

Id says pce-i, 7800Gt is more bang for the buck.

You are missing the spirit of this sticky.

It is a guideline as to the best GPU buys for the money, nothing more. Of course some people require peronal attention, but hey, that's why this is a forum where anyone can post.

It HAS to change often, as videocard prices change often. That's just the way the industry works. If it was static, it would be completely useless as far as pointing out the "Best card for the money".

If you're an Ati fanboy, or Nvidia fanboy, you're not looking for value... you're looking for a brand. You should notice that if there isn't a clear winner in a price segment, either brand of card is mentioned. But in the case of the 7800 GT, it's a better value than any Ati offering of the same price, plain and simple. There's no convincing argument otherwise... until the prices change (which they will - and then the list will get updated again)

Out of curiosity, how is this card as far as AGP goes? Oddley I thing it is the only gaming AGP video card with 512MB in existance. How does it score?

What about a GeForce 7800GT? I'm building a gaming rig and looking for a lot of information and help in forums about which card to get. FEAR, Far Cry, Half-Life 2, and Quake 4 are on my gaming list.

Yep, R481 = AGP X850.

Nah, ridiculous would be the number of partner boards that run the 'known chips' on unknkown spec boards. I'll take 5-7 different chips over 15+ variations of the boards using those chips. Some of this is due to things like ATi's GTO or nV's GS, but there's also the BFGs, eVGAs, ASUS, Sapphires, Powercolors and GeXcubes.

Yep it sucks. But that's all relative I guess. However I'd say an old GF6600/x700 would be competitive/better for less money.

Well you can compare it to the LE I guess, like HK did when it launched;
http://www.hkepc.com/hwdb/gf7300gs-3.htm

Depends on the use, I personally think that extra memory is for Vista, which if you look at M$ description will require alot of memory for the vector implementation.

I'd still suggest the GF6800GS because the X1600 is a big dissapointment, but that IMO is more about the memory bandwidth that the X1600 needs to move beyond it's 'killer' 128bit memory (for a chip with much more processing power than an R9800 pro that deserved and got that extra memory bandwidth). 128bit memory just doesn't cut it anymore, which is why the GF6800GS and X800GTO still have noticeable advantages over the current 'mid range', heck they're already GTO'ing the X1800 when a 256bit mid range card would be best (if there weren't such a market for top end 'castoffs').

Cleeve: 6800GS AGP prices have been dropping quite a bit. I bought my BFG 6800GS from ZipZoomFly for $198 shipped. Last time I checked, the PNY 6800GS AGP is $189 at Newegg after MIR. However, prices seem to be jumping every day or so and it never seems to stay still, and more and more 6800GS AGPs are disappearing off e-tailers. They're cheap now, but I'll bet in 2-4 weeks you won't be able to find one anymore.

Prices according to Pricegrabber BTW.

thats for a pci express card man

X1800 XL is decent, but overpriced compared to the 7800 GT.

When the price goes down I'm sure it'll make the list tho.

Well, if the 7800 GT was a poor overclocker I'd add the X1800 XL in there because of the extra value being able to overclock makes.

But 7800 GTs are good overclockers too, so it's hard to discern based on that.

Frankly, I wish X1800 XL's were priced at $275 where they belong... which shouldn't take too long to happen, as Ati has lowered the MSRP of the X1800 XL to $299

Oops...there I go assuming pricewatch.com actually gives accurate info again...

Pricegrabber.com is where it's at.

Update:

With multiple X850 XTs on newegg under $200, the card easily bests the 6800 GS and X800 XL to take top spot in the $150 to $200 category

$200 to $250 segment is barren because the X850 XT is the best card for the $$ until you get to the $250-$300 7800 GT.

yeah, that card is an incredible deal believe it or not..

Overall, certainly. However, if you move up a few steps, the X1900XT will blow anything for a decent $450.

It doesn't really say anything about the performance other than it can tackle SM3.0.

The AGP X1300's I've seen run at PRO specifications, and their price has come down to that of the 6600's in some cases. So I've added them as honorable mention to the AGP list, they were already on the PCI-express list.

***UPDATE***

Removed X800 GT from AGP because of limited availability

Added X1600 PRO to AGP because availability is common and price is below $150, as Good alternative to 6600 GT.

Only reason that isn't on there is because it just came out.

man i wish i could get video cards at those prices. x850xt costs like 350 in Canada. and the 7900gt costs 450..sigh.. xfx7800gt is at 350. Tiger direct has too much influence north of the border.. Fcuk tiger

so is it worth getting a x1800xl or 7800gt anymore?