The Short List: the Best Gaming Videocards for the money - Page 16
Forum Graphic & Displays : Graphics Cards - The Short List: the Best Gaming Videocards for the money
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It's up there now! 
Which is useless to me - I've still got XP and an ancient CRT so ever if the 3850 went AGP it would still be overkill... and probably very pricey to boot. 
Until I finally build a new rig with PCIe and slap in a 8800GT (or 3870...) my best bet is a X1950GT... cheapish even for AGP but still good for some AA/AF at moderate resolutions on newish games. Give me some time to get together the cash for the new machine 
I couldn't help but notice that on the AGP list, at the end, it say "BEST PCI-E CARD FOR >$200: WAIT" A bit of a Freudian slip, mayhap? 
Also, as they've been available for a while now, and the current list is for January*, so I ws wondering why there wasn't the G92 revision of the GeForce 8800GTS listed up there; it's price-comparable to the old 8800GTS at some $330US on NewEgg... As far as performance goes, I'd remind you that the GPU charts here only record the OC version, which is some 10% faster. So it may be very likely that the 8800GTS 512MB would actually be a suitable "next step up" over the 8800GT.
*I bet you felt so relieved when you switched to only month-by-month!
| Solitaire wrote : Which is useless to me - I've still got XP and an ancient CRT so ever if the 3850 went AGP it would still be overkill... and probably very pricey to boot. |
Naw, I doubt it would be overkill. Remember that Crysis crushes at DX9 (in windows XP) as well, and all the settings are available. And "ancient CRTs" are still quite respectable monitors: they still provide image quality that can shred even some of the best LCDs out there.
| hemir1 wrote : i am building a new system next year sometime but need a good cheap graphix card to hold me over till then. here is my system: AMD Athlon XP 2600+ @2.13ghz 768mb RAM AGP 4x. I want something that won't bottleneck the 4x agp so price probably isn't a concern because of the 4x agp. is this a good card to buy then unlock the pixel pipelines and vertex shaders, some people are getting it from 8/3 to 16/6?http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814141060 |
I've VERY WARY of the GeForce 6800XT. I was years ago back when it first came out, and still am now. I'd recommend staying the heck away from it; chances are not 100% that you'd be able to "unlock" it. If you want something in that price range, go, as Cleeve's list suggests, with something like a Radeon X1650pro; that alone, for the same price, would get you about as much power as the 6800XT would even IF you managed to unlock the whole thing... As well as full HDR+AA support in everything.
| generalhoultz wrote : does anyone know a good site where the 3850 and 3870 are priced correctly |
I'd recommend NewEgg; checking now, it's $170US for a 256MB 3850, $190US for a 512MB 3850, and $230US for a 512MB 3870.
| Luminescent-Platypus wrote : Does anyone know of a reliable US site to get a decent price on a Radeon X1650 AGP DDR3? Thanks. |
Again, NewEgg: $130US ($100US after MIB) for one. Note that the card Cleeve lists and recomends does NOT have GDDR3 memory; it's clocked at 800MHz, and is DDR2.
| Aaron6383 wrote : I understand that PCIe 2.0 is much better than 1.0.... but then what type are the majority of PCI x16 cards? I understand that "x16" denotes the number of lanes, but this doesn't indicate whether the card is 2.0 or 1.0, does it? Or is the number of lanes inherently designated to the type of PCIe?
|
To add onto what Cleeve said:
- No, it's NOT actually "much better." Performance wise, it'd mean nothing. HOWEVER, as another side, PCIe allows for more power to be drawn through the connectors, which COULD mean fewer direct power connectors from the PSU needed, yielding a case with less clutter.
- Almost all PCIe cards are of version 1.0; this was the version used from its introduction with the GeForce 6xxx and Radeon Xxxx cards, and PCIe 2.0 just FIRST started showing up with the Radeon HD 3xxx and GeForce G92-based cards, so only a HANDFUL use it now.
- The GeForce 8800GTX would not be as potent as the 8800GTS 512, though this has nothing to do with the fact that the latter has PCIe 2.0 support, and more to do with the fact that it uses the more efficient G92 core, and is clocked faster.
Very helpful lis. 
Ok, so how the hell is the average user supposed to tell the difference between several nearly identical cards? I';ve tried to do my homework and decided on an eVGA 8800GTS. I just didn't realize there were so many flavors of the same thing. Would there much, if any difference in gaming performance between these? Does the extra ram make up for the slower clock and fewer processors etc... Help? 
Item# N82E16814130327 N82E16814130299 N82E16814130312
Model# 640-P2-N824-AR 640-P2-N828-A1 512-P3-N841-A3
Brand EVGA EVGA EVGA
Interface PCI Express x16 PCI Express x16 PCI Express 2.0 x16
Chipset NVIDIA NVIDIA NVIDIA
GPU GeForce 8800GTS GeForce 8800GTS GeForce 8800GTS (G92)
Core clock 511MHz 540MHz 670MHz
Stream Processors 96+ 96+ 128
Memory Clock 1600MHz 1700MHz 1940MHz
Memory Size 640MB 640MB 512MB
Memory Interface 320-bit 320-bit 256-bit
Any insight is greatly appreciated.
Rik
| rik756 wrote : Ok, so how the hell is the average user supposed to tell the difference between several nearly identical cards? |
Ask questions on the tom's hardware guide board, of course!
The fastest of the three cards you mentioned is the 8800 GTS 512MB card.This is because it's really quite different from the 640MB version of the 8800 GTS: IMHO Nvidia made a bad call by naming a brand new product after an old product. The new 512MB 8800 GTS is based on the G92 GPU, which has more pixel shaders (128 vs 96) and more efficient hardware than the older G80 GPU-based 8800 GTS 640MB or 320MB cards.
By the way, the extra 128MB of RAM doesn't really help the older cards when it comes to performance. At this point anything more than 512MB rarely offers any performance difference, and if it does it's usually marginal: even 1GB cards rarely show much of a gain over 512MB cards.
As far as the two 8800 GTS 640MB cards, if it's got an identical GPU, then look at clockepeeds: the second card has a 29MHz faster core clock and a 100MHz faster memory clock. In real-world performance this won't make much of a difference, but it will be marginally faster - probably not enough for the human eye to discern, but faster nonetheless.
Message edited by Cleeve on 03-12-2008 at 03:55:38 PM
Hardware Editor, Tom's Hardware Guide
Reply to Cleeve
| Cleeve wrote : Ask questions on the tom's hardware guide board, of course! |
Very cool, thank you. I was thinking that might be the case but they make it WAY to confusing!! For 19x12 I think that G92 card should do just fine
Hey all, I have been investigating purchasing a new video card for a day or two now and I am willing to spend around $300 per card. I have basically come down to either the 8800GTX or the 8800 GT and I can't really decide between the two. I would like to go with a single card but SLI is always an option if need be. Anywho, just hoping to get some input as to which singular card would be better and which 2 cards SLI'ed would be better in your opinions. Also if for my price range if there is something better out there I would love to hear about it.
Upon reading more of this forum, I seem to be finding that version of the 8800GT perform nearly as well as the 8800GTX if not better in some scenarios. However I will be playing most games at 1900 x 1200 and am trying to gauge what would be better. Altogether I have basically narrowed it down to the:
Gainward Bliss 8800 GT 512MB GS GLH (or Zotac's Version)
or the
or Zotac's version of the 9800 GTX
Also, I was just wondering, how do the 8 series really stack up with the 9 series. I only ask because it seems that the price on the 9 series GT's is about the same unless I'm blatantly incorrect. Again, sorry for the somewhat incoherent thoughts, but any information would be greatly appreciated.
Message edited by Ausmus on 04-25-2008 at 10:36:31 PM
| comput3r_creator wrote : hey.... my computer runs like the wind.....and it plays any game i put in it...all on a $45 graphics card Nvidia GeForce 8400 GS |
An 8400 GS will play any game you put in it, as long as you only put in 2+ year old games.
Crysis, anyone?
Hardware Editor, Tom's Hardware Guide
Reply to Cleeve
