The Short List: the Best Gaming Videocards for the money - Page 20

Hello everyone, I was wondering if you would all be kinda enough to help with a video card upgrade? I am looking to buy a new video card for my birthday (coming in march but might buy it a little early). I am currently looking at the XFX 9800 gt xxx. This is basically the max I am really willing to pay (160). I am willing to go to and ATI, but I do not know how they stand to be honest (always bought xfx and always had great success with them). Also I am going to be playing a bunch of games on my computer (including games like Fallout 3) and I would like to run them at high or highest settings (atleast better then normal like ive been stuck with all my live...).

My current computer specs=

Motherboard- ASUS M3A78 PRO
CPU- AMD Athlon 64 X2 5200+ 2.61GHz
RAM- 2 gigs
Video- ATI Radeon HD 3200 Graphics (Onboard)
OS- Vista Home Premium


Also I like to buy from both newegg and tigerdirect. Thanks for any help.

Edit - Btw My psu is 580 watt, but does not have any pci-e connectors, and only has 2 free hdd plugs (so the adapter will atleast work), but I could (if push comes to shove) I could get a new psu for 20 bucks.

HD4830 for $80AR is a much better deal, performs around the same.

What brand/model is your PSU? How many amps does it have on the 12V rail(s)? You don't want to use a $20 PSU, it's the most important component in your system.

Hi I'm at the point where my Gigabyte 9800GT (512mb) is starting to show it's limits with the many graphic hungry games coming out. So now I'm in the market for a new graphics card, I want an option that will work with my current set up of q6600 2.4 OC to 2.9, Asus P5K-EPU, 4 x 1GB DDR2 RAM but I want it good enough to be able to be used for a future setup, maybe an i7 based rig when the price drops.
I'm not sure if I should get the one good card or get two ATI cards and run them in cross fire.
Any suggestions would be appreciated, thank you

Hey Guys.

Been looking at a system upgrade and now the only thing left is the vidcard. I've been torn as to what card to purchase. I've been looking at the 4870x2 or a gtx 285. Now my concerns are, will getting a single GPU card be a bad choice in the future as more games and apps support the functions of multi GPU cards or is this really a moot issue ? Or are both cards so stupidly fast that it won't really matter. Are there any other options I could look at in the same price/performance range?

Also are there any longevity issue in terms of support for new shader versions on the cards or general technical features which will make one card a better buy over the other? Issues of heating etc aren't really an issue for me personally.

Lastly I plan to be using this card on a 24" LCD screen so I will be using high res in games and in windows in general. I'll also be using windows Vista/7 and moving away from XP to get Dx10 support (which I believe is only avail in vista and above?). Will be combo-ing the card with a intel i7 920 and 4-6 gig worth of corsair ram, mobo dependent on card requirements.

Thanks for any input you may give to me wise ones!

P.S: I'm neither Nvidia or an ATi fanboi so I have no bias towards one brand or the other.

The best on is the most expensive one so start saving

You have the exact same card


BEST AGP CARD FOR ~$80:
Radeon 3850

BEST AGP CARD FOR ~$100:
Radeon 2600 XT

BEST AGP CARD FOR ~$135:
Radeon 3850

Under 135 and 80 3850

Hey Cleeve, who does the graphics card charts? I'm trying to figure out what system spec they used (memory, motherboard, CPU). My 9800 GTX+ outperforms the 9800 GTX+ benchmarks and is closer to the top of the scale. I'm wondering if they used a 65nm core2duo or something.

can you crossfire a Radeon 3850 with a Radeon 3870 or a 2600 xt.

If you ever plan on receiving the highest peformance take the GTX 825s in Tri-SLI over the GTX 295 in quad.

I'm going to be building a new gaming comp in the next week or so and I was wondering what was better to get:

Sapphire 4870 1gb

Or

BFG 260 core 216

or something else, but I think that is about it at my ~$200 price range

Thanks

This 2009 Spring Buyer's Guide from Anandtech might be of help:

http://www.anandtech.com/guides/showdoc.aspx?i=3538

I wonder if they're kinda biased towards ATI though?

i would suggest rather than buy a lower end card now, witch will in the near future have to be replaced just wait a month or so save up a couple more hundred bucks and buy a good card that ur gonna have for awhile. nvidea 280, radon 7800, then later also u can run em in sli or crossfire and have two cards that' kick ass.

I'm building a new system and all the basic components have been decided, now I need to choose between the Ati HD4870 1gb or the Geforce GTX 260 core 216. The system I'm going to build is the following:

AMD Phenom II X4 940 Black Edition
600W PSU
Gigabyte GA-MA790X-UD4
Corsair 2x2GB PC2-6400
Scythe Mugen 2 - SCMG-2000

At first I was thinking about getting the 4870 but then I encoutered a benchmark (http://www.custompc.co.uk/reviews/604482/ati_radeon_hd_4870.html) in which the 260 outperforms the 4870 with the games ArmA: Armed Assault and Crysis (about 7 fps on average). Since I'm planning on playing Armed Assault, the upcoming sequel ArmA II (max. 6 miles viewdistance) and other sanbox games like GTA IV, Assassin's Creed I (and II) I'm now leaning more towards the 260 card. I remember that in that benchmark the reviewer thought/concluded that the 260 looked to be more ready for future games compared to the 4870 even while the 260 has gddr3 compared to gddr5 in the 4870.

Aaanyways, I'm looking for a card in that price range to run huge sandbox games on good quality on the build mentioned above. Hope someone can point me in the right direction

Best card for the money as of now:

$100 point - the 4770 - here are some reviews (i assume you all have seen TOMs own excellent review)
Trusted Reviews:
http://www.trustedreviews.com/grap [...] HD-4770/p1
Tech rapport:
http://techreport.com/articles.x/16820

For the 4770's mad overclocking habits check this out:
http://www.legitreviews.com/article/964/1/
and for those of you that want to take advantage of this, guru3D has already posted a guide:
http://www.guru3d.com/article/over [...] n-hd-4770/

$180-200 point - the 4770 in crossfire - here are some preliminary results:
http://en.expreview.com/2009/04/28 [...] hmark.html

Amazing to see how it scales - and it takes on the 4890, winning on average by 20% - Whoa!!

For those that can crossfire this looks like the best bang for the buck you can get for you 22 to 24 inch monitors. We'll have to see if it can compete at 2560 x1600, but the lack of memory might be a limiting issue there.

Hi I just want to ask about what i saw in the reviews of this card, if this is a problem. Any help would be much appreciated

Beware Not supported well

Pros: 40nm bleeding edge GPU tech. Sapphire card is the nicest looking of all 4770 imo

Cons: I can also vouch for complete and utter lack of driver support. Have tried AMD/ATI direct, no support yet, Sapphire drivers are junk. Someone mentioned the HIS drivers are better, haven't tried those yet. No support at all in Win 7 RC 7100. Can't do 1920x1200 with the Standard display driver.

Other Thoughts: This is a joke launch of a flagship manufacturing process. You can't tell me TSMC is having problems making drivers too.
Only buy if you need a trophy of the first 40nm GPU.

Unacceptable drivers and support

Pros: Did not arrive broken or damaged. Price point.

Cons: Latest version of reference CCC and drivers from ATI, ver 9.4 does not support their own chipset. ATI directly states their reference 9.4 does not support the HD4770 and would not answer why. Would not confirm that the next ver 9.5 would support the HD4770 either. ATI stated the OEM disk from Sapphire is a hacked ver of the 9.4 drivers only, and could be very bad. Graphics and visuals really poor using the only OEM drivers available on the included OEM CD. Sapphire themselves does not even provide any drivers or driver support for this card what-so-ever and there are NO drivers from Sapphire via their own website.

Other Thoughts: It took 5 emails through Sapphire to even confirm why this card was not listed and could not be found until today. Our old X1950 pro 15 generations or more ago running CCC and drivers 9.1 reacts and looks better than this card and drivers from Sapphire. Direct phone calls to ATI/AMD and to Sapphire for their "support", and lack of decent and latest reference drivers completely unacceptable.


[url= http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] &Keywords= here ] Customer Reviews for SAPPHIRE 100277L Radeon HD 4770 512MB 128-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFire Supported Video Card - Retail
[/url]

hi im upgrading my system soon and after a bit of research decided on these specs
1000w PSU
G-B-EP45-DS4P MoBo
Q9650 CPU
8gb1066 RAM
was thinking of going for a gtx295, is it worth it?
i was also thinking of even then using my current 9800gt dedicated to physx is this effective?
thanks
Daniel

I was thinking of an 850w PSU but then i thought if i were to have both graphics i would probably need the 1kw. As far as the 9800gt goes it is good but crysis and DOW2 cant go on max graphics with it and i would like to be able to run them at full. I'm also guessing that would probaby be the case with most games out in the next year.

atm money is not an issue i just want something that will be more than capable for quite a while. Also seeing that benchmarking article on the 295 and 275s i think ill go for sli 275s

OK great thread i just looked up HD 4890 X2 and it is that if released it way come with 2GB or 4GB that is insane. I would mast likely be more power than any gamer would need and right now there is not any game that I can thing of that would need it.

If anyone has a 411 on a release date post it.

And the problem with the 4770 is you can't find em ANYWHERE right now. All Sold out !!!

please no body forget the best bang for your buck the 5870 x2 of course they arent out yet but god just stay on your 3870 until they do if ati is known for what it is then just as before the 4870 was double the 3870 then so the same for the 5870 and the 4870 think its supposed to be double if you were to run them crossfire (x2) then thats like having 8 4870s are you retarded you can dominate any task known to the average gamer nowadays so keep that money and let it build you can play the best or you can play great

This topic has been desticky in top of the forum by Randomizer

No further changes to the first post will be made and it is well out of date. Check the Tom's Hardware main site each month for updates to the "best card for the money" list.

Dude... <.< Necro.

Hmm, a troll joins us.