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Budget Graphics Cards Compared

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the bang-for-the-buck dept.

EconolineCrush writes "Tired of reading reviews of high-end graphics cards that cost several hundred dollars or more? The Tech Report has a round-up of three budget cards that cost $80 or less. ATI's Radeon X1300 Pro, NVIDIA's GeForce 7300 GS, and S3's Chrome S27 are compared in an array of gaming, video playback, power consumption, and noise level tests against not only each other, but also a typical integrated graphics solution. As one might expect, the budget cards offer significantly better 3D performance than integrated solutions. What's even more impressive is the fact that even with newer games, the sub-$80 cards still have enough punch to deliver respectable performance."

7 of 220 comments (clear)

  1. Unanswered Question. by Whiney+Mac+Fanboy · · Score: 4, Insightful

    OK, the article tells us about 3dmark, quake 4 specs, video playback, etc etc etc.

    But, they don't tell us which one (if any) has a vendor supported OSS compatable driver.

    Since XGL, etc (and I'm sure I'm not alone here), I've been on the lookout for a cheap & good 3d card, that doesn't give me 'kernel tainted' messages when I insert the driver.

    Does anyone know if any of these have good open support (I'm going to presume patchy [at best] for ATI, closed fast drivers from nvidia & good drivers [but crappy hardware] for the s27)

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    1. Re:Unanswered Question. by Grant29 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      That wasn't necessarily the point of the article though. They did a good job comparing the budget video cards for performance. Is there a linux tech site that reviews hardware under different flavors of linux? That would be a useful site. Especially if they dived into driver compatibility issues on different distributions.
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    2. Re:Unanswered Question. by Whiney+Mac+Fanboy · · Score: 4, Insightful

      They did a good job comparing the budget video cards for performance.

      Nitpicking I know, but they actually did a good job comparing the budget video cards+software driver for performance.

      The review (while great for gamers) is pretty useless to Apple + Linux fans out there... and as this is a mixed site, I thought I'd ask.

      Is there a linux tech site that reviews hardware under different flavors of linux? That would be a useful site. Especially if they dived into driver compatibility issues on different distributions.

      That would be pretty cool - that's what I was hoping someone would reply to my comment with a link to! :-)

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  2. Impressive by suv4x4 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    What's even more impressive is the fact that even with newer games, the sub-$80 cards still have enough punch to deliver respectable performance.

    No, what's impressive is that most gamers have been successfully brainwashed that they need a $500 video card to play a modern game, while the low range has been excellent for the past 3-4 years.

    At the same time, people are shocked about PS3 being $600. I wonder what the hell happened to common sense, where we lost it and will we find it again any time soon.

  3. Just one question... by Vo0k · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Will any of them give me more than 10 FPS during "Breaking Siege of Kvatch", "Battle for Bruma" and the final fight in Imperial City in Oblivion?
    That should be current benchmark method. All the budget cards I know of simply can't do it.

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  4. AGP versions? by gEvil+(beta) · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I find it humorous that there is such a push for budget cards using a fairly new interface. Where are the AGP versions of these cards? You know, for people who really are on a budget and can't afford to buy a new motherboard to use with a new budget card...

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  5. IMHO, LCD monitors caused much of this.... by King_TJ · · Score: 4, Insightful

    With a CRT monitor, all of the supported resolutions display equally well. Unfortunately, as gamers upgraded to fancy, new 19" and 21" LCD monitors, they only look good at a single, native resolution - which is usually much higher than people ran their CRTs at.

    This translates to needing a beefier graphics card to get the frame-rates you expect, vs. the "old way" of just playing all your 3D games at a lower resolution like 800x600.