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Best Gaming Video Cards for the Money
Tom's Hardware has decided to take a step back with their latest video card review. Instead of wowing their audience with in-depth benchmarks they head right for what someone reading a review really wants, an opinion of the best bang for the buck. From the article: "So if you don't have the time to research the benchmarks, or if you don't feel confident enough in your ability to make the right decision, fear not. We offer a simple list of the best gaming cards on offer for the money."
Instead of wowing their audience with in-depth benchmarks they head right for what someone reading a review really wants, an opinion of the best bang for the buck.
What they missed though, was a comparison of all of those with at least one average on-board video implementation. Most of which nowadays are pretty damn good. (at least for things like Warcraft III, starcraft, non-bleeding-edge FPS games, etc). To really gauge "bang-for-buck", you need to measure against spending no extra money at all.
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If you were planning on playing Commander Keen, it would be a fine graphics card to own. Supports 132x60 text mode too, if you're one of those types that littles tiny letters. (Multi-sync monitor required)
http://orangetide.com/vgadoc/ati.txt for register settings on your VGA Wonder, incase you want to access any enhanced features.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
If you're gaming on your PC, you're a nerd.
That's not gonna insult anyone here.
Fact is, there's really a lot of games that only a keyboard and mouse can satisfy. FPS's and RTS games are those that come to mind.
. o O ( TwO hEaDs ArE mOrE tHaN oNe... )
I really don't see the point in newer and faster graphics cards for PC's anymore. When the GeForce2 launched I was still impressed and just had to have one, but now that I can actually easily afford any graphics card I find myself returned to my console roots. Why? Because the shiny graphics are boring.
I can still play Baldur's Gate on my PC - that's all I need. Good enough graphics and great fun.
Waiting for the Wii, waiting for the Wii...
If all you're doing is playing video (he said editing, not playing) and running basic non-graphic intensive apps(anything beyond photoshop), and not playing any recent (1.5 years or less) 3D graphic intensive games, you'd be able to get away with just about whatever 40-60 dollar card works with the rest of your hardware. It frankly doesn't matter. This is really just to lighten the load off the onboard chip so it doesn't have to be used.
I think part of it is that NO card is "the best", as they are all different kinds of good. As confusing as comparing CPUs, it depends on what you are doing. I DID agree with the assessment of the "Best PCIe Card For ~$140 - Geforce 7600 GT" however.
I just did a month of research and bought this exact card about 1 month ago, put it on an older i3.2ghz/HT w/1GB ram, and it does acceptionally well. The PNY unit I bought runs most games at the highest or near highest settings (HL2, etc) and have two dvi out, and included two dvi/vga adapters, svideo cable and more. For those of us who love gaming but won't afford a $400 card, this is the next best thing. Think I paid $135 at buy.com w/free shipping and have been extremely pleased with the results.
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Sorry Tom, but I have to disagree. What interests me is not your conclusions but your measurements leading up to it. I may have other preferences than you, what you consider barely acceptable performance may be more than I need, you may be able to accept more fan-noise than I, etc. If you provide me with the details, I'm perfectly capable of drawing my own conclusions.
Is that it ignores feature support.
For example, some fancier shading tricks are only supported in the Geforce 6800 and later (try running, say, the new Company of Heroes game on a 6600. You can get a great frame rate, but you're missing out on a lot of cool looking stuff).
A lot of times going from one generation to the next (or from the consumer card to the once-flagship-card) will net you a lot more than just pure speed. I work for a gaming type company, and I know a lot of the features we use in some of our shaders just plain aren't supported on lower end cards, or are "supported" by the driver but are actually implemented in software, which means if we can't code around it the feature get disabled for that card, and your game won't look as pretty. It's becoming more and more of a concern with new games.
It's still a nice quick snapshot intro to the graphics cards available, though. The sort of run down I try to do for people when they're asking what they should buy.
What they dont say, an Nvidia 7800 GT is twice as fast as an ATI 800, 140 bux or 100 bux, 40 bux buys a lot more power.
Makes for a for an affordable screamer of an SLI rig, too. Also, I'm convinced Nvidia's drivers are so much better. I've regretted every ATI card I've ever tried, usually due to crappy drivers. Highly recommended.