Getting Away With a Cheap Graphics Card

theraindog writes "High-end graphics cards get all the glory, but most folks have a difficult time justifying $300 or more for a single PC component. But what if you could get reasonable performance in all the latest games from a budget card costing as little as $70? With game developers targeting the relatively modest hardware available in current consoles and trickle-down bringing cutting-edge features down to budget price points, today's low-end graphics cards are more capable than ever. To find out which one offers the best value proposition, The Tech Report has rounded up eight graphics cards between $70 and $170, comparing their game performance, Blu-ray playback acceleration, noise levels, and power consumption, with interesting results."

Comments

Re:Wow.... $170 is cheap?

[FuturePastNow]

Luckily, for people like you and me, there are cards closer to $70 than $170.

I actually read that Tech Report article earlier today, and I've read a couple of other reviews of the 4670. It looks really good, especially considering that it's a small card with no extra power connector.

Of course, my needs aren't very high- the #1 game I'm looking forward to is Starcraft 2- but I'd still like to be able to play at the native res of my 24" monitor.

Those 8800GTs

[iteyoidar]

I don't really keep up with video cards except when I'm trying to buy one ever 3 or 4 years, but those 8800GTs are like $100 and can run just about anything. $100 isn't cheap but for a card that will let you play every game out right isn't bad, especially when getting that last 10-20% performance increase bumps your price up a few hundred dollars

Re:Those 8800GTs

[Kargan]

Yep, I just bought a factory overclocked 8800GT (ZOTAC Amp! Edition, to be specific) for $117 a couple of weeks ago. It does indeed run Crysis, COD4, Assassin's Creed, etc. at very high quality and framerates. And NVIDIA just released driver update 178.13 today, with the following changes:

# WHQL-certified driver for GeForce 6-series, 7-series, 8-series, 9-series, and 200-series GPUs, including the newly released GeForce 9800 GTX+, 9800 GT, 9500 GT, and 9400 GT GPUs.
# Adds support for NVIDIA PhysX acceleration on all GeForce 8-series, 9-series and 200-series GPUs with a minimum of 256MB dedicated graphics memory (this driver package installs NVIDIA PhysX System Software v8.09.04).
# Experience GPU PhysX acceleration in several full games and demos today by downloading the GeForce Power Pack.
# Adds support for 2-way NVIDIA SLI technology with GeForce GTX 200-series GPUs on Intel® D5400XS motherboards.
# Supports single GPU and NVIDIA SLI(TM) technology* on DirectX 9 and OpenGL.
# Supports CUDA(TM).
# Supports Folding@home distributing computing application. Download the high performance client for NVIDIA GPUs here and join the NVIDIA team: #131015.
# Supports GPU overclocking and temperature monitoring by installing NVIDIA System Tools software.
# Includes several 3D application performance improvements. The following are examples of improvements measured with v178.13 WHQL versus v175.19 WHQL driver:

        * Single GPU increases up to 11% in 3DMark Vantage (performance preset)
        * Single GPU increases up to 11% in Assassin's Creed DX10
        * Single GPU increases up to 15% in Bioshock DX10
        * Single GPU increases up to 15% in Call of Duty 4
        * Single GPU increases up to 8% in Enemy Territory: Quake Wars
        * 2-way SLI increases up to 7% in Bioshock DX10
        * 2-way SLI increases up to 10% in Company of Heroes: Opposing Fronts DX10
        * 2-way SLI increases up to 12% in Enemy Territory: Quake Wars
        * 2-way SLI increases up to 10% in World in Conflict DX10

# Includes numerous 3D application compatibility fixes. Please read the release notes for more information on product support, features, driver fixes and known compatibility issues.