Best Graphics Cards For The Money: April '09

xblues

Table of contents                                       

•                                                                                                                                 1 –                                                                                                                                         March Review/April Updates                                                               
•                                                                                                                                 2 –                                                                 Best PCIe Card: $60 To $100
•                                                                                                                                 3 –                                                                 Best PCIe Card: $120 To $200
•                                                                                                                                 4 –                                                                 Best PCIe Card: $200 To $390

•                                                                                                                                 5 –                                                                 Best PCIe Card: $400 And Up
•                                                                                                                                 6 –                                                                 Conclusion
•                                                                 7 –                                                                 More on this topic

                               
                                                                                                                                                                                Detailedgraphics card specifications and reviews are great—that is, if you havethe time to do the research. But at the end of the day, what a gamerneeds is the best graphics card within a certain budget.
So if you don’t have the time to research the benchmarks or if youdon’t feel confident enough in your ability to pick the right card,fear not. We at Tom’s Hardware have come to your aid with a simple listof the best gaming cards offered for the money.
March Review and April Updates:It's no secret that the brand new GeForce GTX 275 and Radeon HD 4890have been released since our last update. Those two cards have been thebiggest graphics card news we've had in a while. So, let's go overthese new products and consider where they stand from aprice-performance perspective.
We'll begin by talking about the card that was reviewed here first:the Radeon HD 4890. While the RV790 graphics processor is a re-spunversion of the RV770 found in the older Radeon HD 4870 and Radeon HD4850, it isn't equipped with any new features and is manufactured usingthe same 55 nm process. Essentially, the new RV790 is an RV770 tweakedto maximize overclocking potential. And maximize overclocking potentialit does, with a 1 GHz overclock setting considered viable enough thatit's included in AMD's own Overdrive overclock utility and in thedriver.
As great as this sounds, the real-life performance benefits of anoverclock are usually limited by the architecture in the first place.As impressive as the Radeon HD 4890 is with its 100 MHz core and 75 MHzmemory overclock versus the older Radeon HD 4870, we're looking at areal-world 10% speed increase over the cheaper Radeon HD 4870. From avalue standpoint, this speed increase isn't worth the ~$70 pricepremium over a single Radeon HD 4870 or GeForce GTX 260. In fact, thenew Radeon HD 4890 is priced about $10 away from the performance/valueleading Radeon HD 4850 X2, which sports CrossFire on a single card.
With that assessment in mind, let's have a look at Nvidia's answerto the Radeon HD 4890: the brand new GeForce GTX 275, which has a lotmore to offer than just a simple overclock. The new GeForce GTX 275 GPUis the same 55 nm processor that can be found in Nvidia's flagshipGeForce GTX 295 card, the important difference being that the GTX 295sports two of these GT200 graphics processors in an SLI-on-a-cardconfiguration, while the GeForce GTX 275 is equipped with just one.
Since the GeForce GTX 275 specifications are a mix between theGeForce GTX 285 (240 shader processors) and the GeForce GTX 260 (28ROPs and a 448-bit memory bus), its performance lies somewhere betweenthese two products. Lower-resolution performance tends to be close tothat of the GTX 285 and higher resolutions cause the performance todrop down in the direction of the GeForce GTX 260.
However, the end result is that the new GeForce GTX 275 performsvery close to the new Radeon HD 4890. This is all well and good, exceptthat we once again have to compare it to the similarly-priced Radeon HD4850 X2, against which neither of these new cards stand a chance.
The bottom line is that for these new cards to be priced accordingto the value of their relative performance, they would have to retailfor about $210. As long as they remain within spitting distance of theRadeon HD 4850 X2, they're going to be an extremely hard sell from avalue standpoint.
Other than these new products, the graphics card market has remainedsomewhat stable with a few prices slightly shifting up or down. Let'smove on to our recommendations.
Some Notes About Our RecommendationsA few simple guidelines to keep in mind when reading this list:

• This list is for gamers who want to get the most for theirmoney. If you don’t play games, then the cards on this list are moreexpensive than what you really need;
• Prices and availabilitychange on a daily basis. We can’t offer up-to-the-minute accuratepricing info, but we can list some good cards that you probably won’tregret buying at the price ranges we suggest;
• The list isbased on some of the best U.S. prices from online retailers. In othercountries or at retail stores, your mileage will most certainly vary;
• These are new card prices. No used or open-box cards are in thelist—they might be a good deal, but it’s outside the scope of whatwe’re trying to do.
• You'll notice the Newegg themes are similarto what you see in our System Builder Marathons. Before this story wentlive, we hunted down the best prices on these recommendations. Thatdoesn't mean prices won't change later, but you should at least get agood idea of the low prices for most of our suggestions.

                       
                                                                                                       

•                                                
  •                                                                                                                                                                                         1 |
  •                                                                                                                                                                                         2 |
  •                                                                                                                                                                                         3 |
  •                                                                                                                                                                                         4 |
  •                                                                                                                                                                                         5 |
  •                                                                 7

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/radeon-geforce-gtx,2270.html


fgfg