The Short List: the Best Gaming Videocards for the money

[cleeve]

No further changes to this post will be made and it is well out of date.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.

50% of the people who visit this forum want to know what the best card for the money is. Well, this thread is for those people, and is updated whenever a card can be commonly found in the price segment that takes the crown from the previously posted card.
Note the two sections: one for PCI-Express, and the second for the AGP bus:

Note that since this is now a monthly article on Tom's, I'm simply listing the recommended cards here - you can read the detailed explanation on the live article here:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/Best-Graphics-Card,2011.html



BEST GAMING VIDEOCARDS FOR THE MONEY:
PCI-E video cards, September, 2008

BEST PCI-E CARD FOR ~$60:
Radeon 2600 XT

BEST PCI-E CARD FOR ~$120:
GeForce 8800 GT

BEST PCI-E CARD FOR ~$170:
Radeon 4850

BEST PCI-E CARD FOR ~$3000: 3 WAY TIE
Radeon 4870
Geforce 260
Geforce 9800 GX2

BEST PCI-E CARD FOR ~$340:
Two Radeon 4850 in Crossfire


BEST GAMING VIDEOCARDS FOR THE MONEY:
AGP video cards, September 2008

BEST AGP CARD FOR ~$80:
Radeon 3850

BEST AGP CARD FOR ~$100:
Radeon 2600 XT

BEST AGP CARD FOR ~$135:
Radeon 3850



WHAT ABOUT THIS OTHER CARD THAT'S NOT ON THE LIST? HOW DO I KNOW IF IT'S A GOOD DEAL?
This will happen! It's guaranteed to happen, actually, as stock changes fast. Prices change fast too. So how do you know if that card you've got your eye on is a good buy in the price range?

You can use this heiarchy to compare pricing between two cards to see which is a better deal. You can also see if an upgrade is worthwhile. I personally don't recommend upgrading unless the card you plan to upgrade to is at least three tiers higher on the chart. If it's less than three tiers higher than your current card, the upgrade is somewhat parralel and you probably won't notice a worthwhile difference in performance.

VIDEOCARD HEIARCHY CHART:
http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/12/03/best_graphics_card/page6.html


SUMMARY
So there you have it folks, these are the best cards for the money this month. Now all that's left is finding them in retail, and that part is up to you. They will almost certainly be cheapest online, but sometimes large retail outlets might surprise you with a good sale.
Don't worry too much about which brand you choose because all of the cards out there stick pretty close to Nvidia and Ati's reference. Just pay attention to price, warranty, and the manufacturer's reputation for honoring that warranty if something goes wrong.
Remember also that the stores don't follow this list, we follow them! Things will change over the month and you'll probably have to adapt your buying strategy to changing prices. Good luck!

 

[TheGreatGrapeApe]

Well, I propose we make this thread a sticky and modify it as things change.

I second that, if required....

 

[Jake_Barnes]

If there is enough positive replies (agreement), then we can make it a sticky ... let's see how it plays 1st ... :?

 

[RichPLS]

Lowest cost to purchase top end cards Dec 23, 2005.
The 7800GTX 256MB version costs $460 and is widely available.
The 7800GTX 512MB version costs $750 and is hard to find.
The X1800XT 512MB version costs $500 and is widely available.
The X1800XT's performance falls in between the 7800GTX and the expensive 7800GTX 512MB version.

That $40 difference gets you better performance, quality and AVIVO features. Definitely the videophile's top card of choice, IMO.

 

[Zanko]

Just a suggestion. You make a list of overall best buys and then separate lists for different chip manufacturers? Just my opinion but I personally do not like ATI, the reason does not matter in this topic BUT not everyone might be willing to switch from their favorite brand to another, also you should specify card manufacture, such as MSI or PNY ect., even if the chip is the same, the card and drivers can change everything. Just a suggestion if this really is to become a sticky and stay around and to be updated regularly.

 

[PartyChief]

Just a suggestion. You make a list of overall best buys and then separate lists for different chip manufacturers? Just my opinion but I personally do not like ATI, the reason does not matter in this topic BUT not everyone might be willing to switch from their favorite brand to another, also you should specify card manufacture, such as MSI or PNY ect., even if the chip is the same, the card and drivers can change everything. Just a suggestion if this really is to become a sticky and stay around and to be updated regularly.

Agree, evga make a bunch of 7800 gt

 

[cleeve]

I refuse to dilute's the purpose of the list because of brand preference, Zanko.

The best card for x dollars is the best card for x dollars, plain and simple.

If two cards in the same segment are equals that's one thing, they'll both get mentioned; but if a competing GPU isn't as good I'm not going to give it a recommendation because of brand flag wavers. If someone's a brand fenatic and want's a card that doesn't perform as well for their money, they can do their own research. I'm not here to placate fanboys.

Drivers are irrelevant, manufactrers sometimes rebrand drivers as their own but they are still the reference drivers. I have never seen a company's branded drivers make a notable difference, not to say that's never happened in the past but it is certainly a rare exception and not the rule.

As far as manufacturers, I think that's out of the scope of this thread. Besides, I wouldn't recommend someone get a BFG fx 5900 over a Powercolor X800 XT. Brand should be a final and separate decision after you've decided on your GPU, not a mitigating factor.

But as I said, if you have a personal brand/manufacturer preference or a link to a deal, feel free to offer it in this thread.

 

[cleeve]

You know rich, the impression I've gotten from the benches I've seen is that the X1800 XT isn't all that much above the 7800 GT in alot of titles.

But having said that, I can reconsider them a tie unless popular opinion says otherwise. I'll editorialize appropriately.

 

[RichPLS]

ATI's AVIVO, driver 5.13 and upwards.
The ATI R520 based cards can encode movies five times faster than FX57.
also, ATI's new driver takes advantage of dual-core processors, offering up to a 5% advantage over the single core equivalant processors. As more games are coded to take advantage of this, this advantage should increase.

Some AVIVO 5.13 notes from ATI's website:
H.264 Hardware Acceleration
Catalyst® 5.13 software suite introduces H.264 hardware acceleration for the ATI Radeon® X1800, X1600, and X1300 product line. H.264 is advanced video coding that provides significant reduction in bit-rate compared to standards such as MPEG-2 and MPEG-4. The ATI Radeon® X1800, X1600, and X1300 products provide hardware acceleration for the playback of high-definition content that is encoded using H.264. Using the Catalyst® software suite 5.13, along with the Cyberlink H.264 decoder available free from http://www.ati.com/technology/h264.html provides H.264 hardware acceleration.

 

[HardWareBoss]

Make it a sticky.

 

[Mayiko]

Good thread. Definitly Sticky!!!!

 

[Finny]

Sticky deffinetly!

 

[bigjohn]

This chart is straight from the last chart roundup on THG.

http://graphics.tomshardware.com/2005/12/02/vga_charts_viii/page21.htm[/img]

 

[Admiral_Cecil]

Hello,

I would recommend the PowerColor X800XL. They are getting kind of rare. However they are faster than the X800GT/GTO and even some of Nvidia's 6600/6800 cards. Has all 16 pipes. DX9.0c/ GL 2.0. Fan is very silent. Good OC. Newegg has it for under $199.

Now if you want to spend a little more. Then x1800xt or 7800gt would be good as well.

 

[MAgrippa]

Great thread.. Make it sticky!!!

 

[lakedude]

50% of the people who visit this forum want to know what the best card for the money is...................

and


............Honorable mention in this segment is the Radeon X800 GTO2, a 12-pipeline card that is basically guaranteed to become a full fledged 16-pipeline X850 XT with a simple BIOS flash.

Nice post over all but I don't care for the wording of these two statements.

You can't realy know at any givin instant what percentage of people come here for a givin reason. Please consider using the word "Many" in place of 50%.

There is no guarantee that a bios update is going to make a x800 as good as a x850. If there was a guarantee you could RMA the card if the extra pipes didn't come on. There may be a very good chance that a x800 upgraded to basically be a x850 but there is no guarantee. Sorry to be nit picky but if you are going for a sticky the post might as well be as perfect as possible. Please consider using "has a very good chance" in place of "basically guaranteed".

 

[RichPLS]

Cleeve, to make it a sticky, you have to PM steve_sa , the forum tech to do this for you.

Also, might clean it up and edit first post or just create a new ammended version and repost and PM Steve at same time.

 

[RichPLS]

No this is not my review.
I am installing my system this weekend.

But I just found this and thought it could be of info to someone considering the X1800, looks like the X1800's are matureing.

Review

While the Radeon X1800 XT got off to a lackluster start at launch, the situation has improved dramatically in ATI’s favor in more recent months. As you just saw in our performance benchmarks, the Radeon X1800 XT 512MB has not only pulled even with the GeForce 7800 GTX 256MB in OpenGL benchmarks, it actually outperforms NVIDIA’s 7800 GTX – in some cases by some pretty surprising margins! OpenGL performance has been a thorn in ATI’s side for quite some time now, so this is huge news for ATI.

 

[chubbza5]

You know rich, the impression I've gotten from the benches I've seen is that the X800 XT isn't all that much above the 7800 GT in alot of titles.

But having said that, I can reconsider them a tie unless popular opinion says otherwise. I'll editorialize appropriately.

Actually, the 7800GT beats the X800XT in almost everything.



Sticky it!!!

 

[RichPLS]

Actually, the 7800GT beats the X800XT in almost everything.

Really, read review 2 posts up that I linked.

Try Quake 4

Or what about FEAR!

 

[RichPLS]

Or Call of Duty

Or HalfLife 2

 

[lakedude]

Some of you are getting you x800's mixed up with x1800's. Let's all get on the same page before we start arguing about something we already agree on.

 

[lakedude]

BEST PCI-E CARD FOR +$500: NOT AVAILABLE
Geforce 7800 GTX 512mb
Codename: G70, 11 micron technology
24 pipeline
256-bit memory bus
55 Mhz core, 850 Mhz Memory

Just me being nit picky again. I can't wait to get one of these new cards when they come out. That 55Mhz bus is going to be awesome!

 

[cleeve]

Thanks Admiral... forgot the X800 XL was still available. The list has been changed accordingly.

 

[cleeve]

You can't realy know at any givin instant what percentage of people come here for a given reason. Please consider using the word "Many" in place of 50%.

There is no guarantee that a bios update is going to make a x800 as good as a x850... Please consider using "has a very good chance" in place of "basically guaranteed".

Hi Lakedude,

I appreciate your concerns however my comments are editorial in nature and I'll stand by them as listed.

The first comment was an impression I've gotten from being here as long as I have.

As far as "basically guaranteed", you're asking me to change something without offering up any proof to the contrary. If you can show me sufficient evidence that there are X800 GTO2's out there that will not flash, please provide a link.
But since the BIOS flash is a selling point for Sapphire, I would imagine they are testing the 16 pipes at the factory to ensure a good name for the product. Like I said though, prove that otherwise and I'll modify accordingly.