Buyers Guide, Part III: All Graphics Cards!

[pschmid]

Welcome to the third and final installment of our Spring 2006 Graphics Card Buyer's Guide. In this part, we cover the remaining models from Asus, GeCube, MSI, Powercolor and Sapphire. Read on for a comparison of software bundles, heat generation, power consumption, 3D performance, and, of course, overclocking potential.

 

[Multiplectic]

Is this a joke? Only 2 NVidia cards and 18 ATI cards? Is this a real, truly unbiased, comparison? 8O
Yeah yeah, NVidia is there in the conclusions, but, it almost doesn't exist in the whole analysis! :?

 

[sojrner]

agreed, seems strange that the cards analyzed are ati heavy but the tests show many Nv cards. Plus, while it was ati heavy there were notable omissions, like the 1900xt. (yes, i have it but i only mention it in the interest of completeness)

So: why no Nv cards reviewed but only "tested"? why not all cards from both camps? (instead of 3 w/ the same gpu...) seems hokey to me. (of course I may have missed something)

 

[gorbag]

:idea: It would be useful if some indication of Mac compatibility were mentioned in the charts.

 

[nigelf]

:idea: It would be useful if some indication of Mac compatibility were mentioned in the charts.

yeah, or how useful it is to eat ice cream with or if it can be used as a chainsaw, or ...

You see my point, who cares about mac. You buy them becaues you are about as tech literate as a bug. Drivers are not that difficult to install. And that whole no anti-virus is needed is just a myth

Yes I see flaming coming, but what is a Mac-user doing on a tech-forum

 

[dhlucke]

I've already suggested it, but why is there no Oblivion and why is this in the memory section?

 

[caamsa]

Better than the first two charts but still lacking. Why do they bother testing all of the same cards but from different companies? Who cares if one card gets .5 more fps than another card becasue its over clocked. Now if one card stood out and owned the others that is important! 5 of the same card that are all basically pretty much the same is boring. Toms please go back to your old format of testing cards. Get one card of each type and benchmark them. Everyone knows if a card is overclocked it will perform better so IMO I would leave that out. Just give us a nice overview of all the cards out there. Thanks!

 

[bum_jcrules]

There are more Nvidia based cards in the German version of the articles. Apparently many of the Nvidia based cards are not available in North America so when this article was translated into English they did not carry the cards over that were not available here.

 

[bum_jcrules]

There are more Nvidia based cards in the German version of the articles. Apparently many of the Nvidia based cards are not available in North America so when this article was translated into English they did not carry the cards over that were not available here.

 

[Denisimo]

There are more Nvidia based cards in the German version of the articles. Apparently many of the Nvidia based cards are not available in North America so when this article was translated into English they did not carry the cards over that were not available here.

US has every Nvidia card available for sale, on the web and at most local retail stores, and it did so for a very long time.


How did 1900xtx lose to 7800GS AGP or to X1300 ??

And then you have a 7900GTX OC that lost to 7900GTX none OC??

Then you have 7800GT that beats a 1900XTX and 7900GT PCX ??

That some terrible testing right there!

 

[silentcoercion]

Um, is the first 3dMark06 graph very, very wrong? Because it's got an x1300 getting a 2813 and an OC'd X1900xtx with 512mb of memory getting a 374.

It'd be nice to see the correct version...

 

[TheGodfather]

i think they were drunk when they were testing those cards

Very bad benchmarks

 

[caamsa]

I hate to sound like a broken record but what the hell is going on with those charts! They need to follow the KISS program. Keep it simple stupid. Take some video cards from the latest generation and benchmark them. Show us the results. Simple ;-) No need for all theses cards from different vendors or overclocked. We can figue that out ourselves. I just want a good baseline result of what the cards can do. Look at Toms older video card charts. Simple complete and easy to decipher.

 

[oldgreyhead]

Maybe theres a part 4 coming with the nvidia 7900s.

Come on THG give the people what they want.

A full VGA review.

 

[winter72]

This is a bit better than part 2 as it includes a few more nvidia cards but what about the
high end BFG and eVGA cards ?

Are the 3Dmark benchmarks accurate ? they seem to be backwards...

 

[Coops07]

yea what the heck is goin on.... gainward 7800 pwned x1900xtx lol

 

[mat347]

I've been reading Tom's for a long time, these charts have got to be the worst I've seen. I read the title "All Graphics Cards!" and think "sweet, I can finally see how the 7900s and 1900s compare."
I agree that we do not need tests of the same GPU from different manufactures. We realize that their clocks differ from brand to brand, but for the most part they will perform equally at equal clocks.
I, however, do like the OC results. I overclock pretty heavily and enjoy knowing how the parts will overclock on stock voltage. Letting the software find the max clocks works OK, but more can be found by manually clocking, ATItool works well for both Nvida and ATI cards for finding max clocks/temps manually(takes FOREVER on auto mode).

Can we please get some Nvidia cards on the next "All Graphics Cards!"?

 

[Multiplectic]

This review is pure sh!t....

 

[Denisimo]

This review is pure sh!t....

Agreed! It should be renamed to; "How to shoot your self in the foot with another flop".

 

[bungee]

Owners of brawnier AMD systems are likely to get another 10 to 20 percent more performance out of this AGP card.

This is a very light affirmation. The point of benchmarking is to uncover the real numbers, not speculate later!

AGP Graphics Cards
CPU Intel 3,06 GHz
FSB 133MHz
Motherboard Asus P4P800 Deluxe
Chipset Intel 865, driver 7.2.2.1006
Memory 2 x 512MB, DDR 266 MHz, Dual Channel
Audio Creative SB Live

It's a shame that the system used for AGP is so much crappier than the one used for PCI-Express! Isn't it a basic principle in benchmarking to control as much variable as possible to make the comparison possible between the AGP card and the PCIe one? I'm interrested in buying this exact eVGA card and this review doesn't give me a clear picture of if it is more cost effective to get a PCIe board or keep mine with a 7800GS.

I expected more from Tom's. We want Tom back in the Labs!

 

[dogthinker]

I'm also quite confused as to why in the conclusions they say that the 7900gt would benefit from 512mb, but none are available yet.

Well I guess the 512mb 7900gt in my PC is just imaginary then.

...

They've been available for several weeks!

 

[azrealhk]

Yep the 7900 are roilling out everywhere.

Pity they should have been included.

The title is so misleading "Buyers guide", and "ALL graphics cards"

I was following this article, but now I am disappointed.

 

[jamjam]

I've been reading Tom's for 10 years, and this is the worst article ever. It's lopsided (the title should have ATI in it really), packed with incorrect and irrelevant information, and far too long.

I felt so strongly about it, I created a forum login just to complain

 

[breethon]

Yeah.....toms is getting a thumbs down for me too. Too often lately, I have clicked my bookmark to this site and found little to nothing of interest, and moved on to the next site. I am about ready to remove my bookmark. This site is definitely low on my go to for information.

 

[OmegaRED]

I'm also disappointed that Nvidia was not included...might as well call this ATI VGA CHARTS. Please do a 4th part.

Unlike the rest here, I liked seeing 3rd party cards as some use different memory and come with different overclocks it is nice to see the exact card you are interested in included in the testing.