Tom's VGA charts

It'd be nice to see HD3870 Crossfire results in the Multi VGA section.

the charts scale fine for that -- any gpu below $250 forget it!

I gave up using the charts ages ago they are to full of inconsistencies and unparallel comparisons, if you don't have half an idea to begin with they will give you a very skewed view of what certain cards are capable of.
Mactronix

I agree completely.

VGA chartz, like any quick view, is for the Noobz only.

No in-depth information, and impossible to keep current without massive expenditure of resources.

There needs to be an improvement. IMHO, Quake 4 and Serious Sam should not be in the mix. I'd like to see the games they review new cards with, like Crysis and World at War. I also think they need separate DX9c and a DX10 sections.

I do think that Oblivion needs to be in the mix because many of us do not play FPS, but we do play CRPGs. Right now, no DX10 single player CRPG is out and about. I wonder if they should include the DX10 patched LOTR online? I once saw a really useful article on CPU's and GPU's for WoW a few years ago. Something similar should be done with one of the more demanding MMORPG's.

You can see Oblivion with low textures, but it's not worth it. I once played Oblivion for giggles on the integrated x1250 4 pixel pipeline graphics just to see how it played. Not worth it at all. Then I put in the X1650 Pro and it was high settings. Same for the 7600gs, can't wait to play it with the mutant 3850/70 that Gigabyte has out:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

That I'm ordering February 1st to hold me over till Hannuka and Christmas 2008 when I'll go R700.



It's not for Noobz only. It's the first step. Once seeing how to cards perform in a game you like, then you can do in depth research by finding reviews. You could go the other way and just follow every review out there, but a one stop look at performance for GPU's or CPU's isn't a bad idea.

Now, Noobz (as you put it) relying solely upon Tom's charts is like someone relying upon Wikipedia as their sole source of information.

This is the main thing TGGA has hit the nail on the head, you just cant expect it to be up to date the amount of man hours it would take never mind resources is huge, This thread comes around every now and then i joined in with it last time around and some of us made suggestions as to how to go about improving the charts but it all fell on deaf ears at Toms Towers, not even any feed back so while i understand there will be people out there who just feel like venting their spleen over the short comings of the charts just don't expect to get anywhere with it.
Mactronix

I'm not a "noob"..... man, I hate that word...lol.

I do come here to look at these charts, often, for various reasons. As well as many, many other sites. I try and keep up with hardware as much a possible.

The reason I bought the above up is because it ( Tom's ) puts quite a bit of info in one spot at the click of a mouse without having to scour the net trying to find "old" posts on other sites. It's nearly impossible to find what you are looking for.... prematurely senile....and remembering where you saw it But I would like to see it more rounded and have some of the "gaps' filled in. ... but understand the difficulties involved.  

Glad to see some really good responses and no outlandish behavior........ thanks for that.  

Swifty i would sugest you take some time going over the Best Graphics card for the month reviews they add some info that isnt in the charts and usually pick up on any points that are relevant, I have found them helpfull for cross refrencing with in the past. Toms has an archive of these but i dont know how far back they go.
Mactronix

In my day, when I walked uphill to the computer lab in 3 feet of snow to play Advent (when I should have been working on my BASIC programs -- which is why I'm a Computer Operator, not a programmer LOL)., we said "newbie" instead of noob. I hated it then.

Now, I realize that we're all newbies at something and experts at something else. I might have Peter Principled myself into a boring but decent low level tech job, but I still have time to build PC's and play games at home.

My real expertise fits in with my hobbies of Japanese folklore, British Isles and Scandinavian folklore and English religious and social history. I have part of a Master's, but never liked academia all that much. I just like reading voraciously when not playing CRPGs and RTS, or watching anime (especially historical and folklore influenced fantasy).

I've often wanted to design a CRPG based on the Thomas Rhymer ballads, with a bit of the Elfin Knicht thrown in for good measure. What I'd like to see is a CRPG set in the Scottish borderlands that makes use of fairy lore and represents medieval Christianity in a positive light as well. I recommend the Child ballad collection to anyone interested in the origins of fantasy literature:
http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/eng/child/index.htm

AD&D has almost ruined dark Faerie as far as novels and computer games go. Japanese console RPGs utilized their folklore a bit more, but still not as much as they should. Not enough yokai and too many AD&D and magical technology monsters.

At any rate, back on topic. I would love to see more CRPG's in benchmarks. it was nice that Oblivion is in the mix, but I'd love to see a really graphically intensive DX10 CRPG arrive that would stress out present hardware as much as Oblivion did.

It's funny, but a hundred years in literature is not old, but ten years in games is ancient history. When will hardware reach a plateau where they can concentrate on storyline and world simulation instead of just upping the ante on eye candy?

Disagree or dislike what I say, that's fine, but really IMO a snapshot chart will never be a 'good' source of information. Since driver updates, game patches and the bazillion configuration changes invalidate any wide shot chart.

I prefer a chart like ARP's that has a list of specs, because to me it remains more accurate over time than anything any site has ever produced that involves performance charts, and it best serves a more general purpose without any confusion of it doing more than what it sets out to do.

For the number of cards, configurations and games that people suggest be used for composing the charts, by the time 3/4 of the testing were done to get a chart ready for production, new drivers etc would be out totally invalidating the results and requiring a retest (because hey, it's not current!). And that's even if they didn't run 3 runs per test to ensure statistical accuracy.

People looking for the best information read from many sources not just one and do their own sorting/filtering.

I stand by my view that the Chart is for for n00bs only, take offense or disagree if you will, but that's my op-onion, not yours. So you can just filter it out if you think it not valid, I won't take offence.  

I don't take offense and note that I said that reliance on Tom's VGA charts as the sole source of information about a card's worth is like someone relying solely upon Wikipedia. The charts present a quick overview that should be followed up by reading reviews.

I'm a newbie in many areas, but I've been building my own budget gaming rigs since 1992, with only a brief hiatus where I paid to have it done the year just before my cataract surgery. Even then, I chose the parts based on extensive reviews and not a single generic source.

Even too many reviews base a card's performance on popular FPS, whereas Tom's charts at least try to represent RTS and CRPG's, as well as applications. I, for one, am tired of a review at any site including just Quake 4, Serious Sam, Unreal Tournament, and I was tired of it years before when it was Quake 3, Max Payne, and Half Life 2.

When I first discovered the VGA charts, I think in mid-2006, I was enthralled - I had never seen anything that made comparing graphics cards so simple! I loved it, and it made life so much simpler, when I was looking to actually understand what my computer could do, and what would be good for upgrades!
BUT...
This last year or so (early-mid 2006 onwards) I noticed a decline in the charts' accuracy. Even just today I've checked the charts closely and found that they tested the newest ATi cards, like the HD3850, with Catalyst 7.1 drivers, which are now a year old(!). Just as disturbingly, the GeForce 8800 GT's ForceWare is declared to be the 97.92 drivers! (We're up to 169 now, aren't we?) And knowing how even the budget cards bounced forward somewhat in frames-per-second after the mid-year driver updates, this is quite disconcerting to the more experienced reviewer. And obviously, some people could be given the wrong impression of a card.

yipsl, I couldn't agree more. I prefer games like the old Railroad Tycoon III, NFS, AoE III and RPG's, and I'm now sure I'm not the only one. Having Oblivion on the charts is good, because it is a GPU killer AND an RPG, but no racers was a disappointment. And which one is the RTS? They had AoE III in 2005, but that's no good now if you want to see if you could get good frames with, say, an 8500 GT. And if we're benchmarking games, why not put on a few of the really popular ones like WoW, simply because so many people use it - it gives the casual gamer a proper idea of their card's performance. Heck, many people I speak to have never heard of the likes of Oblivion or Warhammer where I live, let alone have a PC to cope with them at high resolution; by contrast, pretty much everyone knows about WoW, or Need For Speed, etc., and I will say that any FPS fan knows of Call of Duty.
These charts we're great when I first started looking around, and they're still wonderfully simple to use and understand; they just seem to be on life-support to me, which is really sad! I will say that this chart has taught me one extra thing though, being in the condition it's in - it's made me look at multiple review sites.
Apologies for the length of my rant... I get carried away sometimes. because I'm passionate about my computers... And I'm always going to be waiting for the full update to the charts, like the ones I noticed the first time I viewed the site... *drifts in to blissful memory*

True, and that's what I do, Mactronix. But why should we have to do the extra legwork (all right, fingerwork)? THG used to update the charts at least every half-year to match the Card-of-the-Month details. Okay, maybe I'm just being lazy...  
(By the way, Mactronix, been reading the forums for a while, you're a good teacher; learned a lot from your posts)
I'm optimistic though - maybe THG will update the charts soon - add Crysis for a GPU crusher, WoW for the casual gamer and some demanding racing game... We can always dream...
If you've read this far, well done. I'll shut up now.
yoshiyoshi

I think THG need to employ me with a good salary so i can keep the charts updated.

The thing is, they don't need to update every card on the charts with modern games...they just need to update gamers cards with the low end at say, the 8600gt/x2600xt and up from there.

It seems like 90% of the cards on the charts aren't even sold anymore...take them off or make an archive. And as I said above, don't waste time on 8500GT/2400 blah blah.

With all the advertising, as if they don't have enough $$$$ for a few dedicated benchmarking machines and pay some punk minimum wage to run the more gaming oriented cards through them part time with the proper drivers...it's not brain surgery.

I’m not a newbie and I use the charts as a reference not as the sole source. It’s helpful when someone say’s to me how does that compare to this I just show them the charts on THG.

This might be a stupid question, but I can't seem to find the specs of the system THG uses for the current video charts... does anyone know what they are or where I can find them?

Here's a chart. And they tell you system specs.
http://www.guru3d.com/index.php?page=vga_charts