What card is better?

[mammothmoth]

I was browsing through graphics cards and I saw a few that really caught my eye but I am clueless on whats the better card for the price? The ones I have in mind are:

BFG GeForce GTX 280 OCX 1gb

EVGA GeForce GTX 280 Superclocked 1gb

Asus GeForce GTX 280 TOP 1gb

They all look and have mainly the same specs but I just can't choose. I would like to keep my limit of around 500 hundred dollars.

If you know a card that is better than the above and cost less money please tell me it.

Thank you in advanced,
Bryce

 

[dokk2]

first of all check out the reviews on the web,after that consider which offers you the best warranty/swap package,because as far as performance goes they are all about the same,but,you knew that already?? ,or you would not be asking,anyhow from what little that i have read on the subject there is no real performance gain with 1g of video ram at the moment,at least i have not seen many reviews that really encourage you to spend more for nothing or very little gain,512 vid ram with a good cpu and either 2 or 4g[or more] of main ram seems to be mainstream at the moment..

 

[bobbknight]

EVGA or XFX for the life warranty.

 

[rangers]

if you want the fastest card on the market just now it has to be the 4870x2
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814131116
$529.99 with free shipping. the 280 is a fast card but the cards from ati have so much more going for them just now, dx10.1, better at AA, faster than anything nvidia has on the market

 

[blackhawk1928]

I am NOT sure but I think the superclocked versions are factory overclocked quite a bit which might increase performance.

 

[aevm]

BFG can be trusted too. My BFG 8800GTX worked just fine for a long time, and it's still OK.

That being said, I agree with rangers.

 

[aevm]

I am NOT sure but I think the superclocked versions are factory overclocked quite a bit which might increase performance.

That's correct. They bin the cards in the factory and sell the best ones already overclocked and at higher prices. Some times they also add improved coolers.

 

[fshaharyar]

Which CPU and Motherboard do you actualy have b'coz slow cpu may not benefit with the fastest graphic and there won't be much CPU scaling
ATI graphic card are much better than Nvidia with CPU scaling
ATI CPU Scaling
http://www.legionhardware.com/document.php?id=770
Nvidia CPU Scaling
http://www.legionhardware.com/document.php?id=775

 

[L1qu1d]

The fastest configuration available right now is tri 280s.

The fastest for the money is 4870 X2, and its less of a power hungry system. While it has better AA than Nvidia cards in general, X2 cards in general have terrible min frame rate...I had the GX2...good AVG but the drop in frame killed the experience. The same with my 4870 X2. Its a monster but its min frame rate is sometimes lower than 1 280 GTX.

Although I do agree with ranger in the end, @ the price the 4870 X2 is going for the X2 is both the fastest and smartest way of going if your you haven't decided on going sli (but going with CrossX) or if you just want to stick with 1 card.

You have to realize that choose a dual GPU card comes with it's highs and it's lows, more than a single GPU card, especially during quad fire, which is one of the hardest sli/CrossX configuration to optimize.

The more GPus their are, the more potential for power but at the same time the problems come with it.

But for a single card choice, go for the X2