the 9800gx2 and the 260gtx doesnt not have directx 10.1

take out the not heh sorry

surely would have love buying these cards now... i spent $250 on my HD3870 with Zerotherm cooler..huhuhu

late 2007

Nice article but don't you guys read the comments?1?

A lot of us don't have XFire or SLI motherboards!

@ JeanLuc: Yeah they do.. they mentioned at the end people with nvidia muthaboards or single pcie slot mobos would have to rely on some of the more expensive cards like the 4870 x2 or something like if they want to play at really high resolutions..

Might be worth adding a comment along the lines that in the heirachy chart each tier is about a 20%(guess?) imporvement on the one below...

as of right now no 9800 gt card supports tri-sli. maybe when the refab the card to the new 55nm core they will add tri-sli. but for right now its just a rebadged 8800 gt.

By the way they sounded, 9800gx2 performed around the same as 4870/gtx260, when in fact it outperforms them both by a huge amount across the board and outperforms gtx280 majority of the time. All games within the last 3 years scale with dual gpu, earlier ones get hundreds of fps it doesn't matter anyway.

OK, why did they not recommend the 4870x2 for over $350? It obliterates everything and crushes high resolutions. Not only that, in many games you get up to 4xAA without any performance hits. I guess this is just one of those things that we will never know...

well they never recommend multiple cards, just cards with GPU's on whihc do not require a SLi/Xf board

Again, they give 3 cards for the AGP bus... but leave out single card solutions for those of us that don't care for SLI/Xfire.

I'd gladly play a premium for the 4870x2 (and you do) in order to keep another bus open for a 4x or higher RAID card.

They mention the 4870x2 and SLI setups (in fact they recommend the 4850 Xfire as best for $340.

Concerning not reccomending any cards for over $350. For an enthusiast site to say something like this just baffles me. Sure you have some diminishing returns but in anything that you get the best at you do pay a premium. An extra $200 to have the best card which I suppose would be a 470X2 is not that bad considering the price tag of the best cards not too long ago. People into high end audio will pay many times the price for something that only sounds 10% better. Having the best has always comanded a premium.

No we didn't. Please read the whole article before blasting it, guys.
Page 4:

"On a final note, users with an Nvidia chipset or a single PCIe slot should remember that they are not able to purchase two Radeon 4850’s in CrossFire, as their motherboards will not accept them. In this case, options like two GeForce 9800 GTX+ cards, the GeForce GTX 280, and the Radeon 4870 X2 are more attractive options. While these solutions are powerful and might be ideal for a few users who are playing at resolutions higher than 1920x1200, the price performance ratio is not attractive enough for us to include them on our recommended list."

Thanks. Fixed!

This is a great guide, but it basically only considers two measures of a card's desirability: price and performance. The key information missing is power consumption. Well, or how hot it gets, or noise level; they are all related.

It would be great if future editions of "Best Video Cards For The Money" would mention it somewhere in the specs of each card. An even better (for me) option would be an occasional "Best Video Cards For The Power" guide, but I understand that would probably not be of general interest.

Hi Alvarobegue,

Interesting suggestion, but the 'best cards for the money' article is all about two factors: price, and performance. I'm afraid that adding a third would dilute that focus.

Having said that, I'll suggest a review focusing on the power consumption of current cards to the graphics review team. It's a good idea.

[citation][nom]GTO127[/nom]For an enthusiast site to say something like this just baffles me.citation]

And thats why I no longer consider Tom's an enthusiast site. They're more of a "mainstream budget oriented" hardware site.

Take a look at the "best gpu" articles from 2007 and older. There was always a $400+ card, a $500+ card, and sometimes even a $600+ level card (GTX ULTRA!). Now this price range doesn't even get it's own header!

Just because I'm an enthusiast doesn't mean I have to advocate overpriced hardware.

I would argue a true hardware enthusiast would avoid the most expensive stuff, choosing instead the best price/performance hardware available... and then overclocking the shiznit out of it.