Shop for All
|
DMX-WL1 BRAVIA Wireless Link -... |
Compare the top 5 lowest prices by hovering your mouse over the product names on the left |
$499.99 |
|
Radeon HD 4850 Video Card | $104.99 | |
| GeForce GTX 295 Red Edition Video... | $587.77 | ||
|
GeForce GTX 260 Video Card | $172.99 | |
|
Radeon HD 4890 Video Card | $319.99 |
- graphics card hierarchy
- ati mobility radeon® hd 3670 512mb
- hd 3200 review
- ati mobility radeon hd 3670 512mb
- hd 3300
- ati hd 3300
- graphics card hierarchy chart
- graphic card hierarchy
- ati hd 3200 review
- hd 5800
- nvidia 9400 gt review
- ati radeon hd 3300
- 512mb ati® radeon™ hd 3670 graphics card
- 9400 gt review
- 512mb ati® radeon™ hd 3670
Partners
The Games selection
violent :
Friday the 24th
Exterminate Santa Claus's elves. Use the arrows to move, S to grab the elves, and A or W to attack them with your sword.
|
violent :
Interactive Buddy
Unwind on your interactive buddy: Do anything you want to him, it will earn you money, and you can buy other stuff to torture him with.
|
Sponsored links
- Email |
- Print |
- Comments (95) |
- Share
What About This Other Card That’s Not On The List?
This will happen! In fact, it’s guaranteed to happen because both stock levels and prices change quickly. So how do you know if that card you’ve got your eye on is a good buy in its price range?
Here are two resources to help you judge if a card is a good buy. The first is the graphics card hierarchy chart, which groups graphics cards with similar overall performance into "tiers.” The top tier contains the highest performing cards available, and performance decreases as you go down the tiers from there.
You can use this hierarchy to compare the pricing between two cards, to see which one is a better deal and also to determine if an upgrade is worthwhile. I don’t recommend upgrading your graphics card unless the replacement card is at least three tiers higher. Otherwise, the upgrade is somewhat parallel and you may not notice a worthwhile difference in performance.
At the request of readers I have added mobile and integrated chipsets to the hierarchy chart. I want to make it clear that there is very little performance data available for these graphic solutions. While the discrete video chipsets on the chart are based on a lot of information, many of the laptop chipset positions on the chart are guesstimates based on their specifications. At worst, I don’t think they’re more than a tier away from their actual performance but this is something to keep in mind when considering mobile graphic chipsets.
| GeForce | Radeon |
|---|---|
| 4870 X2 | |
| GTX 280 | |
| 9800 GX2, GTX 260 | 4870 |
| 8800 GTX, 8800 Ultra, 9800 GTX, 9800 GTX+ | 3870 X2, 4850 |
| 8800 GT 512MB, 8800 GTS 512MB, 9800 GT | |
| 8800 GTS 640 MB, 9600 GT | HD 2900 XT, 3870 |
| 8800 GS, 9600 GSO | 3850 512MB, 4670 |
| 8800 GT 256MB, 8800 GTS 320MB, GO 8800M | HD 2900 PRO, 3850 256MB, 4650 |
| 7950 GX2 | X1950 XTX |
| 7800 GTX 512, 7900 GTO, 7900 GTX | X1900 XT, X1950 XT, X1900 XTX |
| 7800 GTX, 7900 GT, 7950 GT | X1800 XT, X1900 AIW, X1900 GT, X1950 PRO, HD 2900 GT |
| 7800 GT, 7900 GS, Go 7950 GTX, 8600 GTS, 9500 GT (GDDR3) | X1800 XL, X1950 GT, Mobility X1800 XT |
| 6800 Ultra, 7600 GT, 7800 GS, Go 7800 GTX, Go 7900 GTX, 8600 GT (GDDR3), 9500 GT (DDR2) | X800 XT (& PE), X850 XT (& PE), X1650 XT, X1800 GTO, Mobility X1900, HD 2600 XT, 3650 (DDR3), 3670 |
| 6800 GT, 6800 GS (PCIe), Go 7800, Go 7900 GS, 8600 GT (DDR2) | X800 XL, X800 GTO2/GTO16, Mobility X800 XT, HD 2600 PRO, Mobility HD 2600 XT, 3650 (DDR2) |
| 6800 GS (AGP), Go 6800 Ultra, Go 7600 GT, 8600M GT, 8700M GT | X800 GTO 256mb, X800 PRO, X850 PRO, X1650 GT, Mobility HD 2600 |
| 6800, Go 6800, 7300 GT GDDR3, 7600 GS, Go 7700, 8600M GS | X800, X800 GTO 128mb, X1600 XT, X1650 PRO, Mobility X1800 |
| 6600 GT, 6800LE, 6800 XT, 7300 GT (DDR2), Go 7600 (128-bit), 8500 GT, 9400 GT | 9800 XT, X700 PRO, X800 GT, X800 SE, Mobility X800, X1300 XT, X1600 PRO, HD 2400 XT, HD 3300 |
| FX 5900, FX 5900 Ultra, FX 5950 Ultra, 6600 (128-bit), Go 6800 (128-bit) | 9700, 9700 PRO, 9800, 9800 PRO, X700, X1300 PRO, Mobility X1450, X1550, Mobility X1600, Mobility X1700, HD 2400 PRO, Mobility HD 2400 XT, Mobility X2500, HD 3200 |
| FX 5800 Ultra, FX 5900 XT, Go 6600, Go 7600 (64-bit), Go 8600M GS | 9500 PRO, 9600 XT, Mobility 9800, 9800 PRO (128-bit), X600 XT, Mobility X700, X1050 (128-bit), Mobility X1350, Mobility X1400, Mobility X2300, Mobility HD 2400 |
| 4 Ti 4600, 4 Ti 4800, FX 5700 Ultra, 6200, 8400 GS | 9600 PRO, Mobility 9700 (128-bit), 9800 LE, X600 PRO, Mobility X600, Mobility X1300, Xpress 1250, Mobility HD 2300 |
| 4 Ti4200, 4 Ti4400, 4 Ti4800 SE, FX 5600 Ultra, FX 5700, 6600 (64-bit), 7300 GS, 8400M GS | 9500, 9550, 9600, Mobility 9600, X300, X1050 (64-bit) |
| 3 Ti500, FX 5200 Ultra, FX 5600, FX 5700 LE, Go 5700, 6200 TC, 6600 LE, 7200 GS, 7300 LE | 8500, 9100, 9000 PRO, 9600 LE, Mobility 9700 (64-bit), X300 SE, X1150 |
| 3, 3 Ti200, FX 5200 (128-bit), FX 5500, Go 5600, Go 6200, Go 6400, Go 7200, Go 7300, Go 7400 (64-bit) | 9000, 9200, 9250, Mobility 9600 (64-bit), Mobility X300 |
| FX 5200 (64 bit), 6100, 6150, Go 7200, Go 7400 (32-bit) | 9200 SE, Xpress 200M, Xpress 1000, Xpress 1150 |
| 2 GTS, 4 MX 440, 2 Ultra, 2 Ti, 2 Ti 200 | 7500 |
| 256, 2 MX 200, 4 MX 420, 2 MX 400 | SDR, LE, DDR, 7000, 7200 |
| Nvidia TNT | Ati Rage 128 |
Summary
There you have it folks: the best cards for the money this month. Now all that’s left is to find and purchase them, and we leave that part up to you. The best prices will almost certainly be found 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 the reference designs by Nvidia and AMD. Just pay attention to price, warranty, and the manufacturer’s reputation for honoring the warranty if something goes wrong.
- Best Graphics Cards For The Money: March '09 [Graphic & Displays]
- Best Graphics Card for a 380w Antec Earthwatts PSU [Graphic & Displays]
- Criticism of "Best Graphics Cards for the Money" articles [Graphic & Displays]
- Best Graphic Card for PCI-e x16 to watch blu-ray with hdmi [Graphic & Displays]
- Best Graphics Cards that run on a PCI-e 1.0 motherboard? [Graphic & Displays]
Questions? Ask Tom's community!
- 1 / 5
- Next
-
Sponsored links
Related forums topics
- Fastest Single Core CPU?
- AMD 939 upgrade options (warhammer!)
- Unexplainable high prices !!!
- Best configuration for 3d animation
- Upgrading? CPU, GFX or RAM?
- HOWTO: Overclock C2Q (Quads) and C2D (Duals) - Guide v1.6.1
- Phenom and Ati Card
- Questions about Q6600 & 9600GT.
- GUIDE: 3+GHz Core 2 Duo Budget System for $426 (Overclock)
- Watercooling Core i7 in Antec 1200 questions
- MEMORY FAQ (please read before posting)
- Gigabyte GA-MA78GM-S2H dead? or maybe not...
- [LGA 1366] Best Motherboard, $ unlimited ???
- Motherboards confusion


Nice, glad to see a Tom's article actually acknowledging the existance of the 4870X2. Biggest complaint, you put a $340 config in the $350 and up section...
Well if you recommend that we should check how the graphics card work in the games we want shouldn't you also recommend a site where the GPU charts aren't bias. For example Every other site except tom's. BTW people at tom's, how are thous new Computers from INTEL and NVIDA?
I like how you guys added relative resolution/performance estimates. It's good to see 1920x1200 wide screen LCD's starting to flirt with the $300 mark. Five years ago I paid what I did for my KDS 24 inch wide screen for a regular 19 inch LCD with only a resolution of 1280x1024. I'm not going to hold my breathe on resolutions greater then 1920x1200 though with the price mark around $1,200!
You guys may want to also consider wide-screen resolutions for performance estimates as well. Oddly enough I fired up Warcraft III and it doesn't have a 1920x1200 option though rather 1920x1440? Thanks for the article, it's one of my monthly joys to watch the prices fall. :-)
Would be nice if you guys included the 9600M GT and 9800M GTS in your hierarchy there, laptops have been shipping with them for the last few months.
I don't see how you cannot recommend a 4870x2 for folks serious about gaming, especially when $1800 easily gets you a "complete" gaming rig to your door with one of those in it. You may think it's overkill, but with all the newer and more demanding games coming out, you want a video card that can scream framerates and eye-candy, not bog down and force you to upgrade a year from now.
YES!!! GOOD ARTICLE! Thank you so much for including the 4870X2! Although it sounded like you are was being pulled, I am just glade that you guy put it in there.
the best GPUs for the buck are:
1-HD4870x2 > 280gtx in SLI in all the games.
2-HD4870 1 GIG version >280gtx in all the games at 2560.1600 RES.
3-HD4870 512 version>280gtx at 1680.1050 and 1920.1200.
4-HD4850 devastating power for 150$>9800GTX+ in what ever you want.
5-HD4670 >>>>>>>>>>>>>9600GSO for LOVE.
Minor nitpick: The table for the HD3870 incorrectly states that it's a 128 bit card :-/

For the record I just ordered a factory OCed GTX260 for $240, $199.99 after rebate! I think I'll actually send this rebate in just say I got a GTX260 for $199.99
Hehe !! love the 1-5! and I love my 4870!! DONT TOUCH MY PC now!! AHAHAHAHAHAH it will vaporize you!! Yes thats how powerful it is!!! dont F with me!! no I really love my card!! Yes I would marry it!!
Good article. Not much change from last month, as expected. I'm also glad to see 4850 CF is still a good choice, I plan on upgrading my rig eventually, just need to get that other 4850.
Yes, thank you for mentioning the 4870X2 Toms. I hope they continue to include the top ranking card in every "best card for the money" articles, because let's face it: if I have pleanty of money in my pocket, the best card for my money is the best one.
im probably gonna sound like an idiot but what was the conclusion for the best card?
what about the gtx 280 core 216? great article though
the best card 10boohee depends on your price range. i have 8800gt 512mb and i love it! crysis maxed out 1240x768!!!
[citation][nom]Duncan NZ[/nom}Biggest complaint, you put a $340 config in the $350 and up section...[/citation]
Not $350 and up... it's ~$350
"~" means "about"
You may think it's overkill, but with all the newer and more demanding games coming out, you want a video card that can scream framerates and eye-candyhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eye_candy , not bog down and force you to upgrade a year from now.
Well... IMHO, two 4850's aren't going to become obsolete notably faster than a 4870 X2.
But you guys wanted the recommendation, so there it is! Nobody can say I don't listen to the readers.
Good to see the 1gb 4870 in there...Just bought one lol. should have it tomorrow.
Biggest complaint, you put a $340 config in the $350 and up section...
Ah crap, I see what you mean. i'll fix it.
I am surprised you didn't take power consumption into consideration when rating these cards. The HD 4670 is a 60W card so it only needs a standard power supply and no external power connector - that is very appealing for a 75W and requires a non-standard power supply and external power connector - very unattractive at this price point.
I am surprised you didn't take power consumption into consideration when rating these cards.
The monthly list is about performance per dollar. I try to focus on that, I sometimes mention HD video playback or power consumption but those are really side issues when dealing with performance per dollar, IMHO.
The monthly list is about performance per dollar. I try to focus on that, I sometimes mention HD video playback or power consumption but those are really side issues when dealing with performance per dollar, IMHO.
Ah, but where I live power costs dollars
Just joshin, I genuinely have no complaints about this month's list... aside from the error in the 3870 specifications table