Best PCIe Card: ~$410 And Up
Best PCIe Card For ~$410: None
Honorable Mention:
Radeon HD 5870 (Check Prices)
Good 2560x1600 performance in most games
| Radeon HD 5870 | |
|---|---|
| Codename: | RV870 "Cypress" |
| Process: | 40nm |
| Universal Shaders: | 1,600 |
| Texture Units: | 80 |
| ROPs: | 32 |
| Memory Bus: | 256-bit |
| Core Speed MHz: | 850 |
| Memory Speed MHz: | 1,200 (4,800 effective) |
| DirectX/Shader Model: | DX 11/SM 5.0 |
For $10 less than this card, a couple of Radeon HD 4890s will easily perform faster in the titles that matter today. And for $100 less, a couple of Radeon HD 5770s in CrossFire will keep up with the 5870 and offer the same DirectX 11 capability to boot. From a raw price/performance standpoint, this makes the Radeon HD 5870 a hard sell. But that is not to say this card is underpowered: it sports the fastest single GPU on the planet, relatively low power usage (remarkably low at idle), and DirectX 11 support. For folks without a motherboard that supports CrossFire and a hefty power supply, the new Radeon HD 5870 is definitely a more-than-viable option.
Read our full review of ATI's Radeon HD 5870 for more information on the card and its accompanying architecture.
Best PCIe Card For ~$520: None
Honorable Mention:
GeForce GTX 295 (Check Prices)
Good 2560x1600 performance in most games
| GeForce GTX 295 | |
|---|---|
| Codename: | 2 x GT200b |
| Process: | 55nm |
| Universal Shaders: | 480 (2 x 240) |
| Texture Units: | 160 (2 x 80) |
| ROPs: | 56 (2 x 28) |
| Memory Bus: | 448-bit |
| Core/Shader Speed MHz: | 576/1242 |
| Memory Speed MHz: | 999 (1,998 effective) |
| DirectX/Shader Model: | DX 10/SM 4.0 |
Despite ATI's new Radeon HD 5970 taking its place as the fastest graphics card on the planet, Nvidia's GeForce GTX 295 (with SLI-on-a-board) remains an extremely powerful graphics card. Essentially two conjoined GeForce GTX 275s, the GeForce GTX 295 offers very notable gains over a single Radeon HD 5870 in the great majority of game titles, although the Radeon will use far less power doing so. Unfortunately, the availability of this card seems to be waning and it is becoming quite rare. Regardless, it is still the second fastest single-slot graphics card available.
Read our full review of Nvidia's GeForce GTX 295 for more information on the card and its accompanying architecture.
Best PCIe Card For ~$625: None
Honorable Mention:
Radeon HD 5970
Great 2560x1600 performance
| Radeon HD 5970 | |
|---|---|
| Codename: | 2 x RV870 "Cypress" |
| Process: | 40nm |
| Universal Shaders: | 3,200 (2 x 1,600) |
| Texture Units: | 160 (2 x 80) |
| ROPs: | 64 (2 x 32) |
| Memory Bus: | 256-bit |
| Core Speed MHz: | 725 |
| Memory Speed MHz: | 1,000 (4,000 effective) |
| DirectX/Shader Model: | DX 11/SM 5.0 |
3,200 shader processors. There isn't much more we need to say about the brutal grace of execution that characterizes the world's fastest graphics card, the Radeon HD 5970. With two Radeon HD 5870 GPUs onboard, the only things we can complain about are scant availability and an extremely high price tag. Availability should improve over time; the price not so much. But if you're in the market for this card, price probably isn't an issue.
Read our full review of ATI's Radeon HD 5970 for more information on the card and its accompanying architecture.
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Nice article as usual.
Nvidia has nothing to compete after GTS 250.
Though I like that they call 9800GT LEGENDARY.
The "Best PCIe Card For ~$155" says it's a Tie, but only lists the 5770.
Australians might be interested to know that MSY have backstock of 512Mb 4850s that they're clearing out at
...clearing out at under $90 per card.
Have you done any benchmarking of the 5770 in CF? Seems like the low 128bit bus might stifle performance too much if trying to run it hard at 1920 or at all at 2560.
Great article, thanks for keeping this updated every few months!
Also, at the $145 price point, you state the 5750, but the label for the spec chart says 5770. The specs are for the 5750 though.
Not much new since last year really. Except availability changes.
How much slower are two 4870-512 cards in cf in comparison to two 4790-1gb cards ? Do the 512mb memory in general hinder them @ 1680 or 1920 ? (the 'how much vram yada yada' article doesn't deal with cf far as I remember)
I can tell you that a 4850 512mb can get slowed down on memory hungry games all the down at 1280x960. Oblivion would be my case and point. (Texture packs do that for those of you wondering.)
Nice article but the Heirarchy chart at the end is screwed up badly. If you are going to pretend the 5850 is the same speed as a gtx280 (seriously now), then at least pretend the 5870 is the same as the gtx295.
I can assure you the 5870 is a lot closer to the gtx295 than either the gtx280 or gtx285 is to the 5850.
Either give the 5850 it's own level in the chart or move the 5870 into the gtx295/4870x2 position please. The gtx280 should also be moved down a notch from the 4850x2/gtx285 I feel.
I wonder what Fermi will do to this chart in the near future? Hopefully we'll see some ATI 5870 price cuts and we'll all be happy, only time can tell since we have no real information =(
Heh, I have 8800GT (G92 chip). I can't believe it's been more than two years since I bought it and it's still a competitive piece of hardware (both 9800GT and GTS 250 are essentially the same card).
Both 9800Gt and GTS250 are very different cards.
GTS 250 is faster.
You should say 8800GT and 9800GT are essentially the same cards.
The same thing, the GTX 295 has no place in the market and the "notable gains" you speak of are not very notable at all.
The GTX 295 has no place between the 5870, 5970, and 5850 crossfire.
Also the 5870 is a far better deal than 2 4890s, Tom's seems to completely ignore the benefits of a single card over a dual solution:
1. Higher minimum FPS = the single card tends to be smoother.
2. Less bugs and glitches from SLI or CFX
3. Much more linear scaling instead of SLI and CFX being all over the place at times.
4. That whole cooler running and less power consumption can mean much better overclocking.
5. Since the 5xxx series is new you CANNOT ignore that they will get better with time with driver improvements, the GTX 280 went from being beaten by the 9800 GX2 to tying with it and coming out on top at times with driver improvements, however the GTX 2xx and 4xxx series are at their peaks.
Thank you guys for taking the time and doing this! Great articulate as always.
Article*
It's still good to hold on to existing CF 4890.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
The person above has no way to prove her conclusions, she just can't accept that the GTX 295 is a elite video card. That the 5870 is not as fast as it, end of discussion. Its why ATI came out with the 5970. Get over it. The hype surrounding the 5850 in part was its price point, and performance that equaled a much more expensive gtx285, but then ATI decided to gouge its fans an extra 50 bucks. 309.00 instead of the initial 269.99
You're an idiot notty, the 5850 is at least 20% and more like 30-40% faster than the gtx280. The gtx295 is about 5-10% faster than the 5870 in selected titles.
Notty = absolute tool. He is logging on his forum alts and giving people thumbs down. Randomizer caught him logging on forum alts last night too.
IP ban this sad tool please.