Graphics Card Hierarchy Chart

Go tell it on the mountain.

I for one am looking forward to the next generation. Not that that's anything new, but the 40nm process cards have been around for two years now, starting with AMD. Given the advances in power consumption, I think it's reasonable to expect significantly less power use at idle and especially load. High end cards will still get hot and use healthy amounts of juice, but a midrange card like the successor to the 460 series will hopefully be a great efficiency card with righteous acoustics (I hope). Since it looks like AMD will have at least a 3 or 4 month lead, I hope they have their stuff together out of the gate.

got a cheapish used gtx580. loving it. i dont see the need to upgrade for next 2 years atleast.

how can you even recommend the 6990? its very loud and very hot. if someone has that kind of money, he is much better getting the gtx590.

The galaxy GTX 465 has been 129.99 for over a month now on newegg, i dont think there is a reason to buy any other card unless you play above 1080p.

Is it just me or does it get annoying to decipher between the integrated, discrete, and mobile cards? It's especially bad with the AMD column, it would be nice if Tom's added two columns for Nvidia and AMD dedicated to the mobile/integrated GPUs.

I think the 560 Ti should be a tie with 6950 1GB, especially since factory OCs cost the same as the 6950 1GB at which point the 560 Ti does beat the 6950 1GB since it equates to the 570. Just my 2 cents though.

There are very few reasons to get a GTX465, and I would argue that gaming isn't one of them. A stock GTX460 1GB outperforms the GTX465 in most games while consuming significantly less power, running much cooler, and producing less noise. Even at that amazing price, for strictly gaming I would still be tempted to opt for the GTX460 or HD6850.

However, the GTX465 is capable of outperforming the GTX460 by a pretty wide margin in certain compute workloads. So if you're folding or utilizing your GPU for some other compute intensive task, then the GTX465 is an absolute beast of a card that really can't be beat for $130.

GTX 560 Ti is in the same tier of 6950 ?

I don't know if I'm out of line when I ask for this but could we get the SLI/CF setups just recommended in the $270+ range thrown up in that Graphics Card Hierarchy Chart?

Amazing amount of ignorance in that post lol. If you wish to have a back and forth on why i believe you are wrong go ahead, im off work today : )

2x Sapphire Xtreme 5850 FTW!
Although i'm crossfiring a sapphire vapor-x 5850 and an xtreme 5850 =D

I believe that another reason for the shortage of HD6990 and HD6970 cards is that people are using them in bitcoin mining rigs. AMD positively smokes nVidia at that compute task. I'd really like to see an article on this subject.

Hmmm...AMD seems to be dominating the recommendations slowly...i hope nvidia gets their act together, and AMD launches more goodies that cause nvidia to drop prices

the 465 is a power hungry, hot, piece of crap that should have never been released, its was basically a prototype and has never been recommended.the 460 and 6850 are faster, quieter, cooler and are well worth the extra money. They are only cheap because they are trying to get rid of them to suckers like you before they have to bin them.

My god you people are SHEEP!

I have the galaxy in my PC and it is idling at 34c, loads under 50c playing fallout new vegas and under 60c playing WoW. I couldnt even get it to 80c with FURMARK! (in an antec 300 illusion, no side fan).

If you want to pay 30-40 bucks more for a gtx 460 or a 6850 be my guest, but know you are not getting any extra performance for the dollar (what this article is about, bang for the buck).

It is just a 470 with less memory, and overclocks like a beast. I have mine at 800/1600/1800 with zero voltage adjustments in afterburner.

THE 465 GOT A BAD RAP BECAUSE WHEN IT WAS RELEASED IT REPRESENTED TERRIBLE VALUE FOR THE DOLLAR, NOT BECAUSE IT WAS A BAD CARD. That is now completely irrelevant, and currently the galaxy GTX 465 is unequivocally the best deal on newegg.

I feel better now.

I'm just glad they didn't mention the gtx 465, now that was a bad card.

The conspiracy about AMD releasing 7000 was boring. I think its possible AMD is going to push out the 7000 GPU's series along with Bulldozer. Since the 7000 series GPU's should be faster than current Nvidia offerings it makes total since to release along with Bulldozer since all the review sites will test them together and the charts will all show Bulldozer is better than Intel for gaming. Now that's a conspiracy theory for you.

we want "graphic cards performers/money" chart !!