Best PCIe Card: $175 To $275

I love this competition, if only AMD's CPU's could compete at the same high level...

Anyone else get the feeling that nVidia and AMD cut back on the performance of their cards simply to slot into a pricepoint?

can you include the e-350 iGPU 6310 in the charts since you do include the previous integrated GPUs ? I know it's slow but just to have the chart almost complete.

I am missing DX version support information on the cards, since raw performance does not help with lacking features.

I unlocked the HD 6950 and over clocked it to HD 6970 specs. Works great and stable in different games.

Hilarious how they put in vendor prices that show that their chosen cards at the lower price points aren't even close to retailing at the price point they claim!

And don't even get me started on the fact they're all US...

these articles are compiled over some timeframe and the current prices do not have to reflect the prices when the article was finished.

and since you are on a US site, do you expect Euro prices?

AMD makes great GPU's but can't even keep up in the CPU space?
Better to be good at one thing than to be mediocre at both I guess.

one suggestion that i am obliged to make is to add to the hierarchy chart sli/crossfire configs as well.
would be most useful!

kinda have to agree with mi1ez, the prices listed here for the radeon 6800 series cards is a little inflated. i've been shopping around on newegg and tigerdirect for about a month, price optimizing a new system, and the 6850s can be had as low as $160 and the 6870s as low as $200 with mail in rebates. AMD currently has nvidia beat on prices, imo

yawwnnn... my 295 gtx still near the top of the chart now there is a surprise

so funny to see intel can't trade punches with a 8800gt yet wow who would have thought!

My old 4650 still hangs on..

A pretty big jump from $120 to $185 from the 5770 to the GTX 460 1GB. The GTX 460 768MB at $150-$160 would have been a great midpoint there.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6814127519

that's a point of view question :-)

I mean how much compute intensive tasks for an average user need a 6core i7 ? Even an Athlon II X4 is sufficient for 80% of people. So Intel taking the high end is just for show. Price is what sells today.

I've seen 5870's regularly priced below the $250 mark over the last couple weeks. With rebates, these same cards drop to $200-$220. That, to me, represents the best value in the $175 to $275 bracket, hands down.

This made my day!! An IGP? haha..... Man these parts arent even in the city where the ballpark is located

I guess I will stick with my 5850 for now.

With the dollar soon to crash, the build I'm planning for late Spring/early Summer may be my last personal build for the foreseeable future. I'm thinking a GTX560Ti is probably where I want to be; higher than I need right now, but should remain viable for years.

I agree with you. The big problem is that every single card you buy now has a dang rebate. So you can get some great deal if you are willing to take the chance with the rebate. Am I the only one who hates all these rebates?

No one's stopping you from going and putting together a complementary article for other (non-USA) markets. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised that if you put in the time and effort to consistently make a monthly update like Cleeve (Mr. Woligroski) here has, Tom's just might offer to post it up alongside these.



Not really. The dual-GPU (especially nVidia's) cards tend to last a Looooong time. However, they tend to only hold up particularly well in older shader models, and without using AA; in those cases two GPUs from an older generation will easily thump nVidia's next big thing. The same went for the generation before, when I noted to people that for those who didn't use AA, a 9800GX2 curb-stomped the supposed "latest and greatest" GTX 280 at a lower price. (oh, and also actually even putting a damper on the 4870's parade, too)