Holiday 2008 GPU Guide: Price Cuts Galore
by Derek Wilson on December 18, 2008 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Guides
To the East Side: $220 - $300 Graphics Cards
This price point brings solid playability to 2560x1600 resolutions with 4xAA possible in many cases. I throw my plug out there that 2xAA is all you need on 30" monitors, but that's definitely going to vary depending on taste. These cards are slight tweaks of hardware offered at a lower price point. We are looking at highly overclocked GeForce GTX 260 core 216 hardware and Radeon HD 4870 1GB cards.
The RV770 chip on the Radeon HD 4870 is much more suited to a 1GB framebuffer, especially at high resolutions with AA enabled. The advantages over the 512MB version are more apparent at higher resolutions, and necessary to get the most out of the hardware on 30" monitors. Highly overclocked GeForce GTX 260 core 216 hardware is available that could offer a great performance boost over stock hardware and over the Radeon HD 4870 1GB in some cases. In the cases where the 4870 beats the GTX 280, the 4870 will still pull out ahead, but in many other cases the super high overclock of some of these GeForce GTX 260 cards is going to be a better option. In fact, for $250, you can pick up an XFX GTX 260 core 216 clocked at 666MHz core (~15.5% increase), 2300MHz memory (~15% increase), and 1440MHz shader clock (~15.9% increase) bundled with Far Cry 2. This will provide some good increases in performance, as no matter where you are limited you have a potential theoretical maximum performance increase of about 15%.
This is another tough one and it really does depend on the games that will be played. When shopping for an overclocked GTX 260 core 216, you have to do a little more work to make sure you get the best deal, but the best deal there could be a better deal than the Radeon HD 4870 1GB. Then again, the Radeon HD 4870 1GB is a great deal at $250 and you know exactly what you are getting when you pick one up. The continuum is much more convoluted with NVIDIA hardware, but giving manufacturers a chance to differentiate themselves does add another level of competition to the market and has made highly overclocked GTX 260 hardware a viable alternative to the highest end AMD single GPU solution. In the end though, we've really got to give the nod to the super cheap $220 PowerColor Radeon HD 4870 1GB. Top that off with the fact that the PowerColor card is an overclocked version of the 4870 1GB, and that really seals the deal.
PowerColor's Radeon HD 4870 (Image From newegg.com)
Recommendation: ATI Radeon HD 4870 1GB
| Newegg | ZipZoomFly | TigerDirect | Buy.com |
PowerColor Radeon HD 4870 1GB | ASUS Radeon HD 4870 1GB | Not Available | Gigabyte Radeon HD 4870 1GB |
| $280 | Not Available | $322 |
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JonnyDough - Sunday, December 21, 2008 - link
I'm a bit confused about the budget cards for an HTPC, although this article did help me a bit. It's something I've been looking into. I have a projection t.v. with HDMI that runs 1080P. With the desire for multi-channel hi-def sound figured in, I would assume I should go for an AMD 4670 or a 4830 card. But I also want to make sure it's producing good hi-def picture too. If it won't give me the same quality as a Blu-Ray player I don't want to bother with it. Right now I'm using an HD-DVD player for upscaling my movies, and I have a chassis, Windows XP MCE, and some older systems for an HTPC. All that's left is the right card and a Blu-Ray drive/software.This card will likely be paired up with an old Athlon X2 running at 2.0ghz or a single core Pentium4 2.2ghz.
If I can get away with an even cheaper card, let me know. I'd like to do some light gaming on it (TF2, etc @ LAN parties) but the gaming is a distance second in importance to watching movies.
What's the cheapest reasonable solution for a good movie experience when pairing a card with an old processor, 2GBs of RAM, and a huge tv? Sound isn't really an issue, as I have an X-Fi that can do the job - although I'd prefer to keep that with my gaming system.
marc1000 - Monday, December 22, 2008 - link
your card would be the 4670 or maybe even the 4550 if gaming is not important. but sound is a issue, for sure. because you can not play blu-ray content without a "secure channel" for the audio. of course, you can always use the lower-quality sound channels, but I remember reading something about the hi-quality sound on blu-ray discs and special software and hardware needs. browse some articles here at anandtech and you will find the answer. BUT if your display is 24hz then the only options are the 9500gt or 9600gso.teohhanhui - Saturday, December 20, 2008 - link
It points to the 4830...Noobnugget - Friday, December 19, 2008 - link
Nothing like be horribly inaccurate by quoting mail in rebates(which you may not even get back) as the actual price you pay. When will people learn..?JonnyDough - Sunday, December 21, 2008 - link
Seconded. I made the same statement on Tom's Hardware I think (or else it was here) for using rebates as a buying decision factor. Don't purchase MIR items unless you're ready to pay full price for what you're buying. Rebates are a way to steal money from consumers. Nothing more than a cheap gimmick to rob you.BLaber - Friday, December 19, 2008 - link
ahahahahhahahahahahahahahahahahahhaLMAO :- CORE i7 RECOMMENDATION MY A$$
JonnyDough - Sunday, December 21, 2008 - link
From everything I've read I have to agree. Unless you're doing memory specific work or games that require more memory bandwidth, there's no reason to upgrade from a Core2Duo or Core2Quad to i7 yet. Maybe with the next tick or tock (I don't keep track of which is which) then it will be more worth upgrading. Wait for i7 to be seasoned a bit (new proc revisions) before bothering with a change from a Core2 system. Not many modern games really make good use of multiple cores yet anyway. I'm looking forward to GPUs made on smaller dies and Windows 7. PC gaming may make a come back. But these $300 GPU's that create massive amounts of heat and run up my electric bill, and a lack of solid SSD support for XP and Vista make me want to wait a year or two to upgrade my PC from my old socket 939 Athlon X2 systems.kevinkreiser - Friday, December 19, 2008 - link
any opinions on the best single slot gpu? i'm looking to make a small computer that can do graphics intensive work, but i'm limited to using up only 1 slot). maybe i could water cool a dual slot to make it a single slot? no idea. suggestions welcome. thanks.SiliconDoc - Tuesday, December 30, 2008 - link
How about an EVGA 9800GThttp://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8...">http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8...
How about this one with a free full game
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8...">http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8...
Single slot superclocked core
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8...">http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8...
XFX
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTool...">http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications...tails.as...
marc1000 - Friday, December 19, 2008 - link
that would be the radeon 4830, because it runs cooler than the 4850 and these are the only high-end single-slot gpus today... or you could stick with older hardware.anyway, who will be REALLY jealous is the people overseas and below the equatorial line... i live in Brazil and we have no such price wars here. the cards stay with the initial price for their lifetime... i mean, a 4670 that was 130USD when it debuted, still cost 130USD today over here... and the 4830 that launched later have a "premium tag" because the 4670 costs 130USD... so the sellers charge the 4830 for 150USD... and these prices will not fall. that is really something to be jeaulous about. (PS: of course our currency is not dollars, i'm converting the values here)