2008 graphics card round-up

No thanks. I'm happy playing games on my xbox 360. PC is for work and POrN
 
In my view Nvidia cards still out performs the ATI card in overall tests (various resolutions). One can't really compare the ATI x 2 cards with a single Nvidia GPU card.

Although the ATI cards, as per the article, gives you better bang for your buck in most cases.

Here is a link to overall test run at Tomshardware for Q3 2008.

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/chart...q3-2008/Sum-of-FPS-Benchmarks-Totals,795.html

oh.. I'm only running 2 x NVidia 8800GT cards... Wish I had my boets 2 x Nvidia 280's, i7 system.
 
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I think my HIS HD4850 Turbo would perform better if I had a much improved CPU. A dual core 2ghz is certainly not recommended for gaming, but it will have to do for now. Looks like i'll have to save for a E8500 and some DDR 2 1066... The HD 4850 is my first ATI card...My opinion....Its not bad...ATI still need to work on their drivers though.
 
The only reason why I bought a 9800GTX instead of a HD4850 was because of the heat generated by the ATi card. Forking out extra cash for an aftermarket cooler for the ATi, together with extra fans for my case, put the price beyond that of the NVidia card.
 
Check out this link http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/chart.../compare,794.html?prod[2253]=on&prod[2060]=on

It compares the tests ran between the 4870 x 2 & a 280.

The 280 out performs the 4870 x 2 in most of the Games FPS test run. When it comes to the standard 3dmark scores the 4870 x 2 wins, but that in my eyes are useless since you would look at the performance the cards give you whilst playing games.

Now take the price of a Saphire 4870 x 2, cost price ex vat = R 7 777 & a XFX Nvidia 280 Standard edition = R 5315 ex vat.

A huge difference of R 2 462

If I would to take the 280 Extreme addition the 280 will still be R 988 cheaper then the 4870 x 2. If I had to choose the Asus 4870 x 2 it would set you back a whopping R8 080 ex vat

This taken from 03-12-08 Frontosa pricelist.

/me goes to take a pill to calm his heart.
 
It's only in the South african market that a core 216 is more expensive than a 4870 1GB.

Here in america you can pickup some awesome deals. The new 216 (55nm version) is only $260. My snowboard cost more than that. and a standard GTX 280 will only set you back $400, whereas the 4870x2 is more than $500.

Nvidia cards also offers a lot of other features such as physx and cuda, which I would not want to be without. But the Ati has and still is the king of watching HD movies for some reason, picture quality is just... better.

So once again it's only the South African market thats screwed.
 
Great article, sums it up very nicely, but where is the entry level

I vote for the ATI 4670 512mb. You can pick one up for R1000 and it gives you 90% of the performance of the 9600GT, while costing R700 less and double the performance of a 9500GT costing the same. Also it needs no PCI-E power, or beefy power supply.

Onboard HD decoder makes it a very good HTPC card, that can also match a Xbox for performance if you do some occasional gaming in you living room.
 
If you are budget consumer I can recommend the Radeon 4650 HD. I paid R1100 for a 1GB DDR2 variant and I am pretty happy with it. Before it I used my onboard Radeon 1250 1GB (DDR2) so the improvement was massive. I have a 5:4 LCD with the usual 1280x1024 native resolution and this card handles UT3 and NFS Undercover perfectly.

It is also very energy efficient since I use a 250w PSU and it has to power a dual core 3GHz Athlon as well. The Radeon 4650 occupies only a single slot and generates very little heat which are both handy attributes inside my mATX case setup.

When it comes to cheap, energy efficient and bang-for-your-buck hardware you cannot go wrong with AMD/ATI. I really don't care who gives the best performance for top dollar as I will not spend top dollar on PC hardware that outdates rapidly.
 
The rating of GFX is highly subjective, as it all depends what other equipment you have and what you use it for. After reading the article it appears that a subjective note was used to conclude that ATI is best bang for buck.
If gaming is your main use, and I presume here that it is then FPS rules. It will also depend on the size monitor you use.

So if you used Tomshardware as your FPS guide, and you had a 22" monitor which you ran at native 1680x1050 with AA and on overall FPS:
4850=441, 8800gt=414, 8800gtx+=512, 4870=512, GTX260=565.

Versus a 8800GT
4850=6% better
8800gtx+=23% better
4870=23% better
gtx260=36% better
Having just checked the following 9 SA websites for prices, NGR, Sybaritic, Cyber Orange, Simplicity, Computersonly, Buycomputers, Prophecy, Landmarkpc and DigitalSa these arethe cheapest prices I could find regardless of the brand.
4850 R2274
9800GT R1880
4870 R3378
9800gtx+R2607
gtx260 R3761
In Comparison:
1. I also found an 8800gts (512) for R2153 which scores 445 on Tomshardware so this is better bang for buck against any 4850. (R121 cheaper with 4 more overall FPS)
2.The 9800gt is 20% cheaper but is out performed by the 4850 by 6% (so also better bang for buck than 4850.)
3. The 9800gtx+ is 14% is more expensive than the 4850 but outperforms it by 23% so this too is also better bang for buck than the 4850.
3. The 9800gtx+ scores exactly the same as the 4870 but is 29% cheaper so blows the 4870 out of the water on bang for buck.

Price wise:
Around R2000, It has to be 1st 9800GT then 2nd 8800gts then 3rd 4850
Around R3000, 9800gtx+ with no equal
Around R4000, I would chose the GTX260 core 216 that the article refers to.
Above that Tomshardware has the best card at this resolution as the gtx280
Below these, Sapphiron mentioned the 4670 coming in at 300 FPS for the price is an excellent cheapie well worth the mention.
So, using this current info, it would be easy to conclude that the 9800gtx+ is the clear winner on bang for buck for anyone wanting to play games at native resolotion on a 22" monitor with the AA settings on at around R2600.
I am constantly looking at good prices for PC hardware on SA sites so if you have any good mentions, let me know.
 
Xbox...and for my 1gb 9600gt is enough for the occasional Pc game I played and since crysis didnt see any computer game worth buying
 
Jedijo said:
The rating of GFX is highly subjective, as it all depends what other equipment you have and what you use it for. After reading the article it appears that a subjective note was used to conclude that ATI is best bang for buck.
If gaming is your main use, and I presume here that it is then FPS rules. It will also depend on the size monitor you use.

So if you used Tomshardware as your FPS guide, and you had a 22" monitor which you ran at native 1680x1050 with AA and on overall FPS:
4850=441, 8800gt=414, 8800gtx+=512, 4870=512, GTX260=565.

Versus a 8800GT
4850=6% better
8800gtx+=23% better
4870=23% better
gtx260=36% better
Having just checked the following 9 SA websites for prices, NGR, Sybaritic, Cyber Orange, Simplicity, Computersonly, Buycomputers, Prophecy, Landmarkpc and DigitalSa these arethe cheapest prices I could find regardless of the brand.
4850 R2274
9800GT R1880
4870 R3378
9800gtx+R2607
gtx260 R3761
In Comparison:
1. I also found an 8800gts (512) for R2153 which scores 445 on Tomshardware so this is better bang for buck against any 4850. (R121 cheaper with 4 more overall FPS)
2.The 9800gt is 20% cheaper but is out performed by the 4850 by 6% (so also better bang for buck than 4850.)
3. The 9800gtx+ is 14% is more expensive than the 4850 but outperforms it by 23% so this too is also better bang for buck than the 4850.
3. The 9800gtx+ scores exactly the same as the 4870 but is 29% cheaper so blows the 4870 out of the water on bang for buck.

Price wise:
Around R2000, It has to be 1st 9800GT then 2nd 8800gts then 3rd 4850
Around R3000, 9800gtx+ with no equal
Around R4000, I would chose the GTX260 core 216 that the article refers to.
Above that Tomshardware has the best card at this resolution as the gtx280
Below these, Sapphiron mentioned the 4670 coming in at 300 FPS for the price is an excellent cheapie well worth the mention.
So, using this current info, it would be easy to conclude that the 9800gtx+ is the clear winner on bang for buck for anyone wanting to play games at native resolotion on a 22" monitor with the AA settings on at around R2600.
I am constantly looking at good prices for PC hardware on SA sites so if you have any good mentions, let me know.
Click to expand...

Check your numbers on the ATI, apart from tomshardware, most sites report the 4870 and GTX260 to match performance, with a 1-3% lead for the GTX260. Toms ATI scores all seem to be running 10-15% slower that other testers. Also, their benchmarks are all a bit outdated.

also, has anybody seen any news about a GTX280 price drop. Aparantly its dropped to within $50 of the GTX260 price.
 
Hunted said:
Now take the price of a Saphire 4870 x 2, cost price ex vat = R 7 777 & a XFX Nvidia 280 Standard edition = R 5315 ex vat.

A huge difference of R 2 462.
Click to expand...

*Facepalm!*

dude, a 4870x2 costs the MOST at frontosa!

at PCInt, they both cost exactly the same - R6500 INCLUDING VAT.

now what would you take - a Dual GPU running at 3900MHz with GDDR5, or the single gpu with GDDR3 ?

blehh... :cool:
 
lcbxx said:
The only reason why I bought a 9800GTX instead of a HD4850 was because of the heat generated by the ATi card. Forking out extra cash for an aftermarket cooler for the ATi, together with extra fans for my case, put the price beyond that of the NVidia card.
Click to expand...

Mine runs fine...sits at around 56 degrees which is acceptable. The early 4850s had a heat problem because there was a firmware bug that prevented the fan coming on when the temperature rose. Once you get around that they're great.

EDIT: Also with ATI moving the way they are with Linux drivers, especially now that the drivers have gone open source, things are going to get interesting.
 
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