What is Digg?65 Comments
- RAAFStupot, on 11/09/2009, -3/+32Tomshardware = easy info to build your own system (and relatively non-biased as well)
- Grummond, on 11/09/2009, -1/+19If ATI/AMD has a better bang for the buck card than the GF275, why should tomshardware include the GF275?
They'd be doing you a dis-service by recommending a card that is a worse value.
Of course it's biased. A review is supposed to show bias, if it was neutral it would be worthless.
Now if nVidia had a better line of cards right now, it would be unfair bias, but they simply don't. They can't compete with ATI/AMD's new 5xxx series, not even close.
Hopefully nVidia will come back into the game when they release the 300 series.
And btw, nVidia doesn't have a DX11 card, but ATI/AMD does. The 5xxx series is DX11. - bubbakja, on 11/09/2009, -1/+12I think part of the problem is Nvidia seems to be on a down swing. The owned with the ti4XXXX cards, fell off with the FX series , and came back with the 6800GT in 2004. During that time ATi had the 9800pro and 9700 that performed way better than the FX cards.
Oddly enough this all happened in the same swing cycle where intel's P4 proc's fell to AMD's Athlon XP's. Although it took Intel way longer to make a comeback with the Core 2's in 2006. - Redmo0n, on 11/09/2009, -1/+10Ati not nVidia
- Cockslap, on 11/09/2009, -1/+105850..... for features (DX11 and eyefinity) and bang for buck (good speed vs cost) there really nothing out there that compares.
- dfross, on 11/09/2009, -0/+8Radeon's drivers have been pretty good through the 48xx and 58xx. I was the same as you, had a 8800GS and upgraded to a 4870 a year and a half ago. It's been fine, no driver issues.
Having said that, the new nVidia GT300 cards are rumoured to be out this year, so it might be worth holding out a couple of months. - krisrm, on 11/09/2009, -0/+8...and get laughed at by the PC Gaming crowd when you brag about your "full HD graphics" (heh, I have friends that plug their 360's into the composite (yellow) video in, and still talk about their "HD graphics". I need new friends :p )
- Bobby1978, on 11/09/2009, -0/+8Sorry yes, ATI/AMDs 57XX series.
- Grummond, on 11/09/2009, -3/+11ATI/AMD has nVidia in the corner right now, why would they include nVidia cards in a "best cards for the money" if they underperform compared to ATI/AMD?
I bought the Radeon 5770 when my 8800 Ultra broke last week, and I'm amazed by this card.
Better performance than my old card, yet it costs 1/4th of what i paid for the Ultra?
Uses only 18 watts in idle mode? Before the 5xxx series, cards with performance like this used 90 watt+ in idle.
Also has DX11 as an added bonus.
nVidia is f***** if they don't deliver anything soon, people are tired of them launching old cards with a new name and a new pricetag. - stk198323, on 11/09/2009, -1/+7@Junkyarddawg
Why do you keep insisting on ATI's UPCOMMING dx11 card? They are out right now, people bought them, people are running them RIGHT NOW!
What does nvidia has as an dx11 card right now? Nothing!
Also they have talked about the nvidia dx11 card at the beginning and covered that there instead of repeating it at every single ***** category! This is far better then including at each category: we went with ATI since nvidia doesn't have a dx11 card. That would have been biased but when you mention it once for a good reason and then be done with it it's more of an information then a constant bashing.
Did you even read the article or you just went over the top contenders for all category and concluded that since there was more ATI product then it was biased? - fasda, on 11/09/2009, -1/+6Why use AMD cpu for a budget build cause they are cheap as hell. Phenom II 720 is 70 dollars less then then the closest Core 2 duo and they are nearly identical on benchmarks. With this economy I'm not surprised they didn't go with the cheaper option.
- Bobby1978, on 11/09/2009, -2/+75850 is the perfect performer. Not too hot whilst giving superb performance. Problem was the price, and with it climbing up to $290 recently, it's squarely out of the picture. The only other contender is the 4890 in the now sub-$200 mark, and as you can imagine, there's quite a gap between them. This should've been filled by nVidia's recent 57XX series cards, but unfortunately the performance was terribly underwhelming.
With nVidia's proper answer in utter limbo, we might not even see a 5830 by Xmas, or if we do it might be priced significantly above the sweet spot. - viv4l4b4m03, on 11/09/2009, -2/+7I got my GTX 285 from Best Buy for $210 over the summer. I later found out the clocks were set too high and kept blue-screening, but I fixed that by flashing the bios. What a steal!
- proliance, on 11/09/2009, -0/+4Let me know when somebody makes a reasonably sized graphics card that doesn't block access to the sata ports or other important features of my system board.
- Grummond, on 11/09/2009, -0/+4Or even better...don't.
- nipterink, on 11/09/2009, -1/+5wonko: if you paid attention to tom's hardware you would've noticed that they used all intel in the builds they made earlier in 2009. http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/system-builder ...
they used AMD this time because everyone asked them to. - evilesttoast, on 11/09/2009, -0/+4I probably SHOULD be able to run GTA 4 considering my 5770 can run Crysis at High smoothly, but its just horribly optimized.
- thephosphorbox, on 11/09/2009, -0/+4I see your point, and it's valid, but you do know that not ALL games that come out for PC are released for PS3 or any other console. And, some games that do come out for both wind up being much better on the PC (read: Dragon Age Origins as a recent example).
- SamSlater, on 11/09/2009, -0/+4Have you factored in the price of the games over those three years? It might be different in the US but in the UK xbox and ps3 games are $15-$20 more than PC games. 20 games over a 3 year period is $600-$700 extra compared to a PC gamer. And maybe after those 3 years a new console comes out and lots of your old games are unplayable (esp if you switched from xbox to ps3, or vice versa, while I can still play GP4 from 2002 on my Win7 PC.
It's just a guess but over a ten year period I'd bet there's not as much of a difference, financially. - Tollboi, on 11/09/2009, -0/+4Honestly man reuse all the stuff in your current computer and buy a new case and motherboard, with a PCI-E slot or 2, and you are going to be in much better shape. Then worry about your video card.
- alarchy, on 11/09/2009, -0/+4If your computer doesn't have a PCI-E slot, you likely will not be able to find a video card that will offer you improvement past a nVidia 7800GS (an older card) or ATI x1950.
There is an AGP version of the ATI 4650 (probably the most powerful AGP slot card), but the performance is still pretty darn poor compared to modern cards due to AGP's choked bandwidth. - Sirlolalot, on 11/09/2009, -0/+3I would bite the bullet & accept, your next upgrade isnt a new graphics card, but a new computer.
Well mobo,cpu & gfx-card you could probably salvage other parts to save costs. new ram can be cheap too though. - SamSlater, on 11/09/2009, -1/+3GPU cards have been getting larger for years now and motherboard manufacturers should cater for this in their designs.
You either have an older motherboard or just a badly designed one. - FyberOptic, on 11/10/2009, -0/+2Hint: Most of them are ATI.
I'd honestly be afraid to buy budget and on-sale Nvidia cards without worrying of getting one of the tons that went out with the bad GPUs. They handled that situation pretty poorly, and won't get any business from me. - fuzzynyanko, on 11/09/2009, -0/+2You can get angled SATA plugs. However, yeah, my 4870 does take up a drive bay slot. The drive bay isn't a biggie since I have 4 HDDs and I would get more mileage by upgrading an old 250 giger than just adding a new one
- Pyroteq, on 11/09/2009, -0/+2Haha, you've got a decent point. My 9800GTX blocks all the SATA ports in one PC (I've had to resort to using a smaller IDE HDD) and my 4850 blocks the HDD drive bays in my Thermaltake Soprano case.
I think it's an issue the mobo and GFX manufacturers need to solve together. Motherboards designed for high performance need plenty of room near the PCI-e slots for larger cards. - CowGoesMooo, on 11/09/2009, -0/+2Actually it's quite the opposite. The 360 has a chip dedicated to scaling and anti-aliasing for titles that don't run at 1080p, while others support it natively. The PS3 on the other hand has a very very VERY low percentage of games that run natively at 1080p, because the GPU can't handle it.
- bringitontimx, on 11/09/2009, -0/+2ASUS has some boards with DDR1 and DDR2 slots and PCI-E and socket 775 slots so you could buy a Core2Quad, and still use your DDR1 ram. It'll bottleneck, so you'll wanna purchase DDR2 ram, but it's not that big of a deal because you'll still be able to use your system. When you switch over to DDR2 ram, the transition will be seamless. (but note that you cannot use them at the same time)
- palehorse864, on 11/09/2009, -3/+5The 5870 looks cool, but I would have to know about Radeon's software. I'm still loving my 8800gt and really like the forceware drivers and software.
- fuzzynyanko, on 11/09/2009, -0/+2The $50 cards probably can since Crysis 2 is going to be on a console, which uses a GPU around those cards' speed
- Cockslap, on 11/11/2009, -0/+2My comp makes less noise then my PS3... and is about 10X as powerful.
- Azathothh, on 11/09/2009, -1/+2i have a 4870 and a core 2 duo and GTA4 doesn't run very smoohtly at maximum seetings at 1680. But it's playable.
- GeekNurse, on 11/09/2009, -0/+1Which AGP graphics card has the best bang for the buck? My machine is a tad bit old and doesn't have PCI-E
- dfross, on 11/09/2009, -1/+2You shouldn't get a midrange card to run GTA4. It runs fine on a 4870 at 1680.
- proliance, on 11/10/2009, -0/+1A larger case won't make a difference. A full size video card that takes up two slots is going to cover something even if is isn't in a case.
- doomestic, on 11/09/2009, -1/+2Get a bigger case?
- ChuckDees, on 11/09/2009, -0/+1This list is helpful.I have been thinking of some upgrades. But the constant need to upgrade at least every three years.
Is why people buy consoles for gaming. I bought a 360 because it was $200 the same as if i bought a good card. Or the same as if i bought a decent card and put 2 gigs of ram in my PC. - fuzzynyanko, on 11/09/2009, -0/+1I had driver issues with Radeon drivers (BSoD'd when I installed, fixed the problem when downgrading to the previous version), but to be fair, I've had similar problems with nVidia's drivers in the past as well. I'm just glad that the driver downgrade was only to a driver that was 1-3 months old. Compared to nVidia, their drivers are a little behind. Compared to almost every other PC component maker: I found them to be 2nd only to nVidia.
Going from a 7900GS, the Catalyst Control Panel was far better than the new nVidia control panel (even though I preferred the nVidia pre-100 control panel even more). The Catalyst even had an option to force TV detection, even though nowadays a lot of us use HDTVs. Also, a nice feature of Radeons since around the 3000 series: audio over DVI/HDMI - doomestic, on 11/09/2009, -0/+1GTA IV is very CPU intensive, which could be your bottleneck. Better graphics cards and SLI setups have very little return on GTA IV performance. On the other hand if you get a decent Quad core, your performance will jump by 10s of FPS.
- Mapekz, on 11/16/2009, -0/+1In my Antec 900 (great case), the ***** bay for the front panel fans eats into my SATA port space; I've scraped my hands so many times trying to plug ***** into those ports.
- fuzzynyanko, on 11/09/2009, -0/+1Actually, almost every upcoming PS3 exclusive isn't going to be running 1920x1080. The XBox 360, believe it or not, can do 1080p but is in the same situation
- MWeather, on 11/09/2009, -0/+1I have dual GTX285s, and GTA4 still won't run very well.
- fuzzynyanko, on 11/09/2009, -0/+1They used to list AGP cards, but yeah, AGP is almost completely phased out
- Tollboi, on 11/09/2009, -0/+1I just got a 5850 from newegg, been using it around a month now. This is the first time I have ever spent alot of money on a video card but I have to say my games never looked better. I got it on sell for 250 and it is well worth it to me.
- antdude, on 11/10/2009, -0/+1Also, more power too. :(
- Mapekz, on 11/16/2009, -0/+1@evilesttoast
Yeah, it's not very optimized at all. Typical console port *****.
For the record, I have no problems with consoles. I just hate how developers don't port a console game over and at least make it feel like a PC game. When you have to navigate a menu using the keyboard, chances are the game has major issues during actual gameplay. - kingmanic, on 11/09/2009, -0/+1@CowGoesMooo and @darkened: AA and scaling != 1080p. Its not in fact the opposite he's right but he's also wrong. You could get 1080p graphics from a n64 if you don't mind a frame rate of 0.001 fps without AA or any other effects like alpha blending. Resolution is one part of the equation in graphics; a lot of the rest is the nice effects that hide the fact that it's a computer game. alpha blending some sort of AA. Screen Space Ambient Occlusion etc... The 360 has some of that build in. It has heap alpha blending due to 10mb of edram attached to the GPU and can hold a good frame rate due to it's unified shader architecture. IT also has cheap x2 Screen Space Ambient Occlusion. The PS3 advantage is a bank of slightly faster xna ram (the 256mb is nowhere near throughput of the 10mb edram though) and those amazing spu's. The shaders are also faster but since they are specialized you need a lot of work to get them to run at a great frame rate. There is more bottle necks in the ps3 but if you work at it you can get a bit more out of it (uncharted 2, killzone, demons souls, DA:origins) than the 360. However if you targeted the game tot he 360 then ported it you get some issues because the cheap alpha blending and cheap x2 msaa is not available so you take a performance hit trying to use them.
They are both fun and capable machine so it's really down to your preference of controllers and games. PS3 has more first party exclusives. 360 generally has better framerates on the multi-platform games. PS3 can and often has better textures. the 360 has prettier 'hair' and water. The PS3 is much easier to work on now and your seeing many games have a slight edge there. but it's not that big a deal. - trix911, on 11/09/2009, -1/+2But can it run Crysis 2?
- fuzzynyanko, on 11/09/2009, -0/+1One reason is that both ATI and nVidia use the same chip fab company, and that company's output has been really bad lately
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