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Hello everybody,
I opened a thread yesterday asking for a budget card around $100, but after long hours of research I changed my mind due to low resale value of the cards, and of course the technology.
I see fanatism everywhere and they generally use the terms like "will eat it alive", "are u kidding me", "what did you smoke - give me some", "screw HDR, nvidia is the performance king", etc. which personally makes my life more fun. That's why I decided to compare the cards at some specific resolution with eye candy stuff turned on. I believe this is the way the games meant to be played... Also, I wanted to include only mid to high level gpu's into this list.
Everything you see below is just the summary of 6 or 7 articles by Hilbert Hagedoon in Guru3d.com. I like the way he did his reviews because he kept the same hardware for last 8 months, which gives us apples to apples comparison (not 100% due to different versions of nvidia and catalyst drivers between the tests but I don't care too much - add/subtract couple of frames per seconds if you wish)...
Some observations during my research:
1) Especially at the high end of the spectrum there is no definite winner - performance can be changed dramatically between games. But, it is my understanding that (and only mine) ATI cards have less issues with newer technology like HDR. Furthermore, due to the techniques they use to calculate/perform/show images end users observe higher quality images compared to nvidia counterparts (dont start flaming here). There are differences b/w people and some really dont/cant differentiate fps differences of 75 and 95. They just let themselves go until a lag or shuttering occurs. So I conclude that when buying a card quality of the image might be more important for me after a threshold fps value. For instance, if 7900GT gives 85 fps and X1900XT gives 95 fps with worse image quality I think I will select 7900GT over X1900XT (this was just an example may not be true
2) One should consider their monitor capabilities this is perhaps the most important factor not to lose money. Why would you buy a card that will show its power at 1920 resolution where your monitor cant display anything more than 1280x1024? Do your plan accordingly!!
3) Whereas synthetic benchmarks are useful in fanatism, I found out that it means NOTHING to me! (by comparing frames per second in real life games).
Enjoy the table below and I hope that it will help some of you. What I am going to buy not really know but I am in b/w $130 X1800GTO (dont know yet whether its a HIS brand if it is I will unlock it to make her X1800XL) and $200 X1800XT (OEM) - price is my enemy even tough it gives the best bang for the money IMO.
PS: I prepared this for another forum but I love u guys, too
PS2: none of the cards above are overclocked - but I also observed that overclocking might give you 5-8 more fps on the average across the board.
PS3: Because I prepared this table for myself, I wrote down the prices that I believe I can find them - please do your own research for other price options.
I opened a thread yesterday asking for a budget card around $100, but after long hours of research I changed my mind due to low resale value of the cards, and of course the technology.
I see fanatism everywhere and they generally use the terms like "will eat it alive", "are u kidding me", "what did you smoke - give me some", "screw HDR, nvidia is the performance king", etc. which personally makes my life more fun. That's why I decided to compare the cards at some specific resolution with eye candy stuff turned on. I believe this is the way the games meant to be played... Also, I wanted to include only mid to high level gpu's into this list.
Everything you see below is just the summary of 6 or 7 articles by Hilbert Hagedoon in Guru3d.com. I like the way he did his reviews because he kept the same hardware for last 8 months, which gives us apples to apples comparison (not 100% due to different versions of nvidia and catalyst drivers between the tests but I don't care too much - add/subtract couple of frames per seconds if you wish)...
Some observations during my research:
1) Especially at the high end of the spectrum there is no definite winner - performance can be changed dramatically between games. But, it is my understanding that (and only mine) ATI cards have less issues with newer technology like HDR. Furthermore, due to the techniques they use to calculate/perform/show images end users observe higher quality images compared to nvidia counterparts (dont start flaming here). There are differences b/w people and some really dont/cant differentiate fps differences of 75 and 95. They just let themselves go until a lag or shuttering occurs. So I conclude that when buying a card quality of the image might be more important for me after a threshold fps value. For instance, if 7900GT gives 85 fps and X1900XT gives 95 fps with worse image quality I think I will select 7900GT over X1900XT (this was just an example may not be true
2) One should consider their monitor capabilities this is perhaps the most important factor not to lose money. Why would you buy a card that will show its power at 1920 resolution where your monitor cant display anything more than 1280x1024? Do your plan accordingly!!
3) Whereas synthetic benchmarks are useful in fanatism, I found out that it means NOTHING to me! (by comparing frames per second in real life games).
Enjoy the table below and I hope that it will help some of you. What I am going to buy not really know but I am in b/w $130 X1800GTO (dont know yet whether its a HIS brand if it is I will unlock it to make her X1800XL) and $200 X1800XT (OEM) - price is my enemy even tough it gives the best bang for the money IMO.
PS: I prepared this for another forum but I love u guys, too
PS2: none of the cards above are overclocked - but I also observed that overclocking might give you 5-8 more fps on the average across the board.
PS3: Because I prepared this table for myself, I wrote down the prices that I believe I can find them - please do your own research for other price options.