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Video Card 101


Video Card 101

Revision History
  • v1.00 Nov 2005 Initial draft.
  • v1.10 Feb 2006 Rewritten with a different direction.
Contents
  1. Section 01 - Preface
  2. Section 02 - Short and Sweet: What videocard should I get?
  3. Section 03 - Long and Painful: What do I need to know to pick out a good videocard?
  4. Section 04 - VFAQ
  5. Section 05 - When Stuff Goes Wrong
  6. Section 06 - The Encyclopedia
  7. Section 07 - A Look at ATi
  8. Section 08 - A Look at nVidia
  9. Section 09 - Official Crap

    
Praetor

Section 01 - Preface
Ok so the comments coming back about the first draft of this 101 guide were generically "freaking nice guide ... but too much all at once" so this guide is a lot more to the point with respect to addressing 'what should I get' and also adds the additional section dealing with overclocking other neat things. This version now is split up so that it more effectively communicates what is needed for people to make good product purchases without being nearly as overwhelming (and difficult to maintain) as the orignal release.

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Praetor

Section 02 - Short and Sweet: What videocard should I get?
Before Reading Further aka "How to Use this Suggestion Guide"
  1. Figure out what type of card you need. For instance, if you are building a machine that is never ever going to play a single videogame, there is no reason to consider a top of the line videocard that will weigh in at several hundred dollars. Once you get an idea for what type of performance requirements you have, have a look at the category titles to see which category your requirements fall in.
  2. Once you've picked a category, you should figure out how much money you have to work with. The suggestions are listed top-to-bottom in order of price tag. This list is not computer generated: I've hand selected every entry here and made sure that as you go down the list, not only does the price tag increase, the performance of the card will also increase (except where noted). The reasoning here is that, there is no point to spend more money and get the equivalent/less performance
  3. Please keep in mind that the reccomendations are grouped by ATi/nVidia and AGP/PCIE ... while picking an ATi or nVidia based card may only be a preference, picking an AGP or PCIE based card is often a condition: you need to pick a videocard that will fit into your motherboard. Now for those who are trying to decide on ATi/nVidia or AGP/PCIE, these two issues are explictly dealt with in the VFAQ section of this 101 guide
  4. If this is all still way too overhwhelming, at the bottom of every category I've picked out a few cards from those listed as "Praetor's Picks" and provided more detailed information on what you're getting and why I chose that particuar card.
Now once you've settled on the above steps, pick a category either scroll down or click on the links to see the appropriate reccoemdnation block:
  • Category A - "I'm Building a machine that does not have any gaming requirements, I just want a basic videocard"
  • Category B - "I want a video card that will let me play the occassional videogame: I'm not looking for the best of the best, just something that will let me play the occasional game."
  • Category C - "I'm building a gaming box, but I dont have a fortune to spend on the top-tier parts; I'd still like to play my games at near-max settings if possible"
  • Category D - "I want to play all the latest games at the highest settings, I'm willing to pay the premium for it"

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Praetor

Category A - "I'm Building a machine that does not have any gaming requirements, I just want a basic videocard"

For people falling into this category the options are pretty straight forwards and the considerations few: there is no point in pumping several hundred dollars into a top-notch high performance gaming videocard as all that graphical horsepower will never be realized; it will however be benificial to look for a videocard that is inexpensive, provides the basic functionality required, low maintanence and does not compromise any other functionality of the system. As such, suggestions in this section will be subject to the following constraints
  • Not cost more than $60. For users wanting a basic card, there's no point in shelling out the big bucks for high end videocards packing features that wont be utilized
  • Not have HyperMemory or TurboCache. These technologies might sound neato but their premise is to use some system memory as their own... which reduces the of memory available to the system.
  • Will have a preference for passively cooled solutions: being lowpowered cards, often the heat output is more than readily handled by passive coolers thus removing the possibility of having a cheap active cooling solution fail
  • [AGP][ATi] Powercolor RV6DE-NA3 Radeon7000 32MB ($21.00), Sapphire 100949L Radeon 7000 32MB ($23.99), Connect3D Radeon7000 32MB ($24.99). With these three cards, performance is tossed right out of the window in favor of low-cost, zero frills. If you need a videocard that puts an image on the screen, this is the card for you. These cards are the absolute bottom of the barrel but also come with the absolute lowest price tags
  • [AGP][nVidia] MSI MX4000-T64 64MB ($22.99) , ASUS V9400-X/TD/64 GeForce MX4000 64MB ($23.99). Like the ATi cards in the previous point, these two cards are also targeted at buyers who just want a videocard that puts images up on the screen and arent looking for all the bells and whistles.
  • [AGP][ATi] JetWay R9MX-AD-064C Radon 9000 64MB ($25.99) The Radeon 9000 lineup is a generational jump up from the primative Radeon7000s suggested above and for users who may want to explore DirectX8 options, this is the cheapest DX8 card of it's class. For all intents and purposes, this is the lowest model ATi-AGP card that should be considered unless you are building a system and you want to squeeze as much performance out of it as possible in other areas and are down to counting pennies.
  • [AGP][ATi] MSI RX9250-T128 Radeon 9250 128MB ($29.99), Sapphire 100583-GN-H Radeon 9250 128MB ($32.50), ASUS A9250/TD/128 Radeon 9250 128MB ($33.00) Offering more performance and functionality without a noticeable increase in price nor thermal/noise output, the Radeon 9250 based cards are a superior choice to all the previously suggested cards.
  • [AGP][nVidia] ASUS V9250-X/TD/64 GeForce FX5200 64MB ($33.00), ASUS V9520-X/TD/128 GeForce FX5200 128MB ($34.99), XFX PC-T34A-NT GeForce FX5200 128MB ($39.00). The cheapest cards packing DirectX9 hardware support, these cards offer the most functionality per buck of all the cards currently listed. Of these three cards, the last one has a 128bit memory interface which doubles it's memory bandwidth compared to the other two cards making it an ideal candidate for a uber-low performance gaming card
  • [AGP][ATi] Sapphire 100576 Radeon 9550SE 128MB ($47.00), ASUS A9550/TD/128 Radeon 9550 128MB ($48.50). These are ATi's cheapest DirectX9 capable cards. Unless your selection is ATi-limited there's no reason to consider these cards: the XFX card mentioned previously is better performing as a whole and 20% cheaper.
  • [PCIE][nVidia] ASUS EN6200TC128/TD/16M GeForce 6200TC supporting 128MB ($42.00), MSI NX6200TC-TD128ELF GeForce 6200TC supporting 128MB ($42.00). Both of these cards are included in the event that users need the absolute cheapest PCI-Express based discrete videocard options available. As cards, they should be avoided if possible as they will leech of system memory (i.e., the cards physically come with 16MB of memory onboard but will leach up to 112MB of your system memory to provided "128MB" of memory). While this may seem like a cheap way of getting the video performance of a 128MB card (and for all intents and purposes, it is), for systems featuring a card such as this will get better overall performance by spending the extra few dollars and avoiding a TurboCach based card.
  • [PCIE][ATi] MSI RX300HM-TD128ELF Radeon X300SE HyperMemory supporting 256MB ($45.00), Sapphire 100140L Radeon X300SE supporting 256MB ($46.00). Like the TurboCache based cards in the previous point, these are ATI's absolute cheapest PCI-Express solutions and are included for that very reason. The difference between these cards and the nVidia solutions previous are that this card will present a significantly reduced memory footprint since they feature 64MB of onboard memory (thus for a "128MB card" they will only chew up 64MB of your system memory); furthermore, if more graphics performance is needed these cards can use up to 192MB of your system memory to provide a "256MB card"
  • [PCIE][ATi] Sapphire 1024-2C50-04-SA Radeon X300SE 128MB ($47.99), ASUS EAX300SE-X/TD/128 Radeon X300SE 128MB ($48.00). These are the cheapest no-compromise PCI-Epxress videocards. They feature of 128MB of real physical memory and use none of your system memory
  • [PCIE][nVidia] ASUS N6200/TD/128 GeForce 6200 128MB ($48.99). This is the cheapest no-compromise nVidia based PCI-Express solution: this card features 128MB of physical memory on board and will not use any of your system memory.
  • [AGP][ATi] JetWay 96MX-AT-128C Mobility Radeon 9600 128MB ($39.00 after $10.00 MIR) After the rebate this card offers the best performance of all the AGP cards listed here. Nothing else listed so far holds a candle to this option. Even without the rebate, this card is very competitively priced still.
  • [AGP][nVidia] eVGA 256-A8-N313-LX GeForce FX5500 256MB ($39.00 after $15.00 MIR) This is the best nVidia AGP-based solution presented so far and although a few things eliminate this card from being the best AGP solution so far: the JetWay Mobility 9600 listed above offers superior performance (and at a better pre-rebate price) and secondly, this card features active cooling. While initially this may seem like a neat idea (i.e., keep your card nice and cool), a GPU like the GeForce FX5500 wont generate enough heat to warrant the need for active cooling ... the inclusion of active cooling just presents another device that can mechanically fail.
  • [AGP][nVidia] Apollo GeForce AGP6200AL GeForce 6200 128MB ($54.00), MSI NX6200AX-TD128LF GeForce 6200 128MB ($54.50) These are the cheapest AGP card featuring DirectX 9.0c support
  • [PCIE][ATi] Connect3D 3032 Radeon X550 128MB ($54.99). For all intents and purposes this is a X300SE with a higher clock and is the best PCI-Express based solution listed so far
  • [AGP][ATi] Sapphire Atlantis Radeon 9600 128MB ($57.99). Featuring a full Radeon 9600 (as opposed to the Mobility 9600 as in the Jayton card above) this card offers the best AGP performance of all the cards listed so far and does not require an active cooling solution
  • [AGP][nVidia] eVGA 256-A8-N341-LX GeForce 6200 256MB ($49.00 after $10.00 MIR) With the rebate this card is worth considering if your selections are nVidia-limited (if not the Radeon9600 solutions presented above are superior). Without taking the rebate into consideration, this card can probably be looked over as overpriced


Praetor's Picks - Category A

[PCIE][nVidia]
Not a hard choice here, the ASUS N6200/TD/128 GeForce 6200 128MB ($48.99) is the only PCIE-nVidia based card here that does not require the user to compromise.

Make ASUS

Model Name/# N6200/TD/128

Interface PCI-Express x16

GPU nVidia GeForce 6200

GPU Clock 350MHz

Memory 128MB DDR

Memory Clock 250MHz (DDR500)

Memory Interface 64bit (4GB/s bandwidth)

Pipelines 4x2

Cooling Passive cool

Shader Models 3.0

Connectivity VGA+DVI

Product Link http://www.asus.com/products4.aspx?l...84&modelmenu=1
[AGP][nVidia]
The MSI NX6200AX-TD128LF GeForce 6200 128MB ($54.50) gets the pick here because this card packs the broadest featureset without being excessively overpriced. In particular this card is capable of HDTV output.

Make MSI

Model Name/# NX6200AX-TD128LF

Interface AGP 4x/8x

GPU nVidia GeForce 6200

GPU Clock 350MHz

Memory 128MB DDR

Memory Clock 250MHz (DDR500)

Memory Interface 64bit (4GB/s bandwidth)

Pipelines 4x2

Cooling Passive cool

Shader Models 3.0

Connectivity VGA+DVI, + HDTV/SVideo

Product Link http://www.msi.com.tw/program/produc...il.php?UID=707
[PCIE][ATi]
I was going to originally pick the X550 however the performance improvement does not warrant the extra 12% price jump. Thus, the pick for this category is the ASUS EAX300SE-X/TD/128 Radeon X300SE 128MB ($48.00). The ASUS model here has the same performance profile as the Sapphire except this model has a wider connectivity base.

Make ASUS

Model Name/# EAX300SE-X/TD/128M

Interface PCI-Express x16

GPU ATi X300SE

GPU Clock 325MHz

Memory 128MB DDR

Memory Clock 200MHz (DDR400)

Memory Interface 64bit (3.2GB/s bandwidth)

Pipelines 4x2

Cooling Passive cool

Shader Models 2.x

Connectivity VGA+DVI+Composite

Product Link http://www.asus.com/products4.aspx?l...99&modelmenu=1
[AGP][ATi]
With the Sapphire 9600 being extremely close pick, I eventually chose the JetWay 96MX-AT-128C Mobility Radeon 9600 128MB ($39.00 after $10.00 MIR) due to it's significantly lower price. The sticking points were that while the this card packs the same performance profile as the Sapphire model, being a Mobility Radeon 9600, you will have to use ATi's mobility drivers which are, compared to the mainstream drivers, outdated. The saving grace is that this entire category is not focused on squeezing the absolute best out of every single card but rather emphasizes low cost over performance.

Make JetWay

Model Name/# R9MX-AD-064C

Interface AGP 4x/8x

GPU ATi Mobility Radeon 9600

GPU Clock 325MHz

Memory 128MB DDR

Memory Clock 300MHz (DDR600)

Memory Interface 128bit (9.6GB/s bandwidth)

Pipelines 4x2

Cooling Passive cool

Shader Models 2.x

Connectivity VGA+SVideo

Product Link http://www.jetway.com.tw/jetway/syst...MX%2DAT%2D128C

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Praetor

Category B - "I want a video card that will let me play the occassional videogame: I'm not looking for the best of the best, just something that will let me play the occasional game."

As the description suggests, people falling into this category will be looking for a videocard that will let them play the occasional game, perhaps not at the maximum settings but appreciably well. So in a sentence, the profile for cards falling into this bracket is "low-midrange gaming" and the specific constrains applied here will be
  • Pricing will fall in the sub-150 range
  • Dual video outputs are a requirement whether it be DVI+DVI or VGA+DVI etc
  • No cards with 64bit memory interface will be selected
  • [PCIE][nVidia] BIOSTAR V6502SS26 GeForce 6500 256MB ($62.00). The cheapest half-decent PCIE card to start us off, this card falls dead between the 6200 and 6600s: it lacks the pipelines of the latter but has a superior memory interface to the former; this card provides respectable performance particularly so for it's pricing prof
  • [AGP][ATi] Sapphire Radeon 9600Pro 128MB ($63.00),
  • [PCIE][ATi] ASUS EAX1300/TD/128MB Radeon X1300 128MB ($67.50). Offering higher clockspeeds as well as a superior API featureset, the X1300 handedly beats out the X300/X550 for a spot on the reccomendation list
  • [AGP][ATi] Sapphire Radeon 9800SE 128MB ($69.00), Sapphire 100566-RD Radeon 9800SE 128MB ($69.00), Sapphire 100566L-RD BK-HS Radeon 9800SE 128MB ($60.00 after $10.00 MIR), Sapphire 100132 Radeon 9800SE Advantage 256MB ($74.00). In it's stock condition, the performance of the Radeon9600Pro listed above is superior to this however a clever user may/will find that these 9800SE's can be BIOS-flashed and overclocked quite readily ... and in that case, these cards are a steal. If you're just looking to run a card in it's stock condition, save your money and grab the Radeon9600Pro
  • [AGP][ATi] JetWay 96XT-AD-256C Radeon 9600XT 256MB ($83.00). Featuring a significant clock jump from the 9600Pro, this card definitively offers the best AGP performance of the cards listed so far
  • [PCIE][nVidia] MSI NX6600-TD128E Lite GeForce 6600 128MB ($86.99), Albatron PC6600Q GeForce 6600 256MB ($82.00 after $10.00 MIR) . With the Radeon X1300 roughly matching the performance profile of the 6600LE cards (at a cheaper price), the 'full' GeForce 6600 offers significantly improved performance over all the PCIE cards so far
  • [AGP][nVidia] ABIT FX5900 OTES GeForce FX5900 128MB ($89.99). Although a two-slot solution, to find a flagship card (albeit several generations back) in this price bracket is impressive; for non-DirectX9 games, this card will handedly come out on top for AGP cards however if you're interested in playing DirectX9 games, the 9600XT still holds the reccomendation.
  • [PCIE][ATi] Sapphire 100121L Radeon X700 128MB ($90.00), ASUS EAX700-X/TD/128M Radeon X700 128MB ($96.00). The first 8-pipe ATi card to hit this reccomendation list, this card pulls out ahead over the performance of the X1300 and takes place as the best ATi-PCIE card so far. Of the two, the ASUS, featuring a higher memory clock will provide better performance
  • [PCIE][ATi] Sapphire 100125L Radeon X800GT 128MB ($99.00). Handedly dominating all previously listed PCIE cards, this card features 8-pipes running on a 256bit memory bus. Stock or modified, this card handedly outperforms the previously listed cards
  • [PCIE][ATi] Sapphire 100139L Radeon X800GTO 128MB ($96.00 after $10.00 MIR). Adding an extra four pipelines ot the X800GT, this card readily garners top-PCIE reccomendation so far.
  • [AGP][ATi] PowerColor R98-PC3G Radeon 9800Pro 128MB ($109.00). Priced significantly higher than the 5900/9600XT which previously had the reccomendations, this card offers no-compromise, better performance compared to both in the AGP category however purchasing this card should be done with a grain of salt: compared to current generation cards, the 9800Pro, as good as it might be, is incredibly outdated (not to mention, AGP is essentially dead and this would be an investment into a dead platform).
  • [PCIE][ATi] Sapphire 100147L Radeon X1600Pro 128MB ($111.00), Sapphire 100144 Radeon X1600Pro 256MB ($116.00) With only 55% of the memory bandwidth compared to the X800GTO, the only reason this card makes the list is because it has a higher core clock and offers newer API support as well as having memory RingBus. Now whether or not the efficiency advantages of RingBus will overcome the lack of memory bandwdith is something benchmarks will show, this card is respectable nonetheless
  • [PCIE][nVidia] eVGA 256-P2-N384 GeForce 6800 256MB ($99.00 after $30.00 MIR). This card's price and performance profile put it deadsmack in the same category as the X800GTO albeit behind in both core and memory clockspeeds. However, for those users looking for nVidia cards and/or considering pipeline unlocking, this card offers itself as an excellent buy.
  • [AGP][nVidia] AOpen 90.05210.616 GeForce 6600GT 128MB ($113.00 after $30.00 MIR), Leadtek A6600GT TDH GeForce 6600GT 128MB ($139.00). Priced significantly higher than the 9800Pro above, this card offers hands-down superior performance
  • [AGP][ATi] Sapphire 100148 Radeon X1600Pro 256MB ($139.00). A current generation chip, the inclusion of RingBus, higher clocks and more pipelines compared to the venerable 6600GT, this card is takes the top position for AGP buyers.




Praetor's Picks - Category B

[PCIE][nVidia]
Definitely an easy choice here, the eVGA 256-P2-N384 GeForce 6800 256MB ($99.00 after $30.00 MIR) offers remarkable amount of performance for it's price; you're getting a 12pipe card running a 256bit memory addressing bus for a remarkably low price.

Make eVGA

Model Name/# 256-P2-N384

Interface PCI-Express

GPU nVidia 6800

GPU Clock 325MHz

Memory 256MB DDR

Memory Clock 300MHz (DDR600)

Memory Interface 256bit (19.2GB/s bandwidth)

Pipelines 12x5

Cooling Stock HSF

Shader Models 3.0

Connectivity VGA+DVI+SVideo

Product Link http://www.evga.com/products/moreinf...256-P2-N384-TX
[AGP][nVidia]
Somewhat a difficult choice between the 6600GT and the FX5900 with the former offering significantly improved performance while the latter offering a significantly reduced pricetag, I ended up picking the 6600GT and in particular, the AOpen 90.05210.616 GeForce 6600GT 128MB ($113.00 after $30.00 MIR) since that it more acurately fits the category description. While the FX5900 will definitely win if the category was restricted to DirectX8 games and older, most major titles now (and definitively those to come will be) DirectX9 based or even more advanced -- something that the GeForceFX architecture cannot handle very well.

Make AOpen

Model Name/# 90.05210.616

Interface AGP 4x/8x

GPU nVidia 6600GT

GPU Clock 500MHz

Memory 128MB GDDR3

Memory Clock 500MHz (DDR1000)

Memory Interface 128bit (16.0GB/s bandwidth)

Pipelines 8x4

Cooling Stock HSF

Shader Models 3.0

Connectivity VGA+DVI+SVideo

Product Link http://usa.aopen.com/products/vga/GF6600GT-DV128AGP.htm
[PCIE][ATi]
A relatively easy decision here, the Sapphire 100139L Radeon X800GTO 128MB ($96.00 after $10.00 MIR) offers absolutely stunning performance for a $100 card. No regrets on reccomending this card whatsoever

Make Sapphire

Model Name/# 100139L

Interface PCI-Express

GPU ATi Radeon X800GTO

GPU Clock 400MHz

Memory 128MB GDDR2

Memory Clock 350MHz (DDR700)

Memory Interface 256bit (22.4GB/s bandwidth)

Pipelines 12x7

Cooling Stock HSF

Shader Models 3.0

Connectivity VGA+DVI+SVideo

Product Link http://www.sapphiretech.com/en/produ...s.php?gpid=119
[AGP][ATi]
A somewhat difficult choice, the JetWay 96XT-AD-256C Radeon 9600XT 256MB ($83.00) ended up with the pick due to the very good performance/price ratio. Was originally even considering the Sapphire 9600Pro however the 9600XT offers a significant enough performance jump to warrant the pick

Make JetWay

Model Name/# 96XT-AD-256C

Interface AGP 4x/8x

GPU ATi Radeon 9600XT

GPU Clock 500MHz

Memory 256MB DDR

Memory Clock 300MHz (DDR600)

Memory Interface 128bit (9.6GB/s bandwidth)

Pipelines 4x2

Cooling Stock HSF

Shader Models 2.x

Connectivity VGA+DVI+SVideo

Product Link http://www.jetway.com.tw/jetway/syst...e=96XT-AD-128C

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Praetor

Category C - "I'm building a gaming box, but I dont have a fortune to spend on the top-tier parts; I'd still like to play my games at near-max settings if possible"

As the title suggests, this category caters to those who are looking to build machines that will be able to play all the current games at somthing in the ballpark of maximum settings. As a minimum, cards qualifying for this category:
  • Must have at least 12 pixel shader pipes
  • Must utilize a 256bit memory bus
  • Must have at least 256MB of video memory
  • Must fall in the $150 to $275 bracket
Note that reccomendations for this category will take into account overclocking, unlocking etc.

  • [PCIE][ATi] Sapphire 100169L Radeon X800GTO 512MB ($157.00), Sapphire 100129FBSR Radeon X800GTO 256MB ($159.00). With the former packing a whopping 512MB framebuffer and the latter being highly overclockable, both options are extremely competitive and of high value
  • [PCIE][ATi] Sapphire 100130L-BL X800GTO² 256MB ($149.00 after $20.00 MIR). Known to be unlockable to a 16pipe card, this card offers exceptional value after unlocking. If you plan on running the card in it's stock condition, I would advice purchasing either of the previously reccomended cards
  • [PCIE][ATi] Sapphire 100105SR-BL Radeon X800XL 256MB ($169.00). This is the cheapest 16pipe card to make it on this list: with similar clocks to the X800GTO, the extra four shader pipelines will allow this card to pull ahead of the former
  • [PCIE][nVidia] eVGA 256-P2-N389-AX GeForce 6800GS CO SE 256MB ($154.00 after $15.00 MIR). Featuring a copper based cooler, the best warranty in the industry and out-of-the-box overclocked components, this 12-pipe card will handedly compete with all other 12-pipe cards and even some 16-pipe cards
  • [PCIE][ATi] HIS Hightech HX80XLQ256-3TOEN Radeon X800XL IceQ II 256MB ($169.00 after $20.00 MIR) Featuring an aftermarket cooler which also doubles as a rear exhaust fan, this card is profiled to be overclocked: based on a proven 16-pipe card, it's a very solid buy
  • [PCIE][ATi] Sapphire 100106-RD Radeon X850XT 256MB ($189.00), HIS Hightech HX85XTTQ256-3TOEN IceQ II Radeon X850XT 256MB ($197.00 after $50.00 MIR) . For it's generation, this was easily the best card on the market (granted there was the Platinum Edition but that card is, for all intents and purposes, nonexistent). The HIS model features an exhaust-type aftermarket cooler: more then suitable for overclocking this already extremely impressive card
  • [AGP][nVidia] PNY VCG6800SAWB GeForce 6800GS 256MB ($189.00 after $40.00 MIR) Although significantly more expensive than it's PCI-Express brethen, this card offers a (relatively) good performance/price pair for users looking to buy an AGP solution
  • [PCIE][nVidia] MSI NX7800GT-VT2D256E GeForce 7800GT 256MB ($264.00 after $30.00 MIR), eVGA 256-P2-N516 GeForce 7800GT 256MB ($265.00 after $20.00 MIR) This is the first card to be able to userp the performance and value of the X850XT. Of the two, the eVGA model features a superior warranty as well as a higher clock
  • [AGP][ATi] ATI All-In-Wonder X800XT 100-714200 Radeon X800XT 256MB ($299.00) For this graphical performance for it's price, I would personally consider biting the bullet and shifting to a PCI-Express solution however this card offers VIVO and TV capabilities: all on an AGP solution.
  • [AGP][nVidia] eVGA 256-A8-N507 GeForce 7800GS 256MB ($299.00), XFX PVT70KUAD7 GeForce 7800GS 256MB ($309.00), eVGA 256-A8-N506-AX GeForce 7800GS CO 256MB ($309.00), eVGA 256-A8-N508-AX GeForce 7800GS CO Superclock 256MB ($319.00). This is about as good as the AGP products get: these 7800GS cards are all excessively overclocked from the reference clock speed with the last two featuring copper based heatsinks for even better heat dissipitation (and thus potentially even more overclocking). If you're not interested in the additional video features offered by the X800XT AIW, these cards are the ones to get if you want to make the most of your AGP machine


Praetor's Picks - Category C

[PCIE][nVidia]
Definitely not a hard choice here, the eVGA 256-P2-N516 GeForce 7800GT 256MB ($265.00 after $20.00 MIR) easily garnishes the pick due to it's extreme performance/price value. Being protected by the best warranty in the industry helps too!

Make eVGA

Model Name/# 256-P2-N516

Interface PCI-Express

GPU nVidia GeForce 7800GT

GPU Clock 460MHz

Memory 256MB GDDR3

Memory Clock 550MHz (DDR1100)

Memory Interface 256bit (35.2GB/s bandwidth)

Pipelines 20x7

Cooling Copper HSF

Shader Models 3.0

[b]Connectivity [/BDVI+DVI+SVideo

Product Link http://www.evga.com/products/moreinf...6-AX&family=22
[AGP][nVidia]
A slightly closer and more difficult pick here, I ended up picking the eVGA 256-A8-N508-AX GeForce 7800GS CO Superclock 256MB ($319.00) since, if you're going to put the ballpark $300 into an effectively obsolete platform, you might as well maximize the performance if possible. Having the copper heatsink and best industry warranty is a big plus for users who really want to maximize the performance through overclocking

Make eVGA

Model Name/# 256-A8-N508-AX

Interface PCI-Express

GPU nVidia GeForce 7800GT

GPU Clock 460MHz

Memory 256MB GDDR3

Memory Clock 675MHz (DDR1350)

Memory Interface 256bit (43.2GB/s bandwidth)

Pipelines 20x7

Cooling Copper HSF

Shader Models 3.0

Connectivity DVI+DVI+SVideo

Product Link http://www.evga.com/products/moreinf...256-A8-N508-AX
[PCIE][ATi]
A close call between both of the X850XTs, I ended up picking the HIS Hightech HX85XTTQ256-3TOEN IceQ II Radeon X850XT 256MB ($197.00 after $50.00 MIR) due to the inclusion of the exhaust aftermarket cooler. Either X850XT would have been more than satisfactory as the GPU is tried and true however the aftermarket cooler on the HIS unit definitively adds to it's value by increasing it's potential overclockability

Make HIS

Model Name/# HX85XTTQ256-3TOEN IceQ II

Interface PCI-Express

GPU ATi Radeon X850XT

GPU Clock 520MHz

Memory 256MB GDDR3

Memory Clock 540MHz (DDR1080)

Memory Interface 256bit (34.6GB/s bandwidth)

Pipelines 16x6

Cooling Exhaust type HSF

Shader Models 2.x

Connectivity VGA+DVI+SVideo

Product Link http://www.hisdigital.com/html/produ...d=176&view=yes
[AGP][ATi]
Since there really only was a single AGP card for this category, the selection here was pretty simple. Featuring an "older" X800XT, this card's saving grace is the significantly improved functionality by means of the All-in-Wonder components

Make ATi

Model Name/# All-in-Wonder X800XT

Interface AGP 4x/8x

GPU ATi Radeon X800XT

GPU Clock 500MHz

Memory 256MB GDDR3

Memory Clock 500MHz (DDR1000)

Memory Interface 256bit (32.0GB/s bandwidth)

Pipelines 16x6

Cooling Stock HSF

Shader Models 2.x

Connectivity VGA+DVI+VIVO+TV

Product Link http://www.ati.com/products/radeonx8...0xt/index.html

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Praetor

Category D - "I want to play all the latest games at the highest settings, I'm willing to pay the premium for it"

Buyers in this category are looking for the best of the best and are willing to pay for it. Cards here are the cream of the crop either out of the box or are very readily overclockable. Due to market trends AGP cards do not exist in this reccomendation category. Products reccomended here however are subject to the following:
  • No price restriction
  • Only top tier cards will be chosen
  • Only cards with 256bit memory interfaces will be chosen
  • Only PCI-Express cards will be chosen
  • Only cards with a minimum of 256MB of video memory will be chosen, preference will explicitly be given for 512MB+ cards
  • Preference will be given for copper/exhaust coolers
Note that large points are given for overclockability and that this category is not focused on "reckless spending of money"

  • [PCIE][ATi] ATi 100-435703 Radeon X1800XL 256MB ($312.00). This is no X1800XT however it is quite readily overclockable and thus has significant value there
  • [PCIE][nVidia] eVGA 256-P2-N519-AX GeForce 7800GT CO 256MB ($349.00) Also not the top dog card, this card's value lies in it's overclockability (thanks to the cupper cooler) as well as the free SLI motherboard that it comes with
  • [PCIE][ATi] Gigabyte GV-RX18T512V-B Radeon X1800XT 512MB ($394.99), HIS Hightech H180XT512DVN Radeon X1800XT 512MB ($399.99 after $50.00 MIR) These are the flagship cards of ATi's X1800 series and offer the best performance that GPU series had to offer. Both models feature semi-exhaust type coolers
  • [PCIE][nVidia] eVGA 256-P2-N527-AX GeForce 7800GTX 256MB ($434.00) The 7800GTX (A1/A2) has undeniable performance and this eVGA model featuring a custom copper cooling system allows for potentially even more overclocking past it's already out-of-the-box overclocking
  • [PCIE][ATi] Powercolor 1900XT512OEM Radeon X1900XT 512MB ($479.00) Clocked a hair slower than the X1900XTX, the X1900XT is the undeniable currently reigning GPU, guaranteeing it a reccomendation
  • [PCIE][nVidia] XFX PVT70FUND7 GeForce 7800GTX 256MB ($499.00), Leadtek WinFast PX7800GTX TDH myVIVO Extreme 256MB ($499.00), eVGA 256-P2-N529-AX GeForce 7800GTX 256MB ($489.00) Coming significantly overclocked and with the Leadtek model featuring a semi-exhaust cooler these cards maximize the performance of the 7800GTX (A1/A2)
  • [PCIE][ATi] PowerColor 1900XTX512OEM Radeon X1900XTX 512MB ($579.00), MSI RX1900XTX-VT2D512E Radeon X1900XTX 512MB ($589.99), Connect3D 3055 Radeon X1900XTX 512MB ($579.00 after $20.00 MIR) Literally the best videocards available on the market, the X1900XTX cards command a very high premium .. but if you're looking for the absolute best card on the market (at time of writing), here it is.


Praetor's Picks - Category D

[PCIE][nVidia]


Picking the eVGA 256-P2-N529-AX GeForce 7800GTX 256MB ($489.00) wasnt easy: the Leadtek model comes with a slightly lower clock speed on the memory however it has an arguably superior cooler (heatpipe + semiexhaust) however the superior warranty provided by eVGA made the decision: for users who want to push their hardware to the max, the extra layer of protection afforded by eVGA's warranty is a huge bonus.

Make eVGA

Model Name/# 256-P2-N529-AX

Interface PCI-Express

GPU nVidia GeForce 7800GTX

GPU Clock 490MHz

Memory 256MB GDDR3

Memory Clock 650MHz (DDR1300)

Memory Interface 256bit (41.6GB/s bandwidth)

Pipelines 24x8

Cooling ACS³ custom cooler

Shader Models 3.0

Connectivity DVI+DVI+VIVO

Product Link http://www.evga.com/products/moreinf...256-P2-N529-AX
[PCIE][ATi]


Not a hard choice here! Although the X1900XTX is a superior card, paying the premium for the extra 25/50MHz overclock is boarderline insane! Picking the Powercolor 1900XT512OEM Radeon X1900XT 512MB ($479.00) saved us $80 compared to the cheapest X1900XTX.

Make PowerColor

Model Name/# 1900XTX512OEM

Interface PCI-Express

GPU ATi Radeon X1900XT

GPU Clock 625MHz

Memory 512MB GDDR3

Memory Clock 725MHz (DDR1450)

Memory Interface 256bit (46.4GB/s bandwidth)

Pipelines 16x8

Cooling Semi-exhaust HSF

Shader Models 3.0

Connectivity DVI+DVI+VIVO

Product Link http://www.powercolor.com/global/mai...ail.asp?id=105

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Praetor

Section 03 - Long and Painful: What do I need to know to pick out a good videocard?

There are four steps to picking out a good videocard:
  1. Define your requirements. This one is pretty straight-forward: what kind of features or performance do you need/want from your videocard? Do you want to be able to play the latest and greatest games on the highest settings? Do you want to have video capture capabilities? Do you want a super-silent computer? Or something else? By defining what your needs are you can cut down on the number of possible products to consider.
  2. How much money do you have to work with? Yes we would all like to be able to spend a zillion dollars in every area of our computer to have the best system possible but that's not an option generally available to us. By putting a limitation on the price tag we can further reduce the number of options to consider
  3. Indirect considerations There are three considerations here (1) people who want silent computers (2) people who want to do fancy things like overclock or unlock pipes and (3) people who want to game on LCD monitors
  4. Do some more research


Part 1: Defining your requirements

The questions we are trying to answer with this step are:
  • How much graphical horsepower do you need? Here are a few scenarios:
    • A machine that will just be used for work, movies, email, chatting will not have virtually zero graphical horsepower requirements
    • A machine that will serve as a "general purpose" computer that will encounter the occasional game will have minimal gaming requirements
    • A machine that will be playing the latest and greatest games will have a very high gaming requirement
    • A machine that will be used in for the purposes of doing animation or rendering will have a very high workstation requirement
    • A machine that will be used in t home theater type setup where the primary screen is the TV/projector will have a VIVO/TV/Media requirement and as a secondary requirement, it would be benificial if the videocard was relatively silent
    • A machine where the user intends to maximize the performance of each and every component through unlocking or overclocking will have thermal requirements
  • What type of horsepower do you need?
    • Gaming?
    • Professional?
    • Media?
    • Other?
  • What other requirements do you need?
    • Silent?
    • Will thermal management be an issue?
    • Power constraints?
    • Connectivity constraints?


Part 2: How much money do you have to work with?

This step should be pretty self-explainatory.



Step 3: Indirect Considerations
  • If you plan on gaming on a LCD, be aware that LCDs have something known as a native resolution. If you play the game (or do anything really) at anything other than this native resolution then the image quality will be very poor. If you own an LCD with a relatively high native resolution of say 1280x1024, and you want to play a game such as FEAR (which is graphcially intense in an of itself) then note that your videocard must be able to handle that game at 1280x1024. People on CRTs (aka "normal monitors") dont need to worry about this since their displays are not limited to a single resolution.
  • If you plan on buying a high powered videocard make sure your computer can actually power the card reliably. Videocard manufacturers and many people will say "get a 500W PSU" or something to that effect -- this is absolutely useless since a bad 500W PSU will not be able to reliably power your videocard. This consideration is doubly important for people who are installing a new highend videocard into an OEM machine (i.e., Dell, HP, Compaq, IBM etc) where the quality of the included PSU is questionable at best
  • Although this is not nearly an issue now as it was maybe a few years ago, but some games have certain hardware requirements (i.e.,"You need a DirectX8 videocard to play this game"). The common scenario was people bought budget videocards (i.e., GeForce 4 MX which is a DirectX7 card) and they wondered why they couldnt play a game that required DirectX8. Simply going to Microsoft.com and downloading the latest DirectX does NOT mean your hardware supports that version of DirectX
  • If you're intending to make a shuttlebox or HTPC, please be aware of heat constraints: those small boxes are often not well ventilated enough to handle the heat output of the higherend cards


Step 4: Do some more research

When you've narrowed down your cards, do some research on them! Dont make the mistake of trusting customer reviews: many times people will have a problem with a product (usually due to them skipping over step 3 and forgetting something) and they will blame the product. Instead, do your research by searching for comments from well established hardware review sites aka people who know what they are talking about.



An important step here is to recognize bias and fanboyism when you see it. For some reason kids (usually) tend to think that one company sucks or another company sucks without having any technical reason to back it up. Sure having opinions is cool, but just like you should not trust customer reviews, take people's experiences with a grain of salt: just because one person had a bad experience does not mean you will.



Now once you've done all this you should have a pretty small set of videocards to pick from: feel free to post your selection here (along with your budget and requirements) and you'll generally get a response or two from people indicating what route they think you should take. Again with the "grain of salt" ... look for reasons so that you can deal with facts and not just opinions.



Lastly, have a look at the VFAQ to address some pretty common questions and concerns that people looking to buy videocards have.



A bit more detail...

Gamer

A good gaming card generally strives to feature the best of the best and to have the most of it; some stuff to shoot for when picking out a gaming card:
  • Pipelines. Most commonly listed as "pixel pipelines" or "programmable shaders", the number of pipelines acts as the limiting factor on how many simultaneous shader programs can be run. Although cards do exist that do not have these shader pipelines, you are much better off getting a card with at least some pipelines. Unless you are severely price limited, you absolute minimum number of pipelines you should shoot for in a gaming card is 4. Those looking for midrange cards should generally shoot for cards with 8-12 pixel pipelines and the high end gamers should be looking to buy cards with more than 12 pipelines.
  • Clockspeed. Just like with processors, the higher the clockspeed, the faster the card and the smoother the gameplay so strive to get the fastest possible clock as financially feasible.
  • Bandwidth. All the GPU processing power in the world isn't going to be very useful if the processor is starved for data and users looking for high end cards will find that performance, as complexity increases, generally is limited by the memory bandwidth. Now how to pick out a card with good/high bandwidth? There are two considerations:
    1. The 'bit-size' (technically called memory addrerssing bus width) of the video card. Budget cards often feature 64bit memory meaning for each memory clock cycle, 64bits (8bytes) can be processed at a time. Midrange cards will generally feature a 128bit memory structure (meaning each clock cycle will allow for 16bytes to be processed) and high end cards almost always feature 256bit memory structures (for 32bytes per clock cycle).
    2. The memory clockspeed -- for lower-end cards this information is notoriously hard to come by and often, a quick Google search will return a dozen [potentially] conflicting results and interpreting them correctly takes abit of intuition/experience. The reason for the complexity is that marketing people know that 'the bigger number sells' and as such, they will often list the memory speed using the "DDR value" rather than the actual speed (what this DDR thing is, is that for each clock pulse, instead of sending one single per pulse, you send two per pulse and get twice the work done in the same amount of time; see RAM 101 for more on this). The actual memory clock speed will always be the smaller of the two values and to be specific, it will be exactly half (i.e., for a videocard advertised with 700MHz 'effective speed', it will actually be running at 350MHz). In general, you'll want a higher memory clock speed.
    Now to determine the memory bandwidth that a specific card has, simply peform the following calculation:

    Bandwidth = BitSize x MemoryClockSpeed ÷ 4
    So a quick example before moving on, a video chip like the nVidia 6800GT which features 256bit memory running at 500MHz (sometimes noted as "DDR1000", "1000MHz effective speed" or even worse, "1000MHz") will have 32GB/s of bandwidth (256 x 500 ÷ 4 = 32000MB/s which is roughly 32GB/s).
  • Memory amount and type: in addition to the bit-size of the memory, you'll also want to get the most and most advanced type of memory that you can for your gaming card. For the most part, even low-budget gamers should strive to avoid 64MB cards as much as possible (although that really should be your ceiling unless you are really budget constrained -- something i'll deal with later); gamers looking for mid and high end parts should make 128MB of memory as their minimum. Do note that videocards with 512MB of onboard memory do exist however there has yet to be significant/noticeable performance gains from investing into that platform.



    As for memory type and getting the most advanced type, video memory is slightly different than normal system memory (which marketing people love because there is more jargon to toss at the consumer). In the context of videocards there are currently three commonly found types of memory:
    • DDR (sometimes denoted as GDDR, DDR1, GDDR1 etc)
    • DDR2 (sometimes denoted as DDR-II, GDDR2, GDDR-II etc): the difference here is DDR2 hit higher clockspeeds (thus offering better performance) however the memory chips still ran at the same 2.5v as the original DDR and so heat became an issue.
    • DDR3 (mote commonly denoted as GDDR3 but other variants exist) solves the heat issue that DDR2 had by lowering the signalling voltage to 1.8-2.0v.
    Performance-wise, clock-for-clock all the types of memories are the same (i.e., 500MHz DDR and 500MHz GDDR3 will yield pretty much the same results). To avoid confusion the remainder of this guide will make use of the notation: DDR, DDR-II, GDDR3.
  • Futureproof. Although this is somewhat impossible given the fast turnarounds in the industry, you can somewhat make wise decisions by purachsing cards that may allow you to do more advanced things later on (i.e., SLI, overclocking friendly cards etc). For this most part, this isnt nearly a big consideration as the above points. For those looking to buy a new videocard, the only notceable impact here is deciding between AGP and PCIE: you should strive to get a PCIE system where possible as AGP will be phased out (in fact, it is all but phased out).
  • API Support. Marketing people like to play with words and one word they enjoy is "compatible"; an example of this is with a GeForce4MX, the marketing will say "DirectX9 compatible". So far it may seem that there is nothing wrong with the statement however the hardware on the GeForce4MX is DirectX7 class. So how does this work (and are they lying)?! What this means is that when a game issues a DirectX7 command the videocard will respond as expected however when the game issues a DirectX8 (or better) command, the card is not capable of executing that command and in best case scenario, it will just sit there being dumb (more likely it'll crap out on you). The marketing people, however, aren't lying to you: the card is [literally] compatible with DirectX9 -- what they mean is that you can install DirectX9 onto the computer and the graphics card wont have a problem with it. Translation? It's meaningless goobble-dee-goop that marketing people throw at the consumer.
For gaming cards, expect to spend upwards of 75USD for anything passable. Upper limits are in excess of $1000 for complete configurations.



Mainstream Cards

By mainstream I mean videocards you would find in an office computer or a basic no-games computer. The line between very-low-budget-gaming cards and mainstream cards is a thin grey one: for the most part, mainstream cards are the low budget gaming cards. Since there is no gaming to be done one these machines, any cheap videocard will be sufficient. For the most part, expect to spend $30-50USD on a mainstream card. As an alternative that offers less fuss (but often less performance/flexibility), you might consider getting a motherboard with a built in videocard: the motherboard will probably cost an extra $5-10USD but that is offset by not having to buy a videocard.

Theater/HTPC

Buying a videocard for a 'movie machine' generally places the emphasis on three points:
  • Featureset. What you should generally be looking for here is video in/out features as well as TV-related features. The biggest, baddest GPU isnt gonna be very useful as a HTPC (home-theater PC)( card if it cant interact with the TV (which for the most part is still the dominant video display in a home theater setup). Being able to interface with VCRs etc is also useful
  • Cool and Quiet A fancy videocard, more often than not, is likely to generate tons of heat which will have to be dealt with. Normally this isnt much of an issue however in theater systems (which can/often are employed in small cases, airflow is an issue and as such, it's better to have a cool card to start with). For those concerned about noise, fans generate noise and having a cool card to start with often means the fan can spin at a lower speed (and thus generate less noise).
Workstation/Professional

Unlike gamer cards where performance between various benchmarks can vary wildly, workstation cards are bit more consistent (with much more well established benchmarks). For the most part the determining factor will be
  • Amount and type of memory. Same as for a gaming card, the more memory the better and the more advanced the memory, the better.
  • Fillrate All other things being equal, a card with more bandwidth willl give a card a greater fillrate, both geometric and texture

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Praetor

Section 04 - VFAQ
  • How much can I overclock my videocard to?Nobody can tell you. Just because one dude hits a certain clock speed doesnt mean you will either, you may match that, surpass it or come up dismally short. The only way to find out how much you can overclock your videocard by is to try it out yourself
  • If I overclock my videocard, how much performance increase should I expect?Depends on the card, what you are overclocking and how much you are overclocking it by!
    • As a trend, nVidia based cards seem to benifit more per clock cycle
    • When overclocking you have the option of overclocking the coreclock, the memory clock or both. Depending on how what you are using to measure performance you will notice varying changes in performance depending on which you overclock
    • Overclocking a GPU core by 10MHz wont produce anything noticeble; neither will overclocking the memory by 25MHz. Also something to consider: a videocard which uses a 128bit memory path will benifit less from each memory clock increase than on that uses a 256bit memory interface
    • Overclocking a low end budget card in hopes of making it perform like a high end part will only result in failure, dissapointment and/or naivete. People who say they've overclock their budget gaming card by # percent and have gotten like twice the performance generally dont know what they are talking about. The reason (yes there is a reason) is that the bottleneck with budget parts is usually not the clock speed but something more crucial like the number of pipelines or the memory addressing bus width -- neither of which are affected by overclocking
    • Some GPUs have frequency scaling where you wont notice any performance gains until you've overclocked by certain amounts. A bit is mentioned here
  • I've not bought a videocard yet but when I do, I want to overclock it, what should I look for when buying one? Either look for non-standard cooler (whether it be copper based, uses some form of exhaust or something else) or consider buying an aftermarket cooler. Increasing the cooling capacity (especially for the memory units) will help to improve the amount you can overclock by (why? because if the card, or some of its components, overheats then it may throttle itself and/or artifacts/corruption will show up). While cooling is only half the battle, it's a fairly easy thing to look after.
  • What brand should I buy? The general answer is, "if you're asking this then you probably wont notice all that much" The reasoning is that serious overclockers/performance nuts will have done their research and everybody else probably wont be pushing their hardware enough to notice any difference between brands etc. Now to actually answer the question, a "better" brand depends on how you define "better". Here are some scenarios
    • BFG generally sells their cards as overclocked out of the box. Geneally speaking it's an insignificant overclock however people see the words "overclocked" and are willing to shell out money for it. Lucky BFG. BFG parts are generally very well made however there is a premium involved for their parts being "overclocked"
    • ASUS products are generally very well made however they make a very wide variety of products catering to budget users (-X series) to the top (-TOP, EXTREME series) tier users so to group all ASUS products into one specific description is generally unfair. It is fair to say their products are generally very well made however they tend to do "wierd things" (i.e., power connectors on ASUS video cards arent standard etc). As a trend, ASUS parts are usually more expensive as well -- often worth it -- but expensive nonetheless
    • XFX. What sets XFX apart from the rest (other than a difficult to open product box) is their product warranty is single-sale transferable (i.e., if you bought the card originally, you can sell the card and the next owner is entitled to the warranty as well) as well as their cards being usually overclocked a bit. Their pricing is pretty in line with their performance
    • eVGA. Their selling point is an obscenely comprehensive warranty. Short of blatant damage to the card, it's covered. Naturally you need to read more into this before running off an buying a random eVGA card.
    • HIS/Sapphire/Powercolor/Connect3D. These companies often make ship cards with some form of custom cooler which adds to the value of the card by reducing temperatures and improving overclockability
    • Other..... read up on the company and see for yourself!
  • Should I get SLI/Crossfire? If you're asking this, the answer is "no". People who will benifit from this neat (and expensive) technological marvel have already made up their minds and bought the hardware for it. If you're asking about whether you should get it or not then you've not maximized your hardware enough to benifit from it (i.e., sort of how people who havnt quite learned how to use a basic calculator ... they shouldnt be messing with a graphing calculator quite yet). Now for a technical reason as to why one shouldnt go the multi-GPU route: consider the following scenarios



    Dude is looking to buy a SLI-capable machine with a not-quite-top-of-the-line videocard and buying the second video card a few months later. Lets have a financial analysis
    Popular SLI Motherboards ... [Min, Avg, Max] = [125,161,205]

    - MSI K8N Neo4 SLI ... Sep 05 @ 125USD

    - DFI Lanparty UT NF4 SLI-DR ... Sep 05 @ 165USD

    - Abit Fatal1ty AN8 SLI ... Sep 05 @ 205USD

    - ASUS A8N-SLI Premium ... Sep 05 @ 175USD

    - Gigabyte GA-K8N Ultra-SLI ... Sep 05 @ 135USD



    Popular Non-SLI Motherboards ... [Min, Avg, Max] = [110,118,130]

    - Gigabyte GA-K8N Ultra-9 ... Sep 05 @ 115USD

    - DFI Lanparty UT NF4 Ultra-D ... Sep 05 @ 130USD

    - ASUS A8N-E ... Sep 05 @ 110USD

    - Abit AN8 Ultra ... Sep 05 @ 115USD

    - MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum ... Sep 05 @ 120USD



    Popular 6600GTs

    - PNY GeForce 6600GT 128MB ... Sep 05 @ 220USD, Feb 06 @ 150USD

    - BFS GeForce 6600GT OC 128MB ... Sep 05 @ 190USD, Feb 06 @ 200USD

    - Gigabyte GeForce 6600GT 128MB ... Sep 05 @ 175USD, Feb 06 @ 150USD

    - ASUS GeForce 6600GT 128MB ... Sep 05 @ 185USD, Feb 06 @ 155USD

    - XFX GeForce 6600GT 128MB ... Sep 05 @ 145USD, Feb 06 @ 120USD

    - Chaintech GeForce 6600GT 128MB ... Sep 05 @ 140USD, Feb 06 @ 125USD



    Popular 6800GTs

    - BFG GeForce 6800GT OC 256MB ... Sep 05 @ 320USD, Feb 06 @ 385USD

    - MSI GeForce 6800GT 256MB ... Sep 05 @ 325USD, Feb 06 @ 315USD

    - Gigabyte GeForce 6800GT 256MB ... Sep 05 @ 380USD, Feb 06 @ 380USD

    - Leadtek GeForce 6800GT 256MB ... Sep 05 @ 300USD, Feb 06 @ 300USD

    - XFX GeForce 6800GT 256MB ... Sep 05 @ 290USD, Feb 06 @ 300USD

    - eVGA 6800GT 256MB ... Sep 05 @ 290USD, Feb 06 @ 325USD



    Some Current Cards

    - Gigabyte 7800GT 256MB ... Feb 06 @ 295USD

    - MSI GeForce 7800GT 256MB ... Feb 06 @ 265USD

    - eVGA GeForce 7800GT 256MB ... Feb 06 @ 275USD

    - BFG GeForce 7800GT OC 256MB ... Feb 06 @ 315USD

    - eVGA GeForce 7800GT CO SE 256MB ... Feb 06 @ 260USD

    - XFX GeForce 7800GTX 256MB ... Feb 06 @ 470USD

    - MSI GeForce 7800GTX 256MB ... Feb 06 @ 435USD

    - eVGA GeForce 7800GTX ACS3 256MB ... Feb 06 @ 435USD

    - ASUS Radeon X1800XL 256MB ... Feb 06 @ 355USD

    - Sapphire Radeon X1800XL 256MB ... Feb 06 @ $340USD

    - Connect3D Radeon X1800XL 256MB ... Feb 06 @ 320USD

    - MSI Radeon X1800XT 512MB ... Feb 06 @ 400USD

    - Gigabyte Radeon X1800XT 512MB .. Feb 06 @ 395USD

    - MSI Radeon X1900XT 512MB ... Feb 06 @ 530USD

    - Powercolor Radeon X1900XT 512MB ... Feb 06 @ 480USD

    - Connect3D Radeon X1900XT 512MB ... Feb 06 @ 510USD
    Ok now that we have some figures lets do some math....
    • Configuration 1: 6600GT-SLI ... SLI Motherboard (160USD) + Sep 05 6600GT (175USD) + Feb 06 6600GT (150USD) ... 485USD
    • Configuration 2: 6800GT-SLI ... SLI Motherboard (160USD} + Sep 05 6800GT (320USD) + Feb 06 6800GT (330USD) ... 810USD
    • Configuration 3: 6600GT -> 7800GT ... NonSLI Motherboard (118USD) + Sep 05 6600GT (175USD) + Feb 06 7800GT (260) ... 553USD
    • Configuration 4: 6800GT --> 7800GT ... NonSLI Motherboard (118USD) + Sep 05 6800GT (320USD) + Feb 06 7800GT (260) ... 698USD


    Analysis

    Ive provided a whole bunch of number that you can use to make your own comparisons and calculations (note that for the 7800GT I chose the cheapest part ... the reasoning is, because we are not forced to pick a specific part then we can simply buy the cheapest part, the rest of the prices are included for completeness sake). But anyways, the analysis
    • Comparing Configuration 1 to Configuration 3, the latter costs an extra $85 so it would seem that the SLI route is more cost effective -- until we realize that the 7800GT will more than outright destroy a 6600GT-SLI configuration. A quick Googling of the relevant benchmarks will quickly confirm this. As a quick proof, consider Doom3 UQ @ 1600x1200
    • Comparing Configuration 2 to Configuration 4, the latter turns out to be cheaper and you'll also see that the 7800GT will outperform 6800GT-SLI (although the margin of victory is, as expected, significantly less). Again, Google up some benchmarks for yourself but as a quick example, consider FarCry UQ @ 1600x1200 or FEAR @ 1600x1200


    Also note that the above non-SLI configurations do not take into consideration any resale value of the originally purchased cards. We're not done with the analysis quite yet: consider that in a span of a few months that if the video subsystem is obsolete enough to warrant a multiGPU configuration then one has to wonder how obsolete the memory and processing subsystems are. Granted the majority of the burden is on the GPU but one cannot deny the impact of the RAM/CPU -- adding a second videocard to the system will improve performance no doubt but putting all that money into the videosubsystem when the CPU/RAM is the bottleneck does not seem like a wise move.



    Now as a final statement, if you can afford a multiGPU configuration .. by all means, go for it, there ARE gains in both performance and image quality however for someone who is honestly asking "should I?", they will most likely be better served by the normal upgrade route.
  • AGP or PCI-Express?

    A somewhat difficult question as it depends a lot on the amount of money you have to play, how much you want to upgrade and when you plan to move onto the next upgrade. Some considerations
    • AGP is essentially dead. Although AGP cards can stil be bought, quantity and availabilty will be limited; due to how the economy works, the pricing for AGP cards will also be higher.
    • Since AGP is effectively dead, buying an AGP card would be an investment that will not take you anywhere past the current hardware. While this is ok for people who are looking to build a basic machine, users who are looking at Category C and Category D might be better off moving the entire upgrade along into a platform change.
    • The reason budget is an issue is, well, if you want to avoid investing into a dead platform, you're going to have to buy, at the least, a new motherboard (i.e., Athlon64 using a K8T800Pro ) or at the worst, a motherboard, CPU and RAM (a Pentium4 usign a P4C800). For all intents and purposes this is essentially akin to building a whole new computer.

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Praetor

  • How do I check my temperatures? How do I know if the videocard is overheating? Assuming your videocard has a thermal sensor (lower-end models do not generate enough heat in normal operation to warrant a thermal sensor and thus do not include one). If you do have a card with a thermal sensor, a tool like RivaTuner, or SpeedFan can be used to view and log the temperature of your videocard. If you re trying to isolate whether or not your videocard is overheating or not, make sure you start the logging before you start up the game, alt-tabbing back to Windows will drop the temperature and skew your results
  • How to do I test my videocard both for stability and for performance? There are tons of benchmarking tools available to test your video card for stability. Pick a benchmark and let it run a handful of passes and if they run cleanly without any issues you can assume your videocard is running stable. The following are but a limited few
    • FutureMark 3DMark 06, FutureMark 3DMark 05, FutureMark 3DMark 03. FutureMark 3DMark 01 SE
    • AquaMark 3
    • Quake4 Benchmark Utility
    • FarCry Benchmarking Utility
    • HOC Halflife 2 Benchmark Utlity
    • Splinter Cell Chaos Theory Benchmark Utility
    Pretty much any major game title will feature some form of benchmarking: some games to consider are FEAR, Need for Speed Most Wanted, X2-The Threat, LockOn.
  • Is my card overheating? How can I tell? How hot is too hot? Using a tool like RivaTuner, or SpeedFan, you can see your videocard's core and memory temperature. To see if your videocard is overheating, simply set either program to start logging the temperatures and then run a benchmark/game for a few passes and then check the log. It's important to not alt-tab back and forth to check the temperatures because switching to 2D mode (i.e., Windows) will result in a significant drop in temperatures and thus skew results. For both current generation nVidia and ATi cards, having a core temperature less than 80ºC at all times is ok; even at 80ºC there is tons of leeway (over 20ºC for both ATi and nVidia cards) before the temperatures are actually dangerous ot the videocard although naturally, the lower the better
  • I want to cool down my videocard, what can I do? Well if you're having heat issues or you just want to cool down the videocard, almost any aftermarket cooler wll do the job (although the cost of most is that they will use an additional slot in your motherboard). Building a cooler here is dependent on the model of video card you've got; for some popular cards:
    • Arctic Cooling AVC-NV5R3 NV Silencer Rev 3 ($29.99)
    • Arctic Cooling AT4 Rev2 ($29.99)
    • Zalman VF700-CU VGA Cooler ($29.99), Zalman VF700LED CU VGA Cooler ($34.99)
    • Arctic Cooling AVC-AT5 Rev2 ($36.99)
    There are tons more products on the market, just have a look.
  • I've heard some people talk about unlocking pipes? How can I do this?
  • I have a GeForce 7800GT, I want to unlock the pipes to make it more like the GeForce 7800GTX Here is a perfect response to that question


    Quote:








    Originally Posted by Guru3D


    Unlocking disabled Pipelines and Vertex Units

    I can imagine that certain geeks are already looking into a way to unlock the remaining pipes and vertex unit to make this product even faster. In fact .. just grab Rivatuner and let's have a look inside the G70:



    At this point I have spend no more than a couple of minutes in figuring out if the disabled Pipelines and Vertex units should be able to get unlocked, unfortionately that's just not the case though.



    As you can see, the pixel pipes are configured as quads (units of four), we see 6x4 (24 pipes) of them with one quad (4 pipes) disabled. When we look at the Vertex units we see that indeed one unit is disabled. Likely if you can enable the quad or vertex unit properly you have a high chance of it being damaged anyway. It's fun to play arround with in Rivatuner though, yet after a reboot and a third try to 'strap' the driver it still did not kick in at all. Maybe in a future version of Rivatuner, who knows.



    I just had a quick chat with uber guru and RivaTuner programmer Alexey, and at this time it looks like you can not unlock the pipes by patching the drivers due to a new protection. NVIDIA uses a similar protection on NV41 and new revisions of NV43 (A4 and newer). I'm afraid that they use the same stuff on G70

    And hey. If you do not have a clue what I just wrote, don't even think of trying this please.

    Something very important that should be noted is the last sentence If you do not have a clue what I just wrote, don't even think of trying this please. That definitively applies here. If you really want to try unlocking anyways and are looking for a guide, here is a starter guide at Anandtech Forums


I want to get <aHighEndCard> My friend has <aDifferentHighEndCard> and he says I should get his because his card gets so many more fps than mine! Should I?

So long as the two high end cards being compared are roughly equal (i.e., they are competing products), I would reccomend going with the cheaper of the two. The reasoning here is that, within the context of highend cards (whether we're talking about high-end cards for current generation cards or relatively high end cards -- that is, buying a current generation card for a three-generation old game), you're generally going to be looking at fairly high framerates -- and 99% of people (if not more) wont be able to discern the difference between, say, 100fps and 80fps ... so why pay the price premium? (now if it's a cheaper card then by all means!)



I'm building a work/no-gaming machine and my friend told me to get a <midRangeCard> or <highEndCard>, should I?

Absolutely, positively not! Any real-world noticeable difference between cards will essentially only be exhibited in gaming so if there to be no gaming involved then there simply is no point in buying a gaming card.



Support ... Compliance ... Hardware ... Software? What gives?!

A classic case of marketing jargon being tossed around left and right, hopefully this breaks things down
  • Support This means that the hardware (i.e., your video card) physically supports whatever extensions are being asked of it. So for example, if a box says "Supports DirectX9" this means that the hardware complies with the hardware requirements for DirectX9. This is what you want and 'support'. Now do note that even though this is what support is supposed to mean, marketing people often use English definitions rather than technical ones and as such you may find things to be inaccurate
  • Compliant/Compatible. When a video card states that it is complient with or compatible with something (say DirectX9) all this means is that you can install DirectX9 (or whatever) on the computer and the videocard will still work. It does not mean that the videocard will be able to execute DirectX9 instructions (which is what marketing people want you to think)
  • Hardware and Software [Requirements]. When a video game markets that it "requires DirectX9 [to be installed]" thats literally what it means .. that you need to install DirectX9 in order to be able to install/play the game. Now when the game states that it "requires DirectX9 hardware" or that it "requires DirectX9 compliant" hardware that means your videocard needs to physically be able to execute DirectX9 instructions.


Ok so what 'version' of DirectX is my videocard?

For ATi card owners,
  • DirectX7.
    • Classic Radeons
    • '7000' series Radeons
  • DirectX8
    • '8500' series Radeons
    • '9000' series Radeons
    • '9100' series Radeons
    • '9200' series Radeons
    • '9250' series Radeons
  • DirectX9.0
    • '9500' series Radeons
    • '9600' series Radeons
    • '9700' series Radeons
    • '9800' series Radeons
    • 'X200' series Radeons
    • 'X300' series Radeons
    • 'X500' series Radeons
    • 'X600' series Radeons
    • 'X7x0' series Radeons
    • 'X8x0' series Radeons
  • DirectX9.0c
    • 'X1x00' series Radeons
For nVidia Owners,
  • DirectX7
    • 'GeForce' cards
    • 'GeForce2' cards
    • 'GeForce4MX' cards
  • DirectX8
    • 'GeForce3' cards
    • 'GeForce4Ti' cards
  • DirectX9.0
    • 'GeForceFX' cards
  • DirectX9.0c
    • 'GeForce 6x00' cards
    • 'GeForce 7x00' cards


I've noticed that you dont make a very big deal about benchmarks? Why not?

Benchmarks serve to provide a general overview of the performance capabilities of whatever is being benchmarked however I've noticed that way too many people think that benchmarks are the be-all, end-all of videocard performance: if they cant get a certain benchmark score then the configuration isnt good enough -- even when they really wont notice the performance improvement! (i.e., sure you can score a million 3DMarks with the fancy SLI rig but are you really going to notice the difference between 100fps and 150fps in the games you play? probably not). Benchmarks are useful, it's just that its neccesary to be able to interepet the benchmark scores with a grain of salt.



Should I use the drivers from my videocard manufacturer or from the chip manufacturer?

As a general principle, unless there is a specific reason not to, it's always better to use the drivers made from the chip manufacturer: more frequent updates and direct performance improvements; 'sides, who knows the chip better than the maker themselves?



I've read in this guide as well as heard around: why does the GeForceFX get such a bad rap?

While nVidia did a good job of providing an entire platform of chips that are DirectX9 capable, the architecture of the chips was not suited for running in DirectX9 mode: while this was not nearly as noticeable with their low end models (think of it as 'the low end chips are so slow already that any inefficiency or whatnot wont really be noticeable'), their high end chips did not perform in a competitive manner against their ATi counterparts.



In fact, the GeForceFX architecture is so dismal in DirectX9 mode that, it's way better treat the cards as DirectX8 hardware (and run them in DirectX8 mode where possible). Running games with DirectX8 mode generally resulted in a marked and significant performance jump (often 50% improvement or better).



What is pipe unlocking?

The difference between highend and midrange cards (or even amoung high end models) lies in the number of pixel/vertex shader pipelines present: for example, some cards feature 16 while others feature 12. In many cases, the card with 'only 12' pieplines will still physically have 16 pipelines yet have one of the pipeline-quads disabled -- and it may be possible to unlock them for a free performance boost.



How do I see what version of drivers Ive got?
  1. Start --> Run
  2. Type dxdiag
  3. Goto the Display tab
  4. See in top right corner where it says "version"

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