Best PCI-E Card for ~£145 and ~£190

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BEST PCI-E CARD FOR £145 (inc VAT):

 

GeForce 8800 GT 512MB
Codename: G92
Process: 65nm
Universal Shaders: 112
Texture Units: 56
ROPs: 16
Memory Bus: 256-bit
Core Speed MHz: 600
Memory Speed MHz: 900 (1800 effective)
DirectX / Shader Model: DX 10 / SM 4.0

 
The 8800 GT offers incredible Geforce 8800 GTX-class performance at almost half the price. It beats the Radeon 3870 by a considerable margin, and is usually found with a similar price tag. If you have £145 to spend on a graphics card, you can’t do better than a nice 8800 GT. That said, the cheaper 9600 GT is more or less the same.

BEST PCI-E CARD FOR £190 (inc VAT):

 

GeForce 8800 GTS 512MB
Codename: G92
Process: 65nm
Universal Shaders: 128
Texture Units: 56
ROPs: 16
Memory Bus: 256-bit
Core Speed MHz: 600
Memory Speed MHz: 900 (1800 effective)
DirectX / Shader Model: DX 10 / SM 4.0

 
The 8800 GTS is essentially an 8800 GT with a little more firepower; it sports 128 universal shaders compared to the GT’s 112. It bests its 8800 GT brother, but not by much, and is more expensive – in most cases the GT will suffice, but if you have £190 to spend, this is the card for you. With higher price tags than this performance increases taper off quite a bit, and you’ll only really see benefits at 1920x1200 or higher resolutions.


Talkback
Kraynor 06/03/2008 12:55
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Kraynor
I was really hoping you guys would wait until the release of the 9800GTX and 9800GX2 before doing something like this again but such is the nature of schedules and deadlines. At least there'll be some good in-depth reviews on these cards individually (or together) when they come out :)
mi1ez 06/03/2008 02:18
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mi1ez
It's a regular monthly round-up, and never long till the next one!
impy1980 06/03/2008 04:38
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impy1980
I really find the graphics hierarchy a really helpful thing, although it was easier to read when it was done in table format as previous ;-)

I cant wait until the Q3/Q4 or even early 2009 I'm holding out to see what AMD have instore (not much I'd suspect (compared to Intel), Intel have the next quad core batch lined up and a new stepping, but I'm really waiting for the new Nehalem CPU as that appears to be the next gen CPU.

Once that comes out I will think about what I'm going to upgrade to GPU and Mobo.
polarity 06/03/2008 07:56
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polarity
I suppose Tom's not being the extreme site it used to be, the huge overclocking potential of the GTS 512 is of little interest.

I've taken mine from 650/1625/972 (core/shader/memory) to 762/1900/1130, and the temperature under load with a waterblock never goes over 40C. People who have voltage modded their cards have seen completion of 3dmark06 at 918/2268/2250 on air.

With no competition Nvidia just aren't pushing G92 as far as it can go, which is way further than the Ultra that pushed G80 to the limit.
spuddyt 06/03/2008 07:59
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spuddyt
wow, i didn't expect that the rage 128 would be listed :p to anyone who has one (i'd be surprised)
polarity 07/03/2008 08:04
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polarity
I think there's one in my iBook :D
sckoobs 11/03/2008 01:57
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sckoobs
Where do the ATI HD 3870, HD 3870 XT and 3870 X2 fit into this list? With their massive clocks and number of stream processors, don't these cards blow all current Nvidia cards out of the water?
MasterDex 16/03/2008 08:59
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MasterDex
sckoobs: You did read the article didn't you? The current Nvidia cards out perform the current ATI cards by a good margin. I just got my 8800GT this week and I'm loving it. great performance. I'm now able to run Crysis with x2 AA at all high settings getting about 45-50fps average. It'll be interesting to see how the 9800 GTX and GX2 compares to the ultra. I'll be looking forward to you reivew on them
Anonymous 16/05/2008 03:28
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Hmm just been looking and its actually cheaper to get the two 8800GT's than it is to get the two 9600 GT's if you're going for EVGA cards at least..

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