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Best PCIe Card: ~$90 To $190

07:10 - Thursday 10 September 2009 by Don Woligroski
Source: Tom's Hardware US – Keywords: best, graphics, card
Categories: Graphics

Best PCIe Card: ~$90 To $190

Best PCIe Card For ~$95:

Radeon HD 4850 512MB (Check Prices)

Exceptional 1680x1050 performance in most games, 1920x1200 in most games with some lowered detail

Radeon HD 4850 512MB
Codename: RV770
Process: 55nm
Universal Shaders: 800
Texture Units: 40
ROPs: 16
Memory Bus: 256-bit
Core Speed MHz: 625
Memory Speed MHz: 993 (1,986 effective)
DirectX/Shader Model: DX 10.1/SM 4.1

With Radeon HD 4850 512 MB prices dropping to a surprisingly low $95, this card easily takes the price/performance crown from the Radeon HD 4770 (which is still about $110 due to availability issues).

Featuring generally-better performance compared to the Radeon HD 4770 and comparable performance with the more expensive GeForce GTS 250, the pressure is on Nvidia to drop prices.

Best PCIe Card For ~$130:

Radeon HD 4870 512MB (Check Prices)

Good 1920x1200 performance in most games

Radeon HD 4870 512MB
Codename: RV770
Process: 55nm
Universal Shaders: 800
Texture Units: 40
ROPs: 16
Memory Bus: 256-bit
Core Speed MHz: 750
Memory Speed MHz: 900 (3,600 effective)
DirectX/Shader Model: DX 10.1/SM 4.1

This is the sweet spot, folks. If someone told us the Radeon HD 4870 would be marked down to $130 four months ago, we'd have laughed in their face. Well, who is laughing now? Gamers are, with this very powerful card and its fast GDDR5 memory available at bargain-basement prices.

Best PCIe Card For ~$145:

Radeon HD 4870 1GB (Check Prices)

Good 1920x1200 performance in most games

Radeon HD 4870 1GB
Codename: RV770
Process: 55nm
Universal Shaders: 800
Texture Units: 40
ROPs: 16
Memory Bus: 256-bit
Core Speed MHz: 750
Memory Speed MHz: 900 (3,600 effective)
DirectX/Shader Model: DX 10.1/SM 4.1

For $15 more than the 512MB version, you can have the 1GB Radeon HD 4870.

For about $20 dollars less than the GeForce GTX 260, the Radeon card offers a little more RAM and comparable performance.


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Talkback
mi1ez 10/09/2009 09:34
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My God! AMD are trouncing NVidia this month! roll on 58x0!

mi1ez 10/09/2009 09:37
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Also looking forward to where the mobility 4000 series sit against NVidia.

Herr_Koos 14/09/2009 10:06
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My my, how things have changed. AMD/ATI are beating NVidia where it matters most, i.e. the mainstream market.

sirkillalot 17/09/2009 18:59
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This is big for AMD, i hope they do well

its about time

nexted year or 2 maybe they will get some decent cpu's

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