PCI-EXPRESS INTERFACE
Best PCI-E Card For Under £50 (inc VAT):
| GeForce 7600 GS | |
|---|---|
| Codename: | G73 |
| Process: | 90nm |
| Pixel Shaders: | 12 |
| Vertex Shaders: | 5 |
| Texture Units: | 12 |
| ROPs: | 8 |
| Memory Bus: | 128-bit |
| Core Speed MHz: | 400 |
| Memory Speed MHz: | 400 (800 effective) |
| DirectX / Shader Model | DX 9.0c / SM 3.0 |
The 7600 GS owns the best sub £50 price point. The X1650 PROs would have been good competition, but the market has been flooded with lower-performing DDR2 cards – instead of the faster GDDR3 versions - which edges the X1650 out of the race.
Best PCI-E Card For £65 (inc VAT): Tie
| GeForce 8600 GT | |
|---|---|
| Codename: | G84 |
| Process: | 80nm |
| Universal Shaders: | 32 |
| Texture Units: | 16 |
| ROPs: | 8 |
| Memory Bus: | 128-bit |
| Core Speed MHz: | 540 |
| Memory Speed MHz: | 700 (1400 effective) |
| DirectX / Shader Model | DX 10 / SM 4.0 |
Prices of the new midrange DirectX 10 video cards have dropped like a rock in the past month. The 8600 GT will slightly beat the old 7600 GT and X1650 XT in raw performance in the £65 price category. In addition to speed, the 8600 GT has the added bonus of being DirectX 10 compatible, as well as being a good overclocker.
NOTE: beware of slower DDR2 versions of the 8600 GT! The GDDR3 versions are the recommended cards, DDR2 equipped 8600 GTs will be notably slower.
Radeon HD 2600 XT
| Radeon HD 2600 XT | |
|---|---|
| Codename: | RV630 |
| Process: | 65nm |
| Universal Shaders: | 128 |
| Texture Units: | 8 |
| ROPs: | 4 |
| Memory Bus: | 128-bit |
| Core Speed MHz: | 800 |
| Memory Speed MHz: | 800 (1600 effective) |
| DirectX / Shader Model | DX 10 / SM 4.0 |
The performance of the 2600 XT is very close to the Geforce 8600 GT, although the Geforce seems to have the edge when antialiassing is enabled. Nevertheless, the 2600 XT has better video acceleration features in Windows XP at this time and is a viable alternative in this price segment.
X1950 pro can be had for less than £100 OCUK has a x1950 for only £70.49.
I took this from the article
Here are two resources to help you judge if a card is a good buy. The first is the video card hierarchy chart, which groups video cards with similar overall performance into "tiers.” The top tier contains the highest performing cards available, and performance decreases as you go down the tiers from there.
Now it clearly says similar overall performance but that is clearly not the case with this section taken from the chart in the article
X800 XT (& PE), X850 XT (& PE), X1650 XT, X1800 GTO, Mobility X1900, HD 2600 XT
Come on guys to say that the X800XT performs similar to the X1650XT is bordering on criminally misleading similar FPS ok but overall performance?no way!
I have owned both and can say from experience that the X1650XT is a lot better visually and technically can play games the X800s cant so how you can say they are anything like similar is beyond me.
When i first started upgrading cards i wouldnt have known the diff and if i had come and seen the chart and bought a card that cant play up to date games based on it i would have been well upset.
So how about a little disclaimer about different technology's just to give the noobs a heads up
"Best PCI-E Card for £100 (inc VAT):
Radeon X1950 XT"
I can't find a x1950 XT for around £100 anywhere, then the description for it in the article is for the x1950 pro, this is very confusing. Does this mean the recommended £100 card is the XT (which I can't for £100) or the Pro?
So you Tom boys and girls gonna cover the "minor" update to directX10 (10.1) that obsoletes all the DirectX10 cards instead of discussing minor performance differences that wont affect anyone. The question i have is did microsoft lie to the graphics cards builders or did the graphics card builders lie to us ? Surely and upgrade that requires new hardware is a major release not a minor one ? And since vista could never be regarded as "released" until service pack 1 surely any card claiming full Vista compatibility should support DX 10.1.
Instead of just supporting the vendor marketing efforts how about a real news story for once ?
This is what I found at www.ebuyer.com maybe it'll help you in your search.
Gecube X1950XT 256MB GDDR3 AGP Graphics Card
£124.99 Inc. VAT
Gecube X1950Pro 256MB VIVO DVI AGP Graphics Card
£94.99 Inc. VAT
That was with free deliver for anything over £70 or something like that. That is the cheapest I've seem to find at this stage. Anyone else find it for cheaper?