Summary
There you have it folks: the best cards for your money this month. Now all that’s left to do is to go out and get them, and we leave that part up to you. The best prices will almost certainly be found online, but sometimes large retail outlets will surprise you with a good sale.
Don’t worry too much about which brand you choose, because all of the cards out there stick pretty close to the reference designs by Nvidia and ATI. Just pay attention to price, warranty and the manufacturer’s reputation for honouring the warranty if something goes wrong.
Also remember that the stores don’t follow this list. Things will change over the course of the month, and you’ll probably have to adapt your buying strategy to fluctuating prices.
Good luck and Happy Hunting!
- Previous page What About This Other Card That's Not...
- Crysis – The Ultimate Graphics Card Performance Shootout
- AMD Phenom - The Spider Weaves its Web
- AMD Radeon HD 3800: The Empire Strikes Back
- BIOS Flash - Overclock Your Graphics Card in 5 Minutes
- Six Graphics Cards with Luxury Trimmings
- Workstation-Shootout: ATi FireGL V7600 vs. Nvidia Quadro FX 4600
- AMD HD 3800 To Support DX 10.1
- Nvidia's GeForce 8800 GT Reviewed
- DirectX 10 Shootout: Geforce 8x00 vs. Radeon 2x00
- DirectX 10 Cards on a Budget
- Looking for best gaming system for $2200
- Dell's XPS 720 H2C Hot and Cool
- DELL PowerEdge 2600 for gaming?
- Require aid in choosing a system
- How to make my 8200 multi-headed
- Suitable 22" and 24" lcd monitors for gaming??
- Dell 3008WFP
- The nitty-gritty on LCDs
- Can I run xfire on ubuntu?
- how not to sell linux
Best PCI-E Card For Under £50 (inc VAT):
GeForce 7600 GT
Codename:
RV630
Process:
65nm
The Best Gaming Graphics cards for the Money: December 2007 : Read more
£200 to £300 2xSLI 8800GT
Not exactly under £300, unless your talking about the 256MB version which its about £270, your talking about £360-£410.
What would 2x256MB 8800GTs do vs 2x3850 or / 2x3870
and the 2x Radeon 3870 in Crossfire configuration
are DirectX 10.1 and shader 4.1
REF: GeForce 7600 GT
The specs seem wrong. RV360? I don't think this card has any universal shaders or DX10/SM4.0 capability.
argh i bought a radeon 2900pro 1gb ddr4 for £190... was that a mistake? is this card worth the money? heard it overclocks well etc but that it wont use all that memory
argh i bought a radeon 2900pro 1gb ddr4 for £190... was that a mistake? is this card worth the money? heard it overclocks well etc but that it wont use all that memory
Legend.
You have a nice card: 512-bit memory interface, 320 stream processors.
Always take memory capacity with a pinch of salt; 1GB is a lot but it's only useful if the card as a whole can handle ultra-high resolutions; most cards can but a few games will make all but the top-end struggle.
In terms of stock performance you're just under a Geforce 8800 GTS with 320MB..not bad. Overclocked you're looking at Radeon 2900XT/GF 8800 GTS speeds. Note: the Radeon 2900 Pro and XT are practically the same cards. If you OC make sure you have a decent PSU.
A Geforce 8800GT would have been better IMHO. However as the drivers mature you can expect reasonable gains in performance; stability was the initial criteria. You have a DX10 card there can handle most games with ease, so you might want to try it out for a few months and then sell it..whether you stay or go, chances are you'll be facing the same decision at that time anyway due to the nature of the market, so don't worry
For under £50 range, ATI HD2600Pro PCIE with 256MB DDR3 has been widely available in some other Countries for only £33 includes VAT. That one come with better game performances than GeForce 7600 GT and support DirectX 10/SM4.0. It also comes with DHMI interface and new UVD technology decoding H.264 or VC-1 HD video at a lower CPU usage than GeForce 8600/8500. When can we have it in the UK?
I am looking for a video card that isn't a fortune but will have some longevity.
I am considering the HD 3850, as you suggest that it gives the best value in it's range.
The other option is the 3850 with 512 meg on board.
I play flight sim X and games such as silent hunter 4 settlers (rise of an empire is my latest) Unfortunately none of these appear in your benchmarking. So what I want to know is will I get much of an increase in performance from the extra ram on an HD 3850?