Buyer's Guide: Graphics cards compared
by Jennie Lees 
{ Apr 11th 2006 at 9:58AM }
Choosing a new graphics card can involve a
difficult and lengthy hunt for comparative benchmarks to work out where to put your cash. Fortunately, Tom's Hardware
Guide have put together a handy interactive comparison chart which can help reduce this problem to the simple act of
staring at a few graphs.It may be reasonably old, but it's useful, with a few caveats; not all of the cards were tested on identical systems, so some of the results are a little surprising -- clicking on the individual bars of the results reveals the relevant system specs. Also, although it is "updated on a regular basis", several cards are missing from the list. Still, if you're in the market for a new graphics card, this should help simplify your search.
[via digg]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Dt7 @ Apr 11th 2006 10:44AM
It's always reassuring to see your card at the bottom of that list :/
jaemz @ Apr 11th 2006 10:49AM
or not on it at all...
Gonzo @ Apr 11th 2006 11:12AM
Just in time. I just started shopping for a new laptop.
Thanks
Jeff @ Apr 11th 2006 11:23AM
One of these sites (Anand or Tom's or whatever) used to do (or still does?) a chart that I think is a lot more useful - basically combining performance and price into a "bang for the buck" chart. The way they had it laid out also made it really easy to figure out which card gave you the most for your money - it wasn't just a straight line from the top cards to the bottom.
I haven't been able to find an updated version of that chart for a while, nor do I even remember which site it was on except that it was one of the major ones (I site I used to read at least semi-regularly, at least) - anyone know what I'm talking about and maybe have an updated link?
Matt @ Apr 11th 2006 11:45AM
While I usually avoid Tom's Hardware (their stuff isn't that good, and is usually considered quite "newbish" by those in the industry), they do have some useful things, and this would be one of them.
player 1 @ Apr 11th 2006 11:55AM
I wonder how high the 360 and ps3 cards would land on that scale, does anybody know if there is any site that would compare this?
Keith @ Apr 11th 2006 12:19PM
The 360 has a modified R580 I believe, which is the 1800/1900 series cards. The PS3 uses something like a G70, which apparently is the next-gen of PC graphics cards.
tack @ Apr 11th 2006 12:32PM
G70 = 7800 class.
Pal @ Apr 11th 2006 12:34PM
Already a tad outdated, no Geforce 7900s to be found :)
Bunkhouse @ Apr 11th 2006 12:58PM
6) PS3's video card is based on NV47: http://www.beyond3d.com/#news29579
PC cards are always beyond those in a console. Games may look better on a console cause developers can take full advantage of the hardware, while PC's have huge variability but more brute power on high end cards.
I wonder where my Ti4600 places... :(
Matt @ Apr 11th 2006 1:59PM
The Xbox 360 uses a modified version of the Radeon x1900XTX series of cards, whereas the Playstation 3 is using a hybrid GeForce 7900GTX/8800GTX card. It can be noted that both consoles' cards have less VRAM than their desktop computer counterparts.
Sabre @ Apr 11th 2006 2:39PM
Sweet...it's always nice to see my SLI Geforce 7800 GT setup kicking some arse ^_^
Charles Chen @ Apr 11th 2006 2:57PM
"I wonder where my Ti4600 places... :("
I wonder where my GeForce3 Ti200 places... :( :( :(
Jason @ Apr 11th 2006 3:19PM
Note to self: your PC can't play F.E.A.R.
Slashbunny @ Apr 11th 2006 3:33PM
"I wonder how high the 360 and ps3 cards would land on that scale, does anybody know if there is any site that would compare this?"
Not comparable. PS3/360/Rev will look better than PC games made with any of these cards.
The fact they didn't use identical hardware means you should definitely look at other reviews which do before you make a purchase.
Ti4600 is below anything on these charts. I'd say about 1/4 the performance of the 6600 or so. So at the bottom for sure, but also it may not even play some games that only support DX9 hardware.
Syl @ Apr 11th 2006 4:58PM
to number 10, Matt.
You're quite off.
The Xbox360 is rather comparable to an X800 in videocard, this is using 720p as a standard. The numbers aren't exact, of course, but the 360 hasn't done anything that a top of the line card [i]last[/i] generation could accomplish better. (Better meaning a higher resolution).
Oblivion is a wonderful proof of this.
The PS3 is essentially using a 7800 series according to both Sony and Nvidia, which is what it would need to accomplish 1080p (which i doubt it can do at high framerates). A 7800 is more than enough power would really ever be necessary for a 720p or standard television.
As you did say though, both have considerably less videocard RAM. This isn't as important as it is for PC, as PC's have much more things they have to balance in the normal ram that videogames don't.
That chart seems rather accurate, as my videocard is running the exact same speed as the 6800ultra they tested. Weird that they did the test using a Pentium D, why not an AMD?
Still, i rarely trust things out of TomsHardware.
Sabre @ Apr 11th 2006 5:11PM
Wait...where does it say what system specs they are using? I'd be interested into knowing what they're using to test.
Andrew @ Apr 11th 2006 6:11PM
#15 It says the specs if you just click on one of the colored bars.
I'm not a computer Guru , actually far from it, but I know my roomate has a 6600 GT and he can definitely play fear at
768 with a decent framerate. Actually it showed some of those cards are getting less that 10 FPS. How is that possible, I've seen some of those games played on those cards? If anyone could explain this I would appreciate it.
p.s it always looks really good when he plays
Sabre @ Apr 11th 2006 6:20PM
Woops...my bad. >_<
Andrew...does he maybe have certain setting turned off (or lower) then what is being done in these tests?
I've got a AMD Dual Core 3800+, 2GB RAM and SLI Geforce 7800 GT 256MB and those number are about what I get on my system.
jp007 @ Apr 11th 2006 7:09PM
Yeah I'm disappointed that there isn't any carss from the new nvidia 7900 series. The 7900GT seems to be a stellar card for only 300 bucks. It's a $300 equivalent of the 7800GTX which is still selling for like $500 bucks. Same amount of pixel and vertex shaders, similar clock speeds, but it the first in nvidia line to use the 90nm manufacturing process, meaning it also uses a little less power, and runs cooler. And that means more overclocking potential. It seems to beating ATIs similar offerings in practically every game EXCEPT Oblivion, which to me sucks, as that is the game that I'm considering an upgrade for. I guess due to the 360 using ATI stuff, ATI cards on the PC are handling oblivion better. I've had bad experiences with getting ATI drivers to work in Linux, so I like to stick with nvidia for compatibility issues, or else I would take a more serious look at getting an ATI card. Regardless, I'm really glad to see healthy competition in this market, as I can't believe some of the value we're really starting to see.