Holiday 2006 Shopping Guide: GPUs
by Jarred Walton on December 13, 2006 5:15 AM EST- Posted in
- Guides
High-End GPUs
Like we said with the Midrange GPUs, SLI and CrossFire probably aren't necessary even in the High-End GPU market these days. You can still look to buy one GPU now and plan on adding a second later, or if you already have one High-End GPU and you want to buy a second one now that is also reasonable. If you're looking to go out and buy a dual GPU setup right off the bat, however, in most instances you will be better off purchasing a single Extreme Performance GPU. We showed in our GeForce 8800 launch article that there are many instances where a single 8800 GTX is faster than X1950 XTX CrossFire and 7900 GTX SLI. Combine that with the fact that you don't have to worry about whether or not SLI/CrossFire will be supported in your game du jour, and once again we would take a single GPU that comes close in performance over two GPUs that may be faster in some cases, but will also consume more power and generate more heat and noise.
Not counting multi-GPU configurations, the High-End GPU market extends up to around $400. At the lower end of the price spectrum, there is a gray area where you could call certain cards either upper-midrange or lower-high-end designs. If we just forget about the semantics, though, the Radeon X1950 Pro is still one of the best overall cards. It offers competitive performance, and currently it is priced quite a bit cheaper than any of its direct competition. Most of the NVIDIA's 7900 cards are a bit difficult to recommend, given the current prices, making the 7950 GT the only GeForce card in this price range that we worth considering. Stock performance is going to be a tossup between the 7950 GT and X1950 Pro, but there are quite a few factory overclocked 7950 GT cards available and that helps to keep things interesting.
If you want more performance than the X1950 Pro, the X1950 XT 256MB cards cost about $40 more and give you a full 48 pixel shaders along with faster clock speeds, and they offer more bang for the buck than just about any other High-End GPU. If you want a 512MB GPU, Diamond and PowerColor make X1950 Pro 512MB cards that sell for around $270. X1900 XT/XTX cards with 512MB of RAM may also be available for $330-$400 if you can find them in stock. That's a pretty big "if", however, so you might find it easiest to simply move on to the X1950 XTX for about $375.
We don't have much love left for the 7900 GTX cards, as their prices are almost the same as the 8800 GTS cards and performance is definitely lower. If you're still after a 7900 GTX card, you might try picking up a 7900 GTO instead and give overclocking a shot. The GTO cards are becoming difficult to find, but for around $300 you can get near GTX performance. Some of the cards might even be rebadged GTX cards, so a BIOS flash would be all that's necessary to get them to behave like a full GTX. Your mileage may vary in such pursuits, and for most people we would recommend taking the next step and picking up a GeForce 8800 GTS rather than any of the more expensive High-End GPUs. After all, DirectX 10 and Windows Vista will be available in the next month or so, and the only cards that currently have DirectX 10 support are the GeForce 8800 models. If you can justify spending $300-$400 on a graphics card, you can probably justify spending $450 as well.
Once again, here's a quick summary of the High-End GPU market.
Like we said with the Midrange GPUs, SLI and CrossFire probably aren't necessary even in the High-End GPU market these days. You can still look to buy one GPU now and plan on adding a second later, or if you already have one High-End GPU and you want to buy a second one now that is also reasonable. If you're looking to go out and buy a dual GPU setup right off the bat, however, in most instances you will be better off purchasing a single Extreme Performance GPU. We showed in our GeForce 8800 launch article that there are many instances where a single 8800 GTX is faster than X1950 XTX CrossFire and 7900 GTX SLI. Combine that with the fact that you don't have to worry about whether or not SLI/CrossFire will be supported in your game du jour, and once again we would take a single GPU that comes close in performance over two GPUs that may be faster in some cases, but will also consume more power and generate more heat and noise.
Not counting multi-GPU configurations, the High-End GPU market extends up to around $400. At the lower end of the price spectrum, there is a gray area where you could call certain cards either upper-midrange or lower-high-end designs. If we just forget about the semantics, though, the Radeon X1950 Pro is still one of the best overall cards. It offers competitive performance, and currently it is priced quite a bit cheaper than any of its direct competition. Most of the NVIDIA's 7900 cards are a bit difficult to recommend, given the current prices, making the 7950 GT the only GeForce card in this price range that we worth considering. Stock performance is going to be a tossup between the 7950 GT and X1950 Pro, but there are quite a few factory overclocked 7950 GT cards available and that helps to keep things interesting.
If you want more performance than the X1950 Pro, the X1950 XT 256MB cards cost about $40 more and give you a full 48 pixel shaders along with faster clock speeds, and they offer more bang for the buck than just about any other High-End GPU. If you want a 512MB GPU, Diamond and PowerColor make X1950 Pro 512MB cards that sell for around $270. X1900 XT/XTX cards with 512MB of RAM may also be available for $330-$400 if you can find them in stock. That's a pretty big "if", however, so you might find it easiest to simply move on to the X1950 XTX for about $375.
We don't have much love left for the 7900 GTX cards, as their prices are almost the same as the 8800 GTS cards and performance is definitely lower. If you're still after a 7900 GTX card, you might try picking up a 7900 GTO instead and give overclocking a shot. The GTO cards are becoming difficult to find, but for around $300 you can get near GTX performance. Some of the cards might even be rebadged GTX cards, so a BIOS flash would be all that's necessary to get them to behave like a full GTX. Your mileage may vary in such pursuits, and for most people we would recommend taking the next step and picking up a GeForce 8800 GTS rather than any of the more expensive High-End GPUs. After all, DirectX 10 and Windows Vista will be available in the next month or so, and the only cards that currently have DirectX 10 support are the GeForce 8800 models. If you can justify spending $300-$400 on a graphics card, you can probably justify spending $450 as well.
Once again, here's a quick summary of the High-End GPU market.
| High-End GPUs | |||||||
| GPU | Pixel Shaders |
Vertex Shaders |
ROPs | Core Speed |
RAM Speed |
Memory Interface |
Price |
| 7900 GT | 24 | 8 | 16 | 450 | 1320 | 256bit | $246 |
| 7950 GT | 24 | 8 | 16 | 550 | 1400 | 256bit | $249 |
| 7800 GTX 512 | 24 | 8 | 16 | 550 | 1700 | 256bit | $460* |
| X1950 Pro | 36 | 8 | 12 | 575 | 1380 | 256bit | $206 |
| 7900 GTO | 24 | 8 | 16 | 650 | 1320 | 256bit | $310 |
| X1900 XT 256MB | 48 | 8 | 16 | 625 | 1450 | 256bit | $275 |
| 7900 GTX | 24 | 8 | 16 | 650 | 1600 | 256bit | $430 |
| X1900 XT | 48 | 8 | 16 | 625 | 1450 | 256bit | $335 |
| X1900 XTX | 48 | 8 | 16 | 650 | 1550 | 256bit | $400 |
| X1950 XT 256 | 48 | 8 | 16 | 625 | 1800 | 256bit | $259 |
| X1950 XTX | 48 | 8 | 16 | 650 | 2000 | 256bit | $378 |
| X1950 XTX CF Edition | 48 | 8 | 16 | 650 | 2000 | 256bit | $406 |
* - Prices for these parts are prone to fluctuation, as these are discontinued products.
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JarredWalton - Wednesday, December 13, 2006 - link
Has been for about a year now, but a lot of people keep dragging their feet. The fastest AGP systems are still able to run most games okay, but if you really want high-end graphics performance you are going to have to upgrade to PCI-E.pottervillian - Wednesday, December 13, 2006 - link
Merry Christmas, and thanks for a great guide!aakoch - Wednesday, December 13, 2006 - link
I've never tried to run two/dual monitors. I have an old CRT (VGA) and a new LCD (DVI). Can any card with both slots run 2 monitors? Or only specific ones?Chapbass - Wednesday, December 13, 2006 - link
I cant think of any gfx card that has dual outputs that CANT support dual monitors...so im gonna go with all of them can. definitely all the ones listed in this article (meaning everything that is current or close to current tech.) in fact, im doing dual monitors on my 6600gt (soon to be 8800gts!) right now : ).kleinwl - Wednesday, December 13, 2006 - link
One point to add, would be PCI video cards. Since there are a number of Dell machines that have shipped without AGP/PCIE slots, it would be nice to know what PCI card you would recommend as bang for the buck. Right now I'm using Radeon 9250s... but I don't know if that is the best option. Yes, it's slow... but it's still cheaper than canning the entire system for people that want something just a little faster.JarredWalton - Wednesday, December 13, 2006 - link
The fastest currently available PCI video card is going to be a Radeon X1300 I think, going for around $110 (and I see at least one that has a $20 mail-in rebate). That isn't a very fast graphics card to begin with, and I would expect the PCI interface to further bottleneck the card, but I'm not sure there's anything better if you're stuck looking for PCI parts.I'm just looking around on Newegg, so perhaps there's something better elsewhere (I seem to recall seeing GeForce 6600 cards on PCI at one point, which might be slightly faster in some cases), but if you need more performance from your graphics subsystem you really will need to look at upgrading to a new motherboard/computer that supports something other than PCI graphics.
mgambrell - Wednesday, December 13, 2006 - link
Geforce 8800 may be fast, but it can't run directx10.http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?showtopic=22248">http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?showtopic=22248
Witness the driver debacle. Just beware.
JarredWalton - Wednesday, December 13, 2006 - link
Given that DirectX 10 is not actually available -- no games support it, Windows Vista hasn't shipped, and even after Windows Vista becomes available it will probably be a couple months at least before you get DirectX 10 enabled games (i.e. games that actually add new DirectX 10 features). NVIDIA says it best:The inability to run beta/nearly finished Windows Vista with all of the features enabled on brand new hardware isn't something that I consider a major problem. The nature of beta/release candidate software is that there are still many known problems. For all we know, DirectX 10 performance on the G80 chips is going to be terrible... or it might be the greatest thing since sliced bread. The only way we will find out for sure is when Windows Vista is finally released and we actually get games that use DirectX 10's new capabilities.
Jodiuh - Wednesday, December 13, 2006 - link
You guys list an EVGA 768-P2-N831-AR, but the one I got from Fry's electronics differs at the end w/ EVGA 768-P2-N831-FR. Does the FR=Retail, AR=Online? Or would AR be the newer "fixed transistor" SKU?Thanks for the guide!!
JarredWalton - Wednesday, December 13, 2006 - link
Honestly, I have no idea. EVGA (and many GPU manufacturers) tend to have so many different SKUs available with only negligible differences between them. I wouldn't be surprised if one of the models has a slight tweak to the transistors, but as for which one is "newer/better" I don't know. You could always email EVGA and ask.