Holiday 2006 Shopping Guide: GPUs
by Jarred Walton on December 13, 2006 5:15 AM EST- Posted in
- Guides
Final Recommendations
We've mentioned a lot of GPUs worth considering on the previous pages, but some people just want a quick answer. If we had to pick one or two options for each price bracket as the overall "best", we would recommend the following. For the most part, similar cards from different manufacturers are going to offer the same level of performance. Pay attention to GPU and memory clock speeds if you are comparing two cards from different manufacturers, however, particularly in the less expensive markets where there's a lot of flexibility given to the card manufacturers.
If you're looking for a new graphics card for yourself or someone else, hopefully we have been able to shed some light on the situation. Once again from all of us at AnandTech, Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays (and whatever other appropriate greetings you might want)!
We've mentioned a lot of GPUs worth considering on the previous pages, but some people just want a quick answer. If we had to pick one or two options for each price bracket as the overall "best", we would recommend the following. For the most part, similar cards from different manufacturers are going to offer the same level of performance. Pay attention to GPU and memory clock speeds if you are comparing two cards from different manufacturers, however, particularly in the less expensive markets where there's a lot of flexibility given to the card manufacturers.
| GPU Recommendation Summary | ||
| Class | GPU | Price |
| Integrated 775 | ECS P4M800Pro-M V2 + E6300 Bundle CPU = $160 value |
$160 |
| Integrated 775 | ASUS P5L-MX 945G | $83 |
| Integrated AM2 | Abit NF-M2 nForce 6150 | $96 |
| Cheapest | Sapphire 100190L Radeon X550 HyperMemory | $47 |
| Budget | EVGA 256-P2-N443-LX GeForce 7300GT | $75 |
| Lower-Midrange | EVGA 256-P2-N615-TX GeForce 7600GT $20 MIR |
$135 - $20 |
| Midrange Overclocking | EVGA 256-P2-N624-AR GeForce 7900GS $20 MIR |
$185 - $20 |
| Upper-Midrange | Sapphire 100176L Radeon X1950 Pro | $206 |
| Lower High-End | Foxconn FV-N79GM3D2-HP GeForce 7950GT 512MB $35 MIR - Includes free gamepad |
$270 - $35 |
| Lower High-End | Sapphire 100186L Radeon X1950XT 256MB | $255 |
| High-End | Sapphire 100177L Radeon X1950 XTX | $386 |
| Extreme Overclocking | EVGA 640-P2-N821-AR GeForce 8800 GTS $20 MIR |
$455 - $20 |
| Extreme | EVGA 768-P2-N831-AR GeForce 8800GTX | $603 |
| Ultra Extreme | 2 X EVGA 768-P2-N831-AR GeForce 8800GTX (SLI) | $1206 |
If you're looking for a new graphics card for yourself or someone else, hopefully we have been able to shed some light on the situation. Once again from all of us at AnandTech, Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays (and whatever other appropriate greetings you might want)!
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Jodiuh - Wednesday, December 13, 2006 - link
The FR bought release day from Fry's had a 39C transistor and hit 660/1000. The AR ordered online last week has a 40C transistor and hits 630/1000. It may not be quite as fast, but I'll be keeping the newer AR w/ the 40C transistor...comforts me at night. :DJodiuh - Thursday, December 14, 2006 - link
Reply from EVGA!Jod,
AR= Etail/Retail RoHS compliant
FR= Frys Retail RoHS compliant
All of our cards had the correct transistor value when shipped out.
Regards,
munky - Wednesday, December 13, 2006 - link
Again, this is completely wrong. The major difference between the x1800 and x1900 cards is that the x1900's have 3 pixel shaders per "pipe", whereas the x1800's only have one. If anything, the x1900 pipes are more powerful.
evonitzer - Wednesday, December 13, 2006 - link
Akin to my comment above, quads are the thing these days, so the 1900 series has 4 pixel shaders per pipe. And if you go back to the original article when the 1900 was released, you'll see that the whole architecture is closer to 4 x1600's than 3 x1800's, either of which would result in the 48 shaders that we see. I recommend you read the first few pages of the debut article, but I think we can agree that the shaders in the x1800 were probably more potent than the ones in the 1600, so the 1900 is probably a little wimpier per shader than the 1800. However, it has 3 times as many, so it's better.Also the comment was probably intended to dissuade people from assuming that the 1900 would be 3 times better than the 1800, and that there is a difference of architectures going on here.
JarredWalton - Wednesday, December 13, 2006 - link
Ding! That was a main point of talking about the changes in architecture. In the case of the X1650 XT, however, double the number of pixel shaders really does end up being almost twice as fast as the X1600 XT.
I also added a note on the page talking about the G80 mentioning that they have apparently taken a similar route, using many more "less complex" shader units in order to provide better overall performance. I am quite sure that a single G80 pixel shader (which of course is a unified shader, but that's beside the point) is not anywhere near as powerful as a single G70 pixel shader. When you have 96/128 of them compared to 24, however, more definitely ends up being better. :-)
munky - Wednesday, December 13, 2006 - link
The 7600gt is 12 pipes. The x1650xt is 8 pipes with 3 pixel shaders each. You may want to rethink the statement quoted above.
evonitzer - Wednesday, December 13, 2006 - link
What he meant were "pixel shaders", which seem to be interchanged with pipelines quite often. If you look on the table you'll see that the x1650xt is listed as having 24 pixel pipelines, and the 7600gt has 12 pixel pipelines, when they should read shaders instead.Also quads seem to be the thing, so the 7600 gt probably has 3 quads of shaders, and the 1650 has twice that with 6 quads. Pixel shaders, to be more exact.
JarredWalton - Wednesday, December 13, 2006 - link
I have changed references from "pixel pipelines" to "pixel shaders". While it may have been a slight error in semantics to call them pipelines before, the basic summary still stands. ATI needed more pixel shaders in order to keep up with the performance and video was offering, indicating that each pixel shader from ATI is less powerful (overall -- I'm sure there are instances where ATI performs much better). This goes for your comment about X1800 below as well.Spoelie - Wednesday, December 13, 2006 - link
why does nvidia always gets replaced to "and video" in your texts? here and in the article :)JarredWalton - Wednesday, December 13, 2006 - link
Speech recognition does odd things. I don't proof posts as well as I should. :)