High-End Graphics
Besides the fact that most of these cards are really overpriced, there really isn't much else to say about these high-end cards. For the best price/performance, we recommend you take a look at the mid-range or ultra high-end cards. For the amount you would be paying here, you would be better off going with an ultra high-end card. Still, let's take a look at what we have available.
Here we have the GeForce 7800GS cards that come only in AGP form. There is a great selection of these cards available, but the best price we can bring you as of today is the eVGA GeForce 7800GS CO 256MB [RTPE: 256-A8-N506-AX] for $280 shipped, with a $15 mail-in rebate knocking the price down to a total of $265. As you skim through the rest of the chart, you will notice that there are many cards available for under the $300 price tag. Competing with the X850 XTPE, the 7800GS does an excellent job at filling out the top of the NVIDIA AGP performance spectrum. It is slightly underpowered compared to the X850 XTPE AGP, but the 7800GS is priced about $120 less. Honestly, we have to say that you're better off upgrading to a PCI-E motherboard and graphics card for an extra $100, but it's far easier to change graphics cards than to swap out an entire motherboard.
ATI's X850 line is rather interesting, as it performs better than the X800 line and is currently priced lower. The AGP cards are still pretty expensive, but the Sapphire Radeon X850XT 256MB [RTPE: 100106] priced at $165 is actually more of a midrange price with high-end performance. This is about the only "high-end" card that we would seriously recommend right now, and how long it stays in stock at this price is anyone's guess. Also note that CrossFire X850 cards are relatively expensive, and R400 CrossFire really wasn't a very elegant solution. We recommend you stick with single X850 cards if you plan on purchasing one.
It isn't really much of a deal, but the Gigabyte Radeon X800XL 512MB [RTPE: GV-RX80L512DE] is somewhat interesting, currently priced at about $200. (Ooooh! 512 MEGA-bytes!) Still, there's no point in getting this over one of the similarly priced X850 XT cards. The X800XT cards are also overpriced. For the price of these X800XT cards, you can easily purchase a 7900 GT or even something faster. Really, these cards are on the way out, and basically we're just seeing the last few remnants being sold.
What can we say that we haven't said before? Skip these cards over and head on to the ultra high-end cards if you're looking to spend anywhere near the amount these 6800GTs are going for. (And don't even think about the 6800 Ultra cards!) Alternatively, check out the next page for our mid-range batch of cards. Several of them will at least match performance of the 6800 GT, but do it at a lower price.
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koomo - Saturday, May 27, 2006 - link
First, glad to see the price guides back. What a tremendous improvement in price/performance from what we thought was the cat's meow earlier this year!Would you please consider comparing systems in your future High-Range Price Guides to those systems previously recommended? By the time they are ready (I assume you will be waiting for Conroe) I know there will have been an enourmous leap in the past year, but I would very much like to see it graphically with your testing.
Also, what's the safe bet on DX10 card arrivals? I imagine they would be ready for release once the system is ready for sales, but will they require some time for optimization? Will it be awhile before games are capable of utilizing DX10 well? (Such as the somewhat languid adaptation of dual-processor advantages.)
In other words, it seems to me that a very good card purchased today could still be quite competitive a year from now, and not made "obsolete" when DX10 arrives.
Thanks again.
JarredWalton - Saturday, May 27, 2006 - link
AFAIK, DX10 won't come until *after* Windows Vista, so that means we're at least 6-8 months away from DX10 hardware. I also expect games to lag behind by quite a bit, just like with SM3.0 support. DX9.0L (WGF1.0) will be available for Vista launch, but I'm not sure what it adds.I'll see what I can do with the high-end buyers guide. Generally speaking, we let the CPU/chipset/etc. articles cover performance; otherwise, the guides end up taking a long time to write.
PrinceGaz - Saturday, May 27, 2006 - link
Do your sources suggest DX10 hardware will be delayed until Vista is released, even if the hardware is ready and Vista suffers yet more delays? Let's face it, Vista is likely to be delayed more than the next-gen DX10 compliant cards intended to be released near the end of this year. I mean in Jan 2007. Or Feb 2007. Or sometime early next year which seems to be the current Vista release data. Along with "when it's ready" which is a very good thing for quality, but not so good for release dates.JarredWalton - Sunday, May 28, 2006 - link
Derek probably has more info than I do. All I know is that NVIDIA and ATI are both working on DX10 hardware, but they aren't discussing any of the features that will be present - at least not with me.Sahrin - Saturday, May 27, 2006 - link
"The X1900 AIW has lower clocks than the X1900 XT (500/960), but you also get VIVO support, and the price is lower. "The vanilla X1900XT supports VIVO as well. Doesn't it?
JarredWalton - Saturday, May 27, 2006 - link
I believe the X1900XT only has TV out, though I suppose some manufacturers might add non-AIW video in hardware.Missing Ghost - Saturday, May 27, 2006 - link
but when the 6800gs was announced they said it would be a short-lived product.PrinceGaz - Saturday, May 27, 2006 - link
One reason for purchasing a low-end graphics-card you didn't mention is if your mobo does not have integrated graphics, which includes every nForce3 and nForce4 mobo sold-- in other words the vast majority of people with an Athlon 64 processor. If they're not a gamer then a cheap card is pretty much a necessity in order to use the computer.Another reason would be if you've got a good graphics card already but want an emergency replacement than can be immediately swapped in should it fail (not all of us are hardware reviewers who have hundreds of graphics-cards in the closet). If you've made the jump from AGP to PCIe like I did last year, you probably don't have any other PCIe cards you can use if something should go wrong, so unless you have an old PCI card available you're stuffed unless you have a cheap PCIe card as a spare. Which is the situation I'm in as the fan on my 6800GT has almost died judging from the racket it is making which means my main box may be out of commission for at least a week while it is RMA'd as I have nothing to replace it with.
Obviously for people with integrated video available, the only reason for a low-end card would be for DVI output or higher-quality analogue output like you said.
JarredWalton - Saturday, May 27, 2006 - link
There are various reasons for budget cards. Our point was that you shouldn't buy one hoping for moderate gaming performance. Buy at the bottom of the price bracket, because the extras are mostly worse than getting just about any mid-range offering. If you buy one as a temporary replacement, though, you're basically buying hardware that's not going to be used much.If you are purchasing a new PC and just need any GPU (i.e. because you don't have IGP), then go ahead and buy one as well. I purcahsed four 6200TC cards for my brother's dental office for exactly that reason, but they were all the $50 versions rather than spending even $20 more for faster clocks.
PrinceGaz - Saturday, May 27, 2006 - link
I agree 100% on the purchasing a cheap low-end card for boxes that don't have a mobo with integrated graphics. Not spending even slightly more on cards that would be quite a bit faster for 3D stuff is also wise. The arrival of Vista sometime next year will make 3D performance important for workplaces that might migrate to it over the computer's lifetime, though most workplaces won't even consider migrating until it has been out for a year and then when all their applications have been thoroughly tested (probably another year) so by then the ROI has already been covered.The temporary replacement scenario I pushed isn't as daft as it might sound. Obviously it's not going to be used much, that's the whole point of the emergency stand-in solution to keep the box working. But for a single-user scenario, if you've got important recently updated files on a system with a PCIe graphics-card and that card suddenly fails, then you're stuck unless you have an old PCI graphics-card (I have a friend with a Trio64 gathering dust) or a cheapo PCIe that could be instantly swapped in to get me back up and running. I've got three AGP cards but none of them will be any use in my current system when I have to return the PCIe card, and I now regret not also spending a tiny bit extra on an X300 or 6200 last year when I bought this 6800GT.
Like I said we aren't all PC hardware reviewers with hundreds of graphics-cards lying around the house we could choose from if one fails. My PCIe 6800GT is on it's last legs and I don't have another PCIe or PCI card to replace it with while it is RMA'd (though it can run passively in 2D or if downclocked in 3D so I can choose when to RMA). I imagine you have a closet stacked to the ceiling with everything from X1900XTXs and 7900GTXs from several manufacturers, through everything back all the way to the Trio32 and earlier. The rest of us don't have that luxury unfortunately. And yeah, I know you don't really have hundreds of graphics-cards in your closet as most have to be returned, but it's nice to imagine that :)