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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hkBst - Sunday, May 28, 2006 - link
If all you need is a cheap graphics card because your mobo doesn't have one, then it is probably better to consider a mobo which does have integrated (DVI) graphics.Another reason for considering a low-end card though is for dual dvi outputs to drive two monitors, if you don't play games. I haven't seen any integrated graphics which support dual monitors.
JarredWalton - Sunday, May 28, 2006 - link
Actually, Derek has most of the GPUs I think. I've got lots of other stuff around, and enough spare GPUs (most of them I purchased), but parts get scattered. I don't even have any X18/1900 series cards right now, just a couple X1600 Pros.drewintheav - Saturday, May 27, 2006 - link
"...but if you don't mind dealing with the hassle of filling out forms, photocopying UPCs and mailing them out, and perhaps waiting eight weeks for your check to arrive..."Since when did they accept a photocopy of the UPC?
:)
JarredWalton - Saturday, May 27, 2006 - link
You can tell how often we fill out mail-in rebates. ;-)Seriously, I've purchased about five products in the past year that had a mail-in rebate, and I haven't filled out a single one before the expiration date. One of them arrived two days before the expiration date, and in the end I just look at it, shrug, and figure $10-20 isn't worth the hassle. I figure mail-in rebates are usually a precursor to price cuts anyway, so if you're really worried about saving money just wait another month or two.
Sunrise089 - Monday, May 29, 2006 - link
"...in the end I just look at it, shrug, and figure $10-20 isn't worth the hassle."I think we see where all the anandtech flashing banner add revenue is going, and to think I didn't block them to try to help the site ;)
Seriousely Jarred, you more than earn whatever they pay you, but there are a lot of us on budgets that have the $$$ in the bank to put forth up front, but then need the rebate ammount to make the purchasea affordable. For me spending 10 minutes on forms is worth $20, since I'm not quite pulling in the $120/hour that is basically equivilent to.
PS - I noticed you signed your post to the first poster above. Assuming you actually read this, is "Hardware Editor" a promotion, or were you just assuming a non-regular wouldn't know you were staff?
JarredWalton - Tuesday, May 30, 2006 - link
Techincally, I now post (most of) the articles into the engine. I also am doing more work than just SFFs and occasional other articles. Basically, Gary Key and I are now full-time with AnandTech (whereas we were both part-time a few months ago). I used to call myself "SFF and Guide Editor" since that's what I did. Now, "Hardware" is generic enough that I stuck that on, though I should probably drop everything other than "Editor" at this point.It's not the 10-20 minutes that I care about, it's the fact that it usually ends up taking two+ months to get the rebate. You also send in the UPC usually, preventing a return in case you change your mind. There are also some shady MIRs out there, where you never do get that rebate back - I don't think anyone we track does that, but I know places like Officemax have had issues in the past. Cheers!
Jarred
Josh7289 - Saturday, May 27, 2006 - link
I haven't been paying attention to the computer hardware, especially the video card, market for about six months now, and this is exactly what I needed to bring me back to what's going on. I see there are a few cards that are new to me that you didn't mention in your guide. Can anyone explain to me what the X1900GT, X1800GTO, and if you want, 7300GS are? Also, didn't there used to be an X1300 vanilla?This quote caught my eye, too:
"The best/only price we are able to find on a 7800 GT is the BFG GeForce 7800 GT OC 256MB [RTPE: BFGR78256GTOC] going for $305 shipped. With only 20 pipelines compared to 24 on the 7900 GT, there's absolutely no reason to recommend a 7800 GT anymore."
Speaking about pipes, could anyone refresh me on the amount of pipelines each of the ultra-high end cards has, if you don't mind?
Finally, to me, reading this feels very weird:
"The GeForce 7800 GT/GTX used to be very popular."
^^ Anyway, if anyone could help, I'd greatly appreciate it. Thank you very much!
ImJacksAmygdala - Saturday, May 27, 2006 - link
Josh7289,The video card market can be very hard to keep track of. The best places I use to track the market is Anandtech's price guide articles, and Adrian's Rojak Pot comparison charts.
ATI
http://www.rojakpot.com/showarticle.aspx?artno=88&...">http://www.rojakpot.com/showarticle.aspx?artno=88&...
Nvidia
http://www.rojakpot.com/showarticle.aspx?artno=88&...">http://www.rojakpot.com/showarticle.aspx?artno=88&...
Hope this helps...
JarredWalton - Saturday, May 27, 2006 - link
There are a few cards that we didn't try breaking down further, so the X1300 and X1300 Pro are grouped together. 7300 GS is a competitor to those cards, but really they're all very slow in comparison to the midrange products.X1900 GT is like the X1900 XT, only with lower clock speeds and 12/36 pixel pipelines instead of 16/48. (Basically, the X1900 chips can do three shader operations per pipeline per cycle, or something similar to that.) X1800 GTO is basically the same thing (12 pixel pipelines, 12 ROPs), only using the older R520 court instead of the newer R580 core. X1800 really isn't that bad, but X1900 is just better.
Clock for clock, the ATI X1900 pipelines are now a bit more powerful than NVIDIA's, but NVIDIA has 33% more pipelines with slightly slower clock speeds, so it more or less equals out. Drivers still play a critical role, so there are games that continue to perform better on NVIDIA even though the X1900 hardware is generally faster. I would also have to give the advantage to SLI over CrossFire -- CrossFire is still a far less elegant solution in my opinion.
On the other ultra high-end cards, 7800 GTX and 7900 GT/GTX are all 24 pixel pipelines, 16 ROPs, and 8 vertex pipelines. 7800 GT has 20 pixel pipelines, so even at the same clock speeds it ends up being slower than the others. X1800 XT/XTX are all 16 pixel pipelines and 8 vertex pipelines, also with 16 ROPs.
Hopefully, that clears things up for you. :-)
Take care, and happy Memorial Day weekend!
Jarred Walton
Hardware Editor
AnandTech.com