Best video card for your money: June 2009

The best video card for your money?

By that, I mean the cards that offer the best performance at a given price. Why would you want that, you ask?

Because you want the best bang for the buck, because you want the best possible card for your hard-earned money and because you want the highest FPS possible!

If you have the time, reading detailed video card reviews and specs are a lot of fun. However, most of us don’t have the time to do the research and just want the answers. In other words, what you want to know is what is the best video card within your budget.

So if you don’t have the time to do the research, or just don’t care to do it, don’t worry. I’ll come to your help with this guide of the best video card for your money.

June update: After launching the Radeon 4770, the first mainstream 40nm gpu in May, AMD had trouble keeping up with the demand and ran out of stock for the Radeon 4770. This has been going on for about a week now and 4770 are now supposed to be back in stock by June 5th .

The price of the Radeon 4890 went down by a good $30. You’ll notice that the prices of the Geforce 285 are dropping too, you can now find them starting at $320. For those of you who want the best of the best at any price, you’ll notice that the Geforce GTX 295 is a bit easier to find these days and prices are lower, although still in very limited supply.

The price on the GTS 250 is currently at a time-low, at $110. Is this only a limited promotion or is Nvidia pushing its partners to lower their prices in order to compete with the Radeon 4850 lower prices? Only time will tell.

Engadget also reports that ASUS have plans of introducing a card that features two GTX 285 gpus on a single PCB, making it the ultimate card, with the ‘ultimate’ power consumption too…

Keep in mind:

I’ll use this opportunity to remind you that this article is only a guideline for the prices I’ve seen on June 2nd. You’re letting yourself down if you’re not looking for deals when you decide to purchase.

Here are a few things to keep in mind when you read this list:

• This list is for gamers who want the best bang for the buck. If you don’t play videos games, the cards in this list are way overkill.
• Prices and availability change everyday. I can’t keep up with accurate pricing everyday, but I can suggest to you great cards that you won’t regret buying at the price ranges that I list.
• This list is based on the best U.S. prices from NewEgg. In other countries or in a retail stores, things might be different. All prices are based on new card prices, no used or open box cards are listed; they might be a good deal, but they come with trade offs, such as limited return policy, limited warranty, etc.
• ATI’s Stream Processors and Nvidia’s Stream Processors are quite different, so do not rely on that spec to compare cards from both company. Instead, this spec should be used to compare cards within the same company.
• Each video card will perform more or less well depending on the game played, as each game have different requirements. Also, some games run better on Nvidia or on ATI/AMD hardware.You may be able to crank up the graphics settings on some games or have to lower it a notch on others, compared to what I say below.
• The resolution that I mention below should only be used as a guideline to give you an idea of the capability of the chosen video card on recent games. As a rule of thumb, the older the game, the higher you can set your settings and the other way around with newer games.

Best video card under $90:

None

While they are plenty of good cards under $80, such as the Radeon 4670 at $70 or the Geforce 9600 GT at $80, they are so crippled that they will offer poor performance compared to cards that cost as little as $10 ( Radeon 4830), $20 ( Radeon 4770) or $30 ( Radeon 4850 or Geforce GTS 250) more. Save up a bit and do yourself a favor with a video card worthy of that name.

Best video card for $90:

Radeon 4830

The Radeon 4830 is the most inexpensive card offering performance making it worthy of being called a gamer video card, in my opinion of course. While it won’t break any speed record, it will allow you to play at 1680×1050 or lower resolution with decent settings.

Nvidia offers a decent alternative with the 9800GT, although it’s slightly more expensive and consumes more power.

Cost: $90

Best video card for $110:

Tie: Radeon 4770, Radeon 4850 or Geforce GTS 250

These three cards are all within $5 of each other and all have their pro and cons, making it a tough decision.

Radeon 4770:
Pros: First mainstream video card in 40nm, GDDR5, consuming the less power and offering the most overclocking potential of the three.
Cons: Slower than the two other models, by 5-10 % on average. Currently out of stock pretty much everywhere.

Radeon 4850:
Pros: Faster than the 4770 by a few % on average, is available for purchase with a dual-slot cooler on some models.
Cons: Highest power consumption of the three, less overclocking headroom than the 4770.

Geforce GTS 250:
Pros: Lower power consumption than the 4850 while offering similar performance.
Cons: Less overclocking headroom than the 4770.

• If performance is the only thing that matters, the 4850 or the Geforce GTS 250 are your best choice.
• If you don’t mind losing a few % of performance for lower power consumption and greater overclocking potential, go with the 4770.

In the end, they are all great cards for the price and you’ll be happy with any of the three. They will allow you to play at 1680×1050 or lower resolutions with medium/high settings.

Cost:
Radeon 4770: $100
Radeon 4850: $105
Geforce GTS 250: $110

Best video card from $110 to $165

None
I make no recommendation here for the two reasons:

1. In the lower price range, you’ll find previously mentioned cards such as the 4830 1GB($110), the Radeon 4850 1GB ($125) but with 1GB of memory instead of 512MB. More memory is always better right? Not with lower end video cards. More memory is only useful at very high resolutions such 1920×1200 and with AA and AF. Problem is, the 4830 and 4850 are not designed for such high settings in the first place. Someone on overclock.net tested a 4850 512MB vs a 1GB and even heavily overclocked, the 1GB does not make a significant different.
2. In the higher price range: you’ll find the Radeon 4870 512MB starting at $165. Here, you’re better off saving an extra $20 or so to get the 1GB edition or a Geforce GTX 260 Core 216.

Best video card for $175:

Geforce GTX 260 Core 216
The Radeon 4870 1GB and the Geforce GTX 260 trade blows in different games. However, 4870s are equipped with coolers exhausting the heat within the case, which is a poor design in my opinion, on a card that produces so much heat. The Geforce GTX 260 Core 216 is also less expensive, which explains my recommendation here.

Be careful to pick the Core 216 version, not the older version sporting only 192 shader processors. You’ll get great performance at 1920×1200 with this card.

Cost: $175

Best video card for $220:

Tie: Two Radeon 4770 in Crossfire, Two Radeon 4850 in Crossfire or Two Geforce GTS 250 in SLI

Take a look at the best video card for $110 if you can’t choose between the three.

At $210, two 4770s, two 4850s in Crossfire or Two Geforce GTS 250 will blow away many cards priced higher, such as the Radeon 4890 and the Geforce GTX 275. Heck, it can keep up with the Geforce GTX 280, a card priced at over $300! This setup will offer great performance at 1920×1200 and allow you to run 2560×1600 under some games.

Note that there’s a 4850 X2, but considering that it’s more expensive than two Radeon 4850, it’s hard to recommend.

Cost:
Radeon 4770 Crossfire: $200 (Two at $100 each)
Radeon 4850 Crossfire: $210 (Two at $105 each)
Geforce GTS 250 in SLI: $220 (Two at $110 each)

Best video card for $230:

Radeon 4890

If you don’t have a Crossfire, SLI board  or simply don’t want to deal with Crossfire/SLI for the 4770/4850 Crossfire or GTS 250 SLI setups, the 4890 is the next step up for you.

Nvidia has the GeForce GTX 275 which is comparable to the Radeon 4890 performance wise, but it’s slightly more expensive and consumes more power under load, thus why I recommend a Radeon 4890 at this point. You’ll get solid performance at 1920×1200 with this card.

Cost: $230

Best video card for $320:

Geforce GTX 285

This is the fastest single gpu/single card solution available on the market. If you don’t have a SLI board or simply don’t want to deal with SLI, this is the solution. Otherwise you’re much better off spending an extra $30 and move up to two Geforce GTX 260 Core 216 in SLI.

Rock solid at 1920×1200, with decent 2560×1600 performance

Cost: $320

Best video card for $350:

Two Geforce GTX 260 Core 216 in SLI

As pointed out earlier, the Geforce GTX 260 Core 216 is cheaper than the Radeon 4870 1GB and is the logical choice for a SLI setup. Once again, be careful to pick the Core 216 version, not the older version sporting only 192 shader processors.
This setup will offer outstanding performance at 1920×1080, with good performance under 2560×1600.

Cost: $350 (Two at $175 each)

Note that beyond this, you’re getting hit hard by diminishing returns on your investment and that this will be overkill for any 24″ or smaller monitors. Only recommended if you play very demanding games at 1920×1200 or 2560×1600, otherwise you’re wasting your money.

Best video card for $525:

Three Geforce GTX 260 in Three-Way SLI

If you want some of the best of the best, yet at a good value, this it the setup to get. This setup will offer great 2560×1600 performance.

Cost: $525 (Three at $175 each)

Best video card for $530:

Geforce GTX 295

If you don’t have support for SLI, or don’t have two PCI-Express 16X slots, this is the fastest single card video card setup available right now. This is basically two Geforce GTX 275 on a single card. This setup will offer with great performance under 2560×1600.

Cost: $530

Best video card for $760:

Two Radeon 4870 X2 in CrossfireX

The current pinnacle of performance with ATI/AMD based video cards. This setup will offer with great performance under 2560×1600.

Cost: $760 (Two at $380 each)

Best video card for $1060:

Two Geforce GTX 295 in Quad-SLI

The best of the best, when money is not a problem. The pinnacle of performance from Nvidia.
This setup will offer outstanding performance at any settings basically. Although Crysis Warhead still offers some resistance at 2560 x 1600, with DX10, high details and 2XAA, but that’s more of a memory buffer problem.

Cost: $1060

Conclusion:

Nvidia is fighting back the introduction of the Radeon 4770 with a price cut on their GTS 250. Other than that, things are pretty stable this month. In the end, we are all winners from this competition, as once again, we can get better video cards than before, for less money than before!

Also, regarding brands: The majority of cards out there pretty much follow Nvidia’s and ATI’s reference designs, although some offer interesting cooling alternatives. Pay attention to prices, warranty, and the other customers reviews. Keep in mind that prices change quickly, with ATI and Nvidia adjusting their prices to compete with each other.

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