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$300

K

Koudelka

Senior member
If i wanted to stick with nvidia whats the best price/performance i could get for around $300 give or take?

If at all possible, it would be nice to stay with Evga. I like their step-up program. If not, its all good.

Thanks for any and all replies 🙂
 
is the performance difference significant between the 285 and the 295? also considering one costs $160 more roughly

Also thanks for the links. I've always stuck to the major brands like EVGA or BFG. Is there any actual disadvantage by saving a couple dollars and choosing a different one like the one you mentioned?

thanks!
 
Originally posted by: Koudelka
is the performance difference significant between the 285 and the 295? also considering one costs $160 more roughly

Also thanks for the links. I've always stuck to the major brands like EVGA or BFG. Is there any actual disadvantage by saving a couple dollars and choosing a different one like the one you mentioned?

thanks!
Click to expand...

Anything from 0% to > 100% performance advantage for the GTX295. All depends on the title and compatibility.

As far as I know, all the cards are built by the same company, most companies use the same reference cooler, the only difference is the stickers on the board and the graphics on the box. The biggest difference is going to be package, support and warranty options.

By the way, the Zotac card I linked is quite heavily overclocked out of the box, and should be faster than GTX285's at stock. Zotac also seems to have a Lifetime warranty after registrations (2 years standard).
 
Zotac is a really good company btw. I have one of their 8800GTS 320mb and it performed awesome even until the day i replaced it. The lifetime warranty is unbelievable.
 
Two 9800GTX+ cards in SLI mode. Hands down winner for an nVidia setup in the <$300 category.

SLI 9800GTX+ vs GTX 285:
Faster core speed
More (combined) stream shaders (256 vs 240)
Two processing cores instead of one

Keep in mind that SLI 8800GT beats the GTX 280 nearly across the board. The only times the GTX wins is when the SLI setup runs out of memory buffer or in the few games where SLI doesn't scale well.

EDIT: 9800GTX+ (single & SLI) reviewed against GTX 280
 
Thanks 🙂

I figured i'd be spending around 300. But i look at the benchmarks between the 295 and anything else in the 200 series, and the gap is quite huge.

It almost seems like its not worth it to spend $350 on a 280 or 285 when the 295 at $500 will completely smoke them and add an average 30fps to any game at high/highest settings.

Maybe i'll end up looking into ATI again.

I get paranoid buying an ATI card. I had an experience with them and their x800 cards that i'd like to forget. Makes me terrified to ever trust their cards to run reliably and stable again. I feel like as soon as i buy it, every game i play is going to stop working and start erroring. BSoD and computer blows up the house.
 
Originally posted by: Koudelka
Maybe i'll end up looking into ATI again.

I get paranoid buying an ATI card. I had an experience with them and their x800 cards that i'd like to forget. Makes me terrified to ever trust their cards to run reliably and stable again. I feel like as soon as i buy it, every game i play is going to stop working and start erroring. BSoD and computer blows up the house.
Click to expand...

I think it's safe to say that ATI cards are just as reliable as their competitor's, and that includes the drivers. In addition, ATI cards currently have a great performance/dollar ratio.

What resolution are you planning to game at?
 
More than likely, 1920x1200.

Whats starting to make me think ATI is infact the price/performance ratio i keep seeing and hearing about.

I had this crazy problem almost 4 years back or more with an x800 pro. I had bought a pre-built computer with the x800 in it. Well the thing started freezing up all the time and restarting. I found out it was a problem with the BIOS on the gpu.

However, the card was OEM and i could not find any brand name on it or model number. So, i tried maybe the top 20 companies selling their version of the x800 pro and absolutely none of them worked. So whatever BIOS that x800 was running.. i have no friggin clue. But i was forced to trash the card and i went nvidia ever since.

Maybe its time for a change again 🙂
 
Honestly, the GTX260+ and the 4870 1GB are for the most part the same in terms of price/performance. The GTX260+ edges ahead ever so slightly in a few places, plus gives you PhysX if you're into that sort of thing. The 4870 on the other hand lacks PhysX, but in a few places blows right past the GTX260 and even the GTX280 (take "blows past" with a grain of salt, in current reviews the notion of "blows past" seems to mean a handful of FPS most of the time).

My suggestion - go with whatever your gut says. You won't be disappointed performance-wise either way.
 
If SLI isn't an option (see my post above) your best bet in the <$300 market is a 1GB 4870. Those generally kick the 260 around pretty hard, even though they are a bit louder & use a small amount more power.
 
From that 9800GTX+ SLI review, I can see that HD4850 Crossfire looks pretty good too. $240 for two cards, and you get to use an Intel chipset!

Edit: oops i see the OP want's nvidia, okay - then 9800gtx+ sli is the best, GTX 285 SSC is 2nd best.

 
SLI is totally fine with me.

Thanks a lot for all the great info and suggestions. I'll look into the SLI options that were mentioned as well.

Wife recently blew a tire on her vehicle and it ripped off the bumper as well 😀. So i'm cutting the budget down a bit where i can.
 
I was scoping out the 280's and 285's again and came across this.

EVGA GTX 285 FTW Edition $434.99 vs EVGA GTX 285 SC Edition $359.99

I looked at the spec's and the only difference i see is that one is OC'd higher than the other. And the FTW edition supports OpenGL 3.0.. which i dont see mattering in any way.

Is there an actual difference in parts here? Or, are they honestly trying to charge an additional $75 for an OC you can do yourself with a utility. And the SC Edition is apparently already an OC'd edition of a cheaper one.

I know companies normally do this all the time, and everyone buys em up.. but $75 is the biggest price gap i've seen yet. I'm assuming it has some more efficient parts?
 
They both support OpenGL 3.0 - it's a driver spec. The same chip can't not support the same thing. The only thing you're paying for is the factory overclock.
 
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