Best Card for the Money?

[napes22]

What's the best card for the money right now? I'm looking for something in the $150-$250 range to go with my new build (see below). I'm thinking it's the dual fan Sapphire 6950 that can be unlocked to a 6970.

I have a dual monitor setup (both 1680x1050) and play games on one monitor at the moment. Any suggestions for a new card in that price range?

 

[Rifter]

6950 or GTX 570 if you can find one in the top end of your budget.

 

[Subyman]

6950 2GB model and then try to unlock the cores. Keep in mind that sometimes overclocking a 6950 gives better results than unlocking the cores, it just depends on the card. Unlocking the cores sometimes results in poor results with any further overclocks.

 

[Spikesoldier]

IMO 6950 or a sweet deal on a 570 if you want single card.

but at that budget you can also get two 6850's or if you swing a sweet deal, two 6870's. you'll be limited to 1GB memory, but thats ok @ 1680.

the 6xxx scaling in crossfire is excellent compared to SLI and previous iterations of CF; adding the second 6xxx card is a linear gain and should provide more performance than a single 6950 or 570 if you are OK with running dual cards.

mainly the drawbacks with CF/SLI is going to be microstutter, read up if you haven't; and perhaps a few games that have issues with CF.

 

[happy medium]

1680x1050) and play games on one monitor

gtx560ti for about 200$ AR or 6950 1gb

 

[Achilles97]

People have had good luck unlocking the 6950 Dirt3 Edition. It's currently at Superbiiz for ~$250 and they always have a coupon code for ~$10. However, I've seen reports of people not being able to unlock recent purchases of the card and someone posted getting a returned box from Superbiiz... It's possible that everything will work out but there is a bit of a risk.

 

[bryanW1995]

6950 1gb and gtx 480 for ~ $200 have both been seen in the wild recently. Keep your eyes peeled on hot deals, gtx 570 has started dropping as well. GTX 560 ti has dropped into the 180 range at time with deals, too. All of those look good, as long as the rumors of the imminent release of 7xxx are just rumors.

 

[RavenSEAL]

Try to find a 6950 with dual bios and a possibility of 6970 unlock, have fun

 

[happy medium]

How about 6970 performance (at your resolution) for 220$AR?


Meet the Zotac gtx560ti AMP. 220$AR shipped
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...60ti%20amp

 

[jacktesterson]

6950 is still best value. Add a 2nd one later for even better performance.

 

[MrK6]

OP hit the nail on the head, the 6950 2GB is going to be the best bang-for-your-buck. The 2GB of RAM is overkill for 1680x1050, but hell, you should upgrade to at least 1080p anyway :thumbsup:. Also, never pay for an "overclocked" version of a card, it's just a gimmick. Pay for better cooling, accessories, etc., but never an overclock that you can easily do yourself.

 

[Majcric]

6950 2gb, and regardless of what GPU you choose try to grab one with 2gb of vram

 

[know of fence]

The 2GB of RAM is overkill for 1680x1050, but hell, you should upgrade to at least 1080p anyway.

Yeah, with 1080p you get 15% less FPS, and can wait twice as long for Youtube videos to buffer.

Visually I'd trade frame rate for resolution every time on a CRT. But this high "native resolution" horseshit we put up with is one of the many reasons why PC gaming (scalability) suffered. Certainly there are some tasks on the PC which require the visual fidelity that comes from pressing your nose against the screen, but neither gaming nor video is one of those tasks. Polygonal games require a wider overview and favor the laid back WoW-fiend-lean.

Not to mention that smaller screens and/or larger distance help hide some of the ugly.

 

[MrK6]

Yeah, with 1080p you get 15% less FPS, and can wait twice as long for Youtube videos to buffer.

Visually I'd trade frame rate for resolution every time on a CRT. But this high "native resolution" horseshit we put up with is one of the many reasons why PC gaming (scalability) suffered. Certainly there are some tasks on the PC which require the visual fidelity that comes from pressing your nose against the screen, but neither gaming nor video is one of those tasks. Polygonal games require a wider overview and favor the laid back WoW-fiend-lean.

Not to mention that smaller screens and/or larger distance help hide some of the ugly.

I'm not sure what you mean by your first comment, as FPS will vary by application and YouTube videos can be watched at any resolution you choose. It seems to me like you've never experienced a quality, high resolution monitor. That's really a shame and you're doing yourself a disservice; I'd recommend checking one out and investing, you won't regret it.

 

[napes22]

Attempting to bring this thread back from the dead. I've been unable to find a decent deal on a 6950 2GB and the Sapphire I wanted is out of stock in most places. Can anyone suggest a pretty good card somewhere in the performance range of the 6950 that fits into my price range? I'll go $250 for a card, but I'd really prefer to get something a little cheaper.

There's a decent deal on a Gigabyte 6850 but that's likely a significant performance drop.

 

[dpk33]

You can always check the For Sale/For Trade forums here at Anandtech for some good deals, if you live in North America, preferably the States. I've seen 2gb 6950s go for as low as $200 shipped CONUS, but that thread's probably long gone by now.

 

[napes22]

I've had good success with the HIS IceQ cards is the past. Would this be a good buy at $275? http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814161372

 

[tweakboy]

The 570 is more like 250 to 300 dollars if your lucky... no need for that

grab a 560 Ti from a respected known company like EVGA or ASUS then overclock it. The memory OCes very well if you change fan speed to 100 percent ,,,,thx gl

Before that it was 460 1GB for 120 to 150 dollars. You wont notice a change in performance from this and a 5xx counterpart. gl

 

[napes22]

The GTX 570 is over $300 across the board so I can't afford that. The HIS 6950 IceQ 2GB is $275 which is out of my price range, but it's already overclocked.

 

[Arkadrel]

best card for the money?

TPU has a "performance for $" chart:

You can see the 6870 and the 5770 lead in the way of value.
Normally the faster the card is, the worse its performance/$ ratio, because people are willing to pay more to have the cutting edge. However the 6870, dispite leading this chart, is a pretty powerfull card.

You can find a 6870 for around ~140$ and theyre pretty close to 5870/6950 performance levels (~560-570 levels).

Thats not at all bad for around ~140$.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814131378

^ Powercolor 6870 for ~140$ after MIR.

a stock 570 is around ~20-25% faster than a stock 6870.
However you wont find a 570 thats priced around 25% higher than the 6870, they ll be alot higher.

If the 570 had same "value" in turms of performance/$, they should cost around 175$, but like you said, their over 300$ most of the time. Its hard to justify their cost, unless you really need that level of performance.

in short, the 6870 makes most cards look like bad value, so id recammend you that.

 

[Informant X]

Why so much discussion? Just got read the articles on Toms Hardware. He does a best vid card for the month every month with varying price ranges.

 

[MrK6]

Why so much discussion? Just got read the articles on Toms Hardware. He does a best vid card for the month every month with varying price ranges.

Because those THG articles lack depth or any real information, report the wrong prices, and have poor comparisons ($180-300? really? That's at least 2 tiers of video cards to consider).

 

[napes22]

Why so much discussion? Just got read the articles on Toms Hardware. He does a best vid card for the month every month with varying price ranges.

The discussion is because hearing multiple opinions is better than hearing one opinion. I understand the performance per dollar chart but I want to hear from people who actually went through the same decision making process to understand if I'm making the right decision for the money.

 

[napes22]

Looks like I can get a 560 TI for $215 after rebate and additional discount code attached to it. Would EVGA GTX 560 TI 1GB be a good purchase? I'm trying to balance out money, vs performance but also make sure I wouldn't be bottle necking my system with the GFX card.

My other two options at this point are Powercolor 6950 2GB @ $245 or the HIS IceQ 6950 @$275.

 

[MangoX]

If you don't plan on upgrading to a higher resolution display then I'd get the 6870. Otherwise that 560TI is a decent deal, though personally I wouldn't pay more than $200 for one, but that's just me.