Best PERFORMANCE-BANG-4-BUCK video card?

[BoFox]

Something fun for a thread:

What's the best performance-bang-4-buck video card out there today?

I think it's still 40nm, so let's have 2 categories:

1) What's the best performance-bang-4-buck video card made on 28nm?

-AND-

2) What's the best performance-bang-4-buck video card of all?

...

There could also be two other categories:

1) What's the best performance-bang-4-buck video card that is still being sold at retail?

2) What's the best performance-bang-4-buck video card out there considering the average selling value on Ebay and FS/T forums?

 

[Dankk]

Toms Hardware has a monthly piece detailing the most valuable cards at different price tiers. Here's the one for February:

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-graphics-card-review,3107.html

Use the table of contents to see the different price ranges.

 

[aaksheytalwar]

IMO

In their respective price brackets all amd cards from 7850 to 7970 ghz are more or less equally vfm.

 

[Elfear]

As long as you didn't pay any extra for your motherboard, wouldn't the best bang for your buck be integrated graphics? :biggrin:

 

[Corporate Thug]

7870 XT is untouchable IMO for price / performance if you overclock.

 

[BallaTheFeared]

This one's easy, GTX 470, yeah I said it ^_^

Don't make me thump your $110 5870 again to prove my point bobo ()

Bitcoins are chump change compared to my Fermi tax writeoff for F@H.

 

[3DVagabond]

Bitcoins are chump change compared to my Fermi tax writeoff for F@H.

Can you elaborate? I didn't realize there was a tax write off.

 

[badb0y]

I think the 7950 is pretty good.

 

[bfromcolo]

7850 with 2 games that my son and I will both play.

 

[BallaTheFeared]

Can you elaborate? I didn't realize there was a tax write off.

Electricity cost is tax deductible, there is no profit I was only joking - obviously any AMD card is going to have incredible value if it can bitmine and you don't place value on curing cancer.

 

[hyrule4927]

Electricity cost is tax deductible, there is no profit I was only joking - obviously any AMD card is going to have incredible value if it can bitmine and you don't place value on curing cancer.

Because you can't do both? Way to make broad baseless assumptions about everyone running AMD hardware though. Really classy.

I fold 24/7 on my 2600K, i3-530, and 6850. My 7950 is mining about 1 week per month and folding the rest of the time. I'm at 8 million points right now in F@H, how about you?

 

[BallaTheFeared]

Because you can't do both? Way to make broad baseless assumptions about everyone running AMD hardware though. Really classy.

I fold 24/7 on my 2600K, i3-530, and 6850. My 7950 is mining about 1 week per month and folding the rest of the time. I'm at 8 million points right now in F@H, how about you?

I'm sorry I didn't mean to offend your delicate nature, i stopped folding my 470 (which is better ppd/w than your 6850) when I figured out my i5 was providing vastly more PPD/w and didn't want to cure cancer while increasing my carbon footprint for a number to brag about on a forum.

 

[hyrule4927]

You're right, I shouldn't have assumed someone would be smart enough to figure out their 80w CPU was destroying their 180w GPU in PPD per watt. It's great you have such a big number, what exactly are you doing about all the power your gpu is wasting for almost no work done?

Free electricity, friend.

And my point is that I actually contribute to and care about the cause of F@H. You just talk about it to make your favorite GPU company sound better.

Edit: Wow, way to completely rewrite you entire post. And bragging? Really? The only reason I mentioned my score was to further disprove your claims. If I wanted to brag I would put it in my signature.

 

[BallaTheFeared]

Let me redact because this is simply a misunderstanding.


What I said:

obviously any AMD card is going to have incredible value if it can bitmine and you don't place value on curing cancer.

I was not saying AMD users don't care about F@H or don't run it. What I was saying was exactly what I said... Any older AMD product is going to hold a higher value because you can earn back + more what you paid, essentially you can get the cards for free (even newer ones).. If the person doesn't place value in F@H, than Nvidia really had nothing to offer that can compare, however your 6850 which can bitmine, doesn't fold nearly as fast or efficiently as my 470 for instance which can pull 15k PPD over your 7k. People can still bitmine on Nvidia, it just doesn't make sense as often the cost of electricity is greater than the payback.

My point when bringing up F@H was simply to state that Nvidia can bring additional value that AMD brings with bitmining, if you value folding at home. Because you can write off the power usage (and not use it at exponentially worse PPD/w - we don't want to contribute to one problem greatly, while only slightly contributing to another - hence why I don't fold, i7s get way better PPD/w than 470s and even my i5 isn't as good as I'd like it to have been) but it's still an option especially if you use clean energy.

So I wasn't saying that AMD users don't care, which understandably if you read it that way you took offense. I shouldn't have lashed out back at you over the misunderstanding, my point was simply that Nvidia is giving better PPD/h and PPD/w and is a good option to counter the additional value present with AMD /w BitMining (If the person values F@H - not everyone does).

 

[3DVagabond]

I'm glad you said "don't value F@H" in your follow up. Everyone, except for the medical industry, would like to find a cure for cancer. They make much more money treating it.

On topic:
I think typically it's midrange cards that offer best bang/$. That's not going to be true for everyone, though.

 

[Face2Face]

Hands down the 7950 is the best bang for the buck. Most can overclock past the speed of a 7970Ghz and a GTX 680. Yes I have one, no it doesn't make me bias

 

[Rhezuss]

HD7950 i'd call it the best card money can buy:
- You get 2 free new games with it - Crysis 3 and Bioshock Infinite
- You can easily overclock the card to achieve HD7970 GHz/GTX 680 performances
- You get 3gb of GDDR5 with a 384bit bus
- You get a huge effing smile when you play games

 

[BoFox]

Toms Hardware has a monthly piece detailing the most valuable cards at different price tiers. Here's the one for February:

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-graphics-card-review,3107.html

Use the table of contents to see the different price ranges.

HD 7970 wins in that chart.. according to Tom's few benches. Anybody else?

So, that's probably only for the 28nm and retail categories, I would dare guess....

What about 40nm cards having even more performance-bang-4-buck, that you can no longer find in retail, but only on ebay or fs/t forums?

 

[dagamer34]

HD7950 i'd call it the best card money can buy:
- You get 2 free new games with it - Crysis 3 and Bioshock Infinite
- You can easily overclock the card to achieve HD7970 GHz/GTX 680 performances
- You get 3gb of GDDR5 with a 384bit bus
- You get a huge effing smile when you play games

I don't want to seem biased (look at my sig), but why do people seem to forget that the 7970 and Ghz Ed. can ALSO overclock to hit even higher speeds than their stock clocks for performance that a 7950 will probably never reach due to missing Stream processors?

It's one thing to say that the 7950 will give you the best performance for your dollar, it's another to imply that a 7950 OC will beat a 7970/Ghz Edition because of course, those can be overclocked as well.

 

[ICDP]

I don't want to seem biased (look at my sig), but why do people seem to forget that the 7970 and Ghz Ed. can ALSO overclock to hit even higher speeds than their stock clocks for performance that a 7950 will probably never reach due to missing Stream processors?

It's one thing to say that the 7950 will give you the best performance for your dollar, it's another to imply that a 7950 OC will beat a 7970/Ghz Edition because of course, those can be overclocked as well.

Because the HD 7970 costs ~£100 for ~7% performance at similar clock speeds. Consider that the HD 7950 starts at lower stock clocks and that the GE 7970 is already at almost max clock potential. Both HD 7970 and HD 7950 will reach similar core overclocks and at at similar clocks the HD 7970 is only ~5%-7% faster. So the HD 7950 is making up far more ground considering the stock clocks are slower.

I have owned owned a GTX 680, HD 7970 and HD 7950. I sold the GTX 680 and HD 7970 to cut my losses, because frankly once the HD 7950 is overclocked to even 1150 core they offer nothing over the HD 7950 given the prices.

 

[raghu78]

Because the HD 7970 costs ~£100 for ~7% performance at similar clock speeds. Consider that the HD 7950 starts at lower stock clocks and that the GE 7970 is already at almost max clock potential. Both HD 7970 and HD 7950 will reach similar core overclocks and at at similar clocks the HD 7970 is only ~5%-7% faster. So the HD 7950 is making up far more ground considering the stock clocks are slower.

I have owned owned a GTX 680, HD 7970 and HD 7950. I sold the GTX 680 and HD 7970 to cut my losses, because frankly once the HD 7950 is overclocked to even 1150 core they offer nothing over the HD 7950 given the prices.

correct. the HD 7950 boost cards with stock voltage of 1.25v easily hit 1150 mhz on average. some go higher than 1200 mhz but thats less common. the HD 7970 Ghz has a higher stock speed. thats it. at the same clocks HD 7970 is 5% faster than HD 7950. both chips have similar average and max oc. maybe hd 7970 has 50 mhz higher average oc clocks. but costs around 120 - 150 bucks more. there is no better value for money than a HD 7950 boost in the market.

 

[Face2Face]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rhezuss

HD7950 i'd call it the best card money can buy:
- You get 2 free new games with it - Crysis 3 and Bioshock Infinite
- You can easily overclock the card to achieve HD7970 GHz/GTX 680 performances
- You get 3gb of GDDR5 with a 384bit bus
- You get a huge effing smile when you play games

I don't want to seem biased (look at my sig), but why do people seem to forget that the 7970 and Ghz Ed. can ALSO overclock to hit even higher speeds than their stock clocks for performance that a 7950 will probably never reach due to missing Stream processors?

It's one thing to say that the 7950 will give you the best performance for your dollar, it's another to imply that a 7950 OC will beat a 7970/Ghz Edition because of course, those can be overclocked as well.

Posted from Anandtech.com App for Android

 

[Gryz]

If you are a gamer, there are only 5 cards you can consider: 7950, 7970, 660ti, 670 and 680.

Cheaper cards are too slow for a gamer who wants to see new games with good eyecandy, imho. You could add dual-gpu cards and CF/SLI maybe. But if someone needs to ask what card to buy, I would not recommend them to mess with multi-GPU setups.

Different people have different requirements.
Raw performance.
Overclock ability.
Power/heat/noise.
Features.
Driver stability, ready for new games.

That being said, I think the 7950 is the best bang for the buck.
If you want the best performance, the 7970 is better (esp the GHz edition).

I do believe (from reading forums of multiple games) that the nVidia cards have slightly less hassle. Often with newer games, but also with older games sometimes. And the nVidia cards seem to run a bit cooler/quieter. So if you care about those, you might want to consider 660ti, 670 or 680. But raw performance wise, I believe the AMD cards are the better choice atm. (Note: I own a gtx680 myself).

 

[Keysplayr]

Gryz I disagree.
The GTX 660 (non Ti) is the sweet spot IMHO for the 200 dollar segment. 7850/70 is for AMD.
The GTX 650Ti would be another at 150 spot.

 

[OILFIELDTRASH]

7950 with 2 free games and unlocked voltage for $280 after rebate is the best value hands down. That's why I bought it.