videocards, best performance/price ratio

[gammaray]

Hi,

iyho, what is the best price-performance ratio for video cards right now?

price range 100$-500$

not for bitcoins mining...

 

[cmdrdredd]

I'd say a GTX 770 personally. It's in a sweet spot at $400 for a 4GB version with good performance for 1080p. You can always pay more and get a 780 for around 500 and get better performance but at 1080p the 770 performs very well. I almost have to leave out AMD cards because they are priced high due to mining. I see you're in Quebec so I can't speak to your local prices, but here in the US we see lots of retailers pricing the equivelant AMD cards $150 or more above the MSRP. Though if you could get a AMD 290 for MSRP it would be a better deal than the GTX770 as it would sit at the same price and perform better overall.

I think $400 is the sweet spot for high end cards (not ultra high end or unicorn cards).

 

[blastingcap]

Can you narrow it down a little? 100-500 canadian dollars is a huge range

 

[Midwayman]

Well the best performance/price ratio will be the $100 cards for sure. However that may not run the games you want at the resolutions/aa level you want.

 

[Termie]

The best price/performance is HD 7770, followed closely by the GTX 760 at about twice the price.

If the R9 270X were actually available at its $200 MSRP, it would probably take the crown.

All of these are much worse bang-for-the-buck than cards back in Sept/Oct., like the HD 7870 for $130 and the HD 7950 for $180.

 

[el etro]

$200 cards. Followed by $100 cards and then $300 cards.

worse is >$700 cards, then <$100 cards and then >$300 cards.

 

[Arkadrel]

Hi,

iyho, what is the best price-performance ratio for video cards right now?

price range 100$-500$

not for bitcoins mining...

at about 200$ you can get cards like 3 times as fast as as the 100$ mark.

Once you go much above that you start paying alot more, for much less performance gains.

at 400$ you ll get cards that are like ~40% faster than at 200$ (but your paying twice as much).

at 550-600$ you ll get cards that are like ~60% faster than those at 200$ (paying 3 times as much)


To me the most bang for buck, seems to be around the 200$ mark.


That means you look for the cheapest "AMD's 270x" or "Nvidia's 760".

 

[nwo]

The best price/performance is HD 7770, followed closely by the GTX 760 at about twice the price.

If the R9 270X were actually available at its $200 MSRP, it would probably take the crown.

All of these are much worse bang-for-the-buck than cards back in Sept/Oct., like the HD 7870 for $130 and the HD 7950 for $180.

Well, the 270X's are only $220 on newegg which isn't too far off from their MSRP. Which is baffling to me since 270 non-X's start @ $210 on newegg. But anyway, if you can get a good deal on a GTX 760 and grab it for ~$200, it is by far a much better deal.

Every couple of weeks a ~$200 GTX 760 deal comes up (in the US) and it is by far the best bang for the buck card you can get your hands on right now.

 

[moddestmike]

at about 200$ you can get cards like 3 times as fast as as the 100$ mark.

Once you go much above that you start paying alot more, for much less performance gains.

at 400$ you ll get cards that are like ~40% faster than at 200$ (but your paying twice as much).

at 550-600$ you ll get cards that are like ~60% faster than those at 200$ (paying 3 times as much)


To me the most bang for buck, seems to be around the 200$ mark.


That means you look for the cheapest "AMD's 270x" or "Nvidia's 760".

Just wanted to chime in and say I've been able to come across 270x open box items twice, second time being tonight at Frys so I snatched it up and returned the Diamond 290x. My honest opinion? I'd prefer to be able to run max resolution at ultra settings without the noticeable dip in frames.

My assessment? Mantle enabled, 1080p res, and all settings on ultra. Operation locker was almost unplayable, open maps with FoV scaled down were far more playable but still not anything close to enjoyable. Granted I'm running mantle and its not quite optimized so I'd like to see if a more stable version actually yields the gains they claim. There are known issues with stutters but this occasionally happened on the 290x as well, just not as obvious nor frequent. I just wasn't sure if the 290x was worth the coin but for me, Mantle makes the decision in whether I go back to the 290x or stick with the 270x.

Any word of AMD price drops this quarter or next?

Specs:
Xeon W3570 with mild OC
Asus DirectCU II TOP 270x
24GB crucial
2x64GB SSD's raid 0

 

[Venomous]

Just wanted to chime in and say I've been able to come across 270x open box items twice, second time being tonight at Frys so I snatched it up and returned the Diamond 290x. My honest opinion? I'd prefer to be able to run max resolution at ultra settings without the noticeable dip in frames.

My assessment? Mantle enabled, 1080p res, and all settings on ultra. Operation locker was almost unplayable, open maps with FoV scaled down was far more playable but still not anything close to enjoyable. Granted I'm running mantle and its not quite optimized so I'd like to see if a more stable version actually yields the gains they claim.

Umm I would of kept the 290x

 

[moddestmike]

Umm I would of kept the 290x

I'm building an iSCSI SAN as a side project, any extra dollars could help. And I figure if the performance claims Mantle is said to bolster are true then I wont be missing anything.

 

[gammaray]

So, best bang for the bucks seems to be cards around 200$ like 7870 and gtx 660.

Is it safe to say that 2 either 660 or 270 (7870) in sli or xfire would be better than a 400$ card?

i don't follow the videocard market that often, and last card i bought for myself was a gtx770 back in june. but i am not trying to upgrade or sell it, i just build a lot of rigs.

Btw, don't mind my location, i often travel to the us, so i can buy from newegg, amazon, fry's whatever.

 

[el etro]

Is it safe to say that 2 either 660 or 270 (7870) in sli or xfire would be better than a 400$ card?

If you find Two 7950 Boost by around this price would be a great deal. 660 or 270 not so much.

At $400 you have R9 290, that performs close to the 2-way setup of R9 270/GTX660.

 

[Termie]

So, best bang for the bucks seems to be cards around 200$ like 7870 and gtx 660.

Is it safe to say that 2 either 660 or 270 (7870) in sli or xfire would be better than a 400$ card?

i don't follow the videocard market that often, and last card i bought for myself was a gtx770 back in june. but i am not trying to upgrade or sell it, i just build a lot of rigs.

Btw, don't mind my location, i often travel to the us, so i can buy from newegg, amazon, fry's whatever.

I tried 7870 Crossfire for a while, and I didn't think it was nearly as smooth as a GTX 780. It provides similar average framerates, but does not feel the same.

Given that there really aren't any $400 cards worth buying (other than maybe the 770 4GB), this is not an easy comparison to make.

The real bang for the buck setup on the high-end is dual GTX 760s, but that's $500, and could be VRAM limited above 1080p.

If you find Two 7950 Boost by around this price would be a great deal. 660 or 270 not so much.

At $400 you have R9 290, that performs close to the 2-way setup of R9 270/GTX660.

The R9 290 has not been $400 for three months in the US/Canada. It is closer to $600.

And the 7950 has been discontinued since October.

 

[Zstream]

My vote is for the R9 270 with a non-reference cooler. You can overclock it to 270X specs and have a day. I'm not sure if you can get BF4 with it but it was available when I purchased mine for $179.

 

[wowsza]

i love the 7850's. they go on sale from time to time for <$120 AR on newegg

 

[Essence_of_War]

I concur with the folks who say the GTX 760 is probably the inflection point for price/performance.

Tom's has a decent graph of this. Everything scales really well up to around $250, and then price starts to rise noticeably faster than perf.

Although "perf/$" also depends somewhat on your resolution. The 760 is great perf/$ but it might be insufficient perf to justify it if you're gaming at 2560x1440 (or higher) at high settings in modern games.

 

[know of fence]

To me the most bang for buck, seems to be around the 200$ mark.

That means you look for the cheapest "AMD's 270x" or "Nvidia's 760".

Couldn't agree more. You can actually do the calculation yourself by dividing the number of stream processors by the price. When I did that I found out that at least for AMD cards there isn't a lot of variance and prices are well deserved, meaning some cards offer up to 60% more performance per dollar than others. But you pay a bit extra for the newer features (True Audio) in the R7 260x, and an extra GB of RAM on some cards.

Mid range cards are also the least likely to be bandwidth constrained, not to mention that the same cards were sold for twice the price when they were released a couple of years ago.

We probably get newer 20nm cards this year or the next(?), splurging on video cards now with almost no Dx11 games out, seems like a waste anyhow.

 

[monkeydelmagico]

I mostly agree with a +1 for R9 270x:

 

[Termie]

The TechPowerup chart is very interesting, but it would change dramatically depending on actual market prices of AMD cards.

 

[monkeydelmagico]

The TechPowerup chart is very interesting, but it would change dramatically depending on actual market prices of AMD cards.

True, these are MSRP's and the comparo was done about a month ago..... still a great starting point that, with a little critical thinking, can adapt to current market conditions.

 

[nwo]

My vote is for the R9 270 with a non-reference cooler. You can overclock it to 270X specs and have a day. I'm not sure if you can get BF4 with it but it was available when I purchased mine for $179.

I have to put in a vote against the 270 non-X. Why? Because (on newegg) the price difference is only $10 between the cheapest 270 and 270X

I was also able to grab a HIS 270 with BF4 for $179. It was a great deal. Too bad there won't be any similar deals anytime soon.

 

[gammaray]

looking at prices on many online shops, videocards are very expensive right now, not really a good time to buy one...

 

[cmdrdredd]

looking at prices on many online shops, videocards are very expensive right now, not really a good time to buy one...

Sometimes you just have to set a budget as to how much you are willing to spend and look for the best deal at that price point.

 

[McLovin42]

Stick with an Nvidia solution whatever you do. IMO the GK104 GTX 770(2gb, not 4gb version)is the best bang for the buck as it can be had for around $300 now. The 4gb version is a waste of money for a single card setup.