TheTechLounge - Recent Reviews: Hardware: Video Cards

Palit HD 4870 512MB Video Card

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 16:13:14 -0500

The real win is having a $300 card: NVIDIA made a lot of money with the 9800 GTX before the 4850 forced them to sell it for $200. Now that bracket belongs to ATI, who, for the first time in years, is dictating hardware costs, not following prices set by NVIDIA. We'll have to wait for board partners to add innovation. So yes, the card isn't perfect, but like they say, it's lonely at the top.

VisionTek HD 4870 512MB Video Card

Mon, 21 Jul 2008 10:18:51 -0500

Picking out a video card should be a little more exciting than finding the cheapest one on the, er, "shelf" and going about your build. Unfortunately for now, the available 4870s are all stock. Performance and profiles being identical, you gotta check out boring stuff like warranties. VisionTek goes farther than other ATI partners with a limited lifetime warranty, but they really like the limited section.

Zotac GTX 280 1GB AMP! Edition Video Card

Tue, 15 Jul 2008 19:02:42 -0500

Some of the glimmer has blown away; this is the fastest single-GPU card of all time, but HD 4000 is a whirlwind. It's all value, though, and the best has and will always require a price premium. NVIDIA people won't be dissuaded, and the GTX 280, despite competitive pressure, is selling well. A lot of work went into making this a new card, not a streamlined or overclocked G80 part. It's beastly, costly, and if you've any doubts about buying this card, they're warranted. Fortunately, you can know this: it's powerful, and there probably won't be anything like it for some time to come. ZOTAC has overclocked it, slapped their sticker on this card, and the rest goes like this:

PowerColor HD 4850 512MB Video Card

Fri, 11 Jul 2008 13:45:51 -0500

Interestingly, there seem to be few, if any drastic, architecture changes for HD 4000. It's all scale down, add more. PowerColor, a long-time board partner, shows just how well this strategy pays out for the HD 4850.Even side-by-side, this card looks just like a 3850. That's really superb, because not only was its predecessor small, clean, and fast, it was also quiet. The sticker's adornment is a busty, armored model in Viking chic. But it's a stock card, with the same design that you'd get with any 4850 currently available.

Diamond HD 4870 512MB Video Card

Fri, 4 Jul 2008 15:29:46 -0500

The 4870 is an excellent card, but for now, all the models are functionally identical, and there are yet to be factory-overclocked cards, let alone custom-cooled models. Variation ranges from changing the sticker to adding spiffy adapters. If you buy Diamond, you're not buying a different card, you're buying better service, only they're not charging extra.

Chaintech 9600 GT 512MB OC

Wed, 11 Jun 2008 14:40:02 -0500

Everyone recommends the GeForce 9600 GT first, and they should. It's got a price-to-performance ratio unlike any card before. I'm not exaggerating. This card could very well be the best deal NVIDIA has ever put to market. I spent a day with Chaintech's factory-overclocked card... And I found a couple things I didn't like. Deal breakers? Hardly.

Diamond Viper HD 3650 PE 512MB

Thu, 5 Jun 2008 18:31:27 -0500

ATI's HD 3650 replaces the HD 2600 Pro, a frustrating underachiever. Generally, I dislike video cards in the $50-100 range, mainly because they're not going to play new games well and, if you're after features, then you're better off buying a lesser model from the same series. The features here are the real selling points--two of which stand out ahead of price, connectivity (HDMI), and low power-consumption. First is video playback. ATI swings when it comes to playing movies, and even their entry-level cards are going to do well, if not flawlessly. Second is Hybrid CrossFire. All 3000-series cards can be run in CrossFire with motherboards that have the 780G (and upcoming 790GX) chipsets, in either a performance mode (like regular CrossFire) or power-saving mode, which completely powers down the video card when integrated video is good enough. Combined, these features might give cause to move up a price bracket, favoring a 36 over a 34.

Diamond Viper HD 3870 1GB

Tue, 3 Jun 2008 12:45:51 -0500

Under the heatsink is a whole lot of GDDR3, which in itself doesn't mean much--you can find a pile of budget cards with a gig of RAM, the extra memory incapable of boosting their meager performance--but the 3870 is plainly able to fill its frame buffer. If it were truly a budget card, it would come off as sheer marketing; with a high-end card like this, it really does make a difference. The last great ATI card was the HD 2900 XT, a spectacular misfire. But despite it's ridiculous power consumption, sub-par video processing, and tremendous heat with the blower to match, it still beat out the 512MB HD 3870. I hoped that this redesigned 3870 would have what it takes to finally put out the year-old performance despot. And it does, in almost every way.

Sapphire Radeon HD 3870 X2

Mon, 2 Jun 2008 12:21:55 -0500

So why not just get two 3870s and rub a little CrossFire into your box? There are two reasons, really. For most people, that's just not an option. Dual-PCI-Express can easily tag a Benjamin onto the price of a motherboard, and, in Micro-ATX land, it's a mythical beast that visits overclockers in their dreams. And there's another thing: regular 3870s get the lower-binned GPUs--the faster-clocking chips go into the X2s. But, lastly, the 3870 promises something else: tri- and quad-CrossFireX. But that begs the initial question: now that the release is behind us, how much awesome stuck to the HD 3870 X2, and how much washed away?

ATI Radeon HD 3850 256MB Crossfire

Wed, 14 May 2008 10:22:43 -0500

We know it'd make more sense to just spend more money on a really fast card, but--two video cards! Given that you can definitely get two 3850s for $300, it seems like a reasonable upgrade option, even though I normally rail pretty hard against mid-range multi-GPU configurations. The main weakness of the 3850 is its clean performance drop when anti-aliasing is enabled. Without that, it really does scream. Will an extra $150 give it that 4xAA shine?

ATI Radeon HD 3850 256MB

Tue, 13 May 2008 14:31:16 -0500

With it's release during the massive hardware holliday last year, the HD 3850, the least of four major cards, is easily overlooked. That's really a shame, since it's really a top-notch gaming card. Obviously, it's not the first choice for enthusiasts, but from a value perspective, it's without a doubt the best choice.

ASUS 8600 GT TOP

Mon, 12 May 2008 17:05:49 -0500

I was a bit surprised that Asus asked us to review their flagship budget--it's weird just writing that--8600 GT TOP. It's new SKU for a card closing in on its end of life; the model being about a year old now. Just the same, with a hundred-dollar price tag, it's definitely got an audience, no matter what cards there are competing against it, or what cards have been released since. And it's a pretty highly-regarded card; go on any hardware forum and there's a dozen NVIDIA people extolling the virtues of the 8600 GTs when it comes to budget gaming. Now, I'm not saying that they're all wrong, but it is worth finding out if new drivers and some moderate factory overclocking can put value on an otherwise dated video card.

ATI HD 2400 XT 256MB

Tue, 1 Apr 2008 21:54:36 -0500

It's hard to believe, but there are actually many people who don't want the trappings, and cost, of gaming hardware. Integrated graphics aren't always an option and, when they are, they use precious system resources that, for only a little extra cash, can be un-tethered. Which is exactly what an entry-level video card is supposed to do. They're not intended to play video games, and their 3D processing capacity is misleading. Good enough doesn't mean gaming; it's about low power consumption and decent features. So, for those of you looking for "good enough," is this vanilla HD 2400 XT it? Or does it come up short where it counts?

ATI HD 2600 Pro 256MB

Mon, 14 Jan 2008 17:05:07 -0600

ATI's HD 2600 XT is a pretty nice card. It plays games acceptably well, consumes a negligible amount of power, and has flawless video acceleration. It's my first choice for the mainstream. So where does that leave the HD 2600 Pro? Being a cut-down, budget version of a cool card, what, then, is missing? The HD 2600 Pro is targeted to anyone who wants a discreet video card, the casual gaming ilk, but doesn't really want either the lowest-end model or to spend over a hundred dollars. All that seems reasonable, but it's just not true. I think the GDDR3, 256MB HD 2600 Pro should be skipped altogether. It does a couple things right, but misses the mark too often.

Gigabyte HD 2600 Pro 512MB

Mon, 7 Jan 2008 22:25:24 -0600

I've said before that the HD 2600 Pro should be passed over in favor of the XT for anyone who wants to play video games, or the HD 2400 XT for people just interested in having a discrete graphics card without all that gaming malarkey. But then, Gigabyte has put together a compelling package with the HD 2600 Pro. A memory bump to 512MB, a clockspeed bump of 5%, passive cooling, component and S-Video out, and Neverwinter Nights 2�a popular sequel by a big developer.