Picking Out The Right Graphics Card

This tutorial may be completely up to date, or may not agree exactly with your observations. Remember 3dMark scores depend a lot on the rest of the system as well. This is intended to be a guide. Prices are probably old (therefore high). Use NewEgg, PriceWatch, or ZipZoomFly to search if you see a card you're interested in.

Welcome to Dylan's video card buying, pricing, and explanation tutorial! This tutorial will walk you through which card is best for your system and price range. I'll also describe what makes a fast system, and what tends to work best.

I know a great deal about computers, building systems, stability, and video cards. I don't, however, know it all nor do I think I know it all. I learn and explore everyday, and I do it all on my own. Because I'm learning it with no outside support, occasionally I'll misinterpret something and miss it slightly.

First thing's first.

There is no "magical" card: a card that will last you "years" or be really cheap and the best. Technology costs money and if you low ball your video card, expect low ball performance.

Here are the cards lined up, performance from top to bottom (on avarage) according to generation.
(The list of cards, top from bottom has been updated as of 12/1/05, spaces indicate power groups)

* (quick update, no buy links yet, price next to card)x1900 xtx
* 7900 GTX 512
* x1900 xt
* x1800 XT (scores 8900-9100 on 3Dmark05)
* 7800 GTX (scores 8390-8600 on 3Dmark05)
* 7900 GTX
* 7800 GT 256
* x1800 XL
* x1800 gto
* x850 XT PE
* 7600 GT
* 6800 Ultra
* x850 Pro
* x800 XT PE
* 6800 GS
* 6800 GT - x800 XL
* x800 GTO
* 6800 LE
* 6800 XT
* x800 Pro
* 6600 GT - x800, x700, 7600 GS
* x1600 XT
* x1600 pro
* 7300 le
* 7300gs
* 6200
* x600 XT
* x600
* x1300 Pro
* x300

--FX and 9xxx series in order, thanks Komet for the info on page 8--

* Radeon 9800XT
* Radeon 9800Pro
* Radeon 9700Pro
* Radeon 9800
* GeForce FX 5950Ultra
* Radeon 9700
* GeForce FX 5900Ultra
* GeForce FX 5900
* GeForce FX 5900XT
* Radeon 9800SE 256bit
* Radeon 9600XT
* Radeon 9500Pro
* Radeon 9800SE 128bit
* Radeon 9600Pro
* GeForce FX 5700Ultra
* GeForce FX 5700
* Radeon 9500
* Radeon 9600
* Radeon 9550
* GeForce FX 5600
* Radeon 9600SE
* Radeon 9550SE
* Radeon 9200Pro
* Radeon 8500Pro
* GeForce FX 5500
* Radeon 8500
* Radeon 8500LE
* Radeon 9000Pro
* GeForce FX 5200Ultra
* Radeon 9200
* Radeon 9250
* GeForce FX 5200
* Radeon 9000
* Radeon 9200SE

__________________________________________________ ______
Any other cards are not really worth mentioning, since better can be found for the same price. nVidia or ATI? Tough question. ATI doesn't exactly have it "in the bag" like the x850 XT PE in the last generation, the x1800 XT did in fact defeat the 7800 GTX. There is a 7800 GTX 512meg version that benches the same as a x1800 XT, better in some games. If you play a lot of DirectX 9 games, then you should probably buy an ATI card. If you still like to play Doom3, and other OpenGL games, then nVidia is your best choice. Prices, in USD, ATI and nvidia seperated. PCI-E first then AGP later.

But before that

Let's look at the 3Dmark05 scores. If you're unsure, 3Dmark05 is software by Futuremark to accurately test the speed of video cards. It gives a score based on how many frames the card is able to render. For example, the still powerfull x850 XT PE scores a nice 6100. How does that translate into games? Simple. The average score with all the big cards now are 5000. a card that scores a 5000 in 3Dmark05 will play any game you have, on high settings/resolution at very playable frames. Although this changes often, so it's hard to keep a hand on.

Lets look at what you need. So you want to play todays games on super high settings and resolutions. This takes scores of 6000 or higher (7800 GT's x1800 XL's). Pick out a card in that area, and you'll do just fine, and be very pleased. Want something on the lower end? Just for minimal or normal settings? A 6600 GT or basic x800 scores in the 3000 to 4000 areas, which is ideal for todays mid range market. Where the x800 and 6800 series score in the low 6000 and high to mid 5000, they're a good choice for running most games on above avarage settings, and still getting 80+ fps.

==============================
+++++++for ATI (PCI-E Bus)++++++
==============================

x1800 XT $550 to $600+.
For example...
While the 7800 gtx beats it slightly in OpenGL, the x1800 XT is now the crown holder for DX9 and 3Dmark/Aquamark, scoring 9000 on 3Dmark05. At this webpage, you can find movies of what the x1800 XT can render in real time. These movies were captured as it was rendering, so it's the real work of the x1800 xt processing power. It shows what good technology can do with 16 pipes. The image quality and AA/AF control is much better looking and more advanced than the 7800's. the overall quality of the image being rendered is much different, and improved.

x1800 XL $389
Available here.
Good card, gets 7100+ on 3Dmark05. VERY GOOD for $389. Best bang per buck card out there. If you have close to 400 bucks, this card is definatly for you. You can consider waiting for the x1800 XT, or the x1800 XT PE as well.

x850 XT PE $350+
Available here
Not worth $419. Then again, its NewEgg. Pricewatch or ZipZoomFly would have a better price. 3Dmark05: 6041

x800 XT PE $300+
Available here
Great card, bang for buck is not as good as a x850 Pro. 3Dmark05: 4900

x850 Pro $265
Available here
$239!!!!!!!!!!! GREAT bang for buck, the x850 Pro is among the best for that metric. 3Dmark

x800 GTO $137 to $255 depending on brand
Available here
Not really worth what it does, a x800 XT, or x850 Pro would be recomended instead. 3Dmark05: 3500-4000

x800 GT $160-180
Well, with 4 less pipes than a GTO it fits its price range. nothing bad about this card, I would say stay away from powercolour but this time around it would be fine. 3Dmark05 scores a 3890.

x600 xt $88
Available here
It's worth 88 bucks, but it's a low ball. As I have said, you get what you pay for, scores about a 2000 on 3Dmark05. Not really that good at all. I don't recomend it, but it does exactly what 88 bucks says, so I kind of admire that. You're better off getting something else, like a 9800 XT.

==================================
++++++++For nVidia (PCI-E Bus)+++++++
==================================

7800 GTX 512meg $750
Available here
Not worth the price at all. For 750 bucks, you only get a few more FPS more than a x1800 XT. and the x1800 XT still outbenches this card in some/most areas including 3Dmark05 i believe. I dont recomend it at all, unless you're Bill Gates. Some noob on newegg said "it's the best GPU out to date". WRONG. its the best CARD out to date. not GPU. The best gpu out to date is currently (1/2/06) the R520 core. nVidia OCed and beefed out the memory, making it faster. its still the G70 core, which again, isnt the "best GPU". Its not a bad card at all, but its NOT the best bang for buck. you dont get what you pay for, but you do get one of the best cards, completely overpriced.

7800 gtx $459
Available here.
3Dmark05 7600. Great card for money.

7800 GT $370
Available here or here 3Dmark05 - 7210.

6800 ultra $399
Available here
Unless you play Doom3 all the time, I do NOT recommend this. There are better cards for just as much, or a few more bucks, like the x850 XT PE.

6800 GS $200 to $220
Available here
I have to give them credit here. Good card for $200 bucks, packs a whallop. scores 5700 or so on 3Dmark05. If your short on cash and play Doom3 and D3 mods a lot, it's a good card to have in stock. Personally, I wouldn't buy it, but hey, that's not whats important here. Facts are, good card, good price, highly recomended. 3Dmark05 - 5819

6800 gt $280
Available here
Does well, 4500-5500+ on 3Dmark05.

6800 xt $150
Not really worth 150 bucks with the 6800GS out. Unsure of its 3Dmark05 score, but its the worst of the 6800 series. It's a decent buy, but go for the 6800GS if you must have nVidia. -Thanks Komet 3Dmark05 - 4020

6600 gt $120 to $180, depending on brand
Available here and the new 256 meg version here.
NOT BAD for 90 bucks at all. Low cash? This card will last another 6-10 months. scored from 3500-4k on 3Dmark05

-----
__________________________
AGP CARDS BELOW. they score about the same as pci-e cards. the difference is the speed of the bus. AGP's frequency is 66, as PCI-E is 100. AGP's freq can be overclocked, as well as PCI-E, but PCI-E is 16x compared to the agp 8x. 80% of all gamers still use AGP. It's suprising because most PCI-E cards are cheaper. There is no doubt, if you're reading this tut and building a brand new PC from scratch, use PCI-E. AGP isn't outdated, in fact, few to no programs or games yet require a 16x bandwidth. The big advantage to PCIe is that it has synchronous upstream and downstream. SLI/Crossfire would not have been possible on AGP. It's only what all the new cards will be released on, with the exception of the x1300 and x1600. New engines like X-Ray, Elder Scrolls: Oblivion, UE3, and the Just Cause Engine, will indeed favor pci-e.

=================
++++For AGP cards++++
=================

For ATI (AGP Bus)

x1800 XL Diamond UPDATE: 12/30/05
Diamond has said there was a typo on their website and it is fixed. THERE WILL NOT BE A x1800 xl IN AGP FORM. Sorry guys for the hype....

x850 xt pe. $350+
Available here
Not worth $419. Then again, it's NewEgg. See above... 3Dmark05: 6041

x800 XT PE $300+
AIW card here
Great card, not as good bang for buck as the x850 Pro. 3Dmark05: 4900-5100.
AIW (All-in-Wonder) cards don't score as high as the standard x800 XT. Goes with any AIW card. They can be found non-AIW [urlhttp://www.allstarshop.com/shop/simprod.asp?pid=9945&ad=pwatch]here[/url]

x850 Pro $275
Available here
GREAT bang for buck, the x850 Pro is among the best bang per buck. 3Dmark: 6000

x800 GTO $137 to $255 depending on brand and GT-GTO
Available here
Not really worth what it does, a x800 XT or x850 Pro would be recomended instead. 3Dmark05: 3500-4000

x700 $100 to $150
Available here
What I have have to say about the x700 (any version) will be short and to the point. If you're looking at buying this card, BUY A 6600 GT!!. Owns it in every way. A 6600gt OC'ed can actually about compete with a x800 standard.

For nVidia (AGP Bus)

6800 ultra $399
Available here
Unless you play Doom3, all the time, I do NOT recomend this. There are better for cheaper, like x850 XT PE AGP.

6800 gt $280
Available here
Does well: 4500-5000+ on 3Dmark05.
6600 gt $120 to $180, depending on brand
128 megs ram or 256 megs ram
Low cash? This card will last another 6-10 months. recomended for the low end gamer, HL2 on mid settings, stuff like that. It can take some AA and AF as well. I would highly recomend this card, but so much better is out for not that much more.
________________________________

GeForce FX series AND ATI 9XXX series
Most of these cards are still decent. I'll talk about the ones that are barely worth mentioning. No offense to anyone when I say they're considered to be completly outdated compared to the new macho's. The 5950 Ultra and 9800 XT had it going on for a while. Both of them can still play games like BF2, HL2, D3, but with bad to medium frames (20-40) and embarasing settings.
They're $120 or less, generally, for price, and can be found at ZipZoomFly or NewEgg.


---RECENT UPDATE---
x1900 xtx US
x1900 xtx CAD
7900 GTX 512 US
7900 GTX 512 CAD
x1900 xt US
x1900 xt CAD
x1800 XT US
x1800 XT CAD
7800 GTX US
7800 GTX CAD
7900 GT US
7900 GT CAD
x1900 GT US
x1900 GT CAD
7800 GT US
7800 GT CAD
x1800 XL US
x1800 XL CAD
x1800 gto US
x1800 gto CAD
x850 XT PE US
x850 XT PE is not available in Canada.
7600 GT US
7600 GT CAD
6800 Ultra US
6800 Ultra CAD
x850 Pro *AGP US
x850 Pro *AGP CAD
x800 XT PE *AGP US
x800 XT PE *AGP is not available in Canada.
6800 GS is not available in the US.
6800GS CAD
6800 GT is not available in the US.
6800GT CAD
x800 XL US
x800 XL CAD
x800 GTO US
x800 GTO CAD
6800 LE US
6800 LE is not available in Canada.
6800 XT US
6800 XT CAD
x800 Pro US
x800 Pro *AGP CAD
6600 GT US
6600 GT CAD
x800 US
x800 CAD
x700 US
x700 CAD
7600 GS US
7600 GS CAD
x1600 XT US
x1600 XT CAD
x1600 pro US
x1600 pro CAD
7300 le US
7300 le CAD
7300 GS US
7300 GS CAD
6200 US
6200 CAD
x600 XT US
x600 XT CAD
x600 US
x600 CAD
x1300 pro US
x1300 pro CAD.
x300 US
x300 CAD
---Thanks komet---

=========================================
+++++++++++GPU/RAM/Clock What????/++++++++++++++
=========================================

Lets talk about all the diffrent parts of a video card, what makes them good, what makes them bad, how they will work in diffrent systems.

GPU
The GPU is the graphics processing unit. It is much like your CPU, clocked a lot lower, to handle purely graphics processing. Definitely the engine of your video card. Inside, GPU's have different types of technology: pixel pipes, vertex pipes, core architecture, etc. Different things make them better than the lastest and greatest from the competitor. GPU's have a transistor count just like a CPU, and it's much higher than a traditional CPU. GPUs are primarily vector processing units.

Pipes and Clocks
A pipe is much like a pathway in the the GPU. The more pipes, the more traffic you have. Let's take for example the MSI 6600 GT. 8 pipes, with a core speed of 500. for each single GPU clock that processes, 8 pixels can be displayed. thats 4,000,000,000 GPixels.
But why are they slower than a 7800 GTX, which has its GPU clocked at 450? Because the 7800 gtx core has 24 pipes. That's 450 * 24. 10,800,000,000 Gpixels to be exact. So it can render and display things faster, with more pipes. For the 7800 to perform similar to a 6600 GT, it would have to be clocked at 166.66 with 24 pipes (thankfully, it's not icon_razz.gif )

Pipes do, essentially, put out a pixel. However, whether or not it actually puts out a pixel every clock cycle depends on the filtering. Every pipe (which feeds into a floating point vector processor, called an FPU from here on out) can do 2 pixels per clock with normal filtering. With bilinear, it's one to one. Trilinear is 1/2. Anistropic scales from there depending on level. At this point, the pipes are almost exclusively for pixel shading, and texture lookup is unhooked from the pipes. The triangle is then passed to the pixel shaders. Vertex shading is done on the fly. So a 7800GTX has 24 FPUs. It can put out 450,000,000,000*24 pixels, so 10,800,000,000 (or 10,8 Gpixels) pixels per second. Realistically, this can never happen, due to memory bandwidth, though. Not even considering anything else the GPU has to do. This is assuming MAX output. Everything that's processed gets pushed to the RAMDAC, which sends out a completed image every time one is assembled.

RAM

RAM on your video card stores all the graphic memory you need at the time. Anything from textures to models to sprites to vectors to a few other random things. At max output, the 10.8Gpixels from the 7800GTX use over a terabyte of memory bandwidth per second assuming 128 bit precision, or 3.4 GB/s at 1600x1200. So with 16x AA, we're at ~55 GB/s. That rather outstrips the ~40GB/s of memory bandwidth. Thankfully, we don't do FSAA anymore. This is precisely why a bigger memory bus will help. A 256 bit bus x 1200 mhz / 3 (converting bits to bytes) gives us the 38.4 GB/s of memory bandwidth. A 512 bit bus would increase this just as much as it looks like. As for texture resolution size... depends. Each 1024x1024 texture only takes about 4 MB of memory. It just depends how many textures there are... Doom3 won't take max texture detail on anything less than a 512MB card, whereas BF2 will on a 128. BF2 is, if anything, considerably more stressful than Doom3, but you're right that more memory allows for prettier textures. Just that there's not a lot of utilization right now.

Internal and External Bus
Right now, the only card that has a higher than 256 bit internal bus is the 1800 XL (i think) and for sure the x1800 XT and XT PE. a higher internal bus can make information on the card be more easily transported as seen above. Again, the external bus is the speed and bandwidth (like internal bus) at which the card comunicates with the pci-e slot/AGP slot and the motherboard. External speed doesn't matter too much for now except with Crossfire/SLI.

VGA/DVI
The video link between the monitor and the video card. DVI isn't faster than VGA, and vice versa, it matters little. Some people like to make a big deal about it but...who cares. Little diffrence with both, you can buy converters and such. Make sure, when you're buying your card, it has the right kind that is also in sync with your monitor, as many high-end GPUs are now dual-DVI and don't play nice with CRTs. Also, check up on your monitor hertz frequency. Before installing a new card, change the hertz setting on your monitor to the lowest you can see so that it does not conflict with the possibly uncompatible card. It can be adjusted later, of course.

Bottlenecking
Occasionally, if you have a low end processor, and a high end card, the system will, "bottleneck." Generally, this is because the frontside bus or processor are overloaded from slow/old RAM, processors, and chipsets. Not everything is quite in sync, and the system won't bench high or the FPS it should in games, purely because the rest of the system just can't keep up. Here is a good example system that WILL bottleneck.

x850 xt pe AGP
256 PC2700 ram
1.5 P4 or 1500+ AMD
333fsb mobo

^^^^^
This system will bottle neck like hell. and wont give you what you want to give. a better, more ideal balanced system would be this.

x850 xt pe
3.2 P4, Celeron, or Athlon64 3400+
800fsb mobo
512-1gig PC3200 ram.

^^^^^
This system, although the same card, won't bottleneck, the rest of the parts can keep up with it, and its a more balanced system. The FPS will be higher and smoother, less shearing will occur.

==================================
+++++++++Brand Names???++++++++++
==================================
BFG, Sapphire, Diamond, ATI, eVGA, ASUS, MSI, XFX, PNY, Leadtek, Chaintech....WTF?!?!?! This can all get very confusing after a while. Well in this small part here is a list of all the goodies, and ones to stay away from.

The goodies
BFG, ATI, ASUS, MSI, Leadtek, Chaintech.

The baddies
eVGA, XFX, PNY, Diamond, Sapphire, Powercolor.

You'll get different opinions elsewhere, but from my extensive experience, these are the ones I've had problems with, and the ones I've done pretty well with. You'll also hear me say don't buy a MSI motherboard, DON'T, unstable as anything. BUT, MSI video cards are quite good, the MSI 6600 GT's will run extremly hot, but they can take it. I've gotten them up to 90c with 590 core, took it fine. ASUS cards have excellent cooling, as well as BFG and Leadtek. XFX is in the baddies for heat problems on some of their 6 series cards.

==================================
+++++++The future of video cards?+++++++
==================================
(What I'm about to express is highly likely but still simply my opinion)
The x1800 barely gives more performance than the 7800 GTX, for almost twice its price, and nVidia is reviving the 7800 Ultra plans (UPDATE... G72 core will be released). For ATI to tackle that, the x1800 XT PE with the R580 core will more than likely be 20-24 pipes with a clock speed set over 700. That combined with its superiour architecture and memory controller will more than likely still beat the 7800 Ultra. Again, by not a huge margin but significant enough, and not in OpenGL. It will be the same story all over again that we saw with the last generation. The x800 XT PE, 6800 Ultra, then the x850 XT PE to come and tackle it. Right now, the x1800 XT isn't entirely worth the price. It depends on whether or not you need that much power. For now, a simple 7800 GT does everything for 350 bucks. Until engines become more sophisticated, the x1800 XT is just going to get better FPS than a 7800 GTX and look better doing it. The 7800 GTX will sell more in the long run due to these reasons: fanboys, it's cost/performance, it's price.

__________________________________________________ __________
I think that about covers it, I'm german, and English isn't my first language. I may have mispelled some things. I try to use google as much as I can for spellchecks, but dont think I'm completely stupid because I couldn't spell something simple. Forgive me for the caps too. Any problems, plz pm me. Don't post problems here, post suggestions what to add to the tut, that is welcome. If i help you, or this tut increases your general knowledge about video cards, and what's what, plz feel free to tell me. Enjoy. Best of luck to you.