Tom's 46 Video Card Roundup

Hoagie writes "Tom's Hardware has posted (12/29) a huge 46 video card roundup. Included are a few generations of nVidia and ATI chipsets. Along with the newcomers/return of XTI, Parhelia, and S3."

Re:So?

[Trashman]

Simple answer: If your current hardware does what you want acceptably, then there's no need to upgrade.

Prices

[Via_Patrino]

I think those benchmarks would have prices in, the boards would look much less atractive :)

When will VGA board makers will compete by price, like AMD started to do few years ago and not for hundreds of FPS that no one uses (because they're over humam eyes limits)?

long in the tooth

[GerbilSocks]

6 years ago I could get excited about these roundups but lately, it's becoming a real yawn. Who cares anymore? Fine, give me a -100 flamebait, but I although I hardly play games now that I'm in my late teens, my old nVidia GEFORCE 2mx with 32MB RAM is more than enough for my daily computing. My enthusiam for video 3d accelerators died about the same time as 3dfx.

Why u/g the GX card, just

[Anonymous Coward]

go out and buy a Dell with an ATi 9800 Pro in it.

That's what I did. Buying a full machine from a supplier impacted on the price of the LCD screen and the GFX card enough to make it worthwhile. The reason it's a Dell is cos they seem to be the only mainstream supplier that gives you a decent choice over the matter. There's no way I'd ever buy a GFX card for 250 or an LCD for 500, but when I can get them inclusive in a PC for 1000, that's too much of a bargain to pass over.

Generally, I find I can get through a PC every 2-3 years. If I'm buying machines with cutting edge stuff in them, why should I ever need to buy a GFX card upgrade? I'll just wait that extra 6-12 months and upgrade the whole caboodle...

The problem with this super-duper video boards

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

is that normal ones, the cheapo ones witl 8M of ram and no 3D-XYZ and hyper-acme rendering, that work just dandy for word processing, spreadsheeting and other forms of work (oh the dirty word!), are disappearing.

Pricewise, that's not a problem in itself, I don't care if I have a super vidboard for dirt cheap and underuse it, but with all those bells and whistles that I won't use, manufacturers don't release their specs anymore, and so I have to install shitty binary drivers instead of using kernel-compiled ones.

In short, with my old Matrox Millenium, I could do 1600x1200x16 just like I do now, but I didn't have to fight with the nVidia drivers that belch on me each time I change something with libc, modutils or the kernel. And I suppose I could try out 2.6, while with the proprietary driver, I can't.

I reckon there should be a market for sub-$10 basic video cards with open specs, for those who care more about low-cost, driver support and not having headaches to do real work, than playing games.

One of the reasons I got an X-Box...

[Channard]

.. was that working with PCs every day, coupled with the hassle of upgrading my own PC to play the latest games got on my nerves. Currently, my PC does all I want it to do - can be used to go on the internet, play most older games, and so forth. I may upgrade at some point when I'm not dealing with PCs every day, but at the moment I prefer just being able to get a game, slap it in my console and know it'll run at a decent rate.

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Don't waste your money

[MicroBerto]

The biggest mistake I ever made when building a new computer was buying a $300 graphics card. Unless you game 24 hours a day, don't waste your money.

Instead, money is best sunk in a good set of speakers and monitor -- these things depreciate way less. Along with that $300 graphics card, I also bought a 19" Sony monitor and Klipsch Promedia v400 speakers with my athlon 550 back in dec 99 (yep, still using it!). While that graphics card has long been in the graveyard, the speakers and monitor are still rockin along.

My graphics card, however, was a 2nd rate GeForce2 for about 60 dollars that performs excellently for what I do.

My opinion? Look for a good price gap on graphics cards and processors, and go with something a bit older than the newest. But splurge on the stuff that won't depreciate as quickly.... unless you game 24 hours a day.

Newcomer... Prahelia

[faust13]

Um, the Prahelia is no newcomer it's been on the market for well over a year.

Re:What I'm sick of

[karnal]

What are you trying to do with the "extra" monitors?

I know that when I enable dualhead on my machine, you specify a "primary" monitor for games and overlays (on an nVidia card) and the secondary just blanks on these...

If you want all 4 monitors to have 3d displays on them, then MAYBE the pci bus would be slow for that. However, for what I'd use 4 monitors for (more code windows, more windows of slashdot, more terminals up at once, monitoring networks etc) PCI would be just happy.

Now, finding a deal on monitors and a new desk......

Fan Noise

[Slider451]

They really need a column for fan noise. My Gainward FX5600 Ultra Flip Chip has the noisiest fan by far of the eight in my case. And it's a high-pitched whiny noise, the worst kind, because it reminds me of my wife after I've been playing on the PC too much.

Re:You can also just install a good OS...

[Anonymous Coward]

And what other OS do you think will free him from binary-only drivers? Windows? I don't see any sources on the Nvidia site for Windows either.

Or perhaps you're referring to the fact that users' inability to tweak the OS kernel in Windows makes binary-only drivers seem stable. Well, by that logic, couldn't you also just say "stop tweaking the kernel and use the stock kernel that came with your distro" and yield the same results? Is not being able to tweak the kernel, even if you want to, really an advantage?

Re:Why u/g the GX card, just

[juhaz]

You may have a decent job with a decent salary, but some of us are still students.

I'd get distressed by a mere thought of spending thousands for new Dell if I can upgrade a few years old system for 400e or so to a relatively modern beast. That's helluva lot of beer and pizza.

And some people may actually like the very tinkering and tweaking you're so full of.

How about Linux support?

[Jagasian]

Tom's charts list such things as DirectX version support... but it doesn't list Linux support. Anyone want to slap together an addition to Tom's chart that lists Linux support?

Re:So?

[rafael_es_son]

"Have you ever seen one of those robosweepers, which you link as "useless technology", work? I have, and it seemed to work rather well (somewhat to my surprise). How is it useless to have an autonomous device clean my floors? Am I wrong for wanting clean floors? I mean, they are my floors, but I don't particularly enjoy spending my (limited) time cleaning them. I might (but haven't) spend some of my (less limited) money to have a device that cleans them for me. Your author (and presumably you as well) somehow think that's a bad thing, and I don't understand why."

If you are content with current, high-quality "robosweep" technology, be my guest. For the time being, and for hygiene's (and my also-limited time's) sake, I preffer to contract human cleaning services.

From my perspective, you have missed the whole fiddling with the parts, literally, while reading this essay. Honestly, do you need two-speed power windows on your car? I cannot find any refference to what you propose.

My point is that too many people consume products with features/performance they don't really need, won't use or simply won't make a difference proportional to the amount of capital invested. If you need get a new video card, don't let me stop you. Cheers mate!