Nvidia Unveils New Mid-Range GeForce Graphics Card 158
crookedvulture writes "Nvidia has uncorked another mid-range graphics card, the GeForce GTX 560 Ti. Every tech site on the web seems to have coverage of this new $250 offering, and The Tech Report's review will tell you all you need to know about the various flavors available, including how their performance compares to cards from 2-3 years ago. Interestingly, the review concludes that pretty much any modern mid-range graphics card offers smooth frame rates while playing the latest games at the common desktop resolution of 1920x1080. You may want to pay closer attention to power consumption and noise levels when selecting a new card."
Re:Mid-range? (Score:4, Interesting)
Somebody dropping two hundred and fifty big ones on a video card is mid-range?
I see this reaction a lot in people who don't know the market. Ignorance of what the low and high ends of the 'range' wind up surprising people. If you're ignorant of the numbers 1 through 10, someone randomly reciting the number 5 might seem high to you. In video cards, there are $350+ cards, and even $500+ cards, in the consumer space. And that's just PER CARD, and doesn't take into account multi-card setups.
So yeah, $250 is a MID-range card. That's not to say it does (or doesn't) meet your specific needs, but expressing shock at something you're obviously ignorant of really doesn't make you sound like a smart consumer.
Power/performance envelope (Score:4, Interesting)
It would appear that, based on power use and the performance of various chips, that the CPUs days of being the power hog and performance workhorse of the common desktop are over. Anything which today needs high-end CPU can (or at least, should) be able to utilize the GPU on the card as well - and to greater effect.
At the same time, We're seeing similar power use increases in our GPUs today that we did 8-10 years ago with CPUs. Performance is increasing, but power input is, as well. 40db for a graphics card is quite a bit, as is 230+ watts (ohmygod, that's more than my entire system while playing a game).
I wonder how long it'll be until we see the same kind of power performance improvements in GPU design as we saw in CPU design a couple years ago.
All said, it's quite a contrast from the 700Mhz celeron I still have cooking away with the 'whole system' power envelope at about 25 watts (PSU is only 35 watts), and have for the past 8 years. No, it's not gaming, but it's doing quite a lot just the same.
Re:Power/performance envelope (Score:2, Interesting)
About a year and a half ago, I upgraded my system to a cheapo off a w00t!-off for ~$300. It came with a decent dual-core processor, DVD-RW, 750GB HDD, onboard sound, onboard video, 6GB RAM, and a free upgrade to Win7 from the pre-installed Vista. It also came with a a 270w power supply. Being a budget gamer and someone always open to another computer challenge, looked immediately into making a low-wattage system that could play games like L4D2 and the aging but still-insanely-resource-hungry Everquest.
After some quick research, I found that my processor was already a "low-wattage" option. I figured the onboard sounds was livable and started researching the existence of power-sipping video cards. I found the GeForce GT 220 which maxes out at 58w at full load. (http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-graphics-card-radeon-hd-6870-geforce-gtx-570,2834-7.html) Tom's equates it to about a GeForce 7900 GT or X1900 XTX.
I went with the GT 220 (I think it cost me $65), kicked the RAM up to 8GB, installed Windows 7 and have never had an issue. The computer's on 24/7. I play DCUO, EQ, L4D2, BF2. None of them are played at maximum settings, but all are set just below the max settings or at a lower-than-monitor-max resolution. I play DCUO, for example, at 1366x768 or something.
So I'm gaming happily at less-than 300w and under $400. That's just me, though.