Forget Expensive Video Cards 322
Anonymous Reader writes "Apparently, the $200 in video cards does not produce the difference. While $500 video cards steal the spotlight on review sites and offer the best performance possible for a single gpu, most enthusiasts find the $300 range to be a good balance between price and performance. Today TechArray took a look at the ATI x1900xtx and Nvidia 7900gtx along with the ATI x1800xt and Nvidia 7900gt."
Forget expensive English lessons (Score:4, Funny)
Not directly related to TFA (Score:2, Insightful)
I'd rather not be locked to one platform because of a piece of hardware.
Re:Not directly related to TFA (Score:2)
Re:Not directly related to TFA (Score:3, Interesting)
What about games? (Score:2)
I know UT2k4, Quake3 (and below), Doom3, and Neverwinter Nights all run native linux, but why not call for linux compatibility from game publishers? I know at least I'm disappointed in things like Oblivion and NWN2 not being on linux (and by extension not on my list of stuff to buy). NWN1 sucked a fair amount of licenses
Re:Not directly related to TFA (Score:2)
Re:Not directly related to TFA (Score:5, Informative)
Actually, that's not quite true these days. A modern render farm has a GPU (or two) in each node, and uses it for all sorts of things. If you are only doing relatively low-quality renderings, you can use something like Chromium and get high framerate, enormous images rendered through OpenGL. If you are doing ray tracing, you can speed this up hugely using the GPU.
Even volume rendering runs on the GPU these days. You can split an enormous volume into 256^3 cubes, render these quickly on an large array of GPUs and then composite the individual rays using the alpha blending hardware on a smaller array of machines in a tree configuration until you have the final image[1].
So, no, not every node needs a video output capability, but if you want state-of-the-art performance they do all need at least one GPU.
[1] Some people are using other kinds of stream processor for this step these days, but that's still a relatively young research area.
Re:Not directly related to TFA (Score:3, Insightful)
What you're saying does make sense, though. GPUs are just slightly more expensive cheap commodity hardware. =) And if it will cut down on render times while not raising costs by several orders of magnitude, it seems like a no brainer. Shorter render times = pushing m
Re:Not directly related to TFA (Score:5, Informative)
As with everything else in a cluster, it's usually whichever has the best price:performance ratio. I'm more familiar with the ones that exist in academia, and these tend to be 'whatever the fastest that we could afford when the cluster was built.' An average cluster node costs around £2000 and upwards. They usually have at least two CPUs, a couple of GBs of RAM (minimum). The less cheap ones will have a high-speed interconnect, adding £500-£1000 to the price of a node (plus more expensive switches), while the cheap ones will just use gigabit ethernet. Adding a £200 GPU adds 5-10% to the cost of the node, while giving up to around a 500% performance increase in many tasks.
Usually they don't need access to the driver code. On *NIX (excluding IRIX) they tend to just run an X server on a display that's not connected to anything and run shader programs on it. The limitation of this is that only one program/user can typically access the GPU at once, but that's usually what's wanted. The shader program receives data from the interconnect, processes it, and passes it on.
Practically irrelevant - unfortunately.... (Score:2)
The OS just doesn't really have gaming as a primary focus. So ATI's lack of focus on Linux compatibility isn't all that surprising on their $300-500 cards made for gamers,
Re:Not directly related to TFA (Score:4, Interesting)
I have used the ATI out-of-the-box radeon drivers in SuSE, it was pretty much as easy to install as it was in windows. And UT2004 (the only linux game I own) seemed to run just as well as it did in Windows.
So what am I missing that everyone hates so much?
Re:Not directly related to TFA (Score:3, Insightful)
Whatever... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Whatever... (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm sure you are probably joking but I think you nailed it on the head. Having a super expensive card, even if it is a low seller, has many positive benefits.
1) You will sell some to those who want to be ub3r133t
2) You get the publicity of being "the best" even if no one actually buys the best
3) Perhaps most importantly, the "Wendy's Effect". It is oft quoted that no one buys Wendy's triple cheeseburger. Someone at Wendy's decided that offering it was a waste so they removed it. However, this almost immediately reduced the number of double cheeseburgers sold. Apparently when people see that there is something more expensive and more "over the top" they are much more compelled to buy the next lower version than if that same version was the high end.
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Whatever... (Score:2)
20 patty burger (Score:3, Informative)
Re:20 patty burger (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Whatever... (Score:3, Interesting)
Apparently, this effect has been "applied" to many fields like marketing, sales, negotiation and also in legislative world where a legislator will present a stupid bill that he knows will fail because of the backlash but will mak
Re:Whatever... (Score:5, Interesting)
don't confuse compelled for enabled
people don't want to feel like pigs
they feel like pigs when they get the biggest item
if they take the next-biggest item, they both satisfy their need to serve themselves, and their need not to be gluttonous
also, it's very common that the best value is to be had by taking the second-tier item; the reason is that on a learning-curve pricing scheme, the slope is steepest between items near the premium end of the curve; why a learning-curve pricing scheme applies is beyond the scope of this article, many reasons can be found, and exceptions as well
Re:Whatever... (Score:2)
A pentium-d 840 ($350): http://www.pricewatch.com/cpu/395410-1.htm [pricewatch.com]
An athlon x2 4400 ($450): http://www.pricewatch.com/cpu/318273-1.htm [pricewatch.com]
A 500gb hard drive ($275): http://www.pricewatch.com/hard_drives/284422-1.htm [pricewatch.com]
Re:Whatever... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:It depends. (Score:3, Insightful)
Engineers who genuinely need 3000x2000, or filmmakers who really do need 48-bit colour probably have a need for a very high-end graphics card that supports these kinds of features. So, a generic "forget expensive graphics cards" may not entirely be fair.
Ok. Forget expensive cards unless you have a reason not to. This is most people.
PCI-X has a relatively high latency, but games are real-time - if the data can't get displayed in time, it can produce some really ugly results.
We're talking sub ms latenc
well, (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:well, (Score:3, Interesting)
I have had burn-outs of the motherboard power connector(s) due to too many cards. Takes hours to fix, one solution I have in place is dual power supplies, takes the load off the motherboard power connectors. Extra hard drives, cdrom drive can be powered by the extra power supply. I just turn on the main power supply first, then the second one, which is fixed with it's own toggle switch and power-on light. That way, the bios knows what to do. Next
Shock! Horror! (Score:2)
No way!!! BUY BUY BUY!!!
Tom
Re:Shock! Horror! (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm sorry, but, I have to inform you that your 6600 is VERY crippled. Especially if you mean the non-GT version. The 6600 series started its life as a crippled card. The GPU, the NV43, is a weaker crippled version of the NV40, and, probably more importantly, while it boasts really fast sounding gDDR3 memory, its 128-bit memory bus actually makes it unable to compete even with the slower gDDR memory of the 256-bit 6800LE (that's right, even the elusive LE is a little better -- excluding the possibility that the LE can be unlocked and overclocked to become a lot better. The nu comes out even further ahead, again excluding unlocking and overclocking on the AGP models.) Mind you, if it had gDDR it would hurt even more since with such a low bus it needs all the speed it can get to compensate.
Actually, I have a point beyond just pointing out that little mistake. When the 6600GT was first released, it was called the Doom 3 card, and rightly so because it could get some very nice quality settings out of a game with such high requirements. Comparable probably to a Radeon 9800 even, but, at a lower price. And that price was no $500. Only today is the 6600 series finally beginning to truly show its weakness in games like Oblivion (which can bring even a X850 to its knees with the right settings.) The mid-range cards actually end up being the best investment for a person because by the time they loose their competitive advantage (cost vs performance) even the high end video cards are starting to struggle. In other words, by the time a mid-range card is no longer able to get you acceptable quality settings out of a game, chances are a high-end card is no longer going to be good enough either. In either case you must upgrade within the same sort of time range. If you spend $500 every time, it hurts a lot worse than if you just keep upgrading to the mid-range cards. Even if the $500 will buy you a little more time, it's not enough extra time to be worth that extra $200 or so.
Re:Shock! Horror! (Score:2)
The card can play doom, farcry, halflife and ut2k4.
By crippled I meant the 6200 series "TurboCache" bullshit.
At the time I bought it I could get the 6600 for 175$, the 6200 for 60$ or the 6800 for 225$ [or the 7xxxx series for more than 250$].
But all the mindless comparisons aside it works just fine and doesn't cost 300$ now or when I bought it.
tom
Re:Shock! Horror! (Score:3, Insightful)
Besides I don't view "game not working on setup" as a feature. If the game was well put together it would have reduced texture/polycount modes so it could work on a more appropriate range of hardware.
There use to be a day where programmers were judged by how well they could make software fit the hardware. Not the other way around.
Tom
Re:Shock! Horror! (Score:4, Informative)
I rarely play games at more than 800x600 anyway so no loss for me. My $150 GeForce 6600 card came with a $50 instant rebate for a video game at Best Buy so I picked up a copy of Battlefield 2 with the card. It plays absolutely fine on my AMD Athlon XP 2400+ system with the 6600 card at 800x600. It's AGP to boot! I imagine I'll need a better motherboard and processor if I really wanted to take advantage of some higher performance graphics cards, but I have other priorities at this time in my life. Maximizing my 401(k), building a house, putting away money for my child's college education, etc.
Have you sat back and thought about how far that $500 would go if you didn't just throw it away on a piece of computer equipment that will be obsolete in 3 months? For example, find some financial calculators and do some calculations of putting $500 every 3 months into a high growth rate mutual fund or stocks for example. I bet you'd be pleasantly suprised by the kind of growth your investment would return. Who am I kidding eh? This is Slashdot. Spend spend spend fools! Spend so my stocks will increase in value! Woohoo.
Try $200 (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Try $200 (Score:2)
Or Try $50 (Score:2)
yeah, no kidding (Score:3, Insightful)
My usual criterion for the quality of a video card is: "how well does XFree86 support it?" (or I guess XOrg, now). A $50 or $30 card which works well for making xterms and Netscape appear on the screen is exactly what I want (and need).
An advantage to being happy with inexpensive cards is that it becomes feasible to purchase a few of them, so that you can standardize sets of machines on them. That goes double for network cards. It's handy to be able to swap harddrives between machines with impunity, an
Re:Try $200 (Score:3, Interesting)
I have a nVidia 6800, bought for $300 a year ago, and it struggles with modern games. I've found that anything older than 6 months will not play modern games with all the eyecandy.
Not actually news to me... (Score:2, Interesting)
$300 is not expensive? (Score:5, Insightful)
If there were plenty of $2000 video cards, would $1000 be not expensive then?
Someone's being brainwashed here...
When a pretty good video card is in the range of $80-$160... now that's more reasonable.
Re:$300 is not expensive? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:$300 is not expensive? (Score:4, Funny)
Thanks for that, I'm looking to update my card but always the next big thing comes up (or how about HD support now.. the latest bullshit) and I gotta sell my grandma to afford it so I'm just stuck with my GeForce MX4 here.
I felt really cheated by the article title you know? It went like: Forget about expensive video cards! Ok did you forget? Now we'll remind you with this review of $300 video cards...
Re:$300 is not expensive? (Score:2)
Re:$300 is not expensive? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:$300 is not expensive? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:$300 is not expensive? (Score:3, Interesting)
There hasn't really been a game I couldn't play; I've finshed Halflife 2, all Need For Speed titles, all GTA titles, and so many more...
So why would I need to fork out 300-600 for playing what I can play now, but "better"?
Nothing has felt as sluggish and jaggy as trying to play Blood II with a voodoo2 card. on a P200. Are kids these da
Re:$300 is not expensive? (Score:2)
Re:$300 is not expensive? (Score:2)
How much money are people supposed to spend on passive entertainment? It'd be better to spend the money not spent on gaming on tickets to a traveling Broadway play or a live concert. Pre-produced entertainment has become so common and without novelty that live entertainment is actually more worthwhile, now. Perhaps it'll help remind people they are actually alive and not stuck in a cube-shaped room with a glowing window to an imagined world.
It worries me when I talk to a teenager and the first thing they
Modern babysiting (Score:2)
Sadly for many these days, its by design.
Re:$300 is not expensive? (Score:2, Insightful)
There's a better ROI on a video card though. If you want to go to a play or concert, that's one time. Not to mention additional costs in getting there, parking, outfit (especially for the play. Not every nerd has a spare tuxedo floating around.) Plus, if you have to pee, you lose part of your ticket price and it's impossible to get that back.
Video cards are used daily. There's minimal extra c
Re:$300 is not expensive? (Score:2)
Comparing video card prices to other hobbies or entertainment activities is an eye-opening experience. Tickets to the opera, plus tux rental, could easily total several hundred dollars. Learning to scuba dive, learning to fly a plane, skydiving, travel, and even a high-end bicycle can dwarf the cost of a decent gaming system.
Re:$300 is not expensive? (Score:2)
I don't agree. People go to plays surrounded by other people, you get to see real people on stage exhibit the best people can muster without retakes, you often get to see a live orchestra, and you get to see how the story affects other people. People who go out also often end up at a restaurant and enjoy good food, as well. It can be a good
Re:$300 is not expensive? (Score:2)
Me my Mum and I.... (Score:4, Interesting)
The ONLY people who need these graphics cards are people who place top end games. I find it stunning when I come across work desktops for people who do MS Office stuff that have only 512Mb RAM but a graphics card capable of doing Doom3 at decent framerates. 80%+ of people don't need even the 7900GT let alone the GTX and it would take a completely brain dead operating system to require people to have top line graphics cards just to run a word processor....
That of course is where my theory breaks down, Vista... you might not play games... but our developers do.
Re:Me my Mum and I.... (Score:5, Interesting)
That's not entirely true. For example, in the mechanical engineering department where I work there's one guy with a really fast PC and a high-end (I think nVidia but I'm not sure) graphics card that does 3-D design and rendering of parts for the automated machine tools on the plant floor. Not that many years ago, he would have had some kind of special "workstation video board" that would have cost a couple of grand. Those have all but died out as the likes of nVidia and ATI have pushed the performance envelope so far that engineering tasks pale in comparison to the requirements of a game. I guess my point is that there are many tasks that need high-performance 3D, they're just not as high-profile as gaming. And even that is a rather small subset of the total number of computer users out there.
Re:Me my Mum and I.... (Score:2)
I think what the GP was scoffing at was the PHB that gets one of these $500 cards in his PC when he will never utilize the power.
Re:Me my Mum and I.... (Score:3, Insightful)
I hate to break it to you, but workstation cards are alive and kicking. The Quadro and FireGL are still available, and for $500 is it MUCH better to have a low-end workstation card than a high-end gaming card. Gaming cards do not have the full OpenGL functionality that 3D design applications need. In my experience, using
Re:Me my Mum and I.... (Score:2)
In the past, I've worked on routing and logistics software. For one particular system, I developed a client-server mapping engine. The client basically sent a mapping projection to the server, which then ran a spatial index query against it, and returned the mapping data to the client in a compressed vector data format.
Where am I going with all this? The client machine was responsible for performing all of the rendering of the map. I was able to perform several important usability effects such as gaussian
Re:Me my Mum and I.... (Score:2)
I'm afraid Doom 3, Farcry and even Half Life 2 are no longer reliable benchmarks for whether a card can play new games or not. My 256MB Geforce FX5700 allows me to play Half Life 2 and Doom 3 at pretty much full qual. settings (apart from FSAA) and a good res., but it fails miserably on Oblivion and isn't even supported by Ghost Recon:Advanced Warfighter.
There are no such things as the top end games and low end games- just the new and the old, and the new
Well... (Score:5, Insightful)
Now I've thought about upgrading, but two things have hampered me. The first is strictly technical - I have an AGP machine, so there's not a huge amount of difference over a 9800 Pro whatever I plug in there because it'll always be limited by the bus speed.
The second is probably more of a personal thing - I've got mates who have the latest and greatest GFX cards in their machines, but I'll be damned if I can tell the difference between their games and mine. Sure, it's a slightly higher res, but are there any bonus features like fog or smoke? No. Better anti-aliasing? No. I spent my hard-earned cash on a Dell 20" widescreen monitor and I can assure you that as far as gaming experiences go, this added to mine much more than a new GFX card would.
Maybe it's me getting old, but hardware upgrades now tend come when I buy a new PC, and be a notch under the top o' the range. Although having said all this, I just picked up a Inspiron 9400 for work which did come with a GeForce 7800 in it, which I guess'll be useful for um.... spreadsheets *cough*
Re:Well... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Well... (Score:2)
I doubt it. Like AGP before it, the PCIExpress bus is still far slower than onboard video ram, therefore it isn't especially important in terms of framerate.
Re:Well... (Score:2, Insightful)
Remember, PCI-E was introduced for the future, we haven't hit on games that saturate an AGP 8x bus.
Re:Well... (Score:2)
Summary does not match article (Score:2)
If you play highly intensive games at insane resolutions, then the high-end cards may be for you.
On the other hand, if you ever think about buying a $500 card because it will "last you longer", then you are kidding y
Re:Summary does not match article (Score:2)
A 'Wow!' moment. (Score:2, Informative)
It's not often that I go "wow" after a hardware upgrade. 486->pentium class. First Athlon. Virge3D ->3Dfx Voodoo 1 (glquake for teh win)... and just a week ago I went from a nVidia PCX5900 (and ATI 9600XT/256) to a 7900GT. Everything on High in BF2 (and 2x FSAA); smooth as butter. Going from 800x600 low textures, everything down in oblivion to 1280x960 HDR: Wow
Re:A 'Wow!' moment. (Score:5, Funny)
Haven't had a 'wow' moment since... (Score:2)
Maybe I'm just not easily impressed anymore, but everything I can recognize as being better now, but it seems evolutionary rather than revolutionary. Going to Pentium is when I got the horsepower to play fundamentally 3D looking games (Doom, Ultima Underworld), whereas before the best I did was Wolf3D. And again,
Re:Haven't had a 'wow' moment since... (Score:2)
Who let this get through? (Score:2, Insightful)
I really don't get it.
Exactly the same (and obvious) conclusion as any review I've seen on sites like HardOCP, Anandtech, Tomshardware. Is it news that this article is one of the most amateurish attempts at reviewing cards we've seen in recent history? 4 benchmark runs (at least they use games) put together in little fps graphs along with a 2-page grade school level analysis and of course no details about more important stuff like image quality etc.
Maybe it's just me, since I have never paid over $200 fo
Skewed results? (Score:5, Interesting)
I understand that maximum resolution is the best way to highlight the limitations of the cards. But how many "budget" gamers are going to have monitors capable of running at those resolutions?
All of these cards produce "acceptable" results at 1600x1200. I read the article as "the cards are identical at lower resolutions, but reporting you need to spend more money makes our advertisers happy." Or maybe I'm just cynical.
Re:Skewed results? (Score:4, Insightful)
1%? (Score:2)
Poser!
Re:Skewed results? (Score:2)
My 64MB Nvidia card gives good performance (Score:2)
Umm $300 IS expensive (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Umm $300 IS expensive (Score:5, Funny)
Huh, well. I guess I'm a lunatic then, since I've spent $300+ on video cards several times over the last decade. What's worse is I'm perfectly happy being a lunatic and somehow, despite my lunacy, I'm able to keep a good job that provides the means to repeatedly act on my insane hardware-buying impulses. I'm so fucking crazy that I can't even realize it; I actually think that I bought what I wanted so I can play the games I love at high resolutions with maximal detail and effect (BF2.) I truly have no remorse about my lunacy -- I am, in fact, so deluded as to think a $300, $500, or even $1000 GPU can be worth the cost, and that the relative costs of video cards and the rest of my system are totally irellevant! I'm completely incapable of seeing what must be to you a glaringly obvious correlation between video card expense and sanity. Oh man I'm truly too far gone; there's no help for me!
I mean, here I am with 175 hours logged in BF2 using my >$300 video card in the year or so since it came out, and that works out to almost $2/hour for me to play what I think is an incredibly fun game, whenever I like, with 63 of my closest friends. Surely my insanity knows no bounds, and this subjective choice of mine is completely unacceptable. If I were less crazy, I would have consulted with someone like you to ascertain the best way to spend my $300 in discretionary income that I wasted on a video card. I mean, it's clear from your incredible logical deduction that you are a wise sage with an objectively-flawless set of priorities that should be emulated by all others. My mind reels in wonder when I try to speculate on what item you'd have pointed me to instead of my frivolous (and batshit insane!) decision to buy a $300 video card! Would you have suggested 75 chai lattes? 600 newspapers? 10 detailed D&D figurines? 60 issues of Time magazine? 30 pairs of grey sweatpants? 20 anime T-shirts? 15 discounted DVDs? 6 fleshlights? My mind boggles, as I am utterly incapable of guessing the nature of the light you doubtlessly could have shown me, had I only bothered to ask!
Anyone less crazy than me would instantly recognize that a video card actually does very little for a computer system and that GPUs are simple, easily-designed and manufactured items with far less complexity and R&D expense required than, say, a case, power supply, motherboard, RAM, mouse, or keyboard. It's absolutely unthinkable that a sane person would place so much emphasis on the image-generation capabilities of a computer system when everyone knows computers are for email, word processing, spreadsheets, and the occasional game of solitaire or minesweeper! How can I be so feeble-minded as to believe that any computer should ever have more video-processing power than a Voodoo2?
I hope you're sitting down (on your no-frills, unpadded, folding computer chair) because this may terrify you: I'd still think it was a bargain at twice the price! And there are many others just like me -- Boo!
But... (Score:2)
Re:But... (Score:4, Funny)
Very happy with my 6800GS (Score:2)
In the end I picked up a pretty good NVidia 6800GS which
Do you game in 1600x1200? (Score:2, Interesting)
Cost/Performance Breakdown (Score:5, Insightful)
Whats the friggen point? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Whats the friggen point? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Whats the friggen point? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Whats the friggen point? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Whats the friggen point? (Score:3, Insightful)
2. The machine is upgradable
3. The games cost almost twice as much for the Xbox 360 (at least here in the UK).
4. You can use the computer for other things than gaming and watching DVDs.
5. You may already have a PC that can be upgraded decently cheaply.
I still think the latest graphics card are unjustifiably expensive, but the older ones aren't so bad, and it was easier for me to justify spending £70 on a graphics card (GeF
$100 is my upper limit (Score:4, Insightful)
No matter what card you buy, in a short period of time there will be a small number of games that need better. Chasing that carrot with no self control is an exercise in futility.
A bit offtopic - need gamer advice (Score:2)
2.4 GHz P4, 512M, ATI Mobility Radeon 9000
My ideal game is Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. Of course, I can't p
Expensive Video Cards make sex better. (Score:2)
I run two 7800GTX cards to run 3 Viewsonic VP201b 20" displays and one 30" HDTV.
"Stop complaining, Bitch! If you had an HDMI port, I'd be done by now."
True, plus the need for more power is diminishing. (Score:2)
Radeon X800 GTO2 (Score:2, Informative)
I paid $199 canadian for it. The card is absolutely amazing, I get 90fps in UT2004 with max settings at 1280x1024 and around 60fps in Call of Duty 2 and Doom 3 at 1024x768 and high quality settings.
the Sapphire Radeon X800 GTO2 (limited edition) is definitely a special card for the price! Paying a huge chunk of money for 1 graphic card or even more for a SLI setup is just crazy, these mid-range graphics cards perfo
Wapperjawed (Score:2, Informative)
Minimum for XGL (Score:2)
I don't play games, I just want my accelerated desktop...
Bought a nVidia 6800GT when Doom3 came out (Score:3, Interesting)
And I'm done with the PC "ricing" subculture. All these wonderful Antec case fans from 2002 are loud, all the money I've dropped upgrading this thing still leaves me with the same crappy Windows XP experience. Think about it, 1GB of Corsair RAM, Athlon XP 2800 processor and two Serial-ATA drives all idle, I click on Control Panel and WAIT 5 seconds for Explorer to redraw my screen twice as all the icons flicker and reload.
Can't wait for my Mac.
Re:Not very surprising? (Score:5, Interesting)
Actually it's more generic than that. If you look at hard disks (because it has such a good metric, but the same applies to all hardware) you'll see $/GB is not lowest at the low end - there's the infamous "sweet spot" in the middle. Same with CPU, the lowest CPUs don't give the most bang for the buck. There's some inherent costs in just producing and shipping the product, which means the lowest are typically really very crippled but not that much cheaper. In terms of absolute performance, mainstream is the best. Of course, that does not mean your utility of the performance is maximized unless it's exactly 1:1 with the dollar value. My parents could get a 7900GTX SLI & 750GB Seagate disks and their utility would be 0 (over their current machine). There's no sense spending money on performance if you're not getting utility, and it makes good sense to spend money where you are getting utility, even if you're moving away from the sweet spot.
Re:Not very surprising? (Score:2)
I can run most FPSes at 1024x768 with my GeForce 6600.
I only spent 175$ on my card not 300$.
Me thinks you're not really viewing things objectively.
Tom
Re:Not very surprising? (Score:2)
That's today. But 6 months ago the price disparity was much higher. My 6600 cost 180$ when I bought it and the 7600 was over 250$.
Some people wanna game but don't care if they have to do it at 1024 or 800. Admitedly today if I had to buy either I might just go for the 7600 since the price difference is so low. So I guess you have a point about just sticking to the 7xxx series.
My bad...
Tom
Re:Erm (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:What am I missing out on ? (Score:2)
Re:What am I missing out on ? (Score:5, Informative)
For comparison, take a look at Apple's Quartz 2D Extreme. This uses the CPU to render each character to a texture and stores them in the graphics RAM. These are then composited by the GPU. The downside of this, of course, is that the CPU needs to render the text for every size at which it is used. Even so, this gives about an order of magnitude better performance than the traditional way (and, of course, lower CPU usage).
If this becomes mainstream then a GPU with fast shader support will give:
[1] See? They do actually do interesting things. It's a real shame nothing from MS Research ever seems to make it into shipping products though.
Re:What am I missing out on ? (Score:2)
This is why a brand new Opteron server motherboard with PCI-Express and other big-time features still ships with ATI Rage XL graphics and 8MB video RAM on-board. It is good enough for practially everything except CAD and gaming or super-big displays, and it consumes very little power.
2D cards need only enough RAM to store the framebuffer and some other goodies. With double buffering that's only 2*X*Y*RGB (e.g., 2*1280*1024*3 = 8MB!).