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."
Mid-range? (Score:5, Insightful)
Somebody dropping two hundred and fifty big ones on a video card is mid-range?
Re:Mid-range? (Score:5, Insightful)
Precisely my thought.
Budget: Free/Hand-me-down to $75
Mid-Range: $76-$150
Enthusiast: $151-$250
Takes gaming too seriously: $251+
Re:Mid-range? (Score:5, Insightful)
Video cards seem to be the one aspect of computers that doesn't follow both Moore's Law and the cost reduction model that we've seen elsewhere. It would appear that for most computer components and systems, over time power increases and costs drop. In the case of video cards though, prices seem to have been stable or on the increase for the various classes of components at a given point. When my first-generation 3dFX card was top-of-the-line-consumer class it was less than $200 if memory serves. My (at the time) high end Matrox G-series dual head card was about the same price or maybe a little more expensive. Modern ATI and nVidia products seem to be more expensive compared to what the previous cards were introduced at.
I guess that the cost to game is why I got out of most computer gaming. I found myself with less and less time to play, and it's hard to justify $300 for an expansion card when I'll use it twice a month and when it'll be "obsolete" in six. Ditto for the games themselves, when they're $50 each it's hard to play more than one with such a small amount of time. I get a lot more value for my money buying games at a books/media store that buys the remnants that didn't sell originally a year ago and sells them for $10 a title or less, plus they work on hardware I already have.
Re:1920x1080 is considered common these days? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, I hear you. I was used to 1280x1024 or 1600x1200, so these 16:9 or 16:10 aspect ratios take some getting used to.
What really irks me, though, is a seeming lack of development for inexpensive high-res monitors that go beyond "1080p". My current display is a 20" 4:3 ratio 1600x1200 unit, and if I wanted to go bigger I'd want more than 1080 rows. I sort of understand the complaints that audiophiles had back in the eighties with the Red Book CD standard and being limited to 44KHz 16 bit audio and no functional implementation of more than stereo audio. Before that they enjoyed quadraphonic sound in whatever quality the analog recording equipment and playback equipment could achieve, and while lower end equipment and poor media maintenance might have led to results less than 44KHz 16 bit, high end stuff and good practices would have yielded much better sound. By releasing Compact Disc as the high end system and later as the de facto standard for everyone they cut off the ability to get more.
Re:Mid-range? (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, it is in the middle of the range from people who spend $0 additional for the on the on-board graphics of their motherboard/cpu, and the people who spend $500 for a top-of-the-line card. Mid-range, exactly fitting the definition.