Low-End Graphics
With this video card price guide nearing completion, we will close with a quick look at the budget graphic cards available for purchase. Honestly, the vast majority of users are better off purchasing a midrange card, which in many instances are two or three times as fast as the budget offerings (sometimes more). If you don't intend to play games, you should probably just use whatever graphics card you already have - even integrated graphics is sufficient. As we look at the various products, the reason we make this recommendation should become clear.
Firstly, we have the X1300 cards. For the AGP users out there, most of the X1300s seem a bit overpriced. For that price, you can easily pick up a 6600 GT and get much better performance than an X1300 can deliver. The same goes for the X1300 for PCI-E applications: you can easily pick up an X1600 Pro, 6600 GT, or 7600 GS for about $100, which we would unquestionably suggest you select over an X1300.
There really isn't much we can say here regarding these X300 cards. Any one of these cards should be adequate enough for its application and the only thing we would suggest is you try to stick to about the $50 mark. We see no real need to spend much more than that for a card of this caliber. The real question is why you even need this card in the first place. You can't really play games -- unless you want to play 3-4 year old titles -- with the X300, and if you don't want to play games you might as well hold off upgrading a while longer. About the only reason to purchase a $50 graphics card is if you want a DVI output for an LCD display, since most integrated graphics omit that feature.
Here are the GeForce 7300 GS cards which are meant to replace the 6200 TurboCache cards. We recommend you stick to the lower end of this spectrum as well as the ~$100 midrange cards are a far better choice. Previous tests showed that NVIDIA's 6200 series cards were slightly faster than ATI's X300 cards, while ATI's X1300 comes out ahead of NVIDIA's 7300. Given the poor gaming performance either way, it's mostly a non-issue.
We mentioned DVI outputs as being one reason for a budget graphics card, but of course there are a few others. The HTPC market often prefers a cheap (fanless) graphics card over integrated graphics, due to the improved video decoding quality (AVIVO/PureVideo) and additional connectivity options (component out). Both ATI and NVIDIA have various cards that fit those requirements, if you're interested.
This completes this week's video card guide. We'd like for you to join us again next week, where we'll be taking a look at all your storage needs. Thanks for reading!
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Egglick - Sunday, May 28, 2006 - link
I'm kinda confused as to why there are so many old cards in this guide. The entire range of last-gen PCIe cards is pretty much obsolete because of the performance of the 7600GT for only $150. Aside from the X850XT for $159, it's a joke to even list most of those cards up there.I also think that the X1600Pro should have been touted quite a bit more. For $100, you get the entire AVIVO feature set, in either PCIe or AGP flavor. This makes them extremely useful for HTPCs, and negates just about the entire low end range.
Also, no discussion whatsoever on the $239 X1800XT 256MB?? That's a pretty big descrepency.
tayhimself - Sunday, May 28, 2006 - link
The old cards (barring a few AGP models maybe) should be removed from the guide. I would put them all in a not reccomended list page. But it may be more important for you to get advertising $ by providing a direct buy link which would explain the old shitty cards still in the guide. Oh well...JarredWalton - Sunday, May 28, 2006 - link
Every time we put out a price guide, we get complaints if we don't list just about every conceivable option. Catch-22. I don't know where the cheap X1800XT is, but it doesn't show up in our pricing engine right now, which is why it doesn't get mentioned. Anyway, if you can find some better deals than we have listed here, that's great; these articles are a snapshot in time, and we don't track every vendor on the planet for a variety of reasons.Egglick - Sunday, May 28, 2006 - link
Scratch that.....you can get the X1600Pro for http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82...">$85 after $15MIR (PCIe model).bloc - Sunday, May 28, 2006 - link
Your price engine is rather nice, but...to make it the ultimate price guide is to factor in fps. Even though you don't have fps for most games and cards, it would help to show the ones you do have.You made some arguments about 6600 GT, x1600 XT, 7600 GT...well if you look at the price vs fps...I believe all three are on a similar line.
Meaning they're equal in value...and you're getting the appropriate performance for the price you pay.
JarredWalton - Sunday, May 28, 2006 - link
X1600 XT is about as fast as 6600 GT (not even quite that!), so not worth it in my opinion since it costs a bit more. 7600 GT runs about 75% faster (provided you're not CPU limited), and it only costs may 40% more. Best bang-for-the-buck out right now, I think.bloc - Sunday, May 28, 2006 - link
Using anand's oblivion benchmarks http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2746...">http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2746...And the top graph because it stresses the cards the most:
256 mb cards - taking lowest price from the chart
6600 GT - $120
x1600 xt - $140
7600 gt - $153
oblivion gate - bloom
6600 GT - 18.05 - 0.15 fps/$
x1600 xt - 26 - 0.186
7600 gt - 30.3 - 0.198
oblivion gate - hdr
6600 GT - 14.3 - 0.119 fps/$
x1600 xt - 19.1 - 0.136 fps/$
7600 gt - 25.7 - 0.168
The higher the fps/$ the better the bang for the buck
for reference
7900 GT - gate hdr - 33.5 $280 has a fps/$ of 0.119
1800 xt - gate hdr - 42.4 $290 has a fps/$ of 0.147
Conclusion: the 7600 GT has the best bang for the buck, followed by the x1600 xt then the 6600 GT. (for this game of course)
See how fps/$ or $/fps is a better indicator?
bloc - Sunday, May 28, 2006 - link
btw the 7600 GT price is $153 ($35 MIR)..which is a lot lower than the average of $170. With the adjusted price, the x1600 XT and 7600 GT fps/$ ratio is about even. But my point was to highlight how price charts is an alright solution...while a fps/$ is better.the Chase - Saturday, May 27, 2006 - link
The MSI X1800XT(512MB) is only $269.99 after $30 MIR at Newegg.the Chase - Saturday, May 27, 2006 - link
Price engine missed the $50 MIR on the ATI X1800XT at Newegg that brings the price down to $289.99. Not a bad deal for the 512MB 1800XT.