Video Card Buyer's Guide - Spring 2009
by Derek Wilson on March 30, 2009 6:00 PM EST- Posted in
- Guides
For our ~$100 price point (plus or minus a bit) we are going to strongly recommend that people wait for about a month. This price point will be shaken up a bit in about that time and we really aren't comfortable recommending anyone purchase something in this market until sometime in early May. This may or may not further compress the sub $100 market, but there really isn't much more room down there, so we don't expect much change except at right around $100.
~$100 Recommendation: IT'S A TRAP!!! (wait about a month)
It just so happens that this price point is also the highest volume price point. Certainly neither AMD nor NVIDIA will be happy that we recommend waiting, but this is all about the consumer. If you are going to spend about $100 on a video card, just try really hard to wait a little bit longer.
From $130 to $150 we are looking at the a tightly contested price point. At the lower end of the spectrum, the Radeon 4850 gets our nod, while at the higher end the 1GB GTS 250 does perform slightly better in our tests (we do not recommend the 512MB variant though). Whether that slight difference in performance is worth the $20 difference in price really has to be up to the end user, but you get a much bigger bump by jumping up out of the price range to the ATI Radeon 4870 512MB at $165 (which is why we don't recommend the GTS 250 1GB at this point).
$130-$150 Recommendation: ATI Radeon HD 4850
| ATI Radeon HD 4850 | |
| PowerColor | $129.99 |
| Diamond | $159.99 |
| XFX | $169.99 |
This next bit is a little more tricky. Between $165 and $180 there exist the 4870 512MB and 4870 1GB. These cards perform nearly the same at lower resolutions, so for gamers with 1680x1050 and lower resolution monitors, we would recommend the 512MB variant with the caveat that some games are becoming memory hogs. The 1GB might be slightly more future proof, but it's really hard to say whether or not that will last beyond when you'd want to upgrade both either way when talking about 1680x1050 and lower.
$165 (At 1680x1050 and Below) Recommendation: ATI Radeon HD 4870
| ATI Radeon HD 4870 | |
| ASUS | $164.99 |
| HIS | $169.99 |
At resolutions above 1680x1050, the 1GB 4870 and the GTX 260 core 216 are both viable options that come in at $180. So save $20 at average to lower resolutions or make a choice based on the games you play (or preference for a hardware designer) at higher resolutions. NVIDIA and AMD really do trade blows depending on the games we choose to test, so if you want the best performance at this price point, you'll have to pick the games in which performance matters most to you.
$180 Recommendation: End User Preference (4870 1GB or GTX 260 core 216)
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
91 Comments
View All Comments
strikeback03 - Tuesday, March 31, 2009 - link
There is also the fact that depending on where you live a lot of the cards can be had tax-free and many often include free shipping. But stuff there generally does seem to be more expensive. A friend living in England was looking for a new lens for her camera, and decided she is going to try and wait until next time she comes home to the US to buy it, as what is a $1000 lens here typically runs over £800 there.The0ne - Tuesday, March 31, 2009 - link
Meh, it's not that different from other countries. You just have to get out more to see how the market is for certain products. I wouldn't worry too much about it seeing as your country isn't the worst for pricing and you can't do anything about it :)Many of you may think China is a cheap place but they're really not, in certain cities. Yes, you can get cheap products at the black markets and what not but at retail stores, forget it :) I seriously don't know how anyone making $50 can live there :o
san1s - Tuesday, March 31, 2009 - link
I don't see why you wouldn't see the gts 250 as a competitor to the 4850most review sites show it performing equal or better than the 4850, and with the dual slot cooler, it runs a lot cooler, which is a plus.
looking through the prices
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Sub...">http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductLi...27%20106...
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8...">http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8...
the gts 250 has matched the 4850 in pricing
why won't you recommend it?
it is a competent competitor at the same price
SiliconDoc - Wednesday, April 1, 2009 - link
Yer in red roosterville buddy - they can't help themselves.MadMan007 - Tuesday, March 31, 2009 - link
I believe it's really the 1GB GTS 250 that is the competitor. The 512MB versions (for now) look to be all over the place in terms of PCB (some were rebranded 9800GTX+?) and power requirements.MadMan007 - Monday, March 30, 2009 - link
Why such secrecy? I know you can't break NDAs by giving details but rumor mills have had info regarding the HD4770 (or whatever it will be called) and the GTX 275 for long enough. You can't even mention the names?JarredWalton - Tuesday, March 31, 2009 - link
NDA pretty much means we can't talk about the details until the date the NDA lifts. While there's plenty of speculation and some unofficial benchmarks, Derek has hardware in hand for some of the stuff and has official information on other stuff. So, while you can read elsewhere about unofficial specs, the official stuff can't be disclosed yet.Incidentally, this is one of the big reasons for the spin off of DailyTech - we are separate companies, so they are not bound by our NDAs and we really don't discuss much with their people. I haven't talked to anyone at DailyTech in ages, other than saying hello at CES. It allows our "sister" site to report details as they find them, without worrying about what Anand and the rest of us may have agreed to keep silent.
MadMan007 - Tuesday, March 31, 2009 - link
Yeah I just thought it was funny that even names weren't mentioned, I wouldn't expect technical details.MadMan007 - Monday, March 30, 2009 - link
Most all of the recent reviews (not system guides etc) were very negative about ATi drivers. What's changed since then?SiliconDoc - Wednesday, April 1, 2009 - link
What hasn't changed is a lot of BSOD's and game crashes.That's ok, hassles and cursing makes a rooster feel like a big chicken man tech.
lol
I even gots my free ati teachin tool, es' called a BSOD, now don't you sob on my behaf'.