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Budget GFX Cards: March 2010

Black Racoon

Head Poncho
Staff member
February Review and March Updates:

AMD cranked out the product launches in February of 2010, with three new products hitting the store shelves: the Radeon HD 5450, 5570, and 5830. From a gaming standpoint, we can ignore the Radeon HD 5450, which is essentially as fast as the older Radeon HD 4550. This is an HTPC card that doesn't have much prowess in the way of gaming. The Radeon HD 5570 has some potential as a low-end gaming card. But with near-4670 performance and a much higher price point, it isn't something we'd recommend until the cost comes down.

The Radeon HD 5830 is a much more interesting card, essentially a cut-down Radeon HD 5870 with 1,120 shader cores. At $240, it sounds like it has potential. But the card is further crippled by disabling half of its GPU's ROPs, and the unfortunate result is that it performs much closer to the Radeon HD 5770 than it does to the Radeon HD 5850. Despite this limitation, now that the $200 Radeon HD 4890 has disappeared from store shelves, there is really no direct competition for the Radeon HD 5830. We award it with an honorable mention for folks who aren't interested in a dual-card CrossFire setup of Radeon HD 4850s.

On the pricing front, we're looking at fluctuations all over the map, as retailers try to peg appropriate relative costs for the new Radeon HD 5000-series cards as older models become obsolete and fall out of inventory. The Radeon HD 4890 is all but a distant memory now, and Nvidia's GeForce cards, from the GTX 260 to the GTX 285, are either MIA or grossly overpriced. In this environment, with no real competition, the Radeon HD 5850 is actually getting even more expensive. It's now around $320, when only a month ago some of these cards were selling for $290. The ultra high-end Radeon HD 5970 has even skyrocketed to $700.

Of course, Nvidia's next-generation GeForce launch is rumored to be just around the corner, so expect the price shifting to continue in the near future, at least until we see where the new cards land. Happily, there are still a lot of great graphics card buys out there, and we don't think that will change. But it certainly makes us sad to see great products like the $200 Radeon HD 4890 ride off into the sunset.
Some Notes About Our Recommendations

A few simple guidelines to keep in mind when reading this list:

* This list is for gamers who want to get the most for their money. If you don’t play games, then the cards on this list are more expensive than what you really need. We've added a reference page at the end of the column covering integrated graphics processors, which is likely more apropos.
* The criteria to get on this list are strictly price/performance. We acknowledge that recommendations for multiple video cards, such as two Radeon cards in CrossFire mode or two GeForce cards in SLI, typically require a motherboard that supports CrossFire or SLI and a chassis with more space to install multiple graphics cards. They also require a beefier power supply compared to what a single card needs, and will almost certainly produce more heat than a single card. Keep these factors in mind when making your purchasing decision. In most cases, if we have recommended a multiple-card solution, we try to recommend a single-card honorable mention at a comparable price point for those who find multi-card setups undesirable.
* Prices and availability change on a daily basis. We can’t base our decisions on always-changing pricing information, but we can list some good cards that you probably won’t regret buying at the price ranges we suggest, along with real-time prices from our PriceGrabber engine, for your reference.
* The list is based on some of the best U.S. prices from online retailers. In other countries or at retail stores, your mileage will most certainly vary.
* These are new card prices. No used or open-box cards are in the list; they might represent a good deal, but it’s outside the scope of what we’re trying to do.


Retrieved from Tom's Hardware.com
 

i0nwr1t3r

Moderator
As an owner of a 5770 @ $210 that I bought around christmas,it was for the DirectX 11 (Win7) support as this was the 1st gpu to have it as far as I understood.

Is there better cards 4 months later? of course but I upgraded from an x850xt ,so there performance increase was worth it.

Nvidia hadn't released any new DirectX 11 cards & I don't think they have even now.

As to ATI prices spiking,that's unfortunate,I genuinely liked their product development & non-branding driven pricing,would hate to think they are now gouging customers for ATI branding. :flamer:

Good review BR

i0n
 

Akh-Horus

Super Moderator
Staff member
Im going to get a 5770 $179 at MSY and in the future when they drop, grab abother and crossfire them - should handle just about anything!
 

nelots

Well-Known Member
-OZ-Akh-Horus said:
Im going to get a 5770 $179 at MSY and in the future when they drop, grab abother and crossfire them - should handle just about anything!
Does gaming really require crossfire or SLI configurations? You're better off spending the extra $$$ on the kiddies or my favourite random foreign beers!!!
 

Akh-Horus

Super Moderator
Staff member
After that last time (with a hell of a hangover and for somereason waking with a sore bott bott) I am NOT buying you beer young fellah - not again.

2 5770's properly configured will cover my needs for some years imo.
 

Hicksy

Well-Known Member
just make sure the card is still being manufactured when ur ready to upgrade lmao

heaps of customers by the 1 card. then go to upgrade that card in 6months and they stopped making them 5 months b4 that haha

welcome to the world of IT.

its old news once it hits the stands lol.
 

The Admiral

Well-Known Member
-OZ-Black Racoon said:
Of course, Nvidia's next-generation GeForce launch is rumored to be just around the corner, so expect the price shifting to continue in the near future, at least until we see where the new cards land.
How old is this? 470 and 480 are released March 26th.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GeForce_400_Series

Hopefully they'll get some mobile Fermi chips out there, and give laptop NVidia users some better performance with the same TDP.
 

Akh-Horus

Super Moderator
Staff member
yeah but those cards are gunna cost a barrowload. The current generation of cards still roll really well, the most powerful I hear gamers use is the 4870X2 but they drag power and radiate heat hugely, having 2 gpu's on the one card. You can run at the 295's, 5870's etc but buying a 4870X2 second hand is imo the best option for true power.
 

lKITl

Well-Known Member
was thinkin of upgrading mine too,
ATI Radeon HD 4670 - 1Gb, @ $185
Dunno if it's worth it but anything must be better than what i got atm.

Running 3450 atm , Runs fine but few games just don't get enough juice.

What you got laying out back Hicksy :p
 

The Admiral

Well-Known Member
4550 is a nice, easily overclockable sub $100 card if I recall correctly. Not qutet the same league as the 4670, but it passes sound through HDMI near perfectly if that's what you'll use to connect.

Anyone think a 330M (MOBILE!!!!!) w/ 512MB GDDR3 RAM is enough to drive 1440x900 nicely? CPU is capable enough to match, as is system RAM.
 
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