Second Generation DirectX 10 GPU Analysis
12.20.07 - 09:14pm
Looking back over the last 12 months I’ve got to say I’m impressed with how far we have progressed, until I realize there hasn’t been a performance king GPU change in 12 months. The 8800GTX is still the leading performance card considering how the 8800 Ultra is simply a faster clocked 8800GTX. Besides this little nitpicky point, the midrange GPU selection has changed drastically and frankly it’s been a long time since we’ve had such a wide spectrum of cards available to the consumer. Thankfully AMD finally has a GPU product that is mildly competitive considering how the HD 2900XT/XTX cards were overpriced and underwhelming. If you are looking for advice on your next GPU then you have hit the right spot.
Right now if you are looking to build a new rig that’s over the top then you had better pocket that cash for a few more months as now is not the time to make such a move. The cards I’m about to discuss are adequate mid-range cards but if you are looking to game at resolutions larger than 1600×1200 with the graphics cranked and antialiasing enabled then you are better off waiting a few more months. The current RV670 and G92 cores that are powering these fresh cards are midrange cores and offer midrange performance with midrange prices, quite unlike the old 8800GTS 640MB card that offered a terrible performance/price ratio especially when compared to these cards.
As I see it there are currently two price-points in the GPU market, individuals with $~200 to spend and individuals with $~300 to spend. In these ranges you currently have AMD’s HD3850 and HD3870 cards competing with Nvidia’s 256MB and 512MB 8800GT’s and 512MB 8800GTS. The cards that have effectively been replaced are AMD’s HD2900PRO/XT/XTX and Nvidia’s 320MB and 640MB 8800GTS’, all powerhungry relics of the past. The new cards are manufactured on 65nm or 55nm processes compared to previous 90nm or 80nm processes so even though the new chips may contain more transistors, their die sizes are considerably smaller while power consumption is down across the board.
In the $~200 price bracket it gets a bit nasty as you have three, possibly four cards fighting for your attention. The HD3850 currently comes in two flavors with either 256MB or 512MB of GDDR3 with the 256MB card sitting around $180 while the 512MB card is sitting around $210. The HD3870 comes with 512MB of GDDR4 and lands at $220 so both the 512MB HD3850 and the HD3870 land within $10 but the choice should be clear, take the HD3870 even if you have to pay $10-20 over the 512MB HD3850 as you’ll receive an additional 100MHz on the core and a massive 800MHz on the memory. The 256MB 8800GT typically costs right around as much as the HD3870 which slightly messes up the otherwise perfect performance and performance/price ratings of the various cards. From what I have seen, if gaming at resolutions above 1680×1050 or using antialiasing then 256MB of memory no longer is enough to get the job done. So with all that said, how exactly does the $~200 price bracket settle? Spending the additional $30 to jump from the HD3850 to the 8800GT/HD3870 is well worth it as the 256MB 8800GT outperforms the HD3850 in nearly all benchmarks while the HD3870 trades blows with the 8800GT at resolutions of 1680×1050 and lower. In the end though if you are buying a card now I would hope you plan on keeping it for atleast 6 months so I’d have to give the HD3870 the greenlight due to the 512MB of memory. Limiting yourself to 256MB of memory in the HD3850 or 256MB 8800GT would be a very bad call as current games already can easily consume 256MB of memory at 1680×1050 and soon I imagine 1280×1024 will will be unplayable with 256MB of memory unless something drastic happens with memory consumption.
Above the pack of cards bunched around $200 sit the 512MB 8800GT and 512MB 8800GTS. The 512MB 8800GT can be found for around $280 while the 512MB 8800GTS sits at a lofty $350, $80 cheaper than the cheapest 8800GTX. The 8800GT and 8800GTS are very similar cards on paper as the 8800GTS is basically an 8800GT with an additional stream processor cluster enabled, giving it 16 additional SPs on top of the 8800GT’s 112. Otherwise the 8800GTS is just a higher clocked 8800GT, not unlike the 8800GTX/Ultra situation. As it stands the 8800GT and 8800GTS offer close enough performance that it’s hard to warrant the additional $80 to jump from a GT to a GTS. Right now I’d say grab an 8800GT, overclock it to 700MHz core, 1700MHz shader, 2000MHz memory, and call it a day. From what I’ve heard those are very easily attainable speeds and put you in the realm of 8800GTX performance at half the cost, so long as you don’t game at 2580×1600.
So there you have it, HD3870 for around $200 and the 512MB 8800GT for around $300. If you do any sort of gaming though I would highly suggest getting at the minimum the HD3850 as the 8600GTS and HD2600XT are cards that are best relegated to HTPCs and office machines. With these new cards the performance gap between low-end, midrange, and high-end has been closed to an acceptable gap. Rumor has it there will be a dual-GPU card from both AMD and Nvidia so those of you craving more performance without explicitly utilizing SLI or Crossfire may be in luck. I imagine G92 much be cheap for Nvidia to manufacture but it sure did kill their G80 based product line. Let me know if you guys have any questions, January will be exciting and could potentially throw all this off balance.
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