Manufacturer: Price: $ US Author: Steve Date: 11/09/2009

[ Introduction ]

Today we are looking at what the best option in the sub-$80 graphics card market is for gamers, which led us to a direct comparison between the new GeForce GT 220 and the old Radeon HD 4670. The cards will be compared in a number of games while we will also look at their power consumption levels and overall value... Recently Nvidia released the GeForce GT 220 codename “GT216”, which was to be their first ultra affordable GeForce 200 series graphics card. With an average price tag of $70 US, the GeForce GT 220 got the affordable part right, but how does it deliver in terms of performance? With a core configuration that is around 4x less complex than the GeForce GTX 260, we are not expecting much, and the 128-bit memory bus means that the GeForce GT 220 is limited to a maximum bandwidth of just 25.3GB/s for cards sporting the more modern DDR3 memory, while some will feature cheaper DDR2 memory limiting them to just 16GB/s. In comparison, a graphics card such as the GeForce GTX 260 has a memory bandwidth of 111.9GB/s, though you can expect to pay around $100 US more for this product. On the other side of the fence we have the Radeon HD 4650 and 4670 graphics cards, priced at $50 and $65 for the 512MB versions, while the 1GB cards cost around $10 more on average. So then in terms of pricing it is far to say that the newly released GeForce GT 220 is going head to head with the old Radeon HD 4670 which was released a little over a year ago now. Given the age difference, one could be mistaken for thinking that the GeForce GT 220 would wipe the floor with the much older Radeon HD 4670 graphics card. Today we are going to find out if this is true. Representing the new GeForce GT 220 we have a version from Inno3D and an overclocked card from Galaxy. Then for our Radeon graphics cards we have a HIS Radeon HD 4670 with 512MB of memory and a Gigabyte Radeon HD 4650 with a 1GB memory buffer, neither card featured factory overclocking. Although we do not consider sub-$80 US graphics cards to be ideal gaming solutions, they will provide those on a tight budget with a means to play their favorite games. That said, even when spending such a small amount of money on a graphics card, you want to make sure you are getting the best value for your money, and we are hopefully going to help you do that.

Table of Contents >>> Introduction <<< Test System Specs & 3Dmark Vantage Test: Batman Arkham Asylum, Company of Heroes Test: Far Cry 2, Left 4 Dead Test: Street Fighter IV, S.T.A.L.K.E.R Clear Sky Test: Wolfenstein Power Consumption & Temperatures Conclusion Next Page ->

Jason Saggers

Posted on: 02/18/2010 02:26 AM Wouldn't it make better sense to benchmark these cards with more budget CPU's, the CPU you are using would not be used by the end user that would be buying one of these budget cards.

Steve Posts: 74 Joined: 2010-02-08

Posted on: 02/18/2010 05:30 AM No not at all. When benchmarking GPU’s you want a fast CPU to remove any potential bottlenecks. Say in an extreme case we used a slow processor that created a system bottleneck, the GPUs would all be limited and possibly deliver the same performance. What would be the point of that? You will find this common practice amongst hardware sites.

IFLATLINEI

Posted on: 03/06/2010 09:23 PM I understand why testers do this but it does nothing for those looking to see how these cards work with their pc's I dont see this card bottle necking much at all. So I think this is just a way to make it easier on your the tester or serving your own agenda rather than helping a consumer choose the right card for them.

ProX

Posted on: 03/06/2010 10:24 PM IFLATLINEI seriously what are you talking about? Okay lets say they should use a slower processors, lets just for a moment assume that this makes sense (which it doesn't). What processor should they use? A $50 processor? Nah that's too cheap, well not for that guy but maybe for you. $100 processor? Yeah you can afford that so maybe a $150 processor then. Better yet lets use a processor that limits performance by 5 - 10fps and makes both graphics cards look the same. Yeah that's looking after the buyer, then they can spend more on a graphics card that is slower. I think what you guys are after is a budget buying guide which is a little different. That compares the value and performance of entire platforms and not just a single component. When testing components you cannot have any limitations. Its like testing two cars, a Nissan 370Z and a Ferrari 599 but limiting them to 30mph. In just about every test they would perform about the same so you could conclude that in terms of engineering the 370Z is better right? Take the limitations away and the Ferrari 599 would make the Nissan 370Z look silly.

Steve Posts: 74 Joined: 2010-02-08

Posted on: 03/07/2010 01:31 AM Posted by IFLATLINEI on 03/06/2010 10:23 PM I understand why testers do this but it does nothing for those looking to see how these cards work with their pc's I dont see this card bottle necking much at all. So I think this is just a way to make it easier on your the tester or serving your own agenda rather than helping a consumer choose the right card for them. I can certainly understand how you might draw that conclusion but it is not the best way to test a graphics card. I like how you say “I dont see this card bottle necking much at all.” How much is not much at all and what experience are you basing this assumption on? Testing with the Core i7 processor is in no way easier for me, I have almost every processor currently being sold and there is no agenda here other than to display each graphics card in the best light. ProX is correct if you are after system articles please check the articles section where we have reviewed entire budget platforms.