heading
Welcome
. . ......
Latest Content
Asustor AS-606T
AMD Radeon HD 7990
Gainward GeForce GTX 650 Ti Boost ...
Infortrend EonNAS Pro 510...
HIS Radeon HD 7790 iCooler Turbo 1...
QNAP TS-469L
Gigabyte GeForce GTX Titan...
HIS Radeon HD 7850 iPower IceQ Tur...
Thecus N5550
Synology DiskStation DS713+ and DX...
TechSpot Reviews
Metro: Last Light Review...
TechSpot PC Buying Guide...
Gigabyte U2442F Ultrabook Review...
8 Free to Play Games That Are Too...
Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon Review...
Samsung Galaxy S 4 Review...
AMD Radeon HD 7990 Review...
Sapphire Edge VS8 Mini PC Review...
GeForce GTX 650 Ti Boost & SLI Pe...
LG Lucid 2 Smartphone Review...
Latest News
Weekend Open Forum: Imagining Goo...
Google strips 8.8 million lines o...
Asus' new lineup of Z87 Haswell m...
Congress pressures Google on Glas...
Newegg scores new victory against...
Intel CEO passed on the opportuni...
CW to launch Apple TV's first net...
Razer brings the arcade experienc...
Gamers spend more money on iOS th...
Bill Gates is once again the rich...
Legion Hardware » Articles » Sub-$80 Graphics Card Battle

Sub-$80 Graphics Card Battle
[Posted by: Steve]
Read More
Comment
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...

The GeForce GT 220 has done very little to mix things up in the low-end market segment, as it fails to offer anything new at its price point of $70 US. Yes, it is an affordable 40nm graphics card, but that bandwagon will only get Nvidia so far. The GeForce GT 220 was superior to the 14 month old Radeon HD 4670 in terms of power consumption and operating temperature when under load.

11/09/2009
« ATI Radeon HD 5750 Overclocking Guide · Sub-$80 Graphics Card Battle · Left 4 Dead 2 Graphics Performance »

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: 80
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: 80
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.

Post New Comment

Your Name:


Icon:
Note  Alert  Question  Star  Idea  Disk  Smile  Wink  Sad  Mad  Happy 
Tongue  Sleep  Cool  Very Sad  Frown  Up  Down 

Message:

Enter here:
Disable smilies in this post.
Disable block tag code.
Add [url] tag at URLs.