The Which Graphics Card for £X? Thread

[Webby]

Updated 01/07/2009
New Cards and Major Price Updates

So, we get a lot of threads in this section of the forum asking which is the best card I can buy for £X while we are always happy to answer peoples questions some of us thought perhaps a list of current cards with there relative performance and currently available costs could be a useful resource, focusing on gaming.

So between myself and Pob255 we came up with the following list of cards (subsequently edited) and have placed them in performance order (this is for stock clocked cards not pre-overclocked) providing price brackets so you can easily find the cards in your budget and current average pricing along with any outstanding prices we have found. Pricing has been taken as the lowest price a card is available with a selection to choice from, so if 2 versions of card X are available for £110 and 1 for £100 then the £110 will be the quoted price the £100 will be provided in () to show they are available cheaper but with limited choice and a link will be provided.

This list is really meant as a starting point, please still start a thread to ask about particular cards or what people think is the best for your situation but hopefully this will give you an idea of what is available and the performance ranks, if nothing else it will let you know what is available.

Single Card Solutions ATI and nVidia


GTX295 - £350
HD4870X2 - £240
HD4850X2 2GB - £185
GTX285 - £220
HD4850X2 1GB - £150
GTX275 - £170
HD4890 - £140
GTX260 - £115
HD4870 1GB - £115
HD4870 512MB - £100
GTS250 1GB - £95 and HD4850 1GB - £85
GTS250 512MB - £80 and 9800GTX+ 512MB - £75 and HD4850 512MB - £75 and HD4770 - £80
9800GT - £75 and HD4830 - £65
9600GT - £60 and HD4730 - £??
HD4670 - £55
HD4650 (DDR3) - £42

<£40
Cards available for less than £40 should in my opinion not really be considered if gaming is a major concern. If media playback is the requirement then any card you like that can offload video decoding from the processor is really all you need. or consider integrated graphics the 780G, 790GX, 8200 chipsets for AMD and G45 for Intel.

Multiple cards - ATI Crossfire

2x 4890 - £280 best ATI dual GPU setup available
2x 4870 1Gb - £230 - 4870X2 is a reasonable alternative as 1 less slot is required
2x 4870 512MB - £200 - HD4870X2 requires one less slot
2x 4850 1GB - £170 - 4850X2 2GB reasonable alternative as 1 less slot required
2x 4850 512MB - £150 - 4850X2 1GB same price and 1 less slot
2x 4770 512MB - £160 - HD4850X2 1GB is a viable alternative
2x 4830 - £130 - Performance on average greater than GTX260 and 4870 1GB (closer to GTX280).

Where more than one card is of approximately equal performance they are included on the same line in no particular order.

Recommendations, basically the cheapest in any performance bracket unless you don't want ATi or nVidia due to a technical reason or brand loyalty. I will leave it at that unless people want me to make more explicit suggestions.

This list will obviously need to change with the times, and if people have any comments or bargain prices then post them up, provide links to bargain prices I don't want people just saying you can get X card for Y.

I imagine this list will be updated regularly how often will depend on my available time and how often people think it needs doing once a month, fortnight or weekly? Prices change to fast for it to ever be completely accurate of course.

[shaithis]

Might be better to use a ladder (where a step up on the ladder is a step up in price) instead of showing prices?

[Dogz]

Also check your PSU is up to it. I've been stung by an upgrade that drew too much juice from my PSU and caused all sorts of odd behaviour. I nearly returned the card thinking it was faulty!

[Webby]

Shaithis how do you have comparative performance and price on a single list you have to pick one or the other.

They are currently listed in performance order which I feel has more use, the question to be asked is are you interested in which card can I buy for my budget or which card performs the best for my budget? I know I prefer the best performance in my budget option.

[SiM]

Originally Posted by Webby

£251+
4870X2 - £350
GTX280 - £310 (£290)

£201 - £250
4870X2 - £350
GTX280 - £310 (£290)

£201 - £250
GTX260 216 Core - £230 (£210) and HD4870 1GB - £220 (£195)

lol que?

[Webby]

Thanks that will teach me not to proof read!

[Zadock]

Originally Posted by shaithis

Might be better to use a ladder (where a step up on the ladder is a step up in price) instead of showing prices?

I think some kind "bang for buck" rating/ ladder would be good, made sticky and include links to any reviews done by Hexus. That would reduce the number of new posts about graphics cards.

If you want to get quite fancy how about a flow diagram? budget, purpose (light gaming, medium gaming, HTPC etc)... something like that? obviously simplify it or else you could end up with hundreds of possible outcomes.

Also, maybe add links to the best places to buy?

[moogle]

Originally Posted by Zadock

Also, maybe add links to the best places to buy?

Scan, eBuyer, Tekheads, Specialtech?

[SiM]

Originally Posted by moogle

Scan, eBuyer, Tekheads, Specialtech?

Dont forget overclockers

[moogle]

Originally Posted by SiM

Dont forget overclockers

How could I forget!

[Pob255]

Nice list Webby

I vote for sticky!

Originally Posted by moogle

How could I forget!

We keep trying to forget

[moogle]

Originally Posted by Pob255

We keep trying to forget

You mustn't! Otherwise you'll forget how bad it would be to shop there and fall into their trap again

[Pob255]

no chance of that

the thing is remembering the http://www.overclock.co.uk is not the same people (although I'm not sure what they are currently like, I know old reports of overclock were good )

[moogle]

Originally Posted by Pob255

no chance of that

Good good

Haven't managed to use OC yet though, although it probably doesn't help with their names being similiar

[daza]

Whats about crossfire and sli.

[Pob255]

simple answer, generally never worth it, for twice the cost you can useally get a single card that performs around the same.
Buying a card to later sli/crossfire genreally hit's the same problems by the time you've saved up enough for a 2nd card the next gen are here and better.

Only really comes into at the very top, and if you can afford to buy multiple top end cards then money is not much of an issue.