Massive Graphics Card Review 133
Brian Tonka writes to tell us that rojakpot has posted a pretty comprehensive graphics card review including over 240 different desktop graphics cards. With each of the vendors given their own section and using 15 different points of comparison this should be quite a starting reference for the enthusiast and casual buyer alike.
This isn't a review (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:This isn't a review (Score:5, Insightful)
Exactly. It's full of irrelevant specifications (including for some ancient, not-a-chance-in-hell cards) that no one can use to choose a card (and processor speed and hypothetical megatexel speeds are largely irrelevant in the real world. Micron manufacturing process...well that's just retarded). What a waste of a story spot.
Re:This isn't a review (Score:3, Insightful)
I hope whoever paid
Re:This isn't a review (Score:1)
Adblock in firefox is great
Re:This isn't a review (Score:3, Funny)
About 1% of the hits will be from me, trying over and over to load the damn page which choked on some javascripted banner ad (from the name of the domain it was waiting for), till I finally gave up.
Re:This isn't a review (Score:1)
Re:This isn't a review (Score:1)
Re:Where's the proof? (Score:1)
Wow, really? Way back when, my Celeron 300a - a 0.25 micron chip - could be easily overclocked to 450Mhz. A 50% improvement just by setting some jumpers. So 0.25 micron chips can be overclocked 50%?
Of course that is complete nonsense, and no one can use a micron guide to determine how overclockable a chip is. That depends upon the complexity of the chip, the weakest link, and how aggressively th
Re:Where's the proof? (Score:1)
Slogan (Score:3, Insightful)
Let me finish that.
"Where the best in technology gather, overload a server, then leave still wondering how the hell this constitutes a review."
A bit wordy, but accurate.
Re:This isn't a review (Score:1, Redundant)
Dave Fanboy: "My God, it's full of ATI advertisements"
Re:This isn't a review (Score:1)
Re:This isn't a review (Score:5, Interesting)
there is so much debate as to what is the fastest PCI card for gaming; yet the hardware sites don't understand the pain and suffering out there... or do they? all that is available on ANY hardware site is pure conjecture and respewing of marketing hype.
they will NOT do a PCI video card review.
i think they are under pressure from marketing forces (read: ad dollars) to not reveal the actual performance of PCI. (yet the review sites HAVE stated that the move to pciExpress is purely marketing; that there is NO performance benifit from AGP to pci-Express.)
there is even a pci version of nvidia's 6200, yet try and find a review of that! (http://www.3dfuzion.com/cards_6200_pci_128.asp [3dfuzion.com]) yet you can find hordes of reviews of the agp and pciExpress versions of it.
well, many brand name systems have only PCI, and it is a shock to many poor souls when they realize it (not everyone is as thorough as the
of course, i'm posting this hours after the article was put up, so prolly no one will even read this.
Re:This isn't a review (Score:1, Insightful)
Most OEM PC's these days come with an AGP slot. Yes, there are still some out there that are on-board with no AGP slot fo
Re:This isn't a review (Score:3, Insightful)
sorry to nit pick, but AGP is dead, for the latest and greatest the AGP and PCI Express version of the same card, and the AGP version costs $150 more. you can buy a Very nice motherboard for that price difference....
AGP is a legacy product, in it's death throes. the cards require more circuitry, and they cost more. buying a motherbord with an agp slot relegates you to obsolete (or budget) 2005 model cards or paying a super premium on
Re:This isn't a review (Score:3, Informative)
Re:This isn't a review (Score:2)
I never knew that, but I'm also sure I've never heard of a motherboard with 2 AGP slots. There is certainly none available on the market now from the larger motherboard manufacturers (Asus, Gigabyte, MSI,
Re:This isn't a review (Score:2)
so i don't see how 'allowing multiple agp slots' was the major draw of agp 8x when there are not even any legacy products currently on the market that support this mythical 'dual slot' agp setup.
the current state of the industry is that agp graphic cards are as big a plague as normal PCI cards were when agp adoption was in it's early days. eventually budget cards and remnants w
Re:This isn't a review (Score:3, Interesting)
Good for you. Now move along, cause we're not discussing high-end gaming here.
Rojakpot's list lists PCI/AGP/PCIX/PCIe cards and motherboard chipsets regardless of what they're intended for -- even older cards like Voodoo1 and Matrox M200. That the list is both buggy and appear to have lost parts (what happened to the Matrox P-series, earlier on the list and still in retail?) is a different matter...
--
*Art
Re:This isn't a review (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:This isn't a review (Score:2)
AGP vs PCI (Score:2, Informative)
There are a couple things you may not have considered with your hunch. First, if you are doing 3D textured graphics, then transfer speed to texture and vertex memory is key to performance, and PCI is many times slower than AGP. 10x is not "barely an improvement" in the real-time 3d graphics world. Secondly, there typically isn
Re:AGP vs PCI (Score:1)
Re:AGP vs PCI (Score:2)
There are a couple things you may not have considered with your hunch. First, if you are doing 3D textured graphics, then transfer speed to texture and vertex memory is key to performance, and PCI is many times slower than AGP. 10x is not "barely an improvement" in the real-time 3d graphics world.
True, but on a typical home system, where the PCI bus is mostly available, is it enough bandwidth to keep the video card supplied with data fast enough? Are games these days really pushing so much data that the
Re:This isn't a review (Score:2)
Anything but 10 bucks for a half decent used mobo with AGP.
Re:This isn't a review (Score:2)
welcome to 2005 (almost 2006) (Score:1)
Next you'll be wanting game reviews of Commander Keen and Rick Dangerous.
Not 1995. Try 1998, maybe. (Score:2)
Re:Not 1995. Try 1998, maybe. (Score:2)
Re:welcome to 2005 (almost 2006) (Score:2)
Likewise, there are many AGP computers out there, and for people wanting to run multiple monitors and need another video card, PCI is their only option.
Re:welcome to 2005 (almost 2006) (Score:2)
Re:This isn't a review (Score:2)
Re:This isn't a review (Score:1)
Re:This isn't a review (Score:1)
It means just what it means: you're being
Review? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Review? (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Review? (Score:2)
Re:Review? (Score:2)
Re:Review? (Score:1)
sorry, that would be a metric "arseload" of ads. "assload" is an imperial measurement, only used by americans and others who have difficulty with metric (not surprising, it's very difficult with everything being multiples of 10 rather than some semi-random multiple).
Re:Review? (Score:2)
simple: open source drivers? (Score:5, Interesting)
Follow-up: can Red Hat or Novell or somebody please offer a certification logo program for some of these cards? You know, a sticker that you can find on the boxes in CompUSA or something, which says that it's not going to be a stink to get running on Linux?
Re:simple: open source drivers? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:simple: open source drivers? (Score:3, Interesting)
> "radeon" driver, and has EXA acceleration in the just-released 6.9/7.0 version.
Does it actually work yet? I keep on buying ATI based cards on the theory that it is the only major vendor with Free drivers available (even if ATI themselves doesn't help all that much to make them happen, it is still more than Nvidia does) but I have never had success with Xfree86's 3D driver. I alway
Re:simple: open source drivers? (Score:2)
Re:simple: open source drivers? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:simple: open source drivers? (Score:2)
That is what usually scuttles me, the GL screensavers lock the box solid within a day or so of normal use.
For 2D the XFree86 driver is fairly good, except on one of my Thinkpads which will quite reliably lock up if I reverse scroll a gnometerminal too fast.
Re:simple: open source drivers? (Score:1)
Perhaps you should try a driver upgrade?
Re:simple: open source drivers? (Score:3, Insightful)
Wrong question. Better question: Can a vendor-neutral consortium please offer the same.
Wow (Score:1, Offtopic)
Re:Wow (Score:1, Troll)
Boxing Day is when CmdrTaco fights it out amongst his co-editors for dominance.
He still hasn't lost yet, thanks to his lowly towel boy CowboyNeal.
Re:Wow (Score:1, Flamebait)
Re:Wow (Score:1)
This is just after there was the whole Microsoft is buying Opera fiasco, courtesy of CoolTechNews and relayed on Slashdot, followed up by the nonsensical Such a Thing as too Paranoid About Privacy? [slashdot.org] "article", again from CoolTechZone.
Anyways, I'm off to choose a video card based upon the manufacturing process!
Re:Wow (Score:1)
Re:Hmm... some errors in the article (Score:2)
Check out the product description [bfgtech.com]
when do we get a complex database (Score:3, Insightful)
Oops (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Hmm. Radeon, radeon, ati, ati (Score:5, Informative)
MTexels/s (Score:5, Informative)
It is nice to see where GFX cards rate in games, and Toms hardware has the best link per game. Thats why I picked a GT over a GTX for 200 dollars less.
http://www.tomshardware.com/2005/12/02/vga_charts
and
http://www.tomshardware.com/2005/07/05/vga_charts
Re:MTexels/s (Score:1)
Maybe you visit Tom's Hardware for nostalgic reasons?
I gave up on that site a long time ago, right around the time when Tom stopped having direct involvement in the content being posted. I don't know if this has changed or not, but the site used to have foreign writers putting up content in their quite good, but not-perfect-english.
Anywho, I'm sticking with my trusty Voodoo 5500AGP. Mostly because I don't want to (un)install a new set of drivers for
Re:MTexels/s (Score:2)
GamePC is my second favorite site, xbit labs and hot hardware are good too.
Hey, I'm lazy, give me some decent charts to look at with more than 2 gfx cards, I need reference points.
Re:MTexels/s (Score:2)
Thank you!
Maybe Flamebait (Score:1, Flamebait)
This isn't a review, there are no benchmarks, there are no nVidia cards even listed and the site formats crappy in IE (just so happened to be using it because of CSS design issues). This has no place on Slashdot and the editor posting the story really should have read through the listings more carefully to see that this doens't extend past ATI cards.
Re:Maybe Flamebait (Score:2)
Maybe I should have been nominated for the 2005 Foot in Mouth Award? : )
Stop the madne...er, linking (Score:5, Insightful)
Massive cards, or Massive review? (Score:4, Funny)
"Massive Graphics Card Review" doesn't mean the same thing as "Massive Review of Graphics Cards".
Re:Massive cards, or Massive review? (Score:2)
What I need to know is... (Score:1)
Let's hope that NVIDIA will be kind enough to open source their old drivers. But not wanting to hold my breath I'm looking at going with a card from a different company that does have open source drivers.
Re:What I need to know is... (Score:1)
This happens with hardware where vendors only offers binary drivers but no documentation. With documentation it's much easier to make good open source drivers, but sadly the Linux crowd are way to eager to use binary only drivers. Recently OpenB
Re:What I need to know is... (Score:3, Informative)
Nothing else is close. Its the most powerful card on the market with open specs!
Re:What I need to know is... (Score:2)
The original article is right. (Score:2, Informative)
3D at 2560x1600 (Score:3, Interesting)
I got dual nvidia 7800 GTX KO's in SLI configuration and it works great(even though the builder said it probably wouldn't)! I can run games like GuildWars and *upcoming beta product* at full resolution with excellent frame rates.
Just an FYI.
Re:3D at 2560x1600 (Score:2)
Seriously...having a apple cinema display is worth the mula, but $600 for a video card (that you bought two of) is a little much. I think I'll stick with my dual 6600 GTs. They can play practically every game at great frame rates w/ max settings at 1024x768 or 1280x1024. It would be nice to use higher resolutions, but frame rate and image quality matter more.
Re:3D at 2560x1600 (Score:2)
This is really cool (Score:3, Informative)
My application requiere shaders v2.0 and it's really boring to always type radeon radada in google to hunt for the specs to reply to questions from customers.
Also even if it will not tell you for sure that your engine will run faster on this one or this one it will at least give you a hint.
Having the OpenGL version supported from the driver would also have been nice.
Re:This is really cool (Score:2, Insightful)
I would like to see (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:I would like to see (Score:2)
It's kind-of-analog to the Bezier tool present in drawing programs, but applied to surfaces.
They share some interesting properties with polygons (invariance through projections) but they are much more complex.
They could be implemented, at least at the software level, but all the algos in the card should be made NURBS-aware, too. Right now it's just easier to rely on a good tesselation algorithm, maybe based on NURBS models.
Re:I would like to see (Score:2)
If I'm an idiot, and they don't actually accelerate the calculation of NURBS B-splines, then please tell me, cause I'm confused now.
Gee... (Score:1)
Really all a review needs is separate the brands in price/target market groups and review the quality/features, price and speed of each one in a sentence or two.
I for one can't care less if it's
Dell 2405FPW?!?!?! (Score:1)
Thanks,
grndslm
Re:Dell 2405FPW?!?!?! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Dell 2405FPW?!?!?! (Score:1)
Re:Dell 2405FPW?!?!?! (Score:2)
I got 6800 GS 256MB PCIe card for x-mas and can only run COD2 at 800x600 for it to be truly playable online. Single player is ok at 1024x768.
I'd recommend the 6800 GS over the 6600GT. Seems to be the best bang for the buck right now, though I noticed some folks have 256 MB 7800GTs priced at $300 on pricewatch.com.
Re:Dell 2405FPW?!?!?! (Score:1)
August wasn't *that* long ago... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:August wasn't *that* long ago... (Score:2)
Some actual reviews of a wide range of cards (Score:3, Interesting)
Digit-Life's 3Digest [digit-life.com]
Tom's Hardware's VGA Charts [tomshardware.com]
Anyone know of any others? One of the big problems in the hardware review site industry is that they all review the same stuff and duplicate one another's work 100 times over (for various reasons which I won't go into), while you'd be hard pressed to find a single review of many low-mid range cards. Even if the purpose of such reviews would simply be to inform people about how poorly they perform, it's a major oversight. There is still a heavy bias toward high-end stuff in the above linked reviews, but at least there are a few low-end and mid-range cards chucked in.
P.S. Another pity is slashdot's poor editorial standards, accepting the description of the linked article as a "review" being the latest example. I guess I could just stop visiting, but then I'd miss out on all the insightful comments from visitors who actually do produce some worthwhile content. So I just block the ads, so as not to reward the editors' laziness.
Absolutely pathetic. (Score:1)
I guess digg was right. Slashdot is dying.
How fast do cards display out of memory. (Score:1)
Suppose I have a bunch of images of the same size already in ordinary computer memory, and I want to display them at 60 images per second. The image format is whatever is 'best'--a texture, whatever.
Given card X, what is the largest (width x height or bytes) image that can be displayed smoothly?
That is, each image is read from memory and sent to the screen at scale 1.0 with no shading or other modification, but it is synced to the monitor display rate, and doesn't ev
no Quadro cards? (Score:1)
Something I want to know... (Score:2)
Where are the reviews, etc for the "really high end" graphics stuff? Not that I would be able to afford them (I am currently running a GeForce 2 for crap-sake! Meets my needs under Linux, tho), but I would be interested in what is really coming down the pipe. I remember seeing reviews and such (long time back) on graphics processor "boxes" fed via a SCSI channel or such from Evans and Sutherland, which was meant for fli
Re:ATI (Score:2)
Re:ATI (Score:1)