Introduction

Figuring out what sort of computer hardware to get for your next upgrade can be a tricky task, and if you are looking to get something for someone else it can be even more difficult. Some components have universal application, in that no matter what you will do with the computer they can improve performance. For most components, however, individual usage patterns will dictate how much benefit you will get from an upgrade. Processors, displays, and memory typically fall into the "universal upgrade" category; meanwhile hard drives, graphics cards, power supplies, cases, and other accessories may or may not help performance.

Today we will be taking a look at graphics card upgrades, so before we even get to the recommendations the first thing you need to ask yourself is whether or not you really need a faster graphics card. There are basically three areas that can benefit from having a better graphics card, with the fourth on the way in the near future. Starting with the future, you have Windows Vista, which will require a DirectX 9 capable graphics card at minimum in order to enable the Aero Glass user interface. Vista is scheduled to launch in the very near future, and we will take a closer look at the performance requirements in a separate article. Of the other three areas, one that we won't pay attention to here is the use of graphics cards for professional applications, simply because that is beyond the scope of this article. The remaining two areas of potential interest are video decoding/acceleration and computer gaming.

Video decoding support involves several things. First, you have performance oriented improvements - can the GPU reduce the CPU load during video playback? Second, you have the quality aspects - does the GPU make the resulting video output look better? Finally, video aficionados will definitely want to worry about HDCP support, not just for their graphics card but also for their display. We recently took a look at several of these areas in our HDCP Roundup and the HDCP H.264 decoding articles, while in the past we have looked at quality comparisons between NVIDIA's PureVideo and ATI's AVIVO. We will be taking a closer look at comparing the quality and performance of HDCP enabled graphics cards again in the near future, but for now we refer interested readers to the referenced articles.

We do need to insert one word of caution for people considering any new graphics card with the intention of using it for viewing HDCP content. If you have a display that requires a dual-link DVI connection, you're going to run into some problems. Basically, HDCP was architected to only support single-link connections, so you are going to be limited to viewing content at a maximum resolution of 1920x1080. What's worse is that as we understand it, HDCP is not supported over a dual-link connection at all, so if you have something like a 30" LCD and you want to view HDCP content, you will need to use a single-link cable. Welcome to the bleeding edge....

That leaves the final category and the one that the majority of people are most interested in: gaming performance. That is not to say that everyone worries about gaming performance, but rather that anyone who is seriously looking at a faster graphics card is likely to be doing so more for gaming than for anything else. If you don't play games, there is a very good chance that you don't need to worry about getting a faster graphics chip into your computer right now. End of story. Windows Vista and video decoding support might make a few more people look at graphics card upgrades, but for this Holiday Shopping Guide we will focus primarily on gaming performance.

As with our recent Holiday CPU Guide, we have quite a few price segments to cover, ranging from Ultra Budget GPUs through Extreme Performance GPUs. We also have to worry about multiple GPU combinations courtesy of CrossFire and SLI. With numerous overlapping products from both ATI and NVIDIA, it is important to remember that we will be classifying products based off of price rather than on performance, so in some cases we will have less expensive graphics cards that can outperform more expensive models. Finally, let's not forget that there are still a few AGP users hanging around, so we will mention those products were appropriate.



Integrated Graphics Solutions

At the bottom of the price and performance ladder - and we recognize that we have overlapped the motherboard market here - we have the integrated graphics solutions. If you are really interested in gaming performance, the simple fact of the matter is that none of the IGP offerings are going to be sufficient to run all of the latest games at reasonable frame rates. In some cases, reducing the graphics quality and lowering the resolutions will make games playable, but there are quite a few titles available that won't run acceptably without a discrete graphics card. If you don't really need to play all of the latest and greatest games, or if you don't play games at all, these IGP solutions should be sufficient. Some of the IGP motherboards can also work very well inside an HTPC, if that's something you're interested in.

When looking at IGP solutions, the added cost on the motherboard relative to a non-IGP solution is usually going to be less than $15, and in some cases IGP is essentially free. That provides tremendous bang for the buck, as long as you don't need a lot of "bang". IGP is also the only area where Intel, SIS, and VIA have some reasonable GPU offerings. Before we discuss the various IGP offerings, though, there are a few things to keep in mind. First, the feature set on a lot of motherboards that have IGP is much more limited than what you find on competing motherboards, including typically far worse overclocking results. That won't be a problem for many people - and certainly not for businesses - but if you want to run a modern LCD with a DVI connection (which is preferred for LCDs where possible) there are very few motherboards that have integrated DVI ports. Finally, even though IGP solutions are frequently based off of discrete graphics chips, performance will almost always be lower because the graphics have to share memory bandwidth with the CPU and other devices, and the integrated GPUs are often designed to be lower performing parts.


Starting with the IGP offerings for Intel platforms, and going with the assumption that you want to run a Core 2 Duo processor, we have a few options available. Intel's original intention was that you would have to upgrade to a G965/Q965 chipset motherboard for Core 2 Duo support, but with the cheapest of these motherboards starting at over $100, vendors began to look for alternate solutions. You can find a few 865G boards with Core 2 Duo support, which would also provide you with an AGP slot for upgrading, but if you want to use an AGP card you probably don't need IGP in the first place. There are quite a few boards with the 945G chipset available for less than $100, and while 945G is one of the slower integrated solutions it is still capable of running Windows Vista's Aero Glass interface. The G965/Q965 motherboards are supposed to offer a better feature set than 945G, but while that may be true on paper they haven't shown themselves to be much faster (if at all) relative to competing solutions so far. Updated drivers from Intel continue to improve performance and compatibility, and we should finally get a driver that will make the G965's X3000 performed better than the 945G, but the 965 solutions should still be looked at more as a minimum level of graphics performance rather than something capable of running most recent games.

The only other currently available IGP solutions for Intel platforms come from VIA, and these are featured on some of the cheapest Core 2 Duo compatible motherboards available. Unfortunately, they once again focus more on AGP as an upgrade path rather than PCI-E, and the boards can be a bit more quirky and unstable. Still, if you need to purchase a Core 2 Duo CPU anyway, you might consider the $160 E6300 and ECS motherboard bundle, as you basically get the motherboard for free. In the near future, ATI should also begin shipping their RS600 chipset (ATI Xpress 1250) which will feature X700-level IGP performance - hopefully with full SM3.0 capability and 8 pixel pipelines, although the final features and availability date are not yet known. Taking a quick look at the available Intel platform motherboards with integrated graphics, we were unable to find any that come with a DVI port, but hopefully that will change when we begin to see Core 2 motherboards with ATI and NVIDIA IGP solutions - and we might even see HDMI ports on some boards, which would be great for HTPC systems.

On the AMD side of the fence, there are a couple of currently shipping IGP solutions that also offer better compatibility and performance than the Intel or VIA solutions. From AMD/ATI, the Radeon Xpress 1100/1150 chipsets are available with DirectX 9 support and performance similar to that of the X300 SE HyperMemory cards - note that Shader Model 3.0 support is not included. While we say that performance is similar to the X300 SE, they actually have half as many pipelines and have to share main memory bandwidth, making them less than half as fast as a discrete X300 card. These chipsets offer performance roughly equal to that of the NVIDIA 6100/6150, although the NVIDIA chipsets do offer SM3.0 support, giving them a slight advantage in terms of flexibility. SM3.0 games aren't going to run well on any IGP anyway, but potentially SM3.0 will be used for other work in Windows Vista (it's a stretch, I know...). Performance of the NVIDIA chipsets is similar to that of their GeForce 6200 TurboCache cards, but once again with half as many pipelines, making them clearly slower than just about any discrete graphics solution. If you're more interested in saving as much money as possible - and you're willing to risk stability and reliability concerns - you can also find motherboards with the SIS 761 and the VIA K8M800/K8M890 chipsets starting at around $50.


Unlike the Intel platform, we were actually able to find several motherboards with integrated graphics for socket AM2 that include DVI ports. The ASRock ALiveNF6G-DVI uses the nForce 6100 chipset and is available for around $73, and it actually puts the DVI port on an included expansion card that fits a special "HDMR" slot. The MSI K9AGM-FID includes the DVI port on the back panel and is the only AM2 solution with such a feature that uses the ATI Xpress 1150 chipset, priced at around $83. MSI (K9NBPM2-FID) and ASUS (M2NBP-VM CSM) both offer similar micro-ATX motherboards that use the NVIDIA Quadro NVS 210S chipset, both priced at $83 as well. Finally, ASUS (M2NPV-VM - $91), Abit (NF-M2 - $96), and DFI (C51PV-M2/G Infinity - $104) offer "micro-ATX" boards with DVI ports based off the nForce 6150 chipset. We put "micro-ATX" in quotation marks because the DFI board actually appears to be too large, as it is 10.4 inches wide rather than the standard 9.6 inches.


Out of all of these IGP motherboards we have listed there are a few picks that stand out. For the Core 2 Duo platform, if you're really looking to save some money, there's no beating the ECS + E6300 bundle currently available at Outpost.com. You can toss the motherboard and buy a better model in the future if necessary, as the board is basically a freebie. If you want a more current feature set, you can look at either the 945G or the G965 offerings, and although the latter will cost more the boards also come with somewhat improved IGP performance and in some cases much better overclocking. We aren't going to recommend any AGP boards other than the ECS, as we don't feel the ~$20 saved is worth the limited upgrade potential for the future, and of the remaining motherboards the ASUS P5L-MX (945G chipset - $83) gives good base performance and a moderate amount of overclocking (up to approximately 300-310 FSB) at a decent price. If you want IGP but you still want as much overclocking capability as possible, we would recommend the Gigabyte GA-965G-DS3, which costs quite a bit more at $141 but can still reach bus speeds of over 425 MHz. That might be the ideal solution for someone who wants to get the cheapest Core 2 Duo processor and overclock as much as possible, while not worrying about getting a discrete graphics card. Really, though, you could purchase a cheaper P965 motherboard and a $40 discrete graphics card and get the same level of CPU performance as well as faster graphics performance.


On the AM2 platform, we are inclined to go with one of the DVI capable motherboards we mentioned earlier, simply because just about everyone is switching to LCD monitors these days. If all you want is a system that will work well at stock clock speeds, you should simply go with the cheapest board in that list, the ASRock ALiveNF6G-DVI priced at around $73. For somewhat improved IGP performance as well as better overclocking options, there's no beating the Abit NF-M2, which should be able to reach a HyperTransport speed of at least 250 MHz for a 25% overclock. Currently going for around $96, it's a bit more expensive than other options, but the majority of IGP motherboards usually forget about overclocking, making this one of the only AM2 boards to cover that area.

In terms of graphics performance, just keep one thing in mind when considering an integrated solution: you get what you pay for. Even the fastest current IGP (nForce 6150 or ATI Xpress 1150) is going to be slower than the cheapest discrete ATI or NVIDIA graphics card. With such cards starting at under $50, you might be better off spending a bit less on a non-IGP motherboard and getting a more capable GPU instead.



Ultra Budget GPUs

Looking at the cheapest discrete graphics cards available, there are a ton of overlapping product names and it is extremely easy to get confused. Not only do you have overlapping product names, but you also have a lot of different clock speeds and architectures, making it even more difficult to determine which options are the best. We are looking to keep prices in the Ultra Budget category under $75, but we will actually look at two price brackets: cards that cost under $50 and cards that cost between $50 and $75. The less expensive cards will be good for people that just need any graphics card, either because they want a DVI port, other features not available with integrated graphics, or perhaps because they just want a good overclocking motherboard and there are more such options available if you aren't looking for IGP.

Looking at the sub $50 graphics cards, most of the least expensive options support either the Radeon X300 SE HyperMemory or the GeForce 6200 LE TurboCache graphics chip. The X300 comes with four pixel shaders and two vertex shaders - twice as many as the Radeon Xpress 1100 - and a stock clock speed of 325/400 MHz core/RAM. Nearly all of the X300 chips are going to have a 64-bit memory bus with 64MB of memory onboard and the ability to share up to 256MB of system memory. The 6200 TurboCache parts are very similar, with four pixel shaders and three vertex shaders, a 64-bit memory interface, and 64MB of onboard memory with the ability to use up to 256MB of system memory. Clock speeds are slightly faster than the ATI X300, at 350/700 core/RAM. You also get Shader Model 3.0 support with the NVIDIA parts, making them a slightly better overall option out of these two chipsets (not that they're fast enough to play any SM3.0 games anyway).


For only a few dollars more, you can also start to find the ATI Radeon X550 HyperMemory, which has 128MB of onboard memory and the ability to use up to 512MB of system memory, as well as slightly higher clock speeds relative to the X300: 400/500 core/RAM. This GPU is basically a slightly faster version of the X300 with an otherwise identical feature set. Coming closer to the $50 mark, we begin to see some of the X1300 HyperMemory cards. The good news is that not only do you get slightly faster clock speeds than the X550, but you also get SM3.0 and AVIVO support. On the NVIDIA side, the 7100 GS and the 7300 LE are both available for close to $50. The 7100 GS really isn't much better than the 6200 TurboCache, as it has the same core clock speed, but the 7300 LE improves performance slightly by running the core at 450 MHz. None of these cards are particularly fast, so if you want the absolute cheapest option we would recommend a 6200 TurboCache card, while if you are willing to pay slightly more for performance we would suggest trying to get one of the X1300 cards. The ASUS EAX1300/TD/128M would be our choice if you're trying to keep costs as low as possible but still get a bit more in the way of performance and features.


As we move up to the $75 range, we start to see 7300 GS, X1300 LE, a few older cards like the GeForce 6600 LE and 6600, and near the top of the price limit there are a few Radeon X1300 Pro and GeForce 7300 GT cards. The 7300 LE and GS are both pretty anemic when it comes to performance, and the X1300 (along with the LE and Pro variants) is definitely going to be faster. However, the 7300 GT actually turns the tables and begins to offer reasonable budget gaming performance, particularly if you get one of the factory overclocked models. For end-user overclocking, the 7300 GT is also going to be a good choice, at least relative to the X1300 Pro. There are a few games where the X1300 Pro might be a bit faster compared to the stock 7300 GT, but overall we would give the edge to the NVIDIA GPU. If you still prefer ATI hardware and are considering the X1300 Pro, you would probably be better off spending an extra $10-$15 to get an X1600 Pro instead, which will basically match the performance of the 7300 GT when looking at a large selection of games. If we stick to a strict $75 budget, however, the best of the more expensive Ultra Budget offerings would be the EVGA 256-P2-N443-LX GeForce 7300 GT for $75. That particular 7300 GT has a 64bit memory interface, however, so we would suggest spending $85 to get the factory overclocked Biostar V7302GT21 7300 GT (400/700 core/RAM) that comes with a 128bit memory bus.


Taking a quick look at the AGP side of the market, at the extreme low end of the price spectrum there are a few Xabre and Volari cards that cost under $25. We would take the Chaintech SLV3-128 Volari V3 128MB for around $28 as the cheapest AGP card with a DVI port that we can find. Just don't count on driver support and gaming compatibility being all that great. Not surprisingly, there are a lot of older GPUs still available on the AGP platform, but we wouldn't recommend most of them. Radeon 9600 parts are basically the same as the X300 PCI-E parts in terms of performance, so if you're not too demanding they might fit the bill. We would recommend staying away from the GeForce FX line as that series of GPUs never performed as well as we would like, but you can find a few GeForce 6200 and 6600 LE cards priced under $75. If you're stuck looking for a better performing AGP graphics card, you might look at trying to pick up something like a used Radeon 9800 Pro instead, rather than spending more money for less performance on a new card. If you haven't noticed already, when compared strictly on price PCI-E definitely offers more bang for the buck than AGP these days.

For those wanting a quick rundown of all of the various GPUs available in this price range, here are the standard features, clock speeds, and estimated prices. (We won't include any AGP chips in this list.) We have organized this table in order of roughly estimated increasing performance, with the slowest cards at the top. Unfortunately, there are still a lot of cards that we aren't listing, due to variations in clock speed. Missing features (i.e. SM3.0) also come into play, so don't place too much weight on the rankings. This is merely a quick look at how we see things without regards to price, and we would generally focus on the GPUs we've specifically recommended above.

Budget GPUs
GPU	Pixel Shaders	Vertex Shaders	ROPs	Core Speed	RAM Speed	Memory Interface	Price
X300 SE	4	2	2	325	400	64bit	$38
6200 TC	4	3	2	350	700	64bit	$38
X300 LE	4	2	2	325	400	128bit	$70
7100 GS	4	3	2	350	667	64bit	$49
X550 HM	4	2	2	400	500	64bit	$47
X550	4	2	2	400	500	128bit	$60
X700	8	6	4	400	700	128bit	$75
7300 LE	4	3	2	450	667	64bit	$52
7300 GS	4	3	2	550	800	64bit	$59
X1300	4	2	4	450	500	128bit	$52
6600 LE	8	3	4	300	550	128bit	$66
X1300 Pro	4	2	4	600	800	128bit	$75
X1600 Pro	12	5	4	500	800	64bit	$85
7300 GT	8	4	4	350	667	128bit	$75

Entry Level GPUs

The next step up from the budget GPUs is going to be the Entry Level category, with prices ranging from $75-$125. You will also see more expensive versions of the Ultra Budget graphics cards, either due to extra features, factory overclocking, or even the manufacturer's name. We're going to focus primarily on the new GPUs that become available with the increased budget, rather than continuing to mention slightly faster clocked versions of the Ultra Budget offerings.


At the lower end of this price range, ATI has the X1300 XT, which is simply a renamed version of the X1600 Pro. Right now the X1600 Pro (128bit version) is slightly cheaper, but that will likely change in the future. Driver optimizations since the launch of the X1600 Pro have improved performance quite a bit, but in reality the card isn't a whole lot faster than the GeForce 6600 GT cards, which are really quite outdated these days. Certain titles will prefer ATI hardware, but in terms of value in we would definitely take the cheaper 7300 GT cards over the X1600 Pro/X1300 XT.


The X1600 XT is better, with clock speeds that are quite a bit higher - the X1650 Pro is practically the same, coming with a negligible 10/20 MHz increase on the GPU/memory - but despite the more impressive sounding specifications the X1600 XT is really only slightly faster than the GeForce 7600 GS. At the top of the price spectrum, the least expensive GeForce 7600 GT cards are definitely the best way to go. Prices currently start at about $130, but you can find $20 mail-in rebates on the EVGA cards that drop the final price down to $110. Even without the rebate, we would still recommend spending the extra money to get a 7600 GT over any of the other cards at the top of this price bracket - at least if graphics performance is important to you.


The AGP market continues to be relatively unimpressive, with prices that are typically $20 more than the equivalent PCI-E graphics cards - at least where cards are available on both platforms, which isn't all that common. GeForce 7600 GS cards might be worth a thought at the top end, along with the X1600 Pro and X1300 Pro ATI models. Perhaps because demand for AGP cards is really starting to diminish, there are currently a lot of mail-in rebates available that might make some of the AGP cards worth considering as a final upgrade. Keep in mind that everything short of a 7600 GT is usually going to be slower than something like a GeForce 6800 GT/GS card (or X800 Pro), so if you already have such a card it might not be worth upgrading to anything faster.

As we did with the Ultra Budget GPUs, here is a quick breakdown of the features and specifications of the various Entry Level GPUs we've mentioned. Again, we have sorted the table roughly in order of increasing performance. When you consider the clock speeds of the 7600 GS, it really is surprising that the much higher clocked X1600 XT isn't able to outperform it by a large margin - which is of course why ATI went back to the drawing board and created the X1650 XT, but more on that when we get to the Midrange GPUs on the next page.

Entry Level GPUs
GPU	Pixel Shaders	Vertex Shaders	ROPs	Core Speed	RAM Speed	Memory Interface	Price
X1300 XT	12	5	4	500	800	128bit	$108
X1600 Pro	12	5	4	500	800	128bit	$91
6600 GT	8	3	4	500	1000	128bit	$85*
X1600 XT	12	5	4	590	1380	128bit	$119
X1650 Pro	12	5	4	600	1400	128bit	$105
7600 GS	12	5	8	400	700	128bit	$109
7600 GT	12	5	8	560	1400	128bit	$135

Midrange GPUs

With Midrange GPUs, we're looking to keep the price under about $225, although there are a couple cards in this group that are there more because of performance than because of price. With a budget of over $200, it also becomes feasible to begin discussing SLI and CrossFire as potential solutions. Let's put that discussion to rest really quickly: don't bother! Sure, a few people might like the idea of getting one GPU now and adding a second GPU later, and that is certainly a viable path to take. If you already have one graphics card and you're looking to add a second one midrange multi-GPU configurations are also feasible. However, if you are looking at spending less than about $400, there's really no reason to consider getting two GPUs instead of one faster GPU. There are a couple of reasons for this.

First, in many instances, a single high-end GPU will actually be faster than two midrange GPUs working together - not always, but it will be close enough that we would call it a draw. The bigger problem is that CrossFire and SLI still don't work properly with all titles, especially newer titles where it might take a game patch or an updated graphics driver before multi-GPU support functions correctly. It is possible that renaming executables or scouring the web for tweaks that will enable SLI/CrossFire support can help you to avoid such problems, but most users would just as soon steer clear of such tasks, and we agree: ideally, all of the potential performance in your system will be utilized without the need to jump through any hoops. All you have to do is look at a couple relatively high-profile games that have been released in the last month to see the problem: Neverwinter Nights 2 and Splinter Cell: Double Agent both have issues if you try to run them on multiple graphics cards, and there are probably many other games that get released with similar initial difficulties. When you also factor in the typically higher power costs associated with running two graphics cards, we would strongly recommend running a single fast GPU over two slower GPUs - and that includes solutions like the GeForce 7950 GX2. If you want maximum performance, by all means look at investing in a couple of graphics cards, but for everything short of Extreme Performance configurations you are best off avoiding the hassles associated with SLI/CrossFire. (You get to save money on the motherboard as well, as an added bonus.)


Having taken care of the multi-GPU issue, what midrange GPUs become available with our new budget? Near the bottom of the price range, we have the GeForce 7600 GT that straddles the line between Entry Level and Midrange with a price of around $130 and a $20 mail-in rebate. These cards definitely offer a lot of bang for the buck, and they can overclock pretty well for added performance. Still, you will never manage to overclock a 7600 GT to the point where you get 7900 GT performance. Priced slightly higher than the 7600 GT but with slightly higher performance, ATI's new Radeon X1650 XT is the midrange card that we wish ATI could have launched in place of the original X1600 cards. It is interesting to note that ATI needed a lot more pixel shaders in order to match the performance of the 7600 GT, indicating that each shader is less powerful than the GeForce 7 series shader, but they are also less complex allowing ATI to fit more of them within a similarly sized package.

We should also take a moment here to talk about where previous high-end graphics cards fit into the mix. ATI's X800/X850 line matched up pretty well against NVIDIA's GeForce 6800 cards, although the ATI chips lack SM3.0 support so we would give the edge to GeForce 6800 chips now. The fastest of these offerings is going to be roughly equal to the 7600 GT/X1650 XT, so if you are one of the many people still running a 6800 GT, X800 XT, or a similar GPU, you probably won't see much of a performance increase unless you spend closer to $300 or more. Most games are still very playable on 6800 GT level hardware, but the latest titles definitely require turning down some of the advanced effects and/or resolution in order to get acceptable frame rates. Our best advice in regards to upgrading from one of these older graphics cards is that you should do so only when you find you are unhappy with the level of detail/performance you are able to get.

Looking at the more expensive Midrange GPUs, we included some of the more powerful discontinued products from ATI and NVIDIA in our list below. The GeForce 7800 GT/GTX line competed pretty well with ATI's X1800 line, and the NVIDIA cards definitely had the edge in multi-GPU setups. They also came out several months ahead of ATI's cards, helping them to sell much better. GeForce 7800 parts are basically the same in terms of performance as equivalently clocked GeForce 7900 parts, with the primary difference being that the 7900 series uses a 90 nm process. ATI's X1800 line on the other hand is quite different from the X1900 parts, with the latter parts having far more pixel shaders, although in terms of performance each pixel shader on an X1900 chip appears to be less powerful than an X1800 pixel shader.

Out of the currently shipping upper-midrange GPUs, the X1900 GT and X1950 Pro are both reasonable options, as are the 7900 GS and 7950 GT. If you are interested in getting an X1900 GT card, you would be better off getting the earlier version with higher clock speeds. If you can't find that, we would recommend going with the X1950 Pro instead; it costs a bit more but it performs better, and the use of an 80 nm process does help to reduce heat and power requirements slightly. The GeForce 7900/7950 GT are really priced more in the high-end market, but in terms of performance they are closer to the upper-midrange cards. While these cards still perform pretty well, they could use a price update for us to truly recommend them. With its lower price, 7900 GS is probably the best of the upper NVIDIA offerings here, and it can typically achieve good overclocks for additional performance.


For AGP users, the Midrange GPUs are basically as fast as you can get these days. You might be able to find a 7900 GS or 7900 GT for AGP if you look around hard enough, but the prices on such cards tend to be too high to warrant such a purchase. The 7800 GS AGP is readily available, but with only 16 pixel shaders and lower clock speeds than the PCI-E 7800 GT/GTX parts, they are only moderately faster than 6800 GT/X850 XT cards. Some of the overclocked models do better, though, and there's always end-user overclocking. For around $225, the BFG Tech BFGR78256GSOC GeForce 7800 GS AGP is probably the best price/performance high-end AGP card on the market.

Hopefully, ATI's recent launch of the X1950 Pro will help out, as it offers similar performance to the 7900 GT and it is available for both AGP and PCI-E platforms. Unfortunately, the AGP models currently carry a price premium of a round $75 ($300 total) and they are in limited supply, but they are the fastest stock AGP cards on the market - and they may also be the last higher-end AGP models that we will see, as most of the manufacturers are ready to abandon AGP for good.

Midrange GPUs
GPU	Pixel Shaders	Vertex Shaders	ROPs	Core Speed	RAM Speed	Memory Interface	Price
7600 GT	12	5	8	560	1400	128bit	$135
X1650 XT	24	8	8	575	1400	128bit	$156
7800 GS	16	6	8	375	1200	256bit	$230
X1800 GTO	12	8	12	500	1000	256bit	$145
X1800 XL	16	8	16	500	1000	256bit	$240*
X1900 AIW	48	8	16	500	960	256bit	$220
7800 GT	20	7	16	400	1000	256bit	$185*
7900 GS	20	7	16	450	1320	256bit	$186
7800 GTX	24	8	16	430	1200	256bit	$250*
X1800 XT	16	8	16	625	1500	256bit	$300*
X1900 GT v2.0	36	8	12	512	1320	256bit	$176
7900 GT	24	8	16	450	1320	256bit	$246
X1900 GT	36	8	12	575	1200	256bit	$176
X1950 Pro	36	8	12	575	1380	256bit	$206

High-End GPUs

Like we said with the Midrange GPUs, SLI and CrossFire probably aren't necessary even in the High-End GPU market these days. You can still look to buy one GPU now and plan on adding a second later, or if you already have one High-End GPU and you want to buy a second one now that is also reasonable. If you're looking to go out and buy a dual GPU setup right off the bat, however, in most instances you will be better off purchasing a single Extreme Performance GPU. We showed in our GeForce 8800 launch article that there are many instances where a single 8800 GTX is faster than X1950 XTX CrossFire and 7900 GTX SLI. Combine that with the fact that you don't have to worry about whether or not SLI/CrossFire will be supported in your game du jour, and once again we would take a single GPU that comes close in performance over two GPUs that may be faster in some cases, but will also consume more power and generate more heat and noise.

Not counting multi-GPU configurations, the High-End GPU market extends up to around $400. At the lower end of the price spectrum, there is a gray area where you could call certain cards either upper-midrange or lower-high-end designs. If we just forget about the semantics, though, the Radeon X1950 Pro is still one of the best overall cards. It offers competitive performance, and currently it is priced quite a bit cheaper than any of its direct competition. Most of the NVIDIA's 7900 cards are a bit difficult to recommend, given the current prices, making the 7950 GT the only GeForce card in this price range that we worth considering. Stock performance is going to be a tossup between the 7950 GT and X1950 Pro, but there are quite a few factory overclocked 7950 GT cards available and that helps to keep things interesting.


If you want more performance than the X1950 Pro, the X1950 XT 256MB cards cost about $40 more and give you a full 48 pixel shaders along with faster clock speeds, and they offer more bang for the buck than just about any other High-End GPU. If you want a 512MB GPU, Diamond and PowerColor make X1950 Pro 512MB cards that sell for around $270. X1900 XT/XTX cards with 512MB of RAM may also be available for $330-$400 if you can find them in stock. That's a pretty big "if", however, so you might find it easiest to simply move on to the X1950 XTX for about $375.


We don't have much love left for the 7900 GTX cards, as their prices are almost the same as the 8800 GTS cards and performance is definitely lower. If you're still after a 7900 GTX card, you might try picking up a 7900 GTO instead and give overclocking a shot. The GTO cards are becoming difficult to find, but for around $300 you can get near GTX performance. Some of the cards might even be rebadged GTX cards, so a BIOS flash would be all that's necessary to get them to behave like a full GTX. Your mileage may vary in such pursuits, and for most people we would recommend taking the next step and picking up a GeForce 8800 GTS rather than any of the more expensive High-End GPUs. After all, DirectX 10 and Windows Vista will be available in the next month or so, and the only cards that currently have DirectX 10 support are the GeForce 8800 models. If you can justify spending $300-$400 on a graphics card, you can probably justify spending $450 as well.

Once again, here's a quick summary of the High-End GPU market.

High-End GPUs
GPU	Pixel Shaders	Vertex Shaders	ROPs	Core Speed	RAM Speed	Memory Interface	Price
7900 GT	24	8	16	450	1320	256bit	$246
7950 GT	24	8	16	550	1400	256bit	$249
7800 GTX 512	24	8	16	550	1700	256bit	$460*
X1950 Pro	36	8	12	575	1380	256bit	$206
7900 GTO	24	8	16	650	1320	256bit	$310
X1900 XT 256MB	48	8	16	625	1450	256bit	$275
7900 GTX	24	8	16	650	1600	256bit	$430
X1900 XT	48	8	16	625	1450	256bit	$335
X1900 XTX	48	8	16	650	1550	256bit	$400
X1950 XT 256	48	8	16	625	1800	256bit	$259
X1950 XTX	48	8	16	650	2000	256bit	$378
X1950 XTX CF Edition	48	8	16	650	2000	256bit	$406

Extreme Performance GPUs

There are basically only three Extreme Performance GPUs currently available. Of course we have the GeForce 8800 GTS and GTX, but we also include the GeForce 7950 GX2 in this category. Besides the individual graphics cards, we will finally include all of the multi-GPU configurations that we feel are worth considering. We'll start this category by first taking a look at the various options available.

Extreme Performance GPUs
GPU	Pixel Shaders	Vertex Shaders	ROPs	Core Speed	RAM Speed	Memory Interface	Price
X1900 GT CF	72	16	24	575	1200	256bit	$352
X1950 Pro CF	72	16	24	575	1380	256bit	$412
7900 GT SLI	48	16	32	450	1320	256bit	$492
7950 GX2	48	16	32	500	1200	256bit	$465
8800 GTS	96	96	20	500	1600	320bit	$455
7950 GT SLI	48	16	32	550	1400	256bit	$498
7900 GTO SLI	48	16	32	650	1320	256bit	$620
7950 GX2 QSLI	96	32	64	500	1200	256bit	$930
7900 GTX SLI	48	16	32	650	1600	256bit	$860
X1900 XT CF	96	16	32	625	1450	256bit	$770
X1950 XTX CF	96	16	32	650	2000	256bit	$774
8800 GTX	128	128	24	575	1800	384bit	$603
8800 GTS SLI	192	192	40	500	1600	320bit	$910
8800 GTX SLI	256	256	48	575	1800	384bit	$1206

The first four configurations in the above table are generally going to be slower than a single 7950 GX2, so with the possible exception of X1900 GT CrossFire we would avoid them. We would also take a pass on the X1900 GT CrossFire configuration and go with a single High-End GPU at that price point, because the overall difference in performance isn't going to be much. In terms of performance, the 7950 GX2 actually ends up being faster than the 8800 GTS, but if you haven't purchased a GX2 already there's no real reason to purchase one now. Throw a bit of overclocking at the 8800 GTS and you can easily close the performance gap (and then some), plus you still get DirectX 10 support and lower noise levels.


Given that most of the remaining configurations can't even match the overall performance of a single GeForce 8800 GTX - they might prove faster in a few titles, but on average they will be slower - there's really no reason to purchase anything less than a GeForce 8800 series card or two if you are after extreme performance. Keep in mind that a single 8800 GTX is able to run most games at 2560x1600 with 4x antialiasing at reasonable frame rates, so unless you have a 30" display you may not feel any need to purchase more than one 8800 GTX card. If you simply want the best of the best and money is no object, of course dual 8800 GTX cards in SLI can't be beat for insane performance. Just make sure the rest of your system is up to snuff.

Somewhat similar to ATI's use of more pixel shader units on the X1900 cards in order to improve performance relative to the X1800, NVIDIA packs a whopping 96 or 128 shaders into the G80 cores. Unlike previous GPU designs (other than the Xbox 360's and Xenos chip), the G80 shaders are "unified shaders" and are able to function as pixel, vertex, or geometry shaders as appropriate. (Geometry shaders are one of the new additions to DirectX 10.) Each individual shader on the G80 is going to be less powerful than an equivalent shader on the G70 core, but the flexibility along with the sheer number of shader units makes for an extremely powerful, forward thinking architecture.


It's probably not too surprising that the NVIDIA GeForce 8800 line gets our recommendation right now for those of you who are after maximum graphics performance. There are no other graphics cards that can come near the performance level offered by the 8800 GTX, and no multi-GPU solution can touch the 8800 GTX SLI. Before going out and spending $600 or more on a graphics setup, however, there are some other things we need to mention.

If you decide to go out and purchase a GeForce 8800 card, you are definitely living on the "bleeding-edge" of technology. As has been the case with most new graphics technology launches (DirectX 7, 8, and 9), the drivers and software really aren't fully mature at present. We have seen at least one game already where the current NVIDIA drivers do not function properly, and we have heard various reports of additional games that don't work properly/at all with the G80 cards. If you don't like being a beta tester, you should probably wait at least another month or two before purchasing any DirectX 10 hardware.

That said, some of you are probably wondering what NVIDIA's competition can bring to the table in the near future. Unfortunately, we don't have the answer to that question, and all we know is that AMD/ATI is planning on releasing their next-generation DirectX 10 capable R600 hardware sometime in Q1'07 - some sources say early Q1, so it might only be another month or two before we can provide answers. We would expect the R600 to be competitive with the G80, and it wouldn't be too surprising to see it take the lead in some benchmarks. It also wouldn't be surprising to see driver issues similar to what NVIDIA is currently experiencing. Caveat emptor (let the buyer beware)!

The simple fact of the matter is that no one that really knows what R600 can do is going to talk right now. You can wait to see what happens in the next few months, but of course faster products are always coming out. If you've got the money, though, a GeForce 8800 GTX (or two) should keep you gaming happily for the next couple of years (once the "beta" issues are solved).

Would we actually recommend purchasing a GeForce 8800 GTX right now? That all depends on how much time you spend gaming. If you've got a Core 2 Extreme processor (or a Core 2 Duo overclocked to a similar level), a 30" LCD, lots of memory and hard drive space, and a power supply capable of delivering 1.21 Gigawatts of power, by all means go nuts. Hopefully you love to play the latest and greatest games at maximum detail levels as well, or there's a good chance all of that raw performance potential is going untapped, and don't be surprised if you run into some problems during the next few months while the drivers are ironed out. For the majority of people, a single high-end graphics card is going to be sufficient, with potentially fewer headaches as well.



Performance Overview

Now that we've covered all of the various graphics cards that are currently available, you might be wondering which solution is really best for your needs. Users looking to upgrade to a faster graphics card might also be wondering how their current hardware compares to newer hardware, and how much money they might need to spend on an upgrade. One of the critical factors in determining how much graphics power you need is going to be your display. If you don't run at high resolutions with antialiasing, you really don't need a ton of horsepower for most games. Running tons of benchmarks with most of the graphics cards we've mentioned on a variety of games is beyond the scope of this article; however, we've created a rough summary of what sort of resolutions and detail settings you should be able to get from the various GPUs on the latest games. (Older titles are less demanding, so you should be able to crank up the details/resolution.)

This is of course somewhat ad hoc, and individual opinions about what is acceptable will vary, but you should be able to get some general guidelines of what to purchase - either for a new system or as an upgrade to your current hardware.

Approximate Performance Ranking
GPU	Resolution	Detail	Price
Radeon X300 SE	640x480-800x600	Minimum-Med; 0xAA	$38
GeForce 6200 TC	640x480-800x600	Minimum-Med; 0xAA	$38
Radeon X300 LE	640x480-800x600	Minimum-Med; 0xAA	$70
GeForce 7100 GS	640x480-800x600	Minimum-Med; 0xAA	$49
Radeon X550 HM	640x480-1024x768	Low-Med; 0xAA	$47
Radeon X550	640x480-1024x768	Low-Med; 0xAA	$60
Radeon X700	640x480-1024x768	Low-Med; 0xAA	$75
GeForce 7300 LE	640x480-1024x768	Low-Med; 0xAA	$52
GeForce 7300 GS	640x480-1024x768	Low-Med; 0xAA	$59
Radeon X1300	800x600-1280x1024	Low-High; 0xAA	$52
GeForce 6600 LE	800x600-1280x1024	Low-High; 0xAA	$66
Radeon X1300 Pro	800x600-1280x1024	Low-High; 0xAA	$75
GeForce 7300 GT	1024x768-1280x1024	Low-High; 0xAA	$75
Radeon X1300 XT	1024x768-1280x1024	Low-High; 0xAA	$108
Radeon X1600 Pro	1024x768-1280x1024	Low-High; 0xAA	$91
GeForce 6600 GT	1024x768-1280x1024	Med-High; 0xAA	$85*
Radeon X1600 XT	1024x768-1280x1024	Med-High; 0xAA	$119
Radeon X1650 Pro	1024x768-1280x1024	Med-High; 0xAA	$105
Radeon X800	1024x768-1280x1024	Med-High; 0xAA	$85*
GeForce 6800	1024x768-1280x1024	Med-High; 0xAA	$90*
GeForce 7600 GS	1024x768-1280x1024	Med-High; 0xAA	$109
Radeon X1600 Pro CF	1024x768-1600x1200	Med-High; 0x-2xAA	$182
Radeon X800 Pro	1024x768-1600x1200	Med-High; 0x-2xAA	$125*
GeForce 6800 GT	1024x768-1600x1200	Med-High; 0x-2xAA	$175*
GeForce 6800 GS	1024x768-1600x1200	Med-High; 0x-2xAA	$135*
GeForce 6800 SLI	1024x768-1600x1200	Med-High; 0x-2xAA	$170*
GeForce 6600 GT SLI	1024x768-1600x1200	Med-High; 0x-2xAA	$170*
GeForce 7300 GT SLI	1024x768-1600x1200	Med-High; 0x-2xAA	$150
GeForce 6800 Ultra	1024x768-1600x1200	Med-High; 0x-2xAA	$175*
Radeon X850 XT	1024x768-1600x1200	Med-High; 0x-2xAA	$135*
GeForce 7600 GT	1024x768-1600x1200	Med-High; 0x-2xAA	$135
Radeon X1650 XT	1024x768-1600x1200	Med-High; 0x-2xAA	$156
GeForce 7800 GS	1024x768-1600x1200	Med-High; 0x-2xAA	$230
GeForce 7600 GS SLI	1024x768-1600x1200	Med-High; 0x-2xAA	$218
Radeon X1600 XT CF	1024x768-1600x1200	Med-High; 0x-2xAA	$238
Radeon X1650 Pro CF	1024x768-1600x1200	Med-High; 0x-2xAA	$210
Radeon X1800 GTO	1024x768-1600x1200	Med-High; 0x-4xAA	$145
GeForce 7900 GS	1024x768-1600x1200	Med-High; 0x-4xAA	$186
Radeon X1800 XL	1024x768-1600x1200	Med-High; 0x-4xAA	$240*
Radeon X1900 AIW	1024x768-1600x1200	Med-High; 0x-4xAA	$220
GeForce 7800 GT	1024x768-1600x1200	Med-High; 0x-4xAA	$185*
GeForce 6800 GS SLI	1024x768-1600x1200	Med-High; 0x-4xAA	$270*
GeForce 6800 GT SLI	1024x768-1600x1200	Med-High; 0x-4xAA	$350*
GeForce 6800 Ultra SLI	1024x768-1600x1200	Med-High; 0x-4xAA	$350*
GeForce 7800 GTX	1280x1024-1920x1200	High; 0x-4xAA	$250*
Radeon X1800 XT	1280x1024-1920x1200	High; 0x-4xAA	$300*
Radeon X1900 GT v2.0	1280x1024-1920x1200	High; 0x-4xAA	$176
GeForce 7900 GT	1280x1024-1920x1200	High; 0x-4xAA	$246
Radeon X1900 GT	1280x1024-1920x1200	High; 0x-4xAA	$176
Radeon X1650 XT CF	1280x1024-1920x1200	High; 0x-4xAA	$312
GeForce 7600 GT SLI	1280x1024-1920x1200	High; 0x-4xAA	$270
GeForce 7950 GT	1280x1024-1920x1200	High; 2x-4xAA	$249
GeForce 7800 GTX 512	1280x1024-1920x1200	High; 2x-4xAA	$460*
Radeon X1950 Pro	1280x1024-1920x1200	High; 2x-4xAA	$206
GeForce 7900 GTO	1280x1024-1920x1200	High; 2x-4xAA	$310
Radeon X1900 XT 256MB	1280x1024-1920x1200	High; 2x-4xAA	$275
GeForce 7800 GS SLI	1280x1024-1920x1200	High; 2x-4xAA	$460
GeForce 7800 GT SLI	1280x1024-1920x1200	High; 2x-4xAA	$370*
GeForce 7900 GS SLI	1280x1024-1920x1200	High; 2x-4xAA	$372
GeForce 7900 GTX	1280x1024-1920x1200	High; 2x-4xAA	$430
Radeon X1900 XT	1280x1024-1920x1200	High; 2x-4xAA	$335
Radeon X1900 XTX	1280x1024-1920x1200	High; 2x-4xAA	$400
Radeon X1950 XT 256	1280x1024-1920x1200	High; 2x-4xAA	$259
Radeon X1950 XTX	1280x1024-1920x1200	High; 2x-4xAA	$378
Radeon X1900 GT CF	1280x1024-1920x1200	High; 2x-4xAA	$352
Radeon X1800 XT CF	1280x1024-1920x1200	High; 2x-4xAA	$600*
Radeon X1950 Pro CF	1280x1024-1920x1200	High; 2x-4xAA	$412
GeForce 7800 GTX SLI	1280x1024-1920x1200	High; 2x-4xAA	$500*
GeForce 7900 GT SLI	1600x1200-1920x1200	High; 2x-4xAA	$492
GeForce 7950 GX2	1600x1200-2560x1600	High-Max; 0x-4xAA	$465
GeForce 8800 GTS	1600x1200-2560x1600	High-Max; 0x-4xAA	$455
GeForce 7950 GT SLI	1600x1200-2560x1600	High-Max; 0x-4xAA	$498
GeForce 7800 GTX 512 SLI	1600x1200-2560x1600	High-Max; 0x-4xAA	$920*
GeForce 7900 GTO SLI	1600x1200-2560x1600	High-Max; 0x-4xAA	$620
GeForce 7950 GX2 QSLI	1600x1200-2560x1600	High-Max; 2x-4xAA	$930
GeForce 7900 GTX SLI	1600x1200-2560x1600	High-Max; 2x-4xAA	$860
Radeon X1900 XT CF	1600x1200-2560x1600	High-Max; 2x-4xAA	$770
Radeon X1950 XTX CF	1600x1200-2560x1600	High-Max; 2x-4xAA	$774
GeForce 8800 GTX	1920x1200-2560x1600	High-Max; 2x-4xAA	$610
GeForce 8800 GTS SLI	1920x1200-2560x1600	Maximum; 2x-4xAA	$910
GeForce 8800 GTX SLI	1920x1200-2560x1600	Maximum; 4xAA	$1220

You can see in most instances that two slower GPUs will end up offering a worse price/performance ratio than a single faster GPU. That's why we've downplayed multi-GPU configurations throughout this article. Why buy two 7300 GT cards when you can get a single 7600 GT for less money? Until you max out the single GPU options, there's not much point in buying two GPUs.

In terms of the recommended settings, we generally feel that you should disable antialiasing and increase your resolution first, and only when you are running at your monitor's maximum/native resolution would we begin to worry about turning on antialiasing. That is especially true with LCDs, as running at anything less than the native resolution will tend to create a blurry effect. If you disagree and prefer lower resolutions with antialiasing, on average turning on 4xAA will have the same impact on performance as increasing the resolution one or two notches, i.e. 1024x768 4xAA will often run about as fast as 1280x1024-1600x1200 0xAA. There are of course exceptions to this rule, but it should serve as a good baseline estimate.

The recommended settings listed on the table above are basically an estimate of what settings more recent/demanding games will allow you to use - games like Prey, Oblivion, Neverwinter Nights 2, Company of Heroes, etc. There are a lot of overlapping resolutions listed, which is to be expected. For example, the difference between an X1800 XT and an X1800 XTX isn't going to be so great that the latter allows you to run higher detail settings. If you are looking at upgrading your graphics card, you'll want to get something that opens the possibility of running clearly improved resolutions/settings. As another example, we wouldn't recommend upgrading from a GeForce 6800 GT to a GeForce 7600 GT, because even though the latter is faster they are fundamentally similar in terms of performance. You would be better off spending a bit more money to get something like a Radeon X1950 Pro instead, so that you would truly notice a difference in performance.



Final Recommendations

We've mentioned a lot of GPUs worth considering on the previous pages, but some people just want a quick answer. If we had to pick one or two options for each price bracket as the overall "best", we would recommend the following. For the most part, similar cards from different manufacturers are going to offer the same level of performance. Pay attention to GPU and memory clock speeds if you are comparing two cards from different manufacturers, however, particularly in the less expensive markets where there's a lot of flexibility given to the card manufacturers.

GPU Recommendation Summary
Class	GPU	Price
Integrated 775	ECS P4M800Pro-M V2 + E6300 Bundle CPU = $160 value	$160
Integrated 775	ASUS P5L-MX 945G	$83
Integrated AM2	Abit NF-M2 nForce 6150	$96
Cheapest	Sapphire 100190L Radeon X550 HyperMemory	$47
Budget	EVGA 256-P2-N443-LX GeForce 7300GT	$75
Lower-Midrange	EVGA 256-P2-N615-TX GeForce 7600GT $20 MIR	$135 - $20
Midrange Overclocking	EVGA 256-P2-N624-AR GeForce 7900GS $20 MIR	$185 - $20
Upper-Midrange	Sapphire 100176L Radeon X1950 Pro	$206
Lower High-End	Foxconn FV-N79GM3D2-HP GeForce 7950GT 512MB $35 MIR - Includes free gamepad	$270 - $35
Lower High-End	Sapphire 100186L Radeon X1950XT 256MB	$255
High-End	Sapphire 100177L Radeon X1950 XTX	$386
Extreme Overclocking	EVGA 640-P2-N821-AR GeForce 8800 GTS $20 MIR	$455 - $20
Extreme	EVGA 768-P2-N831-AR GeForce 8800GTX	$603
Ultra Extreme	2 X EVGA 768-P2-N831-AR GeForce 8800GTX (SLI)	$1206

If you're looking for a new graphics card for yourself or someone else, hopefully we have been able to shed some light on the situation. Once again from all of us at AnandTech, Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays (and whatever other appropriate greetings you might want)!