Penny Wise, Performance Foolish? Six Budget Videocards Reviewed

Posted 07/23/2009 at 7:30am | by Michael Brown

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Separation of Powers

AMD vs. Nvidia: Competing Features

AMD and Nvidia both trumpet extra “features” that are exclusive to their respective platforms. Nvidia’s unique technologies are CUDA, PhysX, and GeForce 3D Vision, while AMD has ATI Stream, an integrated digital audio engine capable of sending audio over HDMI without any internal cabling, and support for DirectX 10.1 and Shader Model 4.1. Of these features, the only one that’s of any significant value to someone buying a cheap videocard is AMD’s solution for routing audio through HDMI. The RV770 has an integrated Realtek 7.1-channel audio device, so it can output surround sound directly to DVI or HDMI. All Nvidia solutions require an internal S/PDIF cable.

CUDA and ATI Stream are the two competitors’ respective GPGPU technologies. GPGPU stands for “general purpose graphics processing unit,” and enables a GPU to run applications that are typically handled by a CPU. Despite the hype, neither company’s approach has gained significant traction in the marketplace, and by the time they do (if they ever do), you’ll be ready for another videocard.
 
PhysX is an API for accelerating physics processing in games. Nvidia likes to advertise it as a “free” benefit, but it’s not free in terms of computational power. To wit: If a card based on the GeForce 9800 GT can’t run Crysis at 60fps, it doesn’t have any reserve horsepower for physics processing. The same goes for GeForce 3D Vision, Nvidia’s stereoscopic vision product.

AMD’s support for DirectX 10.1 and Shader Model 4.1 is largely irrelevant, since so few games take advantage of this interim release.

Frame Rate Booster

Sacrificing Eye Candy for Speed

You can’t have your cake and eat it too. If you want to boost your game’s frame rate on an inexpensive videocard, you’ll need to sacrifice some of the game’s visual features. It’s best to do this on a game-by-game basis, either by setting up individual profiles using the videocard’s control panel, or by accessing the game’s graphics options menu. This way, you can utilize antialiasing on a game like Call of Duty 4, but turn it off when you play a more computationally intense title like Crysis.

Alternatively, you can make your tweaks using the global settings in the videocard’s control panel, which will affect every game. Here are our suggestions, in order of their impact on frame rate (from highest impact to least).

• Lower the resolution. While it’s true that any game will look better running at the display’s native resolution, playing a slide show is no fun at all.

• Turn off or reduce the level of advanced visual features such as DirectX 10 features, soft shadows, shadow filtering, soft smoke edges, water reflections, and so on.

• Reduce the game’s antialiasing level or turn it off entirely. This will result in jagged edges, but it will take a big load off the GPU.

• Reduce the level of anisotropic filtering. This will reduce the quality of textures viewed at an oblique angle, such as those applied to objects on the horizon.

• If the game supports it, try switching from high dynamic range lighting to bloom lighting.

And the Final Analysis...

Start collecting those pennies for your next budget PC building project—inexpensive videocards aren’t always crap

Considering there’s only a $90 price gap separating the least-expensive GeForce GTX 275 card (arguably the best budget solution) from the most-expensive GeForce GTX 285 card (arguably the best high-end choice, if you exclude dual-GPU cards), should enthusiasts give any budget videocard a second thought?
 
In our view, the price/performance ratio of the high-end cards more than justifies their steeper price tags. But $90 is $90, and if you’re a gamer and $250 is the absolute most you can spend on a videocard, you have a plethora of choices to consider. In this roundup, HIS’s $220 Radeon HD 4870 card delivered the best bang for the buck. EVGA’s GeForce GTX 275, meanwhile, didn’t deliver a significant jump in gaming performance—certainly not enough to justify a $30 price bump. On the other hand, PhysX does lend visual flair to the few games that take advantage of it, and PhysX is available only on Nvidia GPUs.
 
If you’re looking for other forms of computer entertainment—movies, for instance—you won’t gain anything by moving up to a more expensive class of videocard. In fact, these cheaper cards will serve your needs better because they require less cooling and therefore produce less noise. If you’re looking for a videocard to drop into your home-theater PC, PowerColor’s Radeon HD 4850 is the best choice among the cards we tested, thanks to the Radeon’s integrated HD audio and the presence of an HDMI port on the card’s mounting bracket.
 
Nvidia’s solution—using an internal S/PDIF cable—is something of a kludge, and it won’t work at all if your motherboard doesn’t have a S/PDIF header. Then again, DRM restrictions prevent any PC from transporting HD audio from a Blu-ray disc (we’re talking Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio) to an A/V receiver.

Bottom line: There’s never been a better time to be in the market for a new videocard. And you don’t have to drain what’s left of your massacred 401(k) to pay for it.