If we had an award for the "best bang for the buck", it would require little thinking to give it to ATI's Radeon HD 5850. For the price, it offers incredible power, superb power consumption, and of course, DirectX 11 support. We're taking a look at ASUS' version here, which along with Dirt 2, includes a surprisingly useful overclocking tool.
It's no secret that the Radeon HD 5870 is the fastest GPU on the planet, but what do you get when you take it, toss in a more robust cooler, quieter operation, higher clock speeds and not one, but two free games? You get the Vapor-X, from Sapphire. Despite all that it packs in above the reference version, it modestly carries just a $20 premium.
AMD may have released its first Evergreen GPUs mere weeks ago, but don't think it's slowing down for anybody. The company has followed-up with its first mid-range parts, belonging to the HD 5700 series. Performance is much more modest on these new cards, but no features have been scrapped. It's all here... DirectX 11, Eyefinity and more.
NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 260 is not a new card. In fact, it's been available for over a year in its 216 Core form. So is it even worth a look at today? Where Gigabyte's "Super Overclock" version is concerned, yes. Although it costs less than a stock GTX 275, this new card beat it out in almost every single game and setting we put it through.
Have just $100 to splurge on a new graphics card? Is having low power consumption and low temperatures important to you? If so, the HD 4770 certainly deserves your attention. This budget card handled each one of our games at 1920x1080 just fine, overclocks like a dream and has power and temp numbers worth drooling over.
| Title | Author | Date | Categories |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sapphire Radeon HD 4870 Vapor-X 2GB | Rob Williams | May 4, 2009 | AMD-Based GPU |
| ATI Radeon HD 4890 & NVIDIA GeForce GTX 275 | Rob Williams | April 3, 2009 | AMD-Based GPU, NVIDIA-Based GPU |
| EVGA GeForce GTS 250 Superclocked | Rob Williams | March 3, 2009 | NVIDIA-Based GPU |
| EVGA GeForce GTX 285 SSC Edition | Rob Williams | March 1, 2009 | NVIDIA-Based GPU |
| Sapphire Radeon HD 4670 GDDR4 & HD 4830 | Rob Williams | February 25, 2009 | AMD-Based GPU |
| Zotac GeForce GTX 285 & GTX 295 | Rob Williams | January 27, 2009 | NVIDIA-Based GPU |
| NVIDIA's ION Platform: Hands-On Impressions | Greg King | January 23, 2009 | NVIDIA-Based GPU |
| Sapphire Radeon HD 4850 X2 2GB | Rob Williams | January 7, 2009 | AMD-Based GPU |
| ATI HD 4870 1GB vs. NVIDIA GTX 260/216 896MB: Follow-Up | Rob Williams | December 8, 2008 | AMD-Based GPU, NVIDIA-Based GPU |
| ATI HD 4870 1GB vs. NVIDIA GTX 260/216 896MB | Rob Williams | November 24, 2008 | AMD-Based GPU, NVIDIA-Based GPU |
| ASUS GeForce EN9800GT Matrix | Rob Williams | November 21, 2008 | NVIDIA-Based GPU |
| XFX GeForce GTX 260 Black Edition | Rob Williams | October 31, 2008 | NVIDIA-Based GPU |
| ASUS EN9800GTX+ 512MB Dark Knight | Rob Williams | October 21, 2008 | NVIDIA-Based GPU |
| Palit Radeon HD 4870 Sonic Dual Edition | Rob Williams | October 7, 2008 | AMD-Based GPU |
| Palit Radeon HD 4870 512MB | Rob Williams | September 1, 2008 | AMD-Based GPU |
| NVIDIA to Enable SLI on Select X58-based Motherboards | Rob Williams | August 28, 2008 | NVIDIA-Based GPU |
| Lucid HYDRA Engine Multi-GPU Technology | Rory Buszka | August 25, 2008 | Video Cards |
| Clearing Up Misconceptions about CUDA and Larrabee | Rob Williams | August 13, 2008 | Video Cards |
| Palit Radeon HD 4870 X2 1GB - AMD Reclaims GPU Supremacy | Rob Williams | August 12, 2008 | AMD-Based GPU |
| NVIDIA's PhysX: Performance and Status Report - Part 2 | Rob Williams | August 6, 2008 | NVIDIA-Based GPU |
| Intel Opens Up About Larrabee | Rob Williams | August 4, 2008 | Video Cards |
| Palit GeForce GTX 280 1GB | Rob Williams | July 10, 2008 | NVIDIA-Based GPU |
| NVIDIA's PhysX: Performance and Status Report | Rob Williams | June 27, 2008 | NVIDIA-Based GPU |
| AMD Tunes Back In with All-In-Wonder HD | Rob Williams | June 26, 2008 | AMD-Based GPU, TV Tuners |
| ASUS EAH4850 512MB | Rob Williams | June 25, 2008 | AMD-Based GPU |
| Splitting The Atom: NVIDIA Tegra | Rob Williams | June 2, 2008 | Video Cards |
| Palit GeForce 9600GSO Sonic 768MB | Rob Williams | May 22, 2008 | NVIDIA-Based GPU |
| ASUS EN9600GT Silent 512MB | Rob Williams | May 5, 2008 | NVIDIA-Based GPU |
| ASUS EN9800GTX 512MB | Rob Williams | April 9, 2008 | NVIDIA-Based GPU |
| Gigabyte 9600 GT 512MB | Rob Williams | April 7, 2008 | NVIDIA-Based GPU |
| ASUS EN8800GTS TOP 512MB | Rob Williams | April 2, 2008 | NVIDIA-Based GPU |
| ASUS EN9600GT TOP 512MB | Rob Williams | March 31, 2008 | NVIDIA-Based GPU |
| Palit GeForce 8800GT Super+1GB | Rob Williams | February 27, 2008 | NVIDIA-Based GPU |
| ASUS EN8800GT TOP 512MB | Rob Williams | February 25, 2008 | NVIDIA-Based GPU |
| Palit GeForce 8600GT Super+1GB | Rob Williams | February 19, 2008 | NVIDIA-Based GPU |
| ASUS EAH3870 X2 1GB | Rob Williams | February 18, 2008 | AMD-Based GPU |
| Sparkle Calibre P850+ 8500GT 512MB | Rob Williams | August 21, 2007 | NVIDIA-Based GPU |
| Gigabyte 8600GTS 256MB Silent Pipe 3 | Rob Williams | August 13, 2007 | NVIDIA-Based GPU |
| eVGA e-GeForce 7900GS KO | Rob Williams | June 18, 2007 | NVIDIA-Based GPU |
| Sapphire X1050 and X1550 | Rob Williams | March 5, 2007 | AMD-Based GPU |
| ASUS EAX1950PRO 256MB | Rob Williams | December 12, 2006 | AMD-Based GPU |
| ASUS EAX1650XT 256MB | Rob Williams | December 5, 2006 | AMD-Based GPU |
| PowerColor X1650 PRO | Greg King | November 29, 2006 | AMD-Based GPU |
| ASUS EN7950GT HTDP 512MB | Rob Williams | November 21, 2006 | NVIDIA-Based GPU |
| ATI Radeon x1950 Pro Preview | Greg King | October 17, 2006 | AMD-Based GPU |
| Ageia PhysX: First Look | Greg King | May 5, 2006 | Video Cards |
| AGEIA PhysX.. First Impressions | Greg King | March 28, 2006 | Video Cards |
| PowerColor X1600 XT BRAVO Edition | Rob Williams | March 13, 2006 | AMD-Based GPU |
| eVGA 7800 GT PCI-E 256MB | Rob Williams | August 22, 2005 | NVIDIA-Based GPU |
| BFG PCI-E 6800 GT OC 256MB | Rob Williams | June 15, 2005 | NVIDIA-Based GPU |