4/2/08 - Graphics cards are the most competitive component in the PC market now. The graphics card market it changing so rapidly that it is hard to keep track of what is the best. Performance for an individual user varies though. A lot of what determines the best card for you will be if your PC motherboard supports SLI or CrossFire configurations. With all of this in mind, here are my selections for the best performance graphics cards and why.
While there are newer multiple core graphics cards on the market, the GeForce 8800 GTS 512MB still offers some of the best performance on the market. In fact, two of these cards can outperform the new GeForce 9800 GX2 card. The price of an SLI 8800 GTS setup is cheaper than the 9800 GX2 as well. The BFG Ttechnology 8800 GTS OC offers a slightly high core clock speed of 675MHz compared to the base 650MHz. The 512MB of memory is pretty much the sweet spot right now providing enough for high resolution gaming or advanced filtering.
The GeForce 9800 GX2 is the latest graphics card offering from NVIDIA that takes two of the new G92 graphics processors and places them onto a single graphics card for SLI on a card. This effectively gives the highest performance levels possible to those who have a PC system with a single PCI-Express x16 graphics card slot. It comes packed with 1GB of memory (512MB for each GPU) that let's it run at extremely high resolutions with advanced filtering. At this point, none of the manufacturers looks to be changing the stock core clock or memory speeds. Because of this, I've elected the eVGA card because of their excellent warranty and their Step-Up program to upgrade your card within 90-days of purchase if something better comes along.
The GeForce 8800 GT was a remarkable graphics core when it was first released. It offered a large amount of performance without a huge price tag. As new cards have come out, the price has only gotten better but the performance is still quite good. Unlike the 8800 GTS cards, the 8800 GT uses a side card size cooling solution that allows it to fit in more desktops while providing very similar performance levels. The XFX card does some overclocking over the reference design by providing a 670MHz core clock speed and 1950 MHz memory clock. While there are a few 8800 GT cards available with 1GB of memory, they don't really offer any improved performance over the original 512MB versions.
AMD's 3000 series Radeon graphics processors weren't earth shattering in terms of performance. They were a decent mid-range solution, but still couldn't really compete with NVIDIA's high end cards. The Radeon HD 3870 X2 boosts the performance levels by providing two HD 3870 graphics cores on a single board. This provides a CrossFire solution in a single PCI-Express x16 card. While it does significantly boost performance over the single HD 3870 cards, it doesn't live up to the same levels of performance as the new 9800 GX2 boards. Of course, with the new CrossFire X support, it is possible to use two of these for even greater performance, but the desktop PC needs a very high performance power supply to meet the energy demands.
The GeForce 8800 GTX is essentially an outdated graphics core. Sure it still provides strong overall performance but there are more economical solutions available on the market. The clock speed of the EVGA Superclocked card at 621MHz is still below those of the newer 8800 GT and GTS boards. It does offer 768MB of memory on the card compared to the more standard 512MB. This is probably one of the key reasons for its demise and higher cost. So why have it on the list? Performance is still quite good and the eVGA step-up program does allow users to upgrade to a newer card within 90-days of purchase. At least this provides some level of insurance against it truly becoming obsolete.
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