After using my GeForce4 MX for about four years, I finally decided to upgrade my computer in order to play games such as Far Cry, F.E.A.R., Half-Life II, and of course Doom III. Shopping for a graphic card is painful. Merely 4 yrs away from the game field, I realized that graphic card is the most rapid upgrading component in the PC industry. Originally, I planned to spend about $69 for either 9800 or 6600 which is the minimum GPU to run those game mentioned above. However, after 3 months of extensive searching, I concluded that a man can’t fight against evil empires alone. Here’s why.

The memory RAM technology moved from Rambus to SDRAM, DDR and now DDR2. If you happen to have a ghetto computer installed with Rambus RAM, you can sell them for a fortune since Rambus RAM is no longer available. That’s the same logic those evil companies use to force end users to upgrade their entire system. Graphic Cards nowadays run through either AGP or PCIE. The PCIE was introduced two years ago, and has replaced AGP as the standard graphics slot. PCI Express offers two to four times more bandwidth than AGP, and almost all new video cards come in the PCI Express format. I can easily find a 6800 PCIE priced less than $79 but I can’t find a 6600 priced less than $129. You end up spending more money for the previous generation technology. So I gave up fighting and did what those evil companies planned: I upgraded my entire system.

With 3 months of GPU research, I broke down graphic cards into 4 tiers coz most end users are looking for information in terms of the difference between xt850 and xt800 or 2900xt vs. and 8800GTS. Well, you’ll never be able to find out through ATI’s or NVIDIA’s site because they intentionally make it complicated to compare their products with competitors so that they can confuse the customers. Same idea like financial products. For instance, the x1300 with 512mb onboard memory charges you $199. If you have a graphic card translator, it means crappy GPU with more memory and in the game world, GPU is the one that matters.

As of today, the most advanced graphic card is GeForce 8800 GTX Ultra and most recent release is HD 3850 So if you’re reading this several years later. Use the card as a milestone and push everything below accordingly.

Few notes to help you to read:

• ATI's previous generation chips (the X800, X700, X600, and X300) cannot render HDR at all, I have to move these cards to the 2nd Tier or below to indicate this.

• Anything with 12 pixel pipes and fewer will struggle to render some games such as Oblivion with all the settings enabled. You're going to have to give up graphical quality to get decent frame rates on a midrange card.

• PE in the Radeon cards means Platinum Edition. This is usually the best one available of each type.

• ATI SE is usually the simpler version with lower cost

• Nvidia these usually consist of a standard a GT version and an Ultra version. ATI use a standard a Pro version and a XT version. Generally speaking the fastest card is released and the others are derivatives of them but with less power, and occasionally less functionality.

 

Tier	Name	Pixel Pipelines	Texture Units per Pipe	Vertex Shaders	Note/Chipset Technologies
New Generation
New Gen	Geforce 8800 Ultra
New Gen	Geforce 8800 GTS 512mb OC				G92
New Gen	Geforce 8800 GTX				G80
New Gen	Geforce 8800 GTS 512mb				G92
New Gen	Geforce 8800 GT				G92
New Gen	Geforce 8800 GTS Overlocking 640mb				G80
New Gen	Geforce 8800 GTS 640mb
New Gen	ATI HD 3850
New Gen	ATI HD 3750
New Gen	ATI HD 2900XT
New Gen	Geforce 8800 GTS 320mb
1st Tier	Geforce 7950GX2
1st Tier	X1950XTX	48		8
1st Tier	Geforce 7950GT 512mb
1st Tier	Geforce 7900	24
1st Tier	Geforce 7800 GTX 512	24	24	8
1st Tier	Geforce 7800 GTX	24	24	8
1st Tier	Geforce 7800 GT	20		7
1st Tier	Geforce 7800 GS	16	16	6
1st Tier	X1900 XTX	16	16	8
1st Tier	X1900 XT	16	16	8
1st Tier	X1800 XT	16	16	8
1st Tier	X1800 XL	16	16	8
1st Tier	Radeon X850 PE	16	1	6
1st Tier	Radeon X850 XT	16	1	6
1st Tier	Radeon X850 Pro	12	1	6
2nd Tier	Geforce 7600 GT	12		5	Better version of GS
2nd Tier	Geforce 7600 GS	12		5	Replacement for 6600
2nd Tier	X1600 XT	12	4	5
2nd Tier	X1600 Pro	12	4	5
2nd Tier	Radeon X800 XT PE	16	1	6	3Dc
2nd Tier	Radeon X800 XT	16	1	6	Videoshader HD
2nd Tier	Radeon X800 XL	16	1	6	HyperZ HD
2nd Tier	Radeon X800 Pro	12	1	6	Smoothvision HD
2nd Tier	Radeon X800	12	1	6	Smartshader HD
2nd Tier	Radeon X700 XT	8	1	6	3Dc
2nd Tier	Radeon X700 Pro	8	1	6	Videoshader HD
2nd Tier	Geforce 6800 Ultra	16	1	6	Intellisample 3.0
2nd Tier	Geforce 6800 GT	16	1	6	Ultra Shadow II
2nd Tier	Geforce 6800 GT OC	16	1	16	CineFX 3.0, GDDR-3 memory, Intellisample 3.0, High-Precision Dynamic-Range (HPDR) Technology