I know for a fact the majority of the PC users these days do not go for the highest end graphic card they can find when they are making a new build. There are many of us that are looking for a solid card while not hurting our bank too much. Of course there are always those with deep pockets and are looking for bragging rights for the highest framerates possible in Crysis but I'll leave that for another topic. At the end of the day, both NVidia and AMD knows that the mainstream market is where the highest sales will be registered.
Note that although these cards are grouped in the mainstream market, I consider them to be of the higher mainstream portion as these cards can get you the magic 30 frames minimum in Crysis for 1280X1024 so do not underestimate them!
NVidia 8800GT 512MB
I did my first build in 2007. I bought the NVidia 8800GT card which was just launched at that time and I have yet to find a game I cannot play today at 1280X1024 with all high details with it. I remembered it costed me RM860 at that time. It was still considered a very good buy due to its price to performance ratio that no other card could beat. It was able to give nearly 8800GTX performance while priced 50% cheaper than it. It also consumed less power due to its new G92 core. At that time, you just could not ask for more.
Radeon 4850 512MB
Then we had the new Radeon 4800 cards, the Radeon 4850 and 4870. While the 4870 is still considered the high-end card (a new 1GB version has been introduced now) even till now, the 4850 was unchalleged as the new bang for buck champion. But the impact it made was not as impressive as when the 8800GT first launched. This was because the gains 4850 have over the 8800GT was not much after considereing the card is priced slightly higher that the 8800gt. It will make alot of difference only for new upgraders (from older hardware) or people looking for a new build as Crossfire was also a big factor to consider. SLI was proprietry to NVidia at that time and the efficiency of the Core 2 processors by Intel meant more people owned Intel motherboards that only support CF. You could consider the 4850 as the first card from AMD/ATI that could challenge the value for money previously held by NVidia.
Radeon 4770 512MB GDDR5
At present, we have a new attempt by AMD/ATI to hold on to the king of price vs performance crown from , the Radeon 4770. This is the world's first 40nm card combined with 512MB of very fast Qimonda GDDR5 memory (The only other card with GDDR5 is the 4870). The card has a memory bus of 128bits which is pretty low but compensation from the GDDR5's larger bandwidth compared to GDDR3s makes the actual bandwidth offered comparable to 256bit cards. The 4770 is targetted at the low cost HTPC market as well as the everyday gamer. It launched with a price of USD109.99 and can be found in LowYat for as low as RM350 each which is pretty awesome. The closest competitor from NVidia from pricepoint perspective is the 9600GT but there is actually no competition when looking at the benchmark results :).
The 8800gt has sinced been refreshed as the current 9800GT with slightly better performance and the price has dropped 50% (you can easily find one for about RM400+ these days! OMG!!). The 4850s are also hovering in the RM400 price zones as well. As you can see, the economic situation does have an impact to the PC world. You can today get the same performance levels as 2 yrs back for 50% less cost.
The 4770 performs generally between the 4850 and the new 9800GT(RM100 more expensive) with the 4850 at the front. But when overclocking comes into play, which is very much the forte of the 4770 due to its 40nm fab process and dual slot cooling (which I think is an overkill), it easily surges ahead of both the cards and even the 9800GTX at some games. However, cranking the resolution up to 1080p, it falls back to its place behind the higher memory equipped 9800GTX but still maintained its lead over the 4850 and 9800GT. AMD/ATI is doing really well!
Anybody wants to take my 8800GT? It has voltage mod jumpers :)
I want to get 2 of these in CF in my PC, water cool them and just push and push the core clocks
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