Comparison Charts for old and new Video Cards

[Venator]

http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/132I found these excellent comparison charts for video cards at hardwaresecrets.com

I was trying to figure out where my at one point top-of-the-line nVidia 7800 GTX 512 MB fit into the scheme of today's cards, and this helped tremendously in perspective. That old dog ain't as fast as it used to be (but I got it brand new as a warranty replacement for a crappy ATI card) but it isn't all that bad...

These charts will also help anyone with a leg-up on doing research for purchase. Read the fine print. Correct me if I'm wrong, but it appears that the "bottom line statistic" is the pixels/clock rate, all other things feeding into that.

nVidia chipped GPUs
http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/printpage/132/1

ATI chipped GPUs
http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/printpage/131/1

 

[ivanmoe]

This is a complicated issue, especially considering that there's no formal benchmark for CFS3.

I say that because you can't look at specs alone, and draw any definitive conclusions as to how our game is going to run on a given hardware configuration.

For example, the last time that I read up on it, the Nvidia 8800 Ultra was still the best card for running FSX, besting any of the newer cards from Red or Green.

I realize that these comments aren't very reassuring as folks go about upgrading to play P3, but that's just sorta where we are at the moment.

 

[Cameljockey]

For those who just want to know where their card stands in the whole scheme of things without all of the numbers, here's a graphics card heirarchy chart that shows the worst to the best of Nvidia and ATI based cards.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/best-graphics-card,2064-7.html

CJ

 

[Venator]

Thanks CJ, I saw your list in a thread before, and couldn't find it to append here.

Ivanmoe, yes I agree it is a complex issue, but you have to start somewhere if you're looking to upgrade...

 

[Militant_Danny]

http://www.gpureview.com/database.php

That's not a bad place to go either for shader counts and stream processor stats sort of info. You can do comparisons and what not with a little surfing.

 

[leonard]

3dMark 06

I'm guessing that since we won't be using the features of DX10 that the most relevant generic benchmark is still 3DMark 06. By that general bench the 1GB Radeon 4870 is a very good option... and of course with the extra tex memory would be an advantage over the 512 MB boards.

This is from Hot Hardware.. link follows.. the review includes Half Life 2 etc where results are similar except that the 4870 then outperforms the GTX 260 by about 5%..

http://hothardware.com/Articles/PowerColor-PCS-HD-4870-1GB-GDDR5/