Feature Articles

2007 Graphics Performance Charts

By Vincent Chang - 6 Sep 2007

Overall Performance & Value

Overall Performance & Value

Having seen how the cards perform and rank in the various benchmarks shown, which card is the top performer? Well, since the two generations of cards differ so much in terms of features, especially with the new GeForce 8 and Radeon HD 2000 series having DirectX 10 support and dedicated video processors (for the most part), we decided that it was only relevant to have such an overall performance ranking for the new cards, as these are the ones any new buyer will be looking at now.

Hence, this comparison table will not include the GeForce 7 or the Radeon X1000 series. Next, we had to choose from the benchmarks which ones to use for our ranking. In this case, we were forced by circumstances to eliminate some benchmarks; for example, we could not use Supreme Commander as we lacked scores for the Radeon HD 2900 XT for it. And finally, we had to select resolutions and settings for the scores and we chose 1280 x 1024 since that resolution is not beyond the low end cards and we also included scores with and without anti-aliasing enabled.

With that done, we used the slowest performing card, the GeForce 8400 GS as the base, represented as 1.00 in our chart and then proceeded to find out the percentage gain/loss over this base card. For example, a score of 10 in our chart would mean that this card is 10 times faster than the base (GeForce 8400 GS) on the average in the benchmarks we selected and at 1280 x 1024 resolution, with and without AA. From our scores, we derived the following table, listing the aggregate performance and then the chart that follows:

Deriving the Performance Price Ratio
GPU/VPU Aggregate Performance Index Street Price ($US) Performance / Price Index
8800 Ultra 768MB 10.67 599 1.78
NVIDIA GeForce 8880 GTX 768MB 10.11 499 2.03
NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTS 640MB 7.24 369 1.96
NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTS 320MB 6.79 279 2.43
NVIDIA GeForce 8600 GTS 256MB 3.19 153 2.08
NVIDIA GT 256MB 2.33 104 2.24
NVIDIA GeForce 8500 GT 256MB 1.62 69 2.35
NVIDIA GeForce 8400 GS 256MB DDR2 1.00 46 2.17
ATI Radeon HD 2900 XT 512MB DDR4 8.45 384 2.20
ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT 256MB DDR4 2.52 135 1.87
ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT 256MB DDR3 2.10 108 1.94
ATI Radeon HD 2400 XT 256MB 1.42 73 1.95

Now that we have seen how they rank from top to bottom, the next question any consumer would ask is which card gives the best value for money. To assess this, price has to come into the equation and to derive this, we took the prices from one of the most popular online electronics and computer stores, Newegg. The prices sampled are the lowest possible retail price for a standard version of the card, hence ruling out overclocked or passively cooled special editions. These are the boxed versions and not OEM or refurbished. In short, the prices are probably the lowest you can find for these graphics cards online at Newegg. While there could be cheaper alternatives elsewhere, we think that they are representative enough.

So which card is the best value for money? This is shown by the performance / price index below. As you can tell, initially it may seem wrong as some of the entry level cards scored rather high here. However, it does make sense since although these cards do provide good value, their value is limited to their niche category and they fail utterly in more demanding games and applications. (Not surprisingly, the extremely expensive GeForce 8800 Ultra is not really worth it.) Therefore, we recommend that you look at which card is the best value within its performance category and these segments are color-coded in our chart below.

Final Words

While our list of graphics cards in this article is not as comprehensive as we would have liked, the end results are useful from both the performance/enthusiast point of view and also for the average consumer. Enthusiasts would no doubt want the numbers to justify their expensive purchases while the typical consumer will want to get the most for their dollar. The GeForce 8800 GTS 320MB showed that all the talk about its value proposition are right on the mark as it gave the best value. Even though it's considered a high-end card, prices are not beyond most consumers too (at least it's cheaper than a brand new console, Wii excepted). Of course, you'll also have to factor in your exact performance needs by looking at the raw performance, and in this case, the GeForce 8800 GTS 320MB edition doesn't fare well beyond a resolution of 1600x1200 due to a small frame buffer. It however does swell if you don't need very high resolution gaming. This is where the runner-up, the Radeon HD 2900 XT comes into play as it was not far behind in the GeForce 88800 GTS 320MB in the performance/price index, but delivered reasonably well for high resolution performance needs. Still trailing the raw performance leaders, this also justifies ATI's decision to price the Radeon HD 2900 XT competitively to make up for its shortfalls, which has worked to its advantage as highlighted in our index.

As for the mid-range segment, the GeForce 8600 GT outdid its more powerful cousin, the GTS in terms of value. For the entry level category, the GeForce 8500 GT emerged as the leader and with a lower price tag than the Radeon HD 2400 XT, it's no surprise. Yet another finding from this article is that we are lacking new products to address the wide performance discrepancy between the GeForce 8600 GTS and 8800 GTS segment. Currently, the older GeForce 7900 series and the Radeon X1950 series sit in between this lucrative space. More than a couple of months have passed since the complete DX10 lineup from both graphics giants debuted, but there has been nothing in sight to address this segment yet.

At this point of time, we hope this comparison article would be useful for some of you when making that tough purchasing decision, especially for cards that are closely matched. With more DirectX 10 games slated to launch before the end of the year, there may finally be the games to utilize the new hardware available today.

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