ExtremeTech's Graphics Card Upgrade Guide
It's that time of year again. Autumn in the northern hemisphere is the time when customers start opening their wallets, and component makers dish out new products in a bid to grab marketshare. Gamers upgrade their systems (or build/buy new ones) in preparation for the flood of fourth-quarter games. Our Fall CPU Upgrade Guide already told you what to expect from AMD and Intel as we close out the year, but that's only one part of your system consideration. Just as important-perhaps even more important to some-is the graphics card. If you don't think your system has the muscle to handle new game releases like Crysis, Call of Duty 4, or Team Fortress 2, and you're planning an upgrade, we're here to help.
There's a graphics card for every budget and every system. From expensive, high-end, power-hungry monsters like the GeForce 8800 GTX or Radeon HD 2900 XT to inexpensive cards designed to wean you off motherboard-down integrated graphics, primary competitors ATI (part of AMD) and Nvidia have a card for you.
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Sub $100
The best cards in this price range vary depending on the sale of the day at popular e-tail sites. You can reliably find Radeon HD 2600 XT cards for around $100, and that's a good buy. It's considerably better than the 2600 Pro-don't confuse the two.
On the Nvidia side, it can be hard to find the GeForce 8600 cards under $100. What you'll find in GeForce 8 series cards is the 8500 GT, which is not as speedy as the slightly older GeForce 7600 GT (avoid the GS). So you might want to go a generation back to get the best performance for your dollar.
$100 - $200
Radeon HD 2600 XT cards come in at the middle of this price range, and are a pretty decent mid-range card. You'll probably get higher frame rates in DX9 games with a Radeon X1950 Pro, which sell for right around $200. It all depends on how much you want to spend.
For an Nvidia card in this price range, look for the GeForce 8600 GTS. They come in a variety of prices depending primarily on the degree of how far they're overclocked out of the box. We recommend you buy one of the non-overclocked models and push the clock rates up yourself to save a few bucks.
Moar at the sauce.
Source: ExtremeTech