Hey guys and gals!
Got a quick question:
What the hell are the video card game reviews all about?
I just picked up a ATI Radeon 9600SE over at Microcenter ($100 no less), and went online after the fact to see what the leading hardware websites had to say, and of course it was resoundingly panned. Limited bandwidth, hacked, poor AA/AF, not as good as the XT or Pro, etc...
Now, my prior card was a Radeon 7500, and to me, this thing flys. Runs all the games I couldn't run before as well, such as Armed and Dangerous, and Prince of Persia.
So, just what are all these sites measuring, if it doesn't affect real world performace?
The size of the reviewers penis?
I myself have stoped paying much attention to video card reviews cause they seem to all have one thing in common, so many statistics that you have no idea what they are talking about after the opening intro.
Seeing as I tend to not get the latest and greatest video cards I can pick up on what the early adopters say about the cards and make my decision off of that. Or I just go with what I can get my hands on for as cheap as possible.
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I think in this case it''s just a comparison thing. People will pan it because it''s not as fast as the 9800. However it was $100 and much faster than your 7500 so it''s worth it to you. The best kinds of reviews are the ""Video Card Roundups"" where they take all the cards on the market and benchmark them. Then you can look at how much each one costs and get the best performer that fits in your budget. Standalone ones are too arbitrary in my opinion and are usually just ""Get the card X which is the best performer out there"", forgetting that it''s $400.
Yeah, I found a site that had a roundup before I went out to buy, but those are seriously stacked towards the high end...its like the reviewers all think that if you can''t stomach the $500 for the latest card, then you should go get a console.
And since when did ""midrange"" suddenly become $250?
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It''s amusing when video card comparisons end with a resounding ""You MUST buy [new card X], totally worth paying 2x the cost of the next-lowest model!"", while their own comparison charts show a whopping 5-10% difference in speed (if that).
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I like Anandtech and Tom''s Hardware for video card reviews, because they do great roundups/comparisons with comprehensive charts. I pretty much ignore what the reviewers say in the text of the articles themselves, except to see if there are any issues/bugs with the card''s hardware or drivers.
I check out the graphs to look for performance gains on upgrades, then check out prices, and determine what I want to buy on a price/performance ratio. I never buy top of the line or bottom of the line, usually somewhere in between where you''re truly getting the best value per dollar. I also buy at least one revision behind as well. (For example, I bought my GF4 ti 4400 when they were on the next round of GeForce revisions)
I don''t think I could pay more than $200 for a graphics card, at least not until inflation makes that the norm.
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My philosophy is to never pay more then $200 for any given component in my computer, so I tend to look to see what''s in my price range, then read and compare reviews of those products. Takes some time, but what else am I going to do at work?
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