Friday, August 6, 2010

ASUS EN9500GT/DI/1GD/V2 GeForce 9500GT 1GB 128bit GDDR2 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Vga Card

The card works flawlessly delivering solid performance and vivid images through the HDMI port. I connected it to my overhead HD projector in the Entertainment Room, displaying an image of 108 inches on a large silver screen. I could not be happier.

The utilities bundled with the card from Asus are both useful and functional.


Finally, the rebate process seemed smooth and orderly when compared to other manufacturers' sites.


The only observation I have is that the next generation should be DDR3 memory, yet, the performance of this card with the current DDR2 memory is great. 
  • ASUS EN9500GT/DI/1G/V2 GeForce 9500 GT 1GB 128-bit GDDR2 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready Video Card
  • Engine Clock: 550 MHz
  • 1GB of DDR2 memory. Memory Clock: 1.375 GHz. Meory Interface 128 bit
  • DVI/VGA/HDMI/HDTV 1080I support


EVGA 01G-P3-N959TR GeForce 9500GT 1GB GDDR2 Vga Card

Wow. This video card improved my gaming graphics by a whole ton, 55 FPS average on COD4 with 2x AA 1280x720 resolution. 50 FPS average on COD5 1280x720 no AA. On need for speed, 40 FPS average with settings to the max. On Flight Simulator X (which is a real big hog) 30 FPS on High settings. The video card temperature never went up over 70 degrees centigrade, which is very good. The card is rated for a very high temperature before breaking. The card came with an overclocking utility, profile settings for each program, and real time video card stats. I fully recommend this if you have a tight budget, but are itching to have better graphics and performance. This card doesn't need a whole lot of power supply and is SUPER QUIET. 
  • PCI Express 2.0
  • GeForce 9500 GT with 550 MHz core clock
  • 1GB 128-bit DDR2 memory
  • 500MHz memory clock with 1000MHz effective memory rate and 1400MHz shader clock
  • Full DirectX 10 and Open GL 2.1 Support

Thursday, August 5, 2010

VisionTek ATI Radeon HD4870x2 2GB GDDR5 Vga Card

For the first time ever, 2.4 teraFLOPS of graphics horse power, 1600 stream processors and 2 GB of GDDR5 memory have been combined to create the fastest and most powerful ATI Radeon HD4870 X2 Graphics Card available today.

Works great, easy to install. Make sure you have a long enough case as its a fairly long card. 

Main Features :
  • Manufacturer: VisionTek Products, LLC


  • Manufacturer Part Number: 900250


  • Manufacturer Website Address: www.visiontek.com


  • Package Type: Retail


  • Product Type: Graphics Card


  • Host Interface: PCI Express 2.0 x16


  • RAMDAC Speed: 400MHz


  • Maximum Resolution: 2560 x 1600


  • Analog Signal: Yes


  • Digital Signal: Yes


  • HDCP Support: Yes


  • Dual Link DVI Support: Yes


  • Chipset Manufacturer: ATi


  • Chipset Model: Radeon HD 4870 X2


  • Standard Memory: 2GB


  • Memory Technology: GDDR5 SDRAM


  • Bus Width: 512bit


  • Interfaces/Ports: 2 x 29-pin DVI-I, 1 x TV Out


  • Standard Warranty: Lifetime Limited






  • ATI 100-505565 FireGL V7600 512MB Dual-DVI Vga Card

    The FireGL V7600 card from ATI/AMD brings excellent workstation class performance down to the sub-$1000 price range. The numbers simply don’t lie. Nvidia’s QuadroFX 4500, which once dominated this market and sold for roughly $2,500, is now getting bested by nearly a 2x margin in many benchmarks by this $999 card. This is excellent news for anyone who requires top-notch high-end digital content creation performance, but can’t drop several thousand dollars on an ultra-high-end product. It would be short-sighted of us to not make a note that the QuadroFX 4500 card is over a year old, though.  Nvidia is preparing a follow-up card to fit in this price point in the very near future but specific details remain to be seen. 

    The FireGL V7600 card by itself is not without a few shortcomings.  While we were impressed by its raw performance and value, the card is significantly louder and creates more heat than other workstation cards we’ve tested. In a closed case environment, it’s unlikely that the noise will be a detriment, but when the card kicks up to its highest fan speed, it becomes very noticeable. The card is also double-width and requires an 8-pin PCI Express power connector, although these are fairly standard system requirements for a high-end workstation card today. 
     
    While noise is one concern, driver support and availability also pose other problems for this card. To date, we could not find this card on any store shelves, despite press releases about the board’s shipment hitting the web last month. Even if you wanted to get one of these cards, it’s nearly impossible at this time. And if you did manage to get your hands on one, as we did, you may quickly run into driver-related issues. The beta drivers we were provided with had some quirks, and there are no new drivers available yet. In addition, to date, this card does not have 64-bit drivers available, which is a huge roadblock for potential workstation buyers. We’re certain that 64-bit drivers will be included in the final shipping retail package, but at this point, we can’t provide any input on the matter until we have a chance to test them. 

    All in all, the FireGL V7600 gives ATI a much-needed shot in the arm for their FireGL lineup. It provides excellent performance at its price point, has modern GPU features like DirectX 10 and OpenGL 2.0 support. We feel comfortable that despite current maturity issues, it will be a solid product when it ships. We look forward to what Nvidia will counter with at this price point but for now ATI's FireGL V7600 looks to be a very competitive and compelling professional Workstation Graphics product. 
    • Powered by scaleable ATI FireGL graphics accelerator with parallel processing Unified Shader architecture AutoDetect instinctively optimizes for user's workflow
    • Full Shader Model 4.0 support for vertex and pixel shaders CAD and DCC application certification 128-bit full floating point precision Hardware Accelerates DirectX 10 and OpenGL 2.1 advanced features
    • Display Support: 2x Dual Link DVI-I outputs support any combination of digital and analog displays Independent multi-monitor resolution and refresh rate selection
    • Chipset: FireGL V7600 Video Memory: 512MB Memory Bandwidth: 51 GB/s Bus: PCI-Express x16
    • Shader Processing Units: 320 Max. Resolution: 2560 x 1600 Connectors: Dual DVI-I, Stereo 3D Output Thermal: Fansink Requirements: 350W power supply or greater (assumes fully loaded system)

    Pros :
    • Impressive Price/Performance Ratio
    • Modern GPU Feature Set (DX10, OGL2)
    • Long List of Software Certifications

    Cons :
    • Board and Driver Availability Issues
    • Heat Pipe Cooling System Too Loud
    • Exhausts Excessive Heat

    PNY VCQFX5500-PCIE-PB Nvidia Quadro FX5500 Professional Vga Card

    NVIDIA Quadro FX 5500 by PNY eclipses performance limits facing CAD, DCC, and visualization applications. Armed with a radically new graphics architecture engineered to address the most demanding challenges, NVIDIA Quadro FX 5500 by PNY delivers 33.6GB/sec. memory bandwidth and a 256-bit memory interface with support for 1024MB of ultra-fast GDDR2 memory. Featuring two dual-link DVI connectors, NVIDIA Quadro FX 5500 by PNY offers the industry's best image quality at resolutions up to 3840 x 2400. 

    The performance of this video card in heavy video applications such as 3D rendering is great. The rendering is faster and accurate.
    • NVIDIA Quadro GPU Technology
    • 1.0GB GDDR2 Ultra-Fast Frame Buffer
    • Dual Dual-link DVI-I Connectors
    • Certified for professional CAD and DCC applications
    • Essential for Windows Vista

    PNY VCQFX4800 NVIDIA Quadro FX 4800 Vga Card

    I just received this card from Amazon. It arrived one day early; so, good on Amazon and UPS. I was able to easily track shipment all along the way. In fact, the UPS truck with my card on it actually broke down; and another driver had to transfer the deliveries to him. The driver pulls up in his own vehicle - non-UPS truck. wow! That's dedication!

    Regarding packaging: there is a difference between OEM/white box/plain box and retail. The product I received is white box; and as such, does not include such things as a manual or a product warranty covered by PNY.

    Being a system integrator...it doesn't much matter to me, as I have to support the system I'm building anyway. Having said that, I must say that the images depicting this product on Amazon.com - specifically, that RETAIL box packaging is being shown, and not the WHITE box, which I received -- could be interpreted by some as misleading. Personally, it doesn't matter to me. I'm happy to have the card.

    If you've never installed one of these cards before, be prepared for confusing and misleading installation instructions. Regarding additional power requirements, the Quick Start guide included with this card provides a list of cards which require additional power; and a poor quality xerox copied image of the card shows the location of the auxiliary power connection. This same xerox copy entitled "NVIDIA QUADRO by PNY Additional Power Requirements Document" shows the model numbers that require "...auxiliary power to deliver full performance and operate reliably".

    Guess what: The FX 4800 is NOT on the list; but the FX4800 card actually has an aux. power connection; and, an aux. power cable is included with the card. Hmmm...So, I went to the PNY support site; and, what did I find? I found that this card DOES require additional power, after all; but, the confusing documentation doesn't stop there.

    Upon reading the online flavor of their quick start guide for the auxiliary power connector, I found that it states a power tap is to be connected to the aux. cable -- a power tap.. as in one power tap. Clear enough, right? Wrong! The aux. power cable has not one; but two 4-pin Molex connectors. OK, OK, OK, I know, I'm being over-analytical on the whole documentation thing. I can't help it. I was weaned on electrons; but, dang...a technical company like PNY could at least keep its technical documentation consistent, don't you think?

    On the good side, PNY pre-sales support has been fabulous. They answered all my questions in a detailed and timely fashion. By registering the card online, you also get a 3 year warranty on the card. Windows 7 drivers are available for this card.

    I already mentioned this -- but it is worth mentioning again -- Amazon.com and UPS shipping / tracking information was outstanding...this product arrived a day early.

    Regarding performance, I'll have to leave that for others to address for now, as I am still waiting on other Workstation components to arrive. This card is being integrated into a high-end video editing dual processor workstation which will be running Adobe SC5 Master Collection.
    • 1.5GB GDDR3 GPU memory with ultra fast memory bandwidth
    • NVIDIA CUDA parallel computing processor
    • Highest color fidelity
    • Dual DisplayPort digital display connectors
    • Single dual-link DVI-I display connector

    PNY VCG62512APB 6200 512MB AGP DVI Vga Card

    GEFORCE 6200 AGP 512MB 64BIT CTLRVGA DVI HDTV/SDTV. Getting a slightly older computer up and running at gaming speed and graphics with this new video card. 
    • NVIDIA Unified Architecture
    • Full Microsoft DirectX 10 support
    • AGP Bus Type
    • Low Profile
    • Microsoft Windows 7 support
     

    PNY VCG88512GXPB XLR8 GeForce 8800GT 512MB SLI-Ready Vga Card

    The 8800GT series of graphics cards are well-known for being a great price/performance buy, so I'll just say a few words about the PNY version in particular.

    Pros:  
    This is the 512MB version of the card, which does squeeze out a bit more speed and also makes it more future-proof. I believe it has a 3 year parts+labor warranty, plus 2 years parts only which is fair (but not topnotch).

    Cons: 
    Most important, it runs EXTREMELY hot. In my case it idles at 65 Celcius and reaches about 95 Celcius at load. Although these chips are designed to handle a lot of heat, I must imagine that this will lower the life expectancy of the card in general. Part of the issue with the heat problem is that many of the 8800GT cards that use the nVidia reference design have a fault in the firmware that causes the fan to run only at 29% and it does not ramp up as temperature increases. This can be overcome with a program such as Rivatuner, but I was disappointed that PNY didn't release a fixed firmware for a known issue. The card also comes with somewhat limited accessories (HDTV breakout box, 2 DVI-VGA adapters, molex to PCI-E adapter, manual).

    PNY VCG96512GXPB GeForce 9600GT 512MB GDDR3 (DVI + DVI + HDTV/S-Video Outputs) Vga Card

    I finally jumped from an AGP bus to PCI-E. I upgraded from a PNY 6800GS unlocked to GT spec's, while that card was great this card is unbelievable! I now play all my games at max resolution, everything set to high, ultra high etc. No lag, skips dropping frames etc. Some of the games I have played;

    Call of Duty 4 everything maxed

    Battle for Middle Earth 2, maxed
    Crysis, high settings (no skips jumps or crashing)!
    Medieval II Total war: Kingdoms expansion, all settings maxed
    Oblivion, no problem what so ever.

    Before my current upgraded system, I could never play games at max resolutions or ultra high settings, games have never looked or played so well. Its like a whole new gaming experiance, I find myself pulling older games out just to see how they look. (Far Cry, Pirates!, Rome Total war just to name a few).


    If you have an older Geforce or Radeon. You cannot go wrong with a 9600GT for the performance and price. 

    This card is just awesome for the price. It's super fast. It's ridiculously cheap. It runs cool. It doesn't require a lot of power. (I'm running it on a Dell with the stock 305 watt PSU) What else can you ask for? If you're looking for a graphics upgrade, and don't want to spend a fortune, then this card is a winner. 

    Sapphire 100284L ATI HD5750 1GB GDDR5 2DVI/HDMI/DisplayPort Vga Card



    I am very please with the performance of this card as it looks really good playing games like Crisis, Modern WarFare 2, Doom 3 and Unreal Tournament 3. I wanted to replace my old but fairly new card (GT 120) that came with my Gateway LX-6810 desktop pc. I had to purchase a new power supply to power this card as the recommends at a 600 watt power supply for this card. 

    I found a good deal on Amazon for an 850 watt AK power supply for $49.99. With such a great price on the card and finding a great price on the power supply, there was no reason for me to not upgrade my pc. I bought this card because I wanted to be able to run Crisis at the full settings. This card allows me to max out all of my settings on the Crisis game upto 1680 x 1050 which is what my monitor's resolution can handle. It ran great but, I still think it runs better with slightly lower settings. Overall, this card looks and responds really great. 
    • PCI-Express 2.0 x16 bus interface
    • GDDR5 memory
    • Microsoft DirectX 11 Support
    • Microsoft Windows 7 Support
    • ATI Eyefinity Technology, support up to 3 displays

    XFX HD465XYAF2 ATI HD4650 512MB GDDR2 Vga Card

    Having the need to replace my existing PCI Express video card, I happened to see the HD 4650 on Amazon. The price was very attractive for the good features that this card offered; in other stores the same video card was priced about ten to twenty dollars more. The HD 4650 supports DirectX 10.1 and it supports HD playback. The card also has 512MB of on board video memory; some other models have 1GB.

    The main thing that I was looking for in a video card was that it needed to be a 1/2 length video card that could fit in my custom built system; the interior of my computer chassis is designed a certain way where I can only install half length video cards. My system is configured with an ASUS motherboard, an AMD 64bit Athlon 3700+ 2.22GHz processor, and 2GB of RAM; pretty slow specs compared to the faster configurations in the market. I also did not want to spend the extra money to upgrade all of the main components in my system just to get a speed increase. Instead, I just wanted to replace my existing video card. Before I installed the HD 4650 in my system, I experienced choppy Blu-Ray video playback; my old video card is a PCI-Express card that has 256MB of on board video memory and the card is around two years old. For Blu-Ray video playback, I'm also using an external USB 2.0 Serial ATA LG HD-DVD/Blu-Ray disc player; I'm sure I would see better playback results if I installed the LG player as part of my main system instead of as an external player. After I replaced my old video card with the 4650, Blu-Ray video playback is so much smoother now; no more choppy scenes! Audio and Video are syncing up together nicely! I haven't played any games with my new card yet so I can't make any comments on that. I used to play video games on my PC but these days I don't anymore. However, it's nice to know that I can at least run some DirectX 10.1 games/applications on my system if I ever decide to in the future.


    Now on the other hand, the only negative part that I can think of is that it took a while to install the CD software that came with the video card. The installation took several minutes which I didn't expect; I was even doing the installation from another CD player that is actually part of my main system and not as an external disc player. Also, I do recommend downloading the latest ATI Catalyst installation suite since the driver version on the CD is outdated. After I downloaded the update and installed the software, it also took another couple of minutes to install; there's just a lot of stuff that needs to be installed.


    Overall the HD 4650 is pretty good in performance. It's price is also a good deal. So if you want to watch HD videos smoothly or just do the normal day to day things like surfing the web or watching Netflix videos etc., consider this card.

    • 512MB Memory
    • Unified Superscalar Shader Architecture
    • Features Stream Processing Units
    • DirectX 10.1 Support

    PNY XLR8 VCGGTX260XPB GTX260 896MB GDDR3 448-bit Vga Card

    A GREAT card at a much cheaper price. Run Crysis, a game only a few graphic cards can handle, at very high details with no problem. I highly recommend this card. that has tons of features and overclocks well with no hassle.

    The only issue is that the card is a bit long. For my friend's case it got in the way of the hard drive brackets, but that was easily remedied by relocating the hard drives. 

    XFX GS250XYDFC GeForce GTS250 512MB GDDR3 2DVI Vga Card

    Great card! Best bang for the buck on his category! I rather like this one over HD4850 because it offers the same or better performance, better driver compatibility for gaming and less software installation hassles. I'm not a fan of driver tweaking as I really think things should all be truly plug and play, as far as possible. Also, it costs just a few bucks more than 9800GT and packs 12 more shader processors, improved manufacturing technology, less heat and better clocks. This is as good as it gets for nVidia's great G92 GPU. 

    Pros :
    This video card is very powerful. In Folding at Home, it averages around 5,500 - 6,500 points per day. In Company of Heroes, it averages with 1280 X 1024 resolution, all high settings and 4X anti-aliasing, approximately 45 - 60 frames per second (60 Hz monitor refresh rate). Runs fairly cool (approximately 60 Celsius) with fan at 70% while running Folding at Home.

    Cons : 
    None yet. May be too big for Micro-ATX computer cases.

    Other Thoughts : 
    All in all, a great video card. Mine came with a coupon for 3D Mark Vantage if I remember correctly.

    XFX HD597ACNB9 ATI HD5970 2GB GDDR5 HDMI/2DVI Vga Card

    Most people purchasing this card are looking to have what is currently the fastest single slot card on the market. This is that card.

    I purchased the XFX version because of the lifetime warranty. I had no problems with installation and the few questions I had for XFX technical support were answered quickly.


    I do notice on startup that on the leftmost display of my two monitor setup, there is some faint flickering during the BIOS splash screen but it goes away almost immediately and I have noticed no issues when in the operating system. Although I have it set to factory settings, I have noticed that in graphic-intensive environments, when the GPU fan kicks on, it is loud. It's not annoying or distracting but it is there. On the upside, it doesn't happen often (say 10% of the time when gaming).


    No issue at all! Its also very easy to overclock it with the XFX tool. I'm right now OCing it @ 815|1175 WITHOUT TWEAKING THE VOLTAGE!!! Sweeet. BUY IT NOW! If you are a demanding gamer.


    Playing EVERYTHING (including Crisis Warhead, DoW2, AC2, BioShock2, MW2 etc) @ 1080p+4AA+16AF >= 50fps. One thing you should know... the cooler (over 50%) is WAY to noise. Get ready for some headphone with noise canceling!


    If price is no object and you're looking to have the King of the Hill (at least right now), this is the card to have. 

    • Chipset:ATI Radeon HD 5970
    • Core Clock:725MHz
    • Memory: DDR5, 2GB, 512-bit, 4 GHz
    • Output: DUAL DVI,DISPLAY PORT,HDMI/Double Profile
    • PICE 2.0X16

    XFX HD485XZDFC ATI HD4850 1GB GDDR3 2DVI/HDTV Vga Card

    This graphics card (GC) is totally worth the money invested, it is in the higher end of the ATI GC series out right now, the all new 4800 series. The only misleading thing about the description about the GC is that it takes up 2 whole slots vs. only 1. 

    The fan built onto it takes up more space then it should, but the up side is that it keeps this thing running cool, smooth, and puring like a kitten. It is a little big, so if your gonna be putting it into a pre-fab comp, be careful and make sure you got the room for it to fit, check your dimensions and so forth. On a side note the cheapest I could find this outside of amazon.com online was newegg and it was still more expensive there especially after shipping and handling, and the cheapest retail store sells it in my area for 149.99, so the deal was well worth it, especially when u factor in the free shipping even though its the slow delivery option, I only had to wait 1 week or 5 business days, well worth the wait and I might be getting another at this price point to run in crossfire mode. 

    Hopefully you will enjoy this as much as myself. Also one last note, be sure to get the 1gig vs the 512mb, it makes the world of difference as seen on a friends comp. i only gave it a 4 star cause it takes of 2 slots vs the 1 stated or else if it had said 2 slot i'd have rated it a 5. 
    • TeraScale Graphics Engine
    • Unified Superscalar Shader Architecture
    • 00 Stream Processing Units
    • ATI Radeon CrossFireX
    • DirectX 10.1 Support

    EVGA 512-P3-N871-AR GeForce 9800GTX 512MB GDDR3 Vga Card

    My system Quad Core 6600,4gb ram ,Power supply:550 watts (Antec),Motherboard:Gigabyte x38:dq6,HDD:300 gb sata ,OS:Xp Professionall sp2

    I upgraded from ATI x1900xtx to Geforce 9800 gtx(exactly 16 months).
    This card is huge ,you need to have good size case.I had to change the position of one of my hard disks. The evga card is well built and rugged. Very easy to install,Evga drivers cd install all you need.No hassles

    Once the card is started ,its very quiet.I checked the graphic cards temps it showed 60 degrees(no load).On high load ,temps increases to 70 Celsius,still the fan is very quiet at 23% speed(default)


    My room temp is 28c,my cpu temp 40 degrees Celsius


    It blows all games out of the water except crysis only at high settings ,no AA.


    if you have money to blow ,this is a very good card top buy.


    Also lifetime warranty ,its a very good daily.

    Diamond 5870PE51G ATI HD5870 1GB GDDR5 Vga Card

    i was lucky..after searching for 2 weeks I located an open box at at a fry's in San Diego ..They said the card was tested on return ..I hate buying open box items.So I really don't know why the card was returned ...OK ..the card is 10.5 inches long so it runs past the length of the mobo..so i moded my p 182 antec to fit my previous card was a evga 9800 gtx+ my power supply is an 850 watt antec so i was ok the card uses 2 8 pin molex connectors..just to be on the safe side I reformated my c drive to rid my registry of any nvidia files ..i recommend a reformat if your previous card was nvidia ..the card ran smooth as silk after reformatting ..before it would flicker playing movie files using dvx...my processer is amd 9950 4 gigs ram..so i was running cod4 modern war 2 at full res with aa at 4x ..the card would heat up from 37 c to about 60 playing games running temp at rest is 37 c..with a 20 percent increase in speed over the 9800 it is worth the upgrade...next I'll upgrade my processor to a 965 or 955 amd to get more boost one thing that sold me was direct x 11 capabilities

    cons ...5870...where art thou

    • GPU: ATI Radeon 5870
    • Bus Type: PCI-Express X16 (PCI Express 2.0)
    • Dynamic power management with ATI PowerPlay technology
    • 1 GB GDDR5 memory
    • API Support: DirectX 9.0 and 10.0, 10.1, 11.0 Open GL3.1

    Wednesday, August 4, 2010

    VisionTek 900284 ATI Radeon HD3650 1GB DDR2 AGP Vga Card

    Graphics processing designed for entertainment and productivity. Experience the next generation of HD game performance and life-like realism thanks to DirectX 10.1 capabilities. Watch the latest Blu-ray and HD-DVD videos in full 1080p HD – and upscale beyond - without placing huge demands on your CPU. Enjoy break-through efficiency from cutting-edge technology and new energy-saving features that help save you money and enable cool, quiet PCs 

    VisionTek ATI Radeon HD2400 Pro 512MB AGP Vga Card



    Pro: 
    For general gaming and everyday work, this is a good card. Price isn't too bad for what you get.

    Cons: 
    Had an extremely hard time finding drivers for this product in Windows 7. After trying several different drivers, multiple times, I managed to get one to work. Cant blame the card though. Its Windows 7 compatability. Windows 7 really does not support AGP graphics any longer. Also this card uses an additional 12v input from your power supply.

    If I had an operating system other than Windows 7 (i.e. Vista or XP) I would definately jump on this card again. 

    HIS H435F512HA ATI HD4350 512MB (64bit) DDR3 HDMI DL-DVI (HDCP) AGP 8X/4X Vga Card



    Go Beyond HD Video: Accelerate your PC with the ATI RadeonTM HD 4350 GPU and get the dedicated graphics memory you need to handle graphics-intensive activities like watching HD movies or editing videos while freeing up your CPU for other tasks. Watch the latest Blu-ray and HD movies play with incredible fidelity - go beyond 1080p playback. 

    Make digital images come to life with over 1 billion colors and stay true to the actual images when you view and edit photos. Support for the latest audiovisual interconnects ensures you can take advantage of the latest display technology. Upscale Beyond 1080p: Watch the hottest Blu-ray movies or other HD content at full 1080p display resolution and beyond. Native HDMI: Enjoy the latest audio technologies using HDMI with 7.1 digital surround sound support. Also, xvYCC support allows the user to enjoy a wider range of colors when connected to a capable HDTV. 80 Stream Processing Units: Enough power to tackle demanding games and applications. Enhanced Anti-Aliasing (AA) & Anisotropic Filtering (AF); High performance anisotropic filtering and anti-aliasing (4X AA) smooth jagged edges and create true- to-life graphics, for everything from grass to facial features. Consumes less than 20 watts under full load The ATI RadeonTM HD 4350 graphics card consumes less than 20 watts under full load, making it the ideal choice for implementation across a large diverse install base of desktop PCs. 

    Dynamic Power Management ATI Radeon HD 4350 graphics card features ATI PowerPlayTM technology, delivering high performance when needed and conserving power when the demand on the graphics processor is low. 

    MSI N460GTX GTX460 Cyclone 1GD5 OC Vga Card




    The Cyclone series is interesting. The baseline performance of the GTX 460 is undeniably really good value for money. These are great DX11 compatible graphics card that pack a lot of horsepower and massive overclockability.
     
    So when the reference product is already good, the custom designed version can only be better. Though not as silent as the 768MB model, this 1024MB model under SKU code N460GTX Cyclone 1GD5/OC definitely manages to impress. Noise levels under massive load are okay. Not too noisy not silent either and that surprised me a little as the 768MB model can hardly be even heard. Still it's well under control with normal noise levels.


    Performance wise it remains difficult to justify the extra 256MB memory and 8 ROP clusters over the cheaper 768MB models. The difference is not huge but definitely can be measured. In the long run the extra 256MB memory however will be a saver bet. especially with upcoming DX11 titles long shaders and huge textures might benefit from some more frame buffer.


    When you grab the AfterBurner tweak application you can apply a little extra voltage on the GPU. The result is that typically you'd overclock just over 800 MHz on the core, yet with that added GPU voltage 900 MHz is roughly what this card seems to be capable off. Coming from 675 MHz reference that means instant extra performance and thus value. We do feel that the cooler at such an overclock becomes an issue in terms of noise levels.


    It's surely is funny to see how important overclockability has become over the years. I mean 3-4 years ago overclocking graphics cards was considered to be a taboo ... a year ago Voltage tweaking was considered extreme y dangerous. And now .. it all even falls within your warranty. Well, the N460GTX Cyclone 1GD5/OC is a truly lovely card. We hope it'll be priced fair at say 235 EUR/USD, as at that price this card would be pure sex. The overclockablility is great, the temperatures and noise levels normal. MSI applies their Military class component strategy at the build design, meaning the best stuff is on there ensuring better heat protection, tweakability and longer lifespan.


    For the money you need to put down you can expect to get what you pay for, a superb mid-range product that will play your games up-to 1600x1200, and in most cases 1920x1200 quite well. What keeps surprising us is the tremendous overclocking potential, pretty much any and every card we tested to date has shown a lot of reserve and room for overclocking, and they scale really well while doing so. Any card, even the cheapest you can find, can be pushed to 800 MHz on the core. The N460GTX Cyclone 1GD5/OC as such comes really recommended, nice performance across the board. A card like this allows you to play any game to date with high image quality settings up-to 1600x1200 and in most scenarios 1920x1200 as well. Two thumbs up.


    XFX HD575XZNFC HD 5750 1GB DDR5 Vga Card



    I was coming from a 9800 GX2, a very fast card. I got rid of the card to a friend and decided to get this supposedly "budget" card, Tested on an AMD Phenom2 955 CPU with 4gb ddr2 in 3d mark both of these in crossfire mode beat out my 9800 GX2, i was able to hit 18792 in 3dmark.

    this card Overclocks like a dream!!! temp never went above 48C for me got the core to 840 from the stock 700 and the mem to 1255 from the stock setting as well. working perfectly, no hiccups, no problems! and LOW temps!!! the card runs quiet, i dont notice it.

    the eyefinity multiple display ability, Dx11 support small form of the card itself..great features.
    this card will fit in any tower case i ever seen, its much shorter than the 5750 and even the 5850

    this card is able to run all the modern games at excellent framerates. The beauty part is, that 2 of these (non OCed) in crossfire mode easily outperforms the 5850, and if you overclock them? Even better!

    if your on a budget and want a extreme gaming rig with a 260 dollar video card investment, then buy 2 of these, and youll be ready to go,...for a while. (i got mine for 130 a piece), if you have time and dont mind waiting .wait for a single card that does roughly the same thing, like a 5850

    i was skeptical at first when buying the one card...i thought.."you get what you pay for" well ...somehow XFX and ATI broke the rules here...and delivered incredible power and gaming bliss at low a low price!

    UPDATE:
    The graphic quality seems to be better than my 9800 GX2, the textures have a warmer feel and look.

    This card is great also at multitasking between different jobs. I have run 1080p movies to my HD TV and at the SAME TIME ran games like Left 4 dead 2 at MAX settings while having an mmorpg like Runes of magic (also max settigns) also running minimized on my computer ...NO SIGNIFICANT DROPS in framerates, no unplayable slowdown or choppiness whatsoever...
    2 games, at the same time, i ping pong between the two of them while playing an HD movie on the TV

    yeah im pretty happy with this card.

    UPDATE 5-5-10

    just one of these cards RIPS through games like Buishock2 and Mass effect 2 on MAX SETTINGS. framerate never drops in framerate i cant verify if its slightly under 60fps or higher, but its so smooth to play, its a beauty to behold.
    as i test more newer games ill add them

    Sapphire 100283-3L ATI Radeon HD 5770 1GB DDR5


    I am running a machine with windows 7, an AMD phenom II quad core processor, and 8 gigs of Ram. I like to run my games at 1920x1080 wide screen. I can run games like Mass effect 2 or mirrors edge at full settings with no slowdown issues. Crysis also runs very well at this resolution with everything turned up and suffers only a slight frame rate drop. So in short you can run most games at very high resolution with everything turned up and suffer no, or slight frame rate drops.
    • 128-bit DDR5 memory interface
    • Microsoft DirectX 11 Support
    • Microsoft Windows 7 Support
    • ATI Eyefinity Technology, support up to 3 displays

    EVGA 01G-P3-N945-LR GeForce 9400 GT 1GB DDR2 PCI-E 2.0 Graphics Card


    EVGA has always been a great upgrade card because they manufacture quality items at very good prices. This card is no exception. The installation is easy only taking up 1 PCIe x16 slot. There is small fan just over the processor. The memory is only DDR2 which is ample for most games. The really nice part is that this card allows older machines to catch up to Direct X 10. I tried it with Vista 64 and it installed just fine. I also tried it with Vista 32 and had no issues. I did not try it with XP.

    Specs:
    Model EVGA 01G-P3-N945-LR
    Interface PCI Express 2.0 x16

    Chipset NVIDIA
    GPU GeForce 9400 GT
    Core clock 550MHz
    Stream Processors 16
    Memory Clock 800MHz
    Memory Size 1GB
    Memory Interface 128-bit
    Memory Type GDDR2
    DirectX DirectX 10
    OpenGL OpenGL 2.1
    DVI 2
    TV-Out HDTV / S-Video Out
    RAMDAC 400 MHz
    Max Resolution 2560 x 1600
    Cooler With Fan
    Dual-Link DVI Supported Yes
    HDCP Ready Yes

    If you need a good card to upgrade your system you cannot go wrong with this one.