The Right Graphics Card for Your Need

Continued from page: 3

Monday, October 01, 2007

Mid-range cards

This category is for pro-gamers, who are inclined toward high-end gaming but have budget restriction and want value for money. Again, NVIDIA clearly out numbers ATI in the number of participants. Mid-range primarily had 8600GTS cards along with some 7-series cards from NVIDIA and only one 1900 XT from ATI. We included Foxconn 8600 GTS in this category even though it costs less than 10K, as it is based on the 8600 GTS chipset and deserved a slot here.

3D Mark 06 and Vista score
Significant variations were noticed in 3D Mark scores-MSI NX7950 top scored with 8293 3DMarks. None even came close to such a high score, and this could well be attributed toward its dual GPU feature. The second in the lot was Asus 8600 GTS Top which was marginally ahead of MSI NX7900GTX and MSI RX1900XT. Interestingly, the DirectX 9 card performed better than the DirectX 10 counterpart. In Vista, all gave a score of 5 when it came to overall Vista Score but MSI RX1900XT and Sapphire X1950 Pro gave a Vista gaming score of 5.8 compared to 5.6 achieved by all others. This clearly indicates that this range of cards possesses good Vista capability.

F.E.A.R
We were not surprised that DirectX 9 cards fared well in this test, with MSI NX7950 leading, followed by MSI RS 1900XT and Sapphire X1950 Pro. If you monitor closely, all the 8600 GTS cards performed in close proximity to each other and there was hardly any significant difference between them, though they lag behind the DirectX 9 cards in this game. As we move toward the DirectX 10 games, the performance of the DirectX 9 cards was found wanting under certain conditions.

XFX 8600GTS

Company of Heroes
This DirectX 10 game made the life of the DirectX 9 cards a little difficult with its high intensive graphics scenario. The top performer in the above two tests, MSI NX7950 fell short of its standard in this game and could barely manage an average fps of 23. The other 8600 GTS series cards scored very similar to each other, with XFX 8600 GTS leading by a small margin and closely followed by Zebronics 8600 GTS. Other cards also scored around 40 fps and weren't far behind.

Doom 3
This test again provided the opportunity for the DirectX 9 cards to gain their supremacy over DirectX 10 cards. MSI NX7950 top scored with a score of 60 fps, which is significantly higher than what we got from the DirectX 10 cards. The only DirectX 9 card which couldn't make a mark of its own was MSI NX 7900GTX. Among the DirectX 10 cards, the scores were on the lower side.

ASUS EN8600GTS Silent

BioShock
The most challenging DirectX 10 game witnessed good performance from all the cards. Almost all cards ticked around the score of 40 fps (avg) in this game, which goes to prove that this range of card will allow you to play the most enthralling game of current generation. The DirectX 9 card also showed decent performance in this test. Zebronics 8600 GTS performed the best in this test followed by Asus EN8600 GTS TOP.

The verdict
This is another category where we had a tough call when it came to deciding the winner. All cards were evenly matched. Even the DirectX 9 card proved to be a strong contender for the top slot. While considering features, apart from HDCP support, cooling and the games bundle, we also looked into the DirectX factor. As we move toward DirectX 10 it's important to have a card with DirectX 10 capability, so the DirectX 9 cards gain less points than DirectX 10 cards.

Editor's choice
XFX 8600GTS (256 MB) is the Editor's choice for this category. In terms of performance Zebronics 8600 GTS was better owing to its higher RAM, but was costlier and hence lost out to XFX 8600 GTS. In fact there was hardly any difference between the two and since they are based on the same 8600 GTS chipset, so there wasn't any significant difference in scores. Since both had similar features, price was the only factor that gave XFX 8600 GTS got an edge over others.

Zebronics nVidia 8600GTS

Labs recommended
There is a tie here for the second spot between Zebronics 8600 GTS and ASUS 8600 GTS Silent. If Zebronics 8800 GTS performed well out of the box, ASUS 8600 GTS Silent was rich on features. Zebronics 8800 GTS comes with 512 MB RAM and hence higher scores in performance. ASUS 8600 GTS Silent also performed well but scored in features, mainly because of the heat sink rather than fan which reduces the noise and helps keep the card cool under stressful conditions. As far as price goes there is hardly any difference between the two as both cost around 14K.

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