GPU Buying Guide: ATI Vs NVIDIA, Budget, Mid-range and High-end

The latest entrant into the GPU arena is nVidia's Fermi GF100 core. It's a hulking power hungry monster meant for enthusiasts who want to experience DirectX 11 features like tessellation and ray tracing. Asus recently announced the availability of the GTX 480 and 470 series graphics cards in India, priced at 41,990 and 31,225 respectively. They compete against the Radeon HD 5000 series cards launched last year, the HD 5970 and the HD 5870.

While there's an enthusiast base that will buy the latest and the greatest, most readers are not likely to buy ridiculously expensive graphics cards that can cost more than a quad core PC,  a game console, or a 32-inch HDTV. In this buying guide, we take you through both nVidia and ATI's lineup of graphics cards for the PC - for entry level, mid-range, and high end gaming needs. Graphics Card Hierarchy The graphics card duopoly between AMD/ATI and nVidia has seen many new lineups and chipsets at different price ranges over the years, which can be quite confusing. This table looks at the two last refreshes, and indicates where a GPU stands, in terms of price and capabilities.

Current generation graphics cards below Rs 5,000 A search through our favourite e-stores in India helped compile this list, and is therefore not a fixed price, and is subject to stock availability, and bargaining. ZOTAC GeForce GT 220 Synergy Edition 512MB: Rs. 3,530 SAPPHIRE HD 5450 1GB DDR3 PCIE HDMI: Rs. 3,650 PowerColor Go! Green HD5450 1GB DDR3 HDMI: Rs. 4,200 SAPPHIRE HD 5550 1GB DDR3 HDMI: Rs. 4,900 Entry level GPU cards multi-monitor support, DVI, VGA and HDMI connectors, and can let you play casual and 3D accelerated games, and high definition videos on a HDTV. Some GPUs can upscale DVD quality movies into high definition using post processing algorithms.

If you're looking for a DirectX 11 card under Rs 5,000, the Radeon HD series has a couple of interesting offerings: Many cards based on the Radeon HD 5450 are fanless, for quiet operation in a media center PC setup, and have low power consumption requirements, idling at 6.4 watts and maxing out at 19.1. If you care more about gaming performance, GeForce GT 220 is twice as fast as the HD5450, and can play Fallout 3 at 35 fps at 1600x1200 without anti-aliasing enabled. It's based on a 40nm shrink of the GT200 core;  the GT216, and supports DirectX 10, OpenGL 3.1, and has a DVI, HDMI and VGA connector. While Eyefinity technology, which supports 3D gaming on three monitors, is supported by graphics cards in the ATI Radeon HD 5400 series and higher, an integrated DisplayPort connector enables it. Cards retailing for less than Rs 5,000 don't have DisplayPort, and therefore cannot support Eyefinity. A web demo on AMD's site emulates of the Eyefinity experience on six 3D games.

Older generation GPUs on a budget Graphics cards based on the GeForce 9 and the Radeon HD 4000 series are still available in the market, these can give decent performance gains and can be useful if you need to cut corners when building an entry-level gaming PC. These GPUs do not support DirectX 11, but there are only seven PC games that take advantage of the same currently, so you're not missing out on much. There's a Radeon HD 4890 1GB GDDR5, which was highest and GPU a few years ago, retailing for just Rs. 12,000. GPUreview.com has an excellent specs comparison table for comparing the features of most GPU in existence. Here's a link that compares the Radeon HD 4670 against the nVidia GeForce 9600 GT, with a dozen reviews of cards using the GPU.

Older generation GPU's retailing below Rs 5,000 XFX GeForce 9400 GT 512MB DDR2 Fatal1ty: Rs. 2,425 Asus EAH4350 SILENT/DI/1GD2 Card: Rs. 2,525 SAPPHIRE HD 4350 1G Hyper Memory: Rs. 2,475 XFX ATI Radeon HD 4350 512 MB DDR2: Rs. 2,530 XFX GeForce 9500 GT 1GB DDR2 Fatal1ty: Rs. 3,690 SAPPHIRE HD 4670 1GB DDR3 PCI-E: Rs. 4,445 XFX GeForce 9600 GT 512MB DDR3 Standard: Rs. 4,800 Mid-range GPUs (Rs 5,000 to 10,000) At this price range, you can buy the GeForce GT 240 and GTS 250, mid-range offerings from the GeForce 200 series. The Radeon HD 5670 is quite affordable, while at the higher end of 10k, you can buy the HD 5750 and 5770, which, judging by benchmarks can handle the current crop of games at decent framerates. GPUs at this range should come with Dual DVI,  HDMI, and DisplayPort connectors. ATI's GPUs at this range support Eyefinity, while nVidia cards support 3D gaming, provided you have a 3D vision ready display.

Graphics cards below Rs 10,000: ZOTAC nVidia GeForce GT240  512 MB 128 bit DDR5 PCI: Rs. 5,550 Palit GT 240 Sonic 1GB Nvidia Graphics Card: Rs. 6,400 PowerColor HD5670 1GB GDDR5: Rs. 6,500 Palit GeForce GTS 250 1024MB Card: Rs. 7,175 PowerColor PCS HD5750 1GB 128-Bit GDDR5 PCI Express Graphic Card  Rs.8,100 MSI R5750-PM2D1G DVI Output Rs. 8,100 MSI R5770-PMD1G Radeon HD 5770 1GB 128-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready Crossfire Rs.9,450 SAPPHIRE 100283L Radeon HD 5770 (Juniper XT) 1GB 128-bit GDDR5 PCI Express Rs.9,850 PowerColor AX5770 1GBD5-MDHV2 HD5770 1GB GDDR5 PCI Express Rs.9,600 PowerColor HD5770 1GB GDDR5 (V2) Rs. 9,600

High End: (15,000 and above) At the Rs 15,000 range, we have the Radeon HD 5830,and HD 5850 cards, the HD5830 was introduced this year, to fill the gap between the 5850 and the 5770. It can play games with every DX11 feature turned on to the highest settings. (Tessellation, High Quality Shadows, High Quality Textures, 2X AA enabled) The HD 5870 starts at around Rs 23,000, while Sapphire's Eyefinity 6 edition card costs Rs. 29,750. At this price range, you should be able to get a GTX 470 from Palit and Zotac. The cheapest GTX 480 is from Palit, at Rs 32,500. At the very high end, Asus and Sapphire have their enthusiast offerings, with the Radeon HD 5970 up against the GeForce GTX 480. Make sure you have an adequate power supply to accommodate some of the more power hungry cards here.

What's available: Palit GeForce GTX 470 (1280MB GDDR5) Rs. 23,000 Palit GeForce GTX 480 (1536MB GDDR5) Rs. 32,500 ZOTAC GeForce GTX 470 PCI Express Rs. 22,750 Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 5870 / 1GB GDDR5 Rs. 23,000 XFX ATI Radeon HD 5870 1GB DDR5 Rs. 25,750 GeForce GTX 285 ZT-285E3LA-FSP Rs. 25,150 SAPPHIRE HD5870 2GB GDDR5 (Eyefinity 6 Edition) Rs. 29,750 Asus ENGTX470/2DI/1280MD5 Rs. 31,225 SAPPHIRE HD5970 2GB GDDR5 PCIE Rs. 41,900 Asus ENGTX480/2DI/1536MD5  Rs. 44,775

Additional Resources: GPU prices compiled from Primeabgb.com, theitwares.com, techshop.in VGA Charts: Exhaustive game benchmarks of graphics cards from Guru3D, games tested include Call of Duty, Anno 1404, Far Cry 2, Crysis Warhead, Fallout 3, apart from 3D Mark Vantage. Last updated in Dec 2009.