Graphics Cards with a Recommended Price of around $299

Lower still, we hear the natural clash as the ex-leaders – the fastest GPUs of the previous generation – are trying to save their dignity at the onslaught of the slowest representatives of the new top-end GPU series from both manufacturers.

The GeForce 6800 stands somewhat aloof from the row of new-generation solutions. With its 12 pipelines, this GPU should have been pitted against the RADEON X800 Pro, but NVIDIA equipped it with slow memory clocked at 700MHz. Thus they reduced the cost of the product but also reduced its performance. As a result, the GeForce 6800 doesn’t suit well for high resolutions and hard modes since its good NV40 architecture is hamstringed by the slow memory and less efficient methods of using it. Sometimes the GeForce 6800 even loses to the GeForce FX 5950 Ultra, not mentioning the RADEON 9800 XT and the X800 Pro. In new games, however, this graphics card feels at ease, especially if you don’t do full-screen anti-aliasing. At a recommended price of $299 it can make a good buy.

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In spite of its not very efficient memory subsystem, the GeForce 6800 feels better than the competitors in the 1600x1200 resolution. Unfortunately, $300 graphics cards don’t run newer games in this resolution at a comfortable speed, so you should consider 1280x1024 first, and in this resolution the GeForce 6800 and the RADEON 9800 XT and even the GeForce FX 5950 Ultra all feel quite confident.

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As for alternatives, you have one – the RADEON 9800 XT. In most cases, this graphics card provided performance close to that of the GeForce 6800. On the other hand, it does not feature Shader Model 3.0 support, what may be important for some users, which means that the GeForce 6800 product is a kind of a more advanced product in terms of feature-set and possibly more future-proof in terms of technology.

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The fate of the GeForce FX 5950 Ultra looks rather vague: this card has a smaller potential compared to the RADEON 9800 XT but costs more! It can run rather simple games, but doesn’t suit very well for playing modern shooters and simulators, rich in pixel shaders. None is going to make simple game engines just to make the 5950 Ultra live longer – this GPU is rapidly becoming obsolete and seems to be an unreasonable investment.

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Right now, the RADEON 9800 XT costs from $380 to $410 but the prices will be going down as there appear more new-generation graphics cards in the market. So if you can wait for a while, you will have an opportunity of getting a fast graphics card at a modest price. Although without Shader Model 3.0 support, the RADEON 9800 XT may become an excellent choice.