This category was created keeping in mind the falling prices of last year's mid category cards. An ATI 960OXT can now be purchased for Rs 10,000 or less depending on the manufacturer, With the arrival of more highend cards, these cards have now been pushed to the low performance category but are still not low enough to fit into the budget category. There were 15 cards in this category and the fight a tough one. Here is how they fared.
Their Features
Almost all the cards had similar features with some featuring dual DVI inputs. One thing that should be understood is that when you are paying more than Rs 10,000 to get a video card; the criteria should always be to look at their performance rather than the software bundled along, Dual monitor inputs were present on all these cards as was a video out port.
The games that are bundled with the cards are limited and normally include demos from various games and some older games bundled with the card. In our comparisons, both the
Gigabyte cards included the same software, which was a game and PowerDVD5 software, but one video card was priced higher than the other.
This underlines our assertion that the software bundled acquires a secondary status to the perform ance of the card and in your buying decision, it should always be per. formance that counts and not the software or other features the man ,. ufacturer bundles.
Their Performance
In our Tier 1 tests, the cards based on ATi Radeon 9550 chipset suffered badly in Doom 3. Although they did post playable frame rates at lower resolutions, the price they retail at does not justify the performance. In fact, Doom 3 was the overall stress test for all the cards we tested. It brought almost all the cards in the low category to their knees including the 9600s and the 5700s. The 5600 chip from last year was missing this time and was replaced by a new and improved 5700. The clock speeds have been cranked up as have the memory speeds with the Ultra's showing the most improvement. Similarly, the 960OXT is the improvised version of the 9600PRO with more memory and increased clock and memory speeds.
We tested all the cards for the Tier 1 tests and then filtered out four from each category to run the Tier 1 tests on. The criterion we decided to apply was performance. Better the frame rates, higher the chances of it going into the next tier. In our Tier 1 tests, the Gigabyte duo and the PowerColor and XFX cards posted some of the best results.
In the tests, we kept the ingame settings across all resolutions at medium. At this medium setting, the PowerColor 960OXT was on fire and gave excellent frame rates on all games beating the 5700 Ultra, which has a higher memory speed and also has a faster memory type. The
cards that made it to the next level were the PowerColor 960OXT, the XFX 5700 Ultra and the Gigabyte 5700 and 5700 LE.
In Tier 2, we cranked up the resolutions and also the in game settings. All settings were set to 'High'and the minimum resolution we started from was 1024 x 768. This is where the XFX GeForce FX 5700 Ultra shone bright. With its higher memory speeds, and optimised pixel pipelines which handled two textures per pixel, it posted the best frame rates in Tier 2.
The PowerColor Radeon 9600 just went limp here; in fact, it crashed twice with visible artefacts in the higher resolutions posting a measly frame rate of approximately 5 fps at 1280 x 1024 in Far Cry. On the other hand, the card did well with 4X AA ON, at 1024 x 768 in both HalfLife 2 and Far Cry. But Doom 3 was simply not its strength.
The XFX GeForce FX 5700 Ultra was just waiting to be turned on at the higher settings. The ceiling for this card was similar to others in Doom 3 and
with 4X AA at 1024 x 768, cranking up the resolution any
higher spelt
'doom' for the card and the game
was simply unplayable. However,
the 5700 Ultra provided very 'good
frame rates for all other games we
tested and can be considered for
future games.
The Gigabyte 5700 was the
second in line to lay claim for the
throne in this category and
posted good frame rates. With the
competition heating up, it was
difficult for us to look for the
runner up to the prized Digit Best
Buy award.
The Winners Are
One thing you need to keep in mind is that the cards we tested in
this category are only good enough to play games up to a
resolution of 1024 x 768. You may get playable frame rates at
higher frame rates with high in game settings in some games, but
if you don't, don't be surprised. You can rest assured, however,
that these cards can deal with all games at higher resolutions if
the in game eye candy is kept low.
The Tier 2 test results imme. diately reflected the first winner, which was the XFX 5700 Ultra 256 MB, because of the frame rates it posted, it was awarded with the Digit Best Buy Gold Award.
The low performance of the PowerColor 960OXT at 1280 x 1024 resolution was definitely puzzling and we ran the tests not once, but four times to double check our results. Nevertheless, the results remained the same. However, the value for money that the PowerColor Radeon 960OXT offers is unmatched by any other card in this category.
If you are low on money but still want a decent card, this card will not disappoint. The card next in line was the Gigabyte GeForce FX 5700 128 MB, which ended second and was awarded the I Digit Best Buy Silver Award.
