Tom's Hardware recently released their October 2008 choice picks for gaming video cards.
Recommended PCI-E cards:
- Radeon HD 3650 GDDR3 (US$35)
- Radeon HD 4670 GDDR3 ($85)
- GeForce 9600 GSO (aka GeForce 8800 GS) ($85)
- Radeon HD 3870 ($100)
- GeForce 9600 GT ($100)
- GeForce 8800 GT 512MB (aka GeForce 9800 GT 512MB) ($120)
- Radeon HD 4850 ($170)
- Radeon HD 4870 ($260)
- GeForce GTX 260 ($260)
- GeForce 9800 GX2 ($260)
- 2x Radeon HD 4850 in CrossFire Configuration ($340)
- Radeon HD 4870 X2 ($550)
If you are building a new system, and will just use it for some very light gaming on the side, the Radeon HD 3650 GDDR3 would probably be a good-enough discreet graphics solution. Other than that, the 8800 GT 512MB, 9800 GT 512MB, and HD 4850 seem to be the "middle-ground" choice cards.
Recommended AGP cards:
- Radeon HD 3650 (under $US100)
- Radeon HD 2600 XT ($100)
- Radeon HD 3850 512MB ($135)
[Source: Tom's Hardware | The Best Graphics Cards for the Money: October 2008]
It's interesting to note that an AGP HD 3650 card would cost almost 3 times a PCI-E card with the same GPU. Unless you need to replace a broken AGP card, maybe that $100 is best kept for your next system build.
