Ok, so what is the best performing card which also supports the latest games? Give your choice for TOP PERFORMANCE and another for VALUE FOR MONEY
value imo, I would probably say the ati radeon 9600xt. My brother picked one up at newegg for $112USD. It was OEM, but still. 112 bucks! The speeds are 500mhz core/600mhz memory. I may be wrong but I THINK the best performaning card is the geforce fx 6800 ultra. With 425mhz core and 1100mhz memory. And dont think "oh hey, it has a faster core thats faster right?" the 6800 ultra will have more pixel rendering pipelines, AND it has 256-bit memory... the 9600xt only has 128-bit.
Value wise, probably the Radeon 9800Pro, but that will likely change with the release of the GeForce 6600 and 6600GT. The best you can get is the GeForce 6800 Ultra.
A pretty good value for a high-end card is the 16-pixel-pipe version of the NV 6800. They're just under $300, and you should see the framerates.
time sure does fly. only 9 months ago the radeon 9600pro was the king of value cards. why back then i used a crappy nVidia Vanta16.
The best money can buy would be the GeForce 6800 Ultra Extreme Edition which costs about 600 bucks last time I checked it out. My 6800GT OC from BFG only set me back 430 bucks(with tax) and I easily over clocked it to 445/1200 but run it everyday at 430/1200. But, with the X800 XT PE only a few frames per second behind, at times ahead, its also a kick-ass card so its really a brand preference. Unless you want the support of SM 3.0, then go with nvidia. As for a value card, 9800Pro 128mb no doubt.
