The new midrange: 10 good cards for around $200 - PAGE 1

One of the ever-present dangers that a professional hardware reviewer faces is losing touch with his audience. While reviewing $600 video cards is fun, it can put you out of touch with the every-day gamer. Many people are interested in the performance of the latest, most expensive powerhouse-cards out of curiosity, but very few people actually buy them. Most PC gamers spend a good amount of time contemplating what is currently available, and then plunk down that hard-earned cash when they feel the found the best deal. They might want to only spend, say, $200 or less on a video card, and they want that card to last.

If the person just-described is you, then this article was written with your situation in mind - today we will be looking at the 'mid-range' cards. Different websites and publications have different interpretations of what denotes the mid-range, but for the sake of this article, we will define the mid-range as a card that costs somewhere around $200 bucks, is a couple of big steps up from an integrated graphics solution, and a couple of small steps below a enthusiast-class, hardcore, top-end video card (such as a 8800 Ultra.)

The good news is you can currently get a whole lot of power for around the $200 mark. There is a veritable wealth of cards available around this price-point. While the last generation of video cards had a relatively weak mid-range compared to the top-end cards when it came down to game performance, nowadays it is a very different situation altogether. While last generation's 2600 XT's and Pro's, 8600 GT's and GTS's were largely limited by a 128-bit memory interface, the recently price-slashed HD 3870 and 8800 GT offer high-end power, at a mid-range price. Today's absolute slowest HD 3850 or 9600 GT demolish those old mid-range cards in the benchmarks. That old mid-range should fade from gamers' memories fast. The new mid-range is here, and today we will be checking it out.

We've assembled and arranged pertinent information from 10 video cards that we have reviewed in the last 4 months. All of them offer around the same level of performance, but as they say, the devil's in the details. We'll be taking a look at the highlights of each card, giving you a rough estimate of the costs, and then hopefully let you know if there are any stand-outs in the bunch.

Before we get into the cards, let's take a little look at the video card landscape. If you are hardware junky you can skip the following information, but if you are in the market for a new card and don't read reviews religiously, here is a little primer: the 8800 GT was landmark card that came out in the end of October.

It really shook things up by offering almost the power of a 8800 GTX (the King of performance for sometime) at a much lower price -- around the $250-$280 mark. It came out in 512MB and 256MB flavors - ATI fired back in video card response in the release of the HD 3850, and the HD 3870. The HD 3850 offered a great bang-for-buck and was fairly popular; as for the HD 3870's, since its release this card and the 8800 GT have been locked in a mortal struggle to the death to be seen as the best value for the everyday gamer. While the 8800 GT is arguably a bit faster than the HD 3870, the HD 3870 often sold for a little bit less, making it a fair choice in a tight market. This fierce competition has resulted in price cuts that have pushed the retail for both the HD 3870 and 8800 GT into the entirely reasonable, and easy-to-justify price of between $160 and $250.

Making things even more interesting, NVIDIA's ninth generation video card has recently arrived. The first 9xxx card turned out to be the 9600 GT, and while it is still early, many reviewers seem impressed with the 9600 GT on whole. It has been selling quite well (though this may be partly due to people unknowingly assuming the card's superiority because of it's 9xxx name.) Judging from appearances, the 9600 GT  presents a real challenge to ATI because it stacks up so well against the HD 3850, and even HD 3870. Immediately after the launch of 9600 GT, ATI responded by cutting prices on both of these cards, which in turn translates into even better deals for you, the consumer. And even just yesterday (March 18th), even further price cuts on the HD3850 / HD370 cards have been announced.

On the horizon, we don't have too much that appears to be arriving in the mid-range segment of the video card market. Rumors suggest that NVIDIA will concentrate on high-end 9xxx cards for the next while, following the release of this week's 9800 GX2, with something along the lines of 9800 GTX, or 9800 GT (or both.) From the red team, ATI, they do not appear to have anything major coming out until May, when they are rumored to be released a new GPU called RV770. More rumors suggest ATI's first card will have 480 shader processors and 1GB of GDDR5 memory, making it not very much of a mid-range card at all. In the interim, ATI video card partners may however be releasing rebranded and unique low-cost options, such as this Sapphire HD 3690, that push the cost of a budget gaming rigs to fantastic new lows.

That being said, it is likely the new mid-range will stay either a 8800GT, 9600GT, or HD 3850/HD 3870 for at least another few months -- which, in terms of hardware development, is equivalent to an eon.

Now that you are up to snuff, let's take a look at some cards. We have ten here in the Neoseeker hardware lab that are worth taking a second look at, to see where they currently stand in the new mid-range.

Ye olde mid-range circa 2001: the Radeon 9000 (Mac edition.)