Graphics card buyers reference - nVidia

Although it is generally true that you can expect more performance when you spend more, it is all too easy to buy a card that doesn't perform as well as a much less expensive counterpart.

This guide is deliberately lacking in editorial.  It is meant as a resource so you can choose where your performance/price threshold is.  Although there are many factors to consider, I personally look at fill rate as the real measure of output for a graphics card.  Some of the other stats just describe what the card is working with which will indicate how well it will perform under a heavy load.

|GPU      |Micron |Transistors   |DirectX  |AGP/PCI  |Vertex  |Pixel  |Clock       |Fill       |Memory |Memory   |Memory        |Name                 
|             |           |in millions     |             |               |pipe     |pipe   |speed      |rate     |bus        |speed      |bandwidth     |
|NV36    |0.13     |82                |9.0         |AGP        |3         |4       | -             | -         |128b      | -            | -                  |FX 5700 VE       
|NV36    |0.13     |82                |9.0         |AGP        |3         |4       |250MHz   |1000    |128b      |200MHz   |6.4GB/s        |FX 5700 LE        
|NV36    |0.13     |82                |9.0         |AGP        |3         |4       |425MHz   |1700    |128b      |300MHz   |9.6GB/s        |FX 5700              
|NV36    |0.13     |82                |9.0         |AGP        |3         |4       |475MHz   |1900    |128b      |450MHz   |14.4GB/s      |FX 5700 Ultra     
|NV30    |0.13     |125              |9.0         |AGP        |3         |4x2    |400MHz   |3200    |128b      |400MHz   |12.8GB/s      |FX 5800              
|NV30    |0.13     |125              |9.0         |AGP        |3         |4x2    |500MHz   |4000    |128b      |500MHz   |16.0GB/s      |FX 5800 Ultra     
|NV35    |0.13     |135              |9.0         |AGP        |3         |4x2    |325MHz   |2600    |256b      |350MHz   |22.4GB/s      |FX 5900 ZT       
|NV35    |0.13     |135              |9.0         |AGP        |3         |4x2    |400MHz   |3200    |256b      |350MHz   |22.4GB/s      |FX 5900 SE/XT  
|NV35    |0.13     |135              |9.0         |AGP        |3         |4x2    |400MHz   |3200    |256b      |425MHz   |27.2GB/s      |FX 5900              
|NV35    |0.13     |135              |9.0         |AGP        |3         |4x2    |450MHz   |3600    |256b      |425MHz   |27.2GB/s      |FX 5900 Ultra    
|NV38    |0.13     |135              |9.0         |AGP        |3         |4x2    |475MHz   |3800    |256b      |475MHz   |30.4GB/s      |FX 5950              
|NV36    |0.13     |82                |9.0         |PCI         |3         |4       |475MHz   |1900    |128b      |450MHz   |14.4GB/s      |PCX 5750           
|NV35    |0.13     |135              |9.0         |PCI         |3         |4x2    |350MHz   |2800    |256b      |275MHz   |17.6GB/s      |PCX 5900         
|NV38    |0.13     |135              |9.0         |PCI         |3         |4x2    |475MHz   |3800    |256b      |475MHz   |30.4GB/s      |PCX 5950           
|NV43    |0.11     |146              |9.0c       |Both        |3         |8        |300MHz   |2400    |128b      | -            | -                   |6600                    
|NV43    |0.11     |146              |9.0c       |Both        |3         |8        |500MHz   |4000    |128b      |500MHz   |16.0GB/s      |6600 GT            
|NV40    |0.13     |222              |9.0c       |Both        |4         |8        |300MHz   |2400    |256b      |350MHz   |22.4GB/s      |6800 LE              
|NV40    |0.13     |222              |9.0c       |Both        |5         |12      |325MHz   |3900    |256b      |350MHz   |22.4GB/s      |6800                   
|NV40U  |0.13     |222              |9.0c       |Both        |6         |16     |350MHz   |5600    |256b       |500MHz   |32.0GB/s      |6800 GT             
|NV45    |0.13     |222              |9.0c       |Both        |4         |8       | -             |4200    |256b       | -            |22.8GB/s      |6800 GTO           
|NV40U  |0.13     |222              |9.0c       |Both        |6         |16     |400MHz   |6400    |256b       |550MHz   |35.2GB/s      |6800 Ultra           
|NV40U  |0.13     |222              |9.0c       |Both        |6         |16     |450MHz   |7200    |256b       |550MHz   |35.2GB/s      |6800 Ultra Extreme    
|G70      |0.13     |302              |9.0c       |PCI         |8         |20     |400MHz   |8000    |256b       |500MHz   |32.0GB/s      |7800 GT              
|G70      |0.13     |302              |9.0c       |PCI         |8         |24     |430MHz   |10,320 |256b       |600MHz   |38.4GB/s      |7800 GTX