Best Graphics Cards for the Money (Archive)

[jackspeed]

I think the hierarchy chart should be put back in the article or linked to it, as this is still based on prices which change more then once each quarter.

 

[Onus]

By focusing on a goal though, you can look for the cheapest solution that meets that goal. The only thing missing here (not to harp) are FPS numbers to go with the resolutions and settings. I really don't want to play on "low," but am generally fine with a mix of medium and high settings. I want more than 30FPS, but 35FPS is "sufferable" and 45FPS is fine.

 

[daft inquisitor]

Massive gap between $120 and $220, where a huge % of the market buy their cards. Having just looked for cards at this range - where's the nvidia 750ti, and 950. 750ti is faster, lower power and uses a new architecture (maxwell vs GN 1.1) and costs about $10 more then a 360. 950 is a big step up on that, and costs about $150, latest architecture, low power, great 1080p performance (AMD only have the ancient 370 in this range) - not everyone wants to go up to $220.

I use a 750ti in my living room rig, and it works pretty spectacularly. I can't play games at max settings on 1080, but I sure as hell can play most of them on settings that are "damn pretty". I seriously expected to see that in the "Will Play At 1080" slot, or a comparable card, but apparently it's... supposedly not powerful enough? Is that right? If so, I think these recommendations are stilted a bit...

 

[Gurg]

I think the hierarchy chart should be put back in the article or linked to it, as this is still based on prices which change more then once each quarter.

When you pull up the main TH page and click on graphics the Hierarchy Table is right next to the Best article. If you want specific prices go to the retail web sites, they can change daily. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think the hierarchy table ever had prices.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gpu-hierarchy,4388.html

 

[VaporX]

What is the deal with the Amazon price listing for cards. Go to the site and they are MUCH lower than the listed price. Heck the price they are showing is over MSRP by a nuts margin.

 

[Gurg]

Massive gap between $120 and $220, where a huge % of the market buy their cards. Having just looked for cards at this range - where's the nvidia 750ti, and 950. 750ti is faster, lower power and uses a new architecture (maxwell vs GN 1.1) and costs about $10 more then a 360. 950 is a big step up on that, and costs about $150, latest architecture, low power, great 1080p performance (AMD only have the ancient 370 in this range) - not everyone wants to go up to $220.

I use a 750ti in my living room rig, and it works pretty spectacularly. I can't play games at max settings on 1080, but I sure as hell can play most of them on settings that are "damn pretty". I seriously expected to see that in the "Will Play At 1080" slot, or a comparable card, but apparently it's... supposedly not powerful enough? Is that right? If so, I think these recommendations are stilted a bit...

What is it with all the 750Ti fanboys? If you are happy gaming at lower 1080 settings on the 750ti you already own, I'm happy for you. That doesn't make it a good choice or recommendation for anyone else.

 

[william p]

I think there are better cards for the money now, which is how this chart is structured. But for an upgrade situation the fact that it's the most powerful card that doesn't require the purchase of PSU with a PCIe cable weighs heavily in it's favor. Especially in SFF, and USFF systems where a bigger PSU isn't available. I think of it as the best budget card because of this savings, not the best gaming card. For some people it's the best option available. This chart recommends the GTX730 as best budget card. I disagree,I say spend for the GTX750Ti since it doesn't need a PSU all the money goes into the video card. Mine was $100 after rebate. Yes for that money there are things it won't do.

 

[Kiddo san]

the GTX 750Ti is not better than the GTX 950, just because of a simple very fact that the 950 is a bit over R7 370, which the R9 270X didn`t compete with the GTX 750Ti but more like with GTX 760, the GTX 750Ti competes with R7 260X/360...

 

[Math Geek]

the 750ti has drifted into the same mythical legendary realm that the pentium g3258 has. what it can do has been so overblown that it is almost silly. i have actually seen this sentence on this forum and it made me kind of nauseous "pair a 750ti with a g3258 and it'll compete with an i5 and a gtx 960". this kind of fanboy fanaticism is usually reserved only for the likes of apple products!! (and yes i am an apple fanboy so i understand how crazy blind people can be as a fanboy)

the card is great for upgrades of low power systems but not the right choice for new builds at all. but i guess whatever gets folks to sleep at night.........

 

[william p]

The 950 is faster then the 750, it's a 960 with some features disabled. It draws 75Watts and needs a PCIe connector. I'm comparing the GTX750Ti to the recommended budget card GTX730 64 bit, 1GB DDR5, 27W. Which I think is a waste of money compared to the GTX750Ti with 128 bit, 2GBDDR5 and 60Watts so no PSU upgrade needed for $20 more. No fantasy there. I think it should be best "Budget Card" and not compared to gaming cards where it is out powered. I'll be replacing my 750 soon with an R9-285 and bigger PSU total cost $230. My 750 was $100 installed. At that price there are things it won't do.

 

[f-14]

most important things to look at are the memory bus the bottleneck of the cards and the bandwidth which tells you the thruput the numbers indicate everything you need to know. nvidia purpose milks their advantage by crippling the memory bus to very old standards. amds 3850-70 had major advantages so long as they stuck with that 512 bit bus and nvidia could only compete with those cards when the bus speeds of their cards were 384 which allowed them to pump out the high bandwith numbers over 120GB/s. for the gtx270's that was also the reason the 2XX nvidia series was stomping on the nvidia gtx9800 series and the only reason the 9800's stayed in the picture for as long as they did because of their high bus.
the same has held true ever since and personally i wish the 64bit bus would have died 8 years ago that's why 1080p has stuck around as long as it has when 1600x1200 was top of the line in 1998 with 2560x1600 in 2003-2005ish. 384bit bus or higher obsoletes 1080p to prehistoric fossil but nvidia and mad stick with milking 1080p out because you let them and all the cr@pbox warriors when your running the same pixel count screen as a console froob you know your in dinosaur country nvidia needs to stop chicken choking and make their entire midrange line up 384 bit and their top tier back to 512 like with the gtx280's & 290's and you guys need to replace all your 1080 p monitors with 1600p

 

[HardCard]

I keep reading hardware articles that recommend overly weak GPUs for 1080p gaming.
The R9 380, for instance, doesn't have enough power to provide acceptable fps (50+) in demanding games...
Try running Star Citizen or AC Unity at 1080p with one of those, you'll be very disappointed with the performance.
1080p isn't a joke, if the game is demanding enough (lots of AAA titles are nowadays), you'll need a GPU from the upper tier (R9 290 or above), in order to get just decent fps (between 40 and 60, in many cases). Also, if you want to go beyond 60 fps, you'll need an SLI /Crossfire setup...and sometimes not even that can reach the 100fps mark... I'm just talking 1080p here, higher resolutions are out of the question.

I think that articles like the one linked by the OP should include fps expectations too.
For instance, I have a 144Hz monitor, so I'm always aiming to go beyond 60 fps, but even at 1080p, I can't do that with a top tier GPU.
And for those who say that there's no difference between 60, 120 and 144Hz, you are either liars, blind or you've never
owed a monitor with a refresh rate higher than 60. 144Hz is a curse, once you've tried it, you can't go back to 60Hz, the huge decrease in fluidity becomes too obvious then. I have another pc with a 60Hz monitor and every time I use it I notice the tremendous difference in fluidity.

 

[f-14]

Our entry-level recommendation is Nvidia's GeForce GT 730 64-bit GDDR5. This card is essentially a GeForce GT 630 with more memory bandwidth. As a result, it lands between its predecessor and the GeForce GTX 650. That's a great starting point for gamers on a tight budget. If you're in the market for a solid sub-$100 discrete board, just be sure you have the 64-bit GDDR5 version in your shopping cart; the 128-bit model is actually slower due to a less powerful GPU.

this is very much misleading to the point of out right lie. the thing crippling the 128 bit version is the purposely used GDDR3 instead of GDDR5
get your facts right the gt730 with GDDR3 is worse than the gtx650 by a landslide even with it's more powerful GPU, the only saving grace is the GDDR5 just like GDDR3 64bit versions trumped GDDR2 128bit in toms previous charts and reviews. the gt730 is still slower than a GT9700 from 2005 and a gt730 can barely manage older games decent @30fps

http://www.geforce.com/hardware/desktop-gpus/geforce-gtx-650ti-boost/specifications
http://www.geforce.com/hardware/desktop-gpus/geforce-gt-730/specifications
http://www.geforce.com/hardware/desktop-gpus/geforce-gt-630/specifications

 

[DagJ]

The Nvidia technology is a little better right now but it seems that the AMD technology gives you more bang for your buck right now.

It seems disappointing that you need to drop nearly $1K if you want good performance on a 4K display. But the good news is that gives the graphics chip makers something to work on for the next few years.

 

[Onus]

The GT740 looks a lot like the GT730, except it has a 128bit buss. That seems to me a much better budget choice, although I agree with william p that the GTX750Ti is a good starting point, particularly to upgrade a storebought system.

 

[lunchbeast]

Not a fan of the new format. Like a lot of people, I've got x dollars to spend and I liked being able to go to the (old) report and quickly determine how much that would buy me. I can see where the new version might help a few, but I think most readers are like me - limited by cash on hand regardless of what we want or what's 'best'.

This new layout is a classic case of somebody with too much authority and not enough business sense deciding "...it's time to do some thing new, so if we can't make it better, at least make it look different...".

Truly sad - a disappointing stumble for what was one of the most anticipated reports every month on what is arguably one of the better enthusiast sites on the web.

 

[william p]

Perhaps a chart with cost across the bottom axis, and performance on the vertical axis and let the "chips" fall where they may. That way all the GPUs would be shown in case someone has a brand preference, or some other criteria to consider. Maybe highlighted background for dual GPU, H2O, or no PSU cards.

 

[ipwitan]

I would recommend adding back in a discussion of power consumption, particularly for the lower end cards. It is critically important to understand that AMD cards might be around the same performance to the equivalent Nvidia variant, but it does so using almost twice as much power. If you have a stock PSU, the Nvidia variant may be the only real option. I also like the hierarchy chart.

 

[sicom]

I like the format, it's very useful. Before, I would have to check out the benchmarks/reviews after narrowing down price points. Now, you get the same general information at a glance.

Also, these commenters are surprisingly dumb. You STILL get cards listed by price points.

"I want to spend around $300."

Simply scroll until you see a card listed near that price point. No information has been removed with this format.

 

[kitekrazy1963]

This new format sucks. Need to go elsewhere for info.

 

[Blxke]

I know this is a new article but 750 ti is waay better for price compared to the R7 360

 

[Gardus82]

I'm looking forward to see how these articles will change once the VR sets are on sale.
As soon as the consumer version of the Ocolus Rift is available I'll build a new rig able to run it.
It seems they are going to increase the resolution from the DK2 2x1080p, and they may even increase the frequency from 90 to 120hz, so I wonder what kind of pc will be able to run it properly...

 

[Shawn_16]

Absolutely hate the new system. I hope you will change back but if not I guess will need to look for a new tech site as these articles were the main reason to visit Tom's. The idea that most users want to know what is the best card for the resolution is completely false as I've easily built couple hundred for friends family and coworkers and not 1 has asked for this info. Every one I've built the main concern was getting best computer parts for the money. You must be writing these articles for people that have so much money that cost isn't a concern. Huzzah for them.

 

[blazorthon]

Absolutely hate the new system. I hope you will change back but if not I guess will need to look for a new tech site as these articles were the main reason to visit Tom's. The idea that most users want to know what is the best card for the resolution is completely false as I've easily built couple hundred for friends family and coworkers and not 1 has asked for this info. Every one I've built the main concern was getting best computer parts for the money. You must be writing these articles for people that have so much money that cost isn't a concern. Huzzah for them.

Getting the best computer parts for the money is highly subjective. For example, if someone is gaming on a 720p TV, then is a GTX 950 really any better than a GTX 750 Ti? What if the power difference allowed for a cheaper PSU and that in turn allowed for an SSD? Sure, the GTX 950 has more performance for the money, but depending on the user's needs it is not necessarily better suited to a given situation than a GTX 750 Ti. The same holds true for any other card. If people aren't asking these questions, then that is likely because they don't know the right questions to ask.

Furthermore, how do your last two sentences even make any sense when this article is not geared towards any particular price segment? It covers low price ranges too and really, little of it at all is in a cost is no concern situation.

 

[Rhinofart]

How do they figure an AMD 390x won't play well at 1440p with the newest titles? I have an R9 290x running 1440p playing absolutely everything under the sun at high / very high detail settings.