The Best Video Cards For Your Money: February 2012

The Sapphire Radeon HD 7950 3GB video card.

The best video cards for your money?

By that, I mean the cards that offer the best performance at a given price. Why would you want that, you ask?

Because you want the best bang for the buck, because you want the best possible card for your hard-earned money and because you want the highest FPS possible!

However, I do realize that not everyone has the time to read detailed video card reviews nor does everyone have the ability to make sense of video card specifications.

This is why I write this guide for you: To help you save your time, sanity and money by doing the research for you and letting you know what are the best video cards for your money.

Keep in mind:

1- These video cards recommendations are for gamers who desire the best bang for their buck, or in other words, the best performance/features for their money. These video cards are way overkill if you don’t play videos games.
2- This list is based on the best U.S. prices for new video cards from NewEgg and/or Amazon that I’ve seen as of February 2nd 2012.
3- Each video card performance will vary depending on the game. Some games run better on Nvidia cards and some run better on AMD cards.
4- The resolution that I mention below should only be used as a guideline to give you an idea of the capability of the video card on recent games.

February 2012 update:

AMD launched the Radeon HD 7950:

To keep it short, let’s just say that it outperforms the Nvidia Geforce GTX 580 by a good margin, consumes quite a bit less power and offers the same outstanding overclocking potential as the the Radeon HD 7970.

I invite you to read either the AnandTech review and/or the Tech Report review for more information.

Best video card for $80:

Radeon HD 6750 1GB GDDR3

Replacing the previously recommended Radeon HD 6670, the Radeon HD 6750 is significantly more powerful and is now the best video card for $80.

Note that this $80 Radeon HD 6750 is equipped with GDDR3 memory, as opposed to the faster GDDR5 found on the standard $100+ Radeon HD 6750 1GB.

This makes it slower than the $100 Radeon HD 6750 equipped with GDDR5, but it still faster than the previously recommended Radeon HD 6670 and the Nvidia competition at this price range.

Good to know:

• This video card will do the job at 1280 x 1024, 1440 x 900 and 1680 x 1050 although you might have to lower details in some games.

Best video card for $110:

Radeon HD 6770 1GB

$94.99 after $20 Mail-in Rebate

Replacing the previously recommended Geforce GTX 260 (which is no longer available), the Radeon HD 6770 (rebranded Radeon HD 5770 with Bluray 3D decoding support) performs on par on average, while offering DirectX 11 support (GTX 260 is limited to DirectX 10), consuming less power and being more silent.

Single slot version:
The Radeon HD 6770 1GB is also available as a single slot version, in the form of the $120 – XFX Radeon HD 6770 1GB Single slot. Do note that if you do have the two free slots for a video card, get the double-slot recommendation instead, as it’s less expensive, less noisy and you don’t need to purchase Mini-Displayport adapters.

Nvidia Alternative:

If you prefer Nvidia cards, the $125 – EVGA GTS 450 SuperClocked 1GB is a good alternative. Thanks to its factory overclock, it is able to trade blows with the Radeon 6770, being faster in some games and slower in others.

Then again, considering that you can get a faster Radeon HD 6790 1GB for the same price, it’s getting tough to recommend the GTS 450.

Be careful if you decide to pick a different GTS 450, as frequencies and thus performance, varies.

Best video card for $125:

Radeon HD 6790 1GB

Replacing the no longer available or too expensive 256-bit Geforce GTX 460s, the Radeon HD 6790, offers considerably lower performance than it, but is nonetheless the fastest video card for $125.

The Radeon HD 6790 supports DirectX 11 and will do the job at 1680 x 1050 and even 1920 x 1080 although you might have to lower details in more recent and more demanding games.

Best video card for $140:

Radeon HD 6850 1GB

I’m recommending the Radeon HD 6850 1GB once again, seeing as there’s currently a $25 price gap between the Radeon HD 6850 1GB and the more powerful $165 Radeon HD 6870.

The Radeon HD 6850 1GB supports DirectX 11 and will do the job at 1680 x 1050 and even 1920 x 1080 although you might have to lower details in more recent and more demanding games.

Best Video Card for $165

Radeon HD 6870 1GB

Nvidia doesn’t really have much of a competitor at this price range, as the GTX 550 Ti overclocked is on par with the $125 Radeon HD 6790.

As for the Geforce GTX 560, it starts at $180+, but the factory overclocked cards with core frequency at 850MHz, which are on par with the $165 Radeon HD 6870, only start at $190, why is why I still recommend the Radeon HD 6870 at $165.

The Radeon HD 6870 has no problem outperforming the $140 Radeon HD 6850, as well as the older Radeon HD 5850, while performing above the stock Geforce GTX 560 Non-Ti and on par with the factory overclocked 850MHz core GTX 560.

What games can this video card handle?

This card is capable of handling the vast majority of games at 1920 x 1080. As usual, keep in mind that you might have to lower details for the more demanding games.

Best Video Card for $180-200: None

While you can pick up a Geforce GTX 560 starting at $180-190, I don’t recommend it, seeing as it performs on par with the much less expensive Radeon HD 6870 recommended above.

Best video card for $210:

Geforce GTX 560 Ti 1GB

Competition:

Simply put, the $210 Geforce GTX 560 Ti doesn’t have much competition at this price point:
- It outperforms the $175 Radeon HD 6870.
- As for the Radeon HD 6950, which outperforms the GTX 560 Ti, it starts at $258, $48 more.

So why are you recommending the Geforce GTX 560?

Well, the Geforce GTX 560 Ti isn’t that far behind the Radeon HD 6950 and costs $30 less, making it a good choice if your budget is closer to $200 than $250.

Also, the Geforce GTX 560 Ti has a reputation for being a card with a lot of overclocking potential and this particular Gigabyte card, with its dual fan cooling system, has enough cooling to accommodate quite a bit of overclocking without sounding like a turbo jet.

This card will run pretty much any game at 1920 x 1080, including Crysis Warhead (At Gamer overall settings, with some Enthusiast settings) and other demanding games, with less or more AA/AF, depending on the game.

Best Video Card for $258:

Radeon HD 6950 2GB

With AMD’s performance improvement of the 6xxx series through newer drivers, the Radeon HD 6950 2GB is now considered quite a bit faster than the Geforce GTX 560 Ti instead of being just a tad faster and is easy to recommend for $258.

Single-slot card:
If you want a video card that takes only one free expansion slot, then I recommend the:
$270 – PowerColor Radeon HD 6850 1GB Single-slot

Best video card for $320:

Radeon HD 6970 2GB

$299.99 after $30 Mail-In Rebate

While the recently launched Geforce GTX 560 Ti 448 Cores at $290 offers similar performance to the Geforce GTX 570, I recommend avoiding both the $290 GTX 560 Ti 448 Cores and the $350 Geforce GTX 570.

Why? Because you can get a Radeon HD 6970, which edges out both the Geforce GTX 570 and the GTX 560 Ti 448 Cores, for $320.

Not convinced? See yourself how it compares to the Nvidia Geforce GTX 570.

This card will run nearly any game at 1920 x 1200 (or 1080 for 1080p) maxed out, with less or more AA/AF, depending on the game, as well as most games at 2560 x 1600, although with lowered details in some games.

Best video card for $450:

Radeon HD 7950 3GB

Comes with a free Dirt 3 coupon.

Launched in January 2012, the Radeon HD 7950 3GB is a solid addition to the world of video cards.

It outperforms the Nvidia Geforce GTX 580 by a good margin, consumes quite a bit less power and offers the same outstanding overclocking potential as the the Radeon HD 7970.

I invite you to read either the AnandTech review and/or the Tech Report review for more information.

This card will run any game at 1920 x 1200 (or 1080 for 1080p) maxed out, with less or more AA/AF, depending on the game, as well as most games at 2560 x 1600 without any problem. Gaming on multiple monitors is also possible, although you might have to turn settings down, depending on the game.

Best Video Card For ~$550:

Radeon HD 7970 3GB

Simply put, this card features the fastest single-GPU on the market. It also has a reputation as an excellent card for overclocking, with a lot of potential.

If you want one of the fastest video card solution without messing with Crossfire, SLI or dual-GPU video card setups, this is the way to go.

For more info about it, read our article: 10 Facts about the Radeon HD 7970

More performance at 5760 x 1080/1200: If you want more performance to play at 5760 x 1080/1200, simply go with the two Radeon HD 6970 in Crossfire that I recommend at the $660 price point, or if you can afford it, two Radeon HD 7970 in Crossfire for ~$1100.

Best Video Card for $660:

Two Radeon HD 6970 2 GB in Crossfire

Offering performance close to two Geforce GTX 580 in SLI, while consuming close to 250W less at load and costing ~$300-350 less.

Two Radeon HD 6970 in Crossfire remain an excellent solution, even after the introduction of the Radeon HD 7950 and the Radeon HD 7970.

Think about it: Two Radeon HD 6970 will set you back $660, compared to ~$550 for a Radeon HD 7970, while offering higher performance than a single Radeon HD 7970 in most cases.

To avoid:
The Radeon HD 6990 or the Geforce GTX 590. Those cards are equipped with two GPUs, making them a Crossfire or SLI solution on a single video card.

However, due to cooling limitations, those expensive cards end up performing slower than comparably priced SLI or Crossfire solutions. Also, due to having to dissipate the heat of two GPUs, the Radeon HD 6990 and Geforce GTX 590 are horribly noisy, as well as very long, thus not fitting in many computer cases.

Best Video Card for $900:

Two Radeon HD 7950 3GB in Crossfire

Easily outperforming both two Radeon HD 6970 in Crossfire or two Geforce GTX 580, two Radeon HD 7950 3GB in Crossfire are a force to be reckoned with.

They are also a “bargain” compared to two Radeon HD 7970 3GB in Crossfire, offering performance that isn’t that far behind, while costing $200 less.

Best Video Card for $1100:

Two Radeon HD 7970 3GB in Crossfire

If you want the best performance possible, without consideration for anything else, two Radeon HD 7970 in Crossfire are the way to go. If you choose to go with such a setup, make sure to have:

• A motherboard that supports Crossfire
• A case with a high airflow to handle the heat dissipation
• A very solid power supply to handle the power consumption

Overkill:

You consider getting three or four Radeon HD 7970 in Crossfire, thinking that more is better. As a matter of a fact, it’s not.

Simply put, drivers support for Triple/Quad-Crossfire is pretty poor, resulting in equivalent or even lower performance than two cards too often. If you don’t run in a CPU bottleneck before that is. In other words, it’s not worth dropping that much cash for a solution that doesn’t work at its best more often than not.

Worse of all?

Most of the time, such setups are bottlenecked by the CPU anyway, even with a Sandy Bridge-E CPU (less if you overclock it, but still). I avoid recommending such setups as they are not suitable for most of you. Besides, if you know that you want such a setup and are ready to pay for it, you most likely know what you’re doing and don’t need this guide to begin with.

A few important recommendations and notes regarding video cards:

1- Get the latest version of the video card drivers directly from AMD or Nvidia. This will ensure that you get the latest bug fixes and the best performance possible from your video card(s).
2- To confirm whether Crossfire or SLI is working or not, use GPU-Z which will show that information to you in the last field at the bottom of the program.
3- SLI Guide: How to enable SLI, check if SLI is enabled, actually working in your game and what to do if it’s not is a great guide from the Notebook Review forums.
4- When using two or more video cards in Crossfire or SLI, you want to connect your monitors into the top video card, i.e. the video card that is the closest to the CPU.
5- Most video cards require one or two PCI-Express 6 or 8 pin power connector(s) to be plugged into them to function properly. Make sure that your power supply comes equipped with enough 6 and/or 8 pin connectors for your video cards.

Conclusion

What’s coming up in the next few months?

AMD

Rest of the AMD HD 7xxx series launch time:
The launch of the Radeon HD 7950, with its $450 MSRP and its performance above the GTX 580 pretty much makes the Geforce GTX 580 irrelevant at its current price.

With the rest of the AMD 7xxx series line-up launching this month, except the dual-GPU 7990, Nvidia will be under some serious competitive pressure from AMD, when it comes to offering the best performance at a given price.

Nvidia

Nvidia is still rumored to launch their Kepler GPUs (which most likely be branded as the Geforce 6xx series) towards the late of March or early April. You can bet that Nvidia will do anything that it can to stick to the schedule, in order to counter AMD Radeon HD 7000 series and to have cards ready in time for the launch of Intel’s Ivy Bridge CPUs.

I have yet to see any solid source that have leaked performance benchmarks or prices to expect, so all we can do at this point is be patient.

One can hope that we’ll see some price cuts on Nvidia cards as the launch of Kepler approaches, especially considering how poorly they are doing when you consider performance vs price, which explains why the GTX 560 Ti is the only Nvidia card that I recommend this month.

Both the GTX 570 and GTX 580 are due for a good price cut. Some price cuts at the lower end (GTX 550 Ti and GTX 560 non-Ti) wouldn’t hurt either, but I wouldn’t expect much on that level, but then again, we might be in for a surprise.

Tune in next month for the next edition of “The Best Video Cards For Your Money” to see