You go out to buy a new graphics card, set a budget, and it'd seem that for another $30-60 you can always go with the next step up that performs a little better. Or, you could save those extra dollars, go for the budget model and overclock it and basically match the next step up's performance.

With that in mind, we have hand-picked three graphics cards that represent select price ranges to see just how much extra value can be obtained through overclocking. For the $100+ range we have the Radeon HD 6750, the GeForce GTX 560 Ti has been used to represent the $200+ market. Then at the top of the food chain we have the Radeon HD 6970 going for $300 and up.

Although its popularity is undoubtedly aided by the cult-like status of the Elder Scrolls franchise, Skyrim isn't just a clone of its predecessors (we're looking at you MW3). Bethesda has made many gameplay refinements, especially to the graphics and animations -- our area of interest.

While it may not bring your PC to its knees, Skyrim promises to be the best-looking Elder Scrolls title to date with its newly developed game engine, called the "Creation Engine." As usual we have put a wide range of hardware to the test, 17 graphics cards and CPU performance comparisons await inside.

Earlier this month we checked out the beta version of Battlefield 3 to see how it played on a range of DirectX 11 graphics cards. The results were concerning as even the latest and greatest graphics cards struggled, especially those who planned to enjoy the game in all of its visual glory.

The good news is that only one month later reviewers are finding the final game to be quite enjoyable and considerably more polished than the beta. Today we'll take a peak at what's required to play Battlefield 3 as we test a number of GPU and CPU configurations.

We love that Battlefield 3 is using the PC as the lead platform rather than a console. When played on the PC the game will handle 40 more players and will take advantage DirectX 11 and 64-bit processors.

DICE recommends a quad-core CPU be used along with 4GB of system memory. As for the graphics card a GeForce GTX 560 or Radeon HD 6950 is suggested, meaning that gamers will want to spend around $200 on a modern graphics card to appreciate Battlefield 3. Today we'll take a peak at what's required to play Battlefield 3 as we check out how the beta performs.