Best Graphics Cards of 2016: Top picks for every budget

[Darth Shiv]

You do realize there are more options than just Ultra High in a game?
I know how to optimize my graphics settings to squeeze the most out of it. I dont just press presets (which BTW often are not actually the highest settings) in the menu

I certainly was not playing BF4 at ultra high. Was on fairly low settings on 1080p and there were relatively frequent occasions where was not playable. You'd have to play an engineer where things were not so twitch dependent.

 

[Charcharo]

I certainly was not playing BF4 at ultra high. Was on fairly low settings on 1080p and there were relatively frequent occasions where was not playable. You'd have to play an engineer where things were not so twitch dependent.

Well unfortunately I cant tell you about BF4 , but BF3 on the old PC (with the ATI 5770) and at my fairly lower resolutions was quite fine. But for BF4, I honestly have no idea.
The most demanding game it played through was Witcher 3. It did struggle but it got the job done.

 

[misor]

Another thing for budget users to consider is that the GTX 960 plays much better with low-end GPUs than the R9 380 due to AMD's driver overhead. Still, if you have a Core i3 or better, the effects of AMD's driver overhead will be minimal for the most part.

isn't GPUs in "GTX 960 plays much better with low-end GPUs than the R9 380..." should have been CPUs?
otherwise it sounds like GTX 960 is playing with itself or with other GPUs in SLI?
(I have a dirty mind, sorry... )

 

[Hammayon]

I am an nVidia shill and I'd still avoid the 970 like the plaque.

I too, avoid plaque with my handy dandy toothbrush!

Regarding the article, after reading it and then reading the comments, I thought I haven't read it! These comments have nothing to do with the article!!?? I still could not locate where in the artice GTX370 was mentioned as the go-to card, as transerv & SlickerR point out.

As for me, I've been eyeing this card: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150742
still have not pulled the trigger since I'm contemplating the definition of Crossfire.

I still could not locate where in the artice GTX370 was mentioned as the go-to card, as transerv & SlickerR point out.

Well of course you aren't going to find it if you are looking at artice.

"Artificial Ice rink Specialist. The only dry and self lubricating synthetic ice rink in the world!"

 

[Hammayon]

I've got an overclocked edition of the 780 Ti making it as fast as a 980. It's pretty good. Though I wish I had more VRAM as more and more games want you to have more than 3 GB. Next card better have more than 4 GB to future proof myself.

Also, anyone know of the next steam sale for Rise of the Tomb Raider?

 

[Arturo]

The always say that the 980ti is a cheaper Titan X. This is not true. Titan X not only is faster but has 12GB. In titles like ROTTR, I watched the game eating 7GB, and in BO III, the amount went up to 10 GB. The 980ti cannot performs like this because it has only 6GB, and the above-mentioned games has to cache somewhere else. When you have a Titan card you cannot return to other inferior cards, whether they are called ti or anything else.

 

[LNCPapa]

Please read up a bit more on texture caching before making these types of statements. A 980 Ti can play either of those games just fine.

 

[Arturo]

Please read up a bit more on texture caching before making these types of statements. A 980 Ti can play either of those games just fine.

What I meant to say is that they never mention that Titan X has 12GB, which is a great advantage. Regarding cache: enlighten me, because I don't see any other option for cache aside from VRAM or RAM.

 

[Blazerade]

Whoa whoa whoa a comparison review that doesn't mention anything bad about Amd's graphic drivers! Does that mean....... Amd releases drivers that are bug, glitch, blackbox flicker, and bsod free??? Because I would have never dreamed that possible

 

[SlickR]

I have to assume you are talking about the GTX 970? Even so it makes no sense. What is with you guys and your obsession over VRAM? Firstly, can you please provide some evidence where the GTX 970 suffers from a lack of VRAM under playable conditions. It is out right faster than the 390 at 1080p due to AMD’s driver overhead issue and matches the 390 at 1440p. It consumes less power and overclocks much better. It also costs the exact same amount.

The GTX 950 is an obvious choice here so I am not even going to bother arguing the point. The R9 270 has been heavily handy capped through poor driver optimisation for the latest games and well it is a discontinued product.



You are a Nvidia shill are you? You go to bat for AMD in every CPU comparison and defend them like your life is on the line in any GPU related article. Anyway rather than speculate and make baseless claims feel free to provide hard evidence of your claims.

The GTX 970 is NOT unpredictable at higher resolutions (higher being greater than 1440p), it is far TOO SLOW at higher resolutions, just as the R9 390 is.



No the 390 isn’t faster, it has more VRAM it can’t use and it’s the same price. The 390 will only improve with time? Huh how is that working out for the 200 series?

The Nano isn’t faster than the 980 and it’s not more efficient either. It’s certainly not quieter and again it isn’t faster at 2K or 4K, it is also much slower at 1080p. Yes it can overclock to Fury X level of performance and gain a small amount of performance.

The 970 is slower is all new games than the R9 390, I don't know which fake stats you looking at, but all the hardware sites I follow that have updated tests of actual new games with newest drivers show the R9 390 being slightly faster at higher resolutions. It also helps that its generally cheaper by about $20-30 dollars and it comes with 8GB of memory as opposed to 3.5GB ram, which most newer games actually can use 4GB or more at only 1440p.

The GTX 950 is an over expensive turd, recommending it is like recommending poison. Even if there is no competition of actual drink at the price, you still don't recommend it. You can still EASILY find R7 270's. In fact for only $20-30 more you can get the GTX 960 2gb one.

 

[Technician]

If you ignore the top card, the second best card is the best card available, I would think that goes without saying.

 

[Steve]

The 970 is slower is all new games than the R9 390, I don't know which fake stats you looking at, but all the hardware sites I follow that have updated tests of actual new games with newest drivers show the R9 390 being slightly faster at higher resolutions. It also helps that its generally cheaper by about $20-30 dollars and it comes with 8GB of memory as opposed to 3.5GB ram, which most newer games actually can use 4GB or more at only 1440p.

The GTX 950 is an over expensive turd, recommending it is like recommending poison. Even if there is no competition of actual drink at the price, you still don't recommend it. You can still EASILY find R7 270's. In fact for only $20-30 more you can get the GTX 960 2gb one.

Like Tomb Raider?
https://www.techspot.com/review/1128-rise-of-the-tomb-raider-benchmarks/page3.html

Or XCOM2?
http://www.pcgameshardware.de/XCOM-2-Spiel-55610/Specials/Technik-Test-1184829/
http://gamegpu.com/images/remote/ht...-Test_GPU-strategy-XCOM_2-test-XCom2_2560.jpg

maybe Dying Light: The Following?
http://gamegpu.com/images/stories/Test_GPU/Action/Dying_Light_The_Following_/test/dlf_2560.jpg

We could hand pick tests all day, AMD win some and Nvidia win others.

As I said both the GTX 970 and R9 390 are excellent $300 options and objectively there is no wrong choice to make here.

The GTX 950 is well priced and is a good budget option for the money, your fan-boyish comments hold no weight here.

 

[Apogee777]

Nvidia will always be a little ahead, but competition is more important than love for one brand.
I went for the R9 390 for FO4 and after a lot of modding GPU-Z is reporting 4.2 - 4.7 GB vid ram used constantly.
I am very glad I went for the 390 instead, these reviews are for mainstream users only of course.

 

[Steve]

Nvidia will always be a little ahead, but competition is more important than love for one brand.
I went for the R9 390 for FO4 and after a lot of modding GPU-Z is reporting 4.2 - 4.7 GB vid ram used constantly.
I am very glad I went for the 390 instead, these reviews are for mainstream users only of course.

No it is reporting 4.2 - 4.7 GB of VRAM being allocated, you have no idea how much it is actually using. Rest assured the 290 would deliver the exact same performance in a clock of clock comparison.

 

[MHMPr]

We could hand pick tests all day, AMD win some and Nvidia win others.
As I said both the GTX 970 and R9 390 are excellent $300 options and objectively there is no wrong choice to make here.

Hey, Steve. I mentioned this in another thread, this is a good occasion to bring it up again.
I'd like to suggest that GPU reviews include a "summary" section with graphs for the average framerates of the cards on all games tested (similar to what techpowerup does) in order to provide a better visualization of how all cards perform overall, since a single game may favour one brand over another. Would you guys be willing to implement that? Should be easy to accomplish by simply entering the test results on an excel spreadsheet with the some simple average formulas.

 

[Steve]

Hey, Steve. I mentioned this in another thread, this is a good occasion to bring it up again.
I'd like to suggest that GPU reviews include a "summary" section with graphs for the average framerates of the cards on all games tested (similar to what techpowerup does) in order to provide a better visualization of how all cards perform overall, since a single game may favour one brand over another. Would you guys be willing to implement that? Should be easy to accomplish by simply entering the test results on an excel spreadsheet with the some simple average formulas.

Hey, yeah we do include that info in the conclusions of the GPU reviews, we just don't graph it.

 

[MHMPr]

Hey, yeah we do include that info in the conclusions of the GPU reviews, we just don't graph it.

Fair enough.
But graphing it is still a bigger benefit, the way I see it. Especially because us reading the review are not necessarily looking to compare just the GPU that was released and being reviewed now. For example, suppose I wanted to see whether I should buy a R9 380 or a GTX 960. If I look for the reviews of either of those, they will be using older drivers and possibly testing older games, or games without the newest patches. If instead there was a summary graph on every review, I could simply go to the lastest review of whichever GPU was last released and see the performance of those two GPUs I want, with the most recent drivers, patches and so on.
Or if a particular driver release brings significant improvements to one of the lines of GPU and change the competitive landscape, for example, that will also be reflected on the summary of whatever GPU is released/reviewed next.
Anyway, it would be a great addition, and it would keep readers coming back to the article more often.

 

[mojorisin23]

I have dual GTX 560 Ti's .... is that still decent or is it outdated?

 

[LNCPapa]

It really depends on what you're trying to play with it. As long as you're not trying to play anything too intensive and at a higher resolution you should be fine. Once you start trying to play the really demanding games like Witcher 3 or something else fairly new you will have to give up lots of quality and perhaps deal with lower frame rates as well.

 

[SlickR]

Like Tomb Raider?
https://www.techspot.com/review/1128-rise-of-the-tomb-raider-benchmarks/page3.html

Or XCOM2?
http://www.pcgameshardware.de/XCOM-2-Spiel-55610/Specials/Technik-Test-1184829/
http://gamegpu.com/images/remote/ht...-Test_GPU-strategy-XCOM_2-test-XCom2_2560.jpg

maybe Dying Light: The Following?
http://gamegpu.com/images/stories/Test_GPU/Action/Dying_Light_The_Following_/test/dlf_2560.jpg

We could hand pick tests all day, AMD win some and Nvidia win others.

As I said both the GTX 970 and R9 390 are excellent $300 options and objectively there is no wrong choice to make here.

The GTX 950 is well priced and is a good budget option for the money, your fan-boyish comments hold no weight here.

390 wins at 1080p and 4k on Tomb Raider.

Xcome 2 is hardly a demanding game, isometric turn based arena, either way the difference is minuscule to be important.

All other games like Crysis 3, Witcher 3, GTA 5, BF 4, Ashes of singularity, Shadow of Mordor, etc... on anandtech, guru3d, hexus, tomshardware, etc... show the 390 winning handily!

 

[Steve]

390 wins at 1080p and 4k on Tomb Raider.

Xcome 2 is hardly a demanding game, isometric turn based arena, either way the difference is minuscule to be important.

All other games like Crysis 3, Witcher 3, GTA 5, BF 4, Ashes of singularity, Shadow of Mordor, etc... on anandtech, guru3d, hexus, tomshardware, etc... show the 390 winning handily!

How much faster is the 390 than the 290? It would have to be a lot to beat the 970 handily over at Guru3D... I'm also pretty sure we don't need to look at 4K results when discussing either of these GPUs.
http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/zotac_geforce_gtx_970_amp_extreme_core_review,19.html

Again the 970 is within two frames of the 290X, can't see the 390 smashing it...
http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/zotac_geforce_gtx_970_amp_extreme_core_review,12.html

As I said the 970 and 390 are so evenly matched you could go either way, there is no real wrong choice here.