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Best PCIe Card: Budget

Best Graphics Cards For The Money: January 2012
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Best PCIe Card For ~£80:

Radeon HD 5750/6750

Good 1920x1200 performance in most games, some with lowered detail

Radeon HD 5750/6750
Codename: RV840 "Juniper"
Process: 40 nm
Universal Shaders: 720
Texture Units: 36
ROPs: 16
Memory Bus: 128-bit
Core Speed MHz: 700
Memory Speed MHz: 1150 (4600 effective)
DirectX/Shader Model: DX 11/SM 5.0
Max TDP:86 W

The Radeon HD 5750 (also available re-badged as the Radeon HD 6750, with the added bonus of Blu-ray 3D decode support) is the most powerful £80 option available, with the added bonus of a relatively low 86 W power requirement. We used to skip this model in favour of the Radeon HD 5770/6770. But now that the Radeon HD 6790 can be found within £10 of that card's price, we're passing it over in favour of the more powerful option.

Read our full review of AMD's Radeon HD 5770 for more information on the card and its accompanying architecture.

Best PCIe Card For ~£105:

Radeon HD 6790

Good 1920x1200 performance in most games, some with lowered detail

Radeon HD 6790
Codename: Barts LE
Process: 40 nm
Universal Shaders: 800
Texture Units: 40
ROPs: 16
Memory Bus: 256-bit
Core Speed MHz: 840
Memory Speed MHz: 1050 (4200 effective)
DirectX/Shader Model: DX 11/SM 5.0
Max TDP:150 W

AMD's Radeon HD 6790 delivers DirectX 11 support, multi-display connectivity via Eyefinity, and HD audio bitstreaming capabilities in a modestly-priced gaming card. It runs circles around the similarly-priced GeForce GTX 550 Ti, and now that the GeForce GTX 460 768 MB is missing in action, we're giving the sole recommendation to AMD's solution. This would have been a shared honour previously.

Read our full review of AMD's Radeon HD 6790 for more information on the card and its accompanying architecture.

Best PCIe Card For ~£120:

Radeon HD 6850

Good 1920x1200 performance in most games

Radeon HD 6850
Codename: RV970 "Barts"
Process: 40 nm
Universal Shaders: 960
Texture Units: 48
ROPs: 32
Memory Bus: 256-bit
Core Speed MHz: 775
Memory Speed MHz: 1000 (4000 effective)
DirectX/Shader Model: DX 11/SM 5.0
Max TDP:127 W

With GeForce GTX 460 1 GB 256-bit prices rising, the Radeon HD 6850 prices have dropped to £116, and the AMD option looks particularly attractive when it comes to choosing between both similarly-performing competitors. This card delivers a solid gaming experience given the asking price. If you're playing at 1080p resolutions, you really can't go wrong here.

Read our full review of AMD's Radeon HD 6850 for more information on the card and its accompanying architecture.

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  • 0 Hide
    wildpluckings , 5 January 2012 03:02
    I use SLI GTX 560 ti and game at 2560x1440. A significant factor is that games like Battlefield 3 or Crysis 2 with the very highest texture settings will stutter under this configuration due to the GPU memory usage being maxed out (1GB per card). Usually it is only a case of reverting to the second from top texture quality setting in order to achieve extremely smooth motion and high framerates.
  • 0 Hide
    fuggles , 5 January 2012 08:02
    where can you get the 6670 for 65 pounds ??? you can't

    this article is a lie
  • -1 Hide
    mikesk , 6 January 2012 00:14
    Oh yes you cannnn.....

    http://www.amazon.co.uk/Asus-Graphics-PCI-Express-CrossFireX-Technology/dp/B004XANOCO/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1325786997&sr=8-2
  • 0 Hide
    Mousemonkey , 7 January 2012 15:51
    Quote:
    where can you get the 6670 for 65 pounds ??? you can't

    this article is a lie

    http://www.scan.co.uk/shop/computer-hardware/all/gpu-amd/radeon-hd6670-pci-e-%28480-cores%29
  • -1 Hide
    tulx , 8 January 2012 20:24
    fuggleswhere can you get the 6670 for 65 pounds ??? you can'tthis article is a lie


    owned
  • 0 Hide
    fuggles , 15 January 2012 20:49
    the over clocked 460 is basically a 470 which is basically a 560