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Best PCIe Card: High-end and Beyond

Best Graphics Cards For The Money: January 2012
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Best PCIe Card For ~£360: Tie

2 x Radeon HD 6950 1 GB in CrossFire

Excellent 2560x1600 performance

2 x Radeon HD 6950 1 GB in CrossFire
Codename: "Cayman"
Process: 40 nm
Universal Shaders: 2816 (2 x 1408)
Texture Units: 176 (2 x 88)
ROPs: 64 (2 x 32)
Memory Bus: 256-bit
Core Speed MHz: 800
Memory Speed MHz: 1250 (5000 effective)
DirectX/Shader Model: DX 11/SM 5.0
Max TDP:400 W (2 x 200 W)

Recent tests performed by our very own Thomas Soderstrom confirm that the Radeon HD 6900-series features vastly improved scaling performance in CrossFire compared to previous-generation boards. As such, a pair of these cards represents a realistic pinnacle for our recommendations. At around £360, two Radeon HD 6950s handily beat the GeForce GTX 580, and even come very close to catching the pricier Radeon HD 6990 and GeForce GTX 590.

A pair of GeForce GTX 560 Ti cards in also possess similar power when coupled in SLI mode, and therefore share the recommendation.

Read our full review of AMD's Radeon HD 6950 for more information on the card and its accompanying architecture.

2 x GeForce GTX 560 Ti in SLI

Excellent 1920x1200 performance, Good 2560x1600 performance in most games with lowered detail

2 x GeForce GTX 560 Ti in SLI
Codename: GF114
Process: 40 nm
Universal Shaders: 768 (2 x 384)
Texture Units: 128 (2 x 64)
ROPs: 64 (2 x 32)
Memory Bus: 256-bit
Core/Shader Speed MHz: 822 / 1644
Memory Speed MHz: 1002 (4008 effective)
DirectX/Shader Model: DX 11/SM 5

340 W (2 x 170 W)

Read our full review of Nvidia's GeForce GTX 560 Ti for more information on the card and its accompanying architecture.

Best PCIe Card For ~£380:

GeForce GTX 580

Great 2560x1600 performance

GeForce GTX 580
Codename: GF110
Process: 40 nm
Universal Shaders: 512
Texture Units: 64
ROPs: 48
Memory Bus: 384-bit
Core/Shader Speed MHz: 772 / 1544
Memory Speed MHz: 1002 (4008 effective)
DirectX/Shader Model: DX 11/SM 5.0
Max TDP:244 W

The fastest graphics card with a single GPU, Nvidia's GeForce GTX 580 challenges AMD's former flagship, the dual-GPU Radeon HD 5970. The GeForce GTX 580 wins its share of battles against the previously undisputed king-of-the-hill. And while it's outperformed by more modern dual-card solutions like Radeon HD 6870s in CrossFire and GeForce GTX 560 Tis in SLI, it does not suffer from the issues associated with multi-card setups.

Read our full review of Nvidia's GeForce GTX 580 for more information on the card and its underlying architecture.

Best PCIe Card For ~£430: None

Honourable Mention:
2 x Radeon HD 6950 2 GB in CrossFire

Excellent 2560x1600 performance

2 x Radeon HD 6950 2 GB in CrossFire
Codename: "Cayman"
Process: 40 nm
Universal Shaders: 2816 (2 x 1408)
Texture Units: 176 (2 x 88)
ROPs: 64 (2 x 32)
Memory Bus: 256-bit
Core Speed MHz: 800
Memory Speed MHz: 1250 (5000 effective)
DirectX/Shader Model: DX 11/SM 5.0
Max TDP:400 W (2 x 200 W)

It's true that the extra gigabyte of RAM doesn't appear to affect performance in most of our tests (outside of extreme resolutions with anti-aliasing enabled), but it's also true that reference-based Radeon HD 6950 2 GB cards are more commonly modded to expose all 1536 of their shader cores through a firmware update. This advantage is worth mentioning, at least.

Read our full review of AMD's Radeon HD 6950 for more information on the card and its accompanying architecture.

Best PCIe Card For ~£600: None

Despite a less-than-ideal price/performance ratio, we used to give props to the two fastest graphics cards on the planet: the dual-GPU equipped Radeon HD 6990 and GeForce GTX 590. Those cards are at the end of their life cycles though, and even though the new Radeon HD 7970 isn't available yet, we can't recommend those older flagships now that we've seen what the next generation will do.

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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