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Best PCIe Card: Budget

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

Radeon HD 5770/6770

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

Radeon HD 5770/6770
Codename: RV840 "Juniper"
Process: 40 nm
Universal Shaders: 800
Texture Units: 40
ROPs: 16
Memory Bus: 128-bit
Core Speed MHz: 850
Memory Speed MHz: 1200 (4800 effective)
DirectX/Shader Model: DX 11/SM 5.0
Max TDP:108 W

The Radeon HD 5770 (also available re-badged as the Radeon HD 6770, with the added bonus of Blu-ray 3D decode support) is an attractive £80 option that outshines the similarly-priced Radeon HD 6750 and GeForce GTS 450. This card is one of our price/performance favorites. And, with Radeon HD 4870-class performance, it's an excellent starting point for the mainstream gamer.

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

Honourable Mention:
Radeon HD 7750

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

Radeon HD 7750
Codename: Cape Verde
Process: 28 nm
Universal Shaders: 512
Texture Units: 32
ROPs: 16
Memory Bus: 128-bit
Core Speed MHz: 800
Memory Speed MHz: 1125 (4500 effective)
DirectX/Shader Model: DX 11.1/SM 5.0
Max TDP:55 W

At the same price, AMD's Radeon HD 6770 outperforms its newer Radeon HD 7750. The only problem is that the old card uses twice as much power in the process. The Radeon HD 7750 is the fastest graphics card you can get right now that doesn't require a auxiliary power input; it draws all that it needs from a 16-lane PCIe slot.

If you're upgrading an older machine with a power supply limitation in mind, this point warrants an honourable mention.

Read our full review of AMD's Radeon HD 7750 for more information on the card and its accompanying architecture.

Best PCIe Card For ~£90:

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 high-def (Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master 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

AMD's Radeon HD 6850 proved to be a worthy adversary against the 256-bit flavor of the GeForce GTX 460. And as a result, PC gamers win with exceptional performance at the £120 mark.

Both cards offer DirectX 11 support and HD audio bitstreaming capabilities. The main differentiators are Eyefinity multi-monitor support favoring the Radeon card, while the GeForce board has access to Nvidia's 3D Vision infrastructure that includes 3D gaming and Blu-ray 3D support. At the moment, most 256-bit GeForce GTX 460 cards are a bit more than their Radeon HD 6850 counterparts, so AMD's offering gets the recommendation this month.

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

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