Best PCIe Card For ~£90: Tie
Radeon HD 7770
Good 1920x1200 performance in most games, some with lowered detail
| Radeon HD 7770 | |
|---|---|
| Codename: | Cape Verde |
| Process: | 28 nm |
| Universal Shaders: | 640 |
| Texture Units: | 40 |
| ROPs: | 16 |
| Memory Bus: | 128-bit |
| Core Speed MHz: | 1000 |
| Memory Speed MHz: | 1125 (4500 effective) |
| DirectX/Shader Model: | DX 11.1/SM 5.0 |
| Max TDP: | 80 W |
The Radeon HD 7770 can now be found for £90, which is significantly lower than the inflated price tag AMD suggested at launch and slightly below Nvidia's GeForce GTX 560 SE. At least as powerful as the end-of-lifed Radeon HD 6790, this newer card uses only half the power to get its job done. Now that we see a price we like, the 7770 deserves a full recommendation.
Read our full review of AMD's Radeon HD 7770 for more information on the card and its accompanying architecture.
GeForce GTX 560 SE
Good 1920x1200 performance in most games, some with lowered detail
| GeForce GTX 560 SE | |
|---|---|
| Codename: | GF114 |
| Process: | 40 nm |
| Universal Shaders: | 288 |
| Texture Units: | 48 |
| ROPs: | 24 |
| Memory Bus: | 192-bit |
| Core/Shader Speed MHz: | 776 / 1552 |
| Memory Speed MHz: | 957 (3828 effective) |
| DirectX/Shader Model: | DX 11/SM 5 |
| Max TDP: | 150 W |
With a crippled version of the GF114 GPU used in Nvidia's GeForce GTX 560 and GTX 560 Ti, the 560 SE delivers performance similar to the company's defunct GeForce GTX 460 192-bit cards at a lower price point. It also stands up against AMD's similarly-priced Radeon HD 7770, though the AMD board's power consumption is much more conservative.
Read our full review of Nvidia's GeForce GTX 560 SE for more information on the card and its accompanying architecture.
Best PCIe Card For £110:
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 GeForce GTX 460 256-bit card. Unfortunately, 256-bit GeForce GTX 460 cards have been phased out, so AMD's offering gets our sole recommendation at this price point.
Read our full review of AMD's Radeon HD 6850 for more information on the card and its accompanying architecture.
Scan have a huge number of 670s, a large number of 680s and a few 690's still in stock.
"Soooo hard to find!"
UK e-tailers will have 20% VAT on, which makes them more expensive but yeah... rip-off Britain and all that.
Also, I've always been dubious as to the accuracy of 'great at 1920x1080' etc, due to huge variance in how demanding specific games are (say Modern Warfare vs Metro 2033) but if you're going to insist on doing it, maybe it's time to step up to resolutions beyond 2560x1600 (i.e. multi-display setups). We're now reaching 'great at 2560x1600' at at the start of the 3rd of 4 of pages. So the entire second half of the roundup!