Now that AMD's Radeon R7 240 and 250 are here, we want to know a little more about what the sub-£80 market looks like. Can the latest Oland-based boards serve up playable performance in the latest titles, or are there other hidden gems to discover?
Without a doubt, high-end gaming PCs can get really expensive. Even our definition of "mid-range" hovers around the £800 mark. With a bunch of PC-derived technology at the heart of Sony's PlayStation 4 and Microsoft's Xbox One, it's no wonder the latest consoles are so appealing at £349 and £429.
There's another way to think about the market, though. Consider how many people own desktops. Sure, a lot of them have old, crappy integrated graphics engines wholly insufficient for gaming. Often times, though, the only component differentiating a weak word processing machine and a capable entertainment platform is a decent graphics card. Adding one might turn a modest little box into a system strong enough for Battlefield 4 or Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag.
But what if you're on a strict budget? Can you achieve that goal with less than £80?
Today we're going to compare inexpensive graphics cards to see what they're capable of in modern titles at fairly demanding settings. We're also going to scrutinize AMD's recently introduced Radeon R7 240 and 250 cards. Do they offer good value to gamers with limited funds for new hardware?
Here are the cards we're comparing, along with their specifications:
| GeForce GT 630 GDDR5 | GeForce GT 640 DDR3 | Radeon R7 240 | Radeon HD 6670 | Radeon HD 7730 | Radeon R7 250 | Radeon HD 7750 GDDR5 | Radeon HD 7770 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Shader Cores | 96 (Fermi) | 384 (Kepler) | 320 (GCN) | 480 (VLIW5) | 384 (GCN) | 384 (GCN) | 512 (GCN) | 640 (GCN) |
| Texture Units | 16 | 32 | 20 | 24 | 24 | 24 | 32 | 40 |
| Colour ROPs | 4 | 16 | 8 | 8 | 8 | 8 | 16 | 16 |
| Fab Process | 40 nm | 28 nm | 28 nm | 40 nm | 28 nm | 28 nm | 28 nm | 28 nm |
| Core (Boost) Clock | 900 MHz | 900 MHz | 730 (780) MHz | 800 MHz | 800 MHz | 1000 (1050) MHz | 800 MHz | 1000 MHz |
| Memory Clock | 900 MHz DDR3 | 891 MHz DDR3 | 900 MHz DDR3 | 900 MHz DDR3 or GDDR5 | 900 MHz DDR3 1125 MHz GDDR5 | 900 MHz DDR3 1150 MHz GDDR5 | 1125 MHz GDDR5 | 1125 MHz GDDR5 |
| Memory Bus | 128-bit | 128-bit | 128-bit | 128-bit | 128-bit | 128-bit | 128-bit | 128-bit |
| Memory Bandwidth | 28.8 GB/s DDR3 | 28.5 GB/s DDR3 | 28.8 GB/s | 28.8 GB/s DDR3 64 GB/s GDDR5 | 28.8 GB/s DDR3 72 GB/s GDDR5 | 28.8 GB/s DDR3 73.6 GB/s GDDR5 | 72 GB/s | 72 GB/s |
| TDP | 65 W | 65 W | 30 W | 44 W DDR3 60 W GDDR5 | 47 W | 60 W | 55 W | 80 W |
| Typical Price | £45 - £55 | £55 - £70 | £50 - £60 | £55 DDR3 £65 GDDR5 | £60 - £80 | £60 - £75 | £65 - £80 | £70 -£90 |
As you can see, lot of these cards are available across a fairly wide price range. For example, the GeForce GT 640 ranging from £55 to £70 depending on retailer and manufacturer. We've done our best to extrapolate a typical price. No matter how you do the math, though, this is a bit of a challenge for nailing down value. We should still have enough performance data by the end of this story to draw sound conclusions, though.
- The Sub-£80 Graphics Card Market
- Introducing The Radeon R7 240 And 250
- Test Setup And Benchmarks
- Results: Metro: Last Light
- Results: Grid 2
- Results: BioShock Infinite
- Results: Battlefield 4
- Results: Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag
- Power And Temperature Benchmarks
- When It Comes To Graphics, £80 Goes A Long Way
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