The best graphics card . A graphics card consists of dedicated video memory and a graphics processing unit (GPU) that handles all sorts of calculations, like mapping textures and lighting surfaces while rendering millions of polygons. TheINQUIRER publishes daily news, reviews on the latest gadgets and devices, and INQdepth articles for tech buffs and hobbyists. NVIDIA GPUs power millions of desktops, notebooks, workstations and supercomputers around the world, accelerating computationally-intensive tasks for consumers. How well can the Nvidia GeForce GTX 970 4GB GPU run PC game system requirements? Compare GeForce GTX 970 4GB performance to game specs. Simply put, the graphics card is the most vital component of your gaming PC. We've sifted through the current options and picked out the ones that are worthy of going in your next PC, whether it's a savvy middle- of- the- road build, a budget rig, or a 4. K monster. Nvidia has now launched all of its 1. GTX 1. 08. 0 Ti, to the now- reduced- price GTX 1. GTX 1. 07. 0, GTX 1. GB model as well), and wrapping up with the budget- friendly GTX 1. Ti and GTX 1. 05. There's also the new Titan Xp, which replaces the Titan X (Pascal) as the absolute fastest card (but it's not even remotely worth the small price increase over the 1. Ti). As for the earlier Nvidia GPUs, all the 9. Check out this week's best graphics card deals. AMD has revamped its GPU lineup as well, replacing the 4. All of the 4. 00- series and 5. AMD's Polaris architecture, and more recently, AMD gave us some of the details on the upcoming Vega architecture. The RX 5. 80 and RX 5. The 5. 60 is a bigger improvement over the 4. The big news right now is cryptocurrency fever, with Bitcoin prices at an all- time high, and Ethereum rocketing from $1. The result is that pricing and availability of AMD's Polaris GPUs is horrible, and even Nvidia GPUs are being affected. I won't dig into the mining aspects too much (I talked about it in our recent podcast if you want to hear more), but the result is that Nvidia cards are clearly the better buy right now. And if it's anything like 2. Here are the best graphics cards for gaming. The best graphics card Excellent performance for the price New features like SMP Second fastest GPU Still relatively expensive. The best graphics card isn't normally the fastest graphics card. ![]() ![]() That honor goes to the new Titan X, which outperforms the GTX 1. Similarly, the best card isn't the least expensive option, because while there are cards (like the RX 4. GTX 1. 06. 0) that deliver great value, performance is still a factor. The best graphics card is the one that can strike a balance between high performance and a reasonable price. Nvidia's GTX 1. 07. MSRP (particularly if you find a sale). Our full review has the details, and the 1. GTX Titan X and GTX 9. Ti in every game at every setting we tested. It's also faster than anything AMD currently offers. The GTX 1. 07. 0 is the card to beat for performance at 'reasonable' pricing, and while AMD's RX 4. Nvidia's own GTX 1. Until AMD launches Vega, which is currently slated for the 'first half' of 2. May/June), Nvidia can lay claim to the top three high performance GPUs. Step up to EVGA GeForce GTX gaming with the new GTX 750. Its powerful, ultra-efficient, next-gen architecture makes the GTX 750 the weapon of choice for serious.![]() The 1. 07. 0 is the most affordable of the three, giving it our pick for the best graphics card. The performance boost from Pascal is thanks mostly to the move from 2. TSMC's current 1. Fin. FET transistors, which shrinks the GPU size, reduces power leakage, and allows for higher clocks. Where the base clock of 9. Ti and Titan X is 1. MHz (stock), the 1. MHz. Even with fewer CUDA cores—1. Amazon.com: EVGA GeForce GTX 970 4GB SC GAMING ACX 2.0, 26% Cooler and 36% Quieter Cooling Graphics Card 04G-P4-2974-KR: Computers & Accessories. AMD Radeon R9 280X vs Nvidia GeForce GTX 770: which is the best graphics card? An editorial that looks at running multiple graphics cards for improved 3D performance and whether or not it really makes sense for consumers. A little power sipper, Nvidia's new Maxwell GTX 750 Ti is the budget graphics card to beat. Ti and 3. 07. 2 on the Titan X—the added clock speed and architectural enhancements keep the 1. Which isn't to say that you'd necessarily want to upgrade from a 9. Ti or Titan X to the 1. The performance is close enough that it's really about the change in price for the same level of performance, and the same goes for cards like the R9 Fury X, Fury, and Nano. Regardless of whether you're looking at a custom card or a Founders Edition model, that's a lot of money to spend on a graphics card. Our advice for gamers is to try and skip a generation or two of hardware, or more generally, only upgrade when your current hardware becomes 'too slow.' That means different things to different people, so high- end gamers are likely to jump at the slightest enticement while frugally minded might get by with high or even medium/low quality. ![]() But even though we just said skipping a generation makes sense, owners of 9. R9 3. 90 and lower on the AMD side—will certainly be tempted to upgrade, and the older your current hardware, the bigger the performance gains. Even the single generation move from a 9. R9 3. 90. And if you happen to be running something from the GTX 7. GTX 7. 70, and in some cases it's nearly three times as fast thanks to the additional VRAM! Overclocking of the GTX 1. GTX 9. 80 before it. We were able to increase the core to +2. MHz over stock, and with higher power and thermal limits (and a higher fan speed), performance improved by 1. Memory overclocking also went well with our sample, hitting 9. GT/s—a frankly staggering number for GDDR5, considering Titan X and 9. Ti previously topped out around 8. GT/s. But if you're looking at 'typical' overclocks, a GTX 9. Ti with a good overclock is basically going to match a 1. OC. Which GTX 1. 07. Unless you really want the angular Founders Edition and are willing to pay a higher price, we'd go for pretty much any of the AIB partner cards. Asus, EVGA, Gigabyte, MSI, Zotac and others make custom 1. GPU configurations we would recommend any of those. If you want a Founders Edition, PNY's 1. GeForce GTX 750 Ti vs Radeon R7 265: If you only have £100 or so to spend, which graphics card should you buy? The best graphics card isn't normally the fastest graphics card. That honor goes to the new Titan X, which outperforms the GTX 1080 by 20-25 percent—and all for. FE prices. For most people the least expensive card is probably the best choice (unless you really value a longer manufacturer warranty or are willing to pay for a factory overclock). Other features are likely to come into play over the coming year, further improving the 1. One of the coolest is the simultaneous multi- projection (SMP) feature that allows the GPU to calculate up to 1. Why would you need multiple projections in a game? For multi- screen surround setups, it can get rid of the distortion you see with 'curved' side displays. More pertinent for most people is the potential improvements in VR performance, since each eye requires its own projection. Nvidia claims that with SMP in a VR title, Pascal (GTX 1. Titan X; extending that to the GTX 1. Titan X in such cases. SMP can also enable enhancements like multi- res shading, where different parts of the screen are rendered at different resolutions, a feature that has been used in Shadow Warrior 2 and Obduction. So what's not to like? It really comes down to pricing, where the least expensive cards are still $5. But even with cards readily available at $3. My advice: Don't get too stressed out about finding the 'perfect' time to upgrade to a newer, faster card, because something better is always right around the corner. If you're in the market for a high- end gaming card right now, the GTX 1. Read More. The best high- end graphics card Fastest current GPU (not counting Titan X) Excellent efficiency Great new features. If you want the fastest graphics card on the planet, it's a no- brainer: the Ge. Force GTX 1. 08. 0 wins, hands down. Okay, sure, the $1. Titan X beats it, but that's twice the price for 2. In our testing, the GTX 1. GTX Titan X and GTX 9. Ti, and it uses almost 3. Again, that's all thanks to the move from 2. Fin. FET, allowing Nvidia to cram more parts into a smaller area, with less power leakage thanks to Fin. FET. Even better: we're finally seeing GTX 1. Pascal has better delta color compression, resulting in higher effective memory bandwidth by about 2. Nvidia). GDDR5. X clocked at 1. GT/s means the 3. GB/s of actual memory bandwidth in practice works as well as the (Maxwell) Titan X's 3. GB/s. Graphics preemption can be used to improve load balancing and time- sensitive work (eg, asynchronous time warp in VR). And Simultaneous multi- projection (doing up to 1. VR workloads the GTX 1. Ti. What's not to like? The biggest drawback is easy: the price. No, we don't feel $6. Then there's the whole Founders Edition business, a reference card carrying reference clocks and using Nvidia's blower cooling setup, all for $1. Even at the Founders Edition price, however, the GTX 1. Overclocking of the GTX 1. Nvidia cards. The GTX 9. Ti, 9. 80, and 9. MHz (about 1. 2 percent) to the base clock, with a 7. MHz (+1. 7. 5 percent) increase in VRAM speed. Other tweaks to the power target and voltage led to roughly 1. Ti could close the performance gap to around 2. If you want even more performance, the new Titan X sports 1. GB of GDDR5. X and 3,5. CUDA cores, using the GP1. GPU. It's worth pointing out that even Nvidia doesn't specifically market the new Titan X to gamers, instead pitching it as a card for deep learning, professional graphics, and other non- gaming uses. It's no longer part of the Ge. Force brand either, but it still has plenty of game. When will we see a GTX 1. Ti based on GP1. 02? The GTX 1. 08. 0 Ti had rumors of a January launch but that didn't happen. Now, it could be as early as March or as late as June. For now, if you're after the best—aka fastest—graphics card for gaming, GTX 1. A word about SLIIf you're really looking to set a performance record, you could run two 1. SLI. Just know that it's becoming increasingly common to see major games completely ignore multi- GPU users (Doom and id. Tech based games, most DX1. Unreal Engine 4 game). You'll also want a lot of CPU performance to keep multiple GPUs happy, as even a 4. GHz i. 7- 5. 93. 0K runs into CPU limits at 1. Ultra with a single GTX 1. At least Nvidia is no longer recommending 3- way or 4- way SLI as useful solutions, though it's still possible to go that route if you want. Don't forget the HB SLI bridge connector! My advice is that if you're thinking about GTX 1. SLI, you're better off moving up to a Titan X (Pascal) first. Then if you still want more performance, you could add a second Titan X. Read More. The best graphics card value Great price and performance Fast for 1. Ultra / 1. 44. 0p High Good efficiency and reasonable size Not as power efficient as the competition. Gone is the extended debate/flame war between AMD and Nvidia fans, trying to determine whether the GTX 9. R9 3. 90 represented the better value. In its place we have a new argument: RX 4. GTX 1. 06. 0, and stepping down one more notch, RX 4. GTX 1. 06. 0 3. GB? AMD Radeon R7 2. 60. X Review & Rating. The AMD Radeon R7 2. X ($1. 39 list), a refresh of the Asus Direct CU II Radeon HD 7. Nvidia's lock on the budget graphics card market. Like the Asus HD 7. R7 2. 60. X is based on the company's Bonaire GPU, with 8. The graphics card features two DVI ports, an HDMI port, and a Display. Port and can drive up to three monitors off one card. The R7 2. 60. X improves on the Asus HD 7. First, it doubles its onboard RAM buffer, up to 2. GB, from 1. GB. Second, it's clocked higher—the HD 7. GHz core clock and 1,5. MHz memory, while the R7 2. X clocks in at 1,1. MHz core and 1,6. MHz for a gain of 1. Third, it's cheaper, with a base price of $1. GB card, as opposed to $1. GB card. Open and shut case, right? Not exactly. This is where things get a little complicated. While the R7 2. 60. X is a straightforward refresh of the Radeon 7. Bonaire GPU core that powers both cards isn't just a slimmer version of the AMD Radeon 7. AMD Radeon R9 2. 70. X. This budget GPU shares multiple features with the AMD R9 2. X, which is AMD's highest- end, most powerful GPU when it launches later this fall. These features include: True. Audio: AMD spent much time talking up its new True. Audio technology in the R9 2. X. The company has integrated a DSP from Tensilica that card—and, as it turns out, into Bonaire as well. Thus, the R7 2. 60. X , AMD Radeon 7. R9 2. 90. X will be the only AMD GPUs to support this capability—the AMD R9 2. X and MSI R9 2. 80. X Gaming 3. G won't have it. AMD has talked up the use of this onboard DSP as a game changer for audio processing, but there aren't any games or even tech demos that can be used to objectively evaluate the capability. More flexible display options: Thanks to some board- level changes, the R7 2. X can support output from both DVI ports and the HDMI port at the same time if all three monitors are of the same type. AMD HD 7. 00. 0 cards, in contrast, have two DVI ports and one HDMI port, but cannot use all three at once. If you want to run three displays off a Radeon 7. Display. Port. Now, that restriction has been lifted, at least somewhat. Improved shader efficiency: AMD has been extremely coy on this one. We know that the Bonaire GPU contains some mathematical capabilities and improvements on this front. Asus Radeon 7. 79. MHz core clock and a 1,6. MHz memory clock. The sample the company shipped us for the launch, on the other hand, is clocked at just 1,1. MHz and 1,6. 25. MHz. In other words, the gap between our two sample cards isn't 8 to 1. When AMD launched the Radeon 7. Nvidia Ge. Force GTX 6. Ti wasn't much of a competitor, but the Nvidia Ge. Force GTX 6. 50 Ti Boost, which launched just a few weeks later, outperformed the HD 7. Editors' Choice award. Does the R7 2. 60. X change this? Performance. We tested the card on an Intel DZ7. GA- 7. 0K motherboard with an Intel Core i. K CPU and 8. GB of DDR3- 1. Windows 7 6. 4- bit with SP1 and all available patches was used. All games were tested at 1,9. AMD's Catalyst 1. Beta 1 drivers and Nvidia's Ge. Force 3. 31. 4. 0 driver (released September 3. Our benchmark results illustrate two trends. First, the R7 2. 60. X isn't much faster than the older Asus HD 7. The 1. 28- bit memory interface on this GPU remains a limiting factor, and we only see an uplift in Shogun 2: Total War. The other troublesome fact for the R7 2. X is that the Ge. Force 6. 50 Ti Boost is slightly faster in almost every game we tested. An 8% performance difference in Metro Last Light and 1. Metro 2. 03. 3 is going to be noticeable—the lower the baseline frame rate, the more noticeable improvements in that framerate are. Power consumption is another area where the R7 2. X and HD 7. 79. 0 trailed the Nvidia GTX 6. Ti Boost. All three cards idle at very low power—6. W for the two Radeon cards, and 5. W for the Nvidia GTX 6. Ti Boost. In Civilization V's Late Game View test, the Radeon 7. GB of GDDR5 drew 1. W, the R7 2. 60. X drew 2. W thanks to its 2. GB frame buffer, and the GTX 6. Ti Boost drew just 1. W. If you care about keeping power consumption as low as possible, the Nvidia 6. Ti Boost is going to be the better card. Conclusion. When the Nvidia 6. Ti Boost launched, we noted that it squeezed the AMD 7. That continues to be the case with the AMD Radeon R7 2. X. The Nvidia 6. 50 Ti Boost has gotten harder to find at retail, but it offers better performance than the R7 2. X. In short, the R7 2. X is squeezed at the bottom by the GTX 6. Ti Boost and at the top by the Radeon 7. Nvidia's GTX 6. 50 Ti Boost is the stronger card overall, and the performance benefit one might anticipate from adding an extra GB of RAM to the 7. At 1,9. 20 by 1,0. GB frame buffer. All of this leaves the R7 2. X in a tough position. The company's upcoming Mantle API could give the 7. Ge. Force GTX 6. 50 Ti Boost, but only in games that use the capability. True. Audio could prove to be a game changer, but there's no way to objectively evaluate such claims. A new Never Settle bundle would also give the R7 2. X a leg up over older HD 7. Given that reviews need to evaluate a product based on what it can do today, not at an unspecified time in the future, we can't count any of these as must- have features. If you're a devoted Team AMD fan and need a cheap card that can still play modern titles, the R7 2. X will offer a decent experience, but there are better ways to spend your gaming dollars.
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