A graphic Card is the first thing that comes to ones mind when the topic of playing PC games comes up. Not only is a graphic card a very essential component of any computer, laptop or even a cell phone but its importance increases manifold when you are building a Gaming PC which is meant for playing games in all their glory.
Though the latest generation of processors be it AMD or Intel come with their respective AMD's Radeon HD and Intel's HD Graphics series built in to their processors, they are quite weak for playing the big titles. If you consider playing low end games like Fay Cry 1-3 or even the ones with low 3D requirements like Diablo III then these integrated GPUs are just fine to go with. New games like Assassin's Creed Unity, Crysis 1-3 or Battlefield 3-4 and even Hardline are graphic intensive games and require a good Graphic Card to run especially if you have a weak CPU like the AMD A4, Intel i3 or the Intel Pentium Dual Core installed!
After a long research and feedbacks from various users I've observed that the current generation of mid to high end graphic cards are good enough to play all the top rated titles at ultra high settings on 1080p resolution! Obviously they are not the titans of gaming industry for which you might have to sell a kidney to buy.
Besides a affordable price, one of the benefits of using a mid to high end card is that you won't likely need to upgrade your desktop's power supply. Many brand-new cards don't need extra leads from your power supply, saving you from that frustrating moment when you open the case to install your new card only to find your power supply unit can't handle it.
Below is the list of a few that I've shortlisted:
Having 1,280 stream processors and supporting cross-fire technology this is the best graphic card in its price slot both in terms of performance and catchy looks.
The sapphire r9 270x features a second generation vapor-x cooler design, lighter in weight but delivering the industry acclaimed quiet and efficient cooling associated with this brand.
Though the company claims a maximum digital resolution of 4096X2160 but it can go all the way upto 5,760x1,080 through the eyefinity technology delivering smooth gaming performance even at medium to high settings!
Unfortunately it has a down side, you’ll need a deep case in which to install it because the card is a massive 308mm long! Also once installed, you’ll need two spare 6-pin PCI-E connectors to power it.
I hate being bias but this is my personal favorite in the category.
Architecturally, the R9 270 is identical to the AMD Radeon HD 7870 that launched in the spring of 2012. Both cores feature 1,280 stream processors, 80 texture mapping units, and 32 render output units (ROPs). The difference between then and now boils down to clock speed (the HIS R9 270 runs at 900MHz base, 925 clock compared with an even 1GHz for the old AMD 7870) and of course, price. When it launched on March 12, 2012 the Radeon HD 7870 was a at double the price of that of R9 270 and that makes something of a difference when it comes to evaluating its overall performance. What makes the R9 270 potent at this price point is that it retains the same number of render outputs and a large frame buffer (2GB, more than enough for games in 1,920 by 1,080) but is only just over half the price of the MSI R9 280X Gaming 3G.
In most ways, the R9 280X is a re-branded AMD HD 7970 offered at a lower price. It offers substantially similar clock speeds, total RAM (3GB, with a 384-bit memory path) and display hardware. There are a few fringe benefits that come courtesy of the new R9 series, like the ability to attach up to three displays to the DVI and HDMI ports simultaneously, rather than being forced to use DisplayPort for two of three panels. But the big news here is thats not only is it newer but the price cut—a deep enough slash that even an older part suddenly acquires a nifty new gleam.
The new GTX 650 Ti Boost is the third graphics card to carry the "GTX 650" designation. The Ti Boost is clocked at 980MHz. It supports Nvidia's GPU Boost technology and will increase its clock speed up to 1033MHz if thermal headroom allows it to do so.
The GTX 650 Ti Boost has 768 shader cores and 64 texture mapping units (TMUs). This means the new GTX 650 Ti Boost's pixel fillrate is 23.5 GPixels per second! It even supports a Multi-GPU setup via SLI. The GTX 650 TiB has a 192-bit memory bus clocked at 1500MHz, for a total of 144.2GBps of RAM bandwidth.
All these features combined make it the best bet in the lower segments of the Nvidia GPU range.
The GTX 750 Ti is a card that comes in two flavors ie 1GB and 2GB. Like Nvidia's previous GPU, Kepler, it's built on a 28nm process node—but don't be fooled. Nvidia has aggressively optimized this architecture for high performance and low power consumption, with truly impressive results. The GTX 750 Ti is rated for a board power of just 60W! This is what makes this card so special and worthy to be in the list.
The GTX 750 Ti's 640 cores, 40 texture mapping units, and 16 ROPs. Its not too powerful as compared to the others in the list but due to its low power consumption and price factor it has a very high price to performance ratio. So for a budget user who doesn't have a powerful PSU installed in your system, this should be your first pick.
The AMD Radeon R9 270X is AMD's new midrange graphics card aimed at gamers who want strong 1080p performance, but can't afford luxury models. Like most members of the Radeon R7/R9 family, it's a refreshed version of a previous architecture—in this case, the AMD Radeon HD 7870 at PinnacleMicro. Specifically, it's a drop-in replacement for that chip, but at slightly higher clock speeds.
The old AMD 7870 ran at 1GHz core clock, while the new chip runs at 1,050MHz. Memory transfer speeds are also up significantly, from 1,200MHz to 1,400MHz, a gain of some 17 percent. Where the original AMD 7870 shipped in both 1GB and 2GB flavors, the new R9 270X is strictly 2GB only. All of the retail cards currently shipping have the same set of display outputs—one HDMI, one DisplayPort, and two DVI. This should allow for a great deal of flexibility, and users can run up to three monitors off a single card, without relying on DisplayPort alone.
The Asus Radeon R9 280 Direct CU II card ships with a base clock of 874MHz and a maximum clock speed of 980MHz. The memory clock also gets the R9 280 Direct CU II a slight boost, from 1,250MHz to 1,300MHz, for an effective data rate bump from 5GBps to 5.2GBps.
The R9 280 Direct CU II is a solid choice if you use a 1080p monitor, and its near-silence when under load is definitely a boon. The only caveat to the cooling solution is that the card exhausts hot air directly into the case. If you don't have air conditioning in the summer months, or your chassis is already hot, you may not want the additional thermal load.
The MSI GTX 970 is a high-level graphics card based on Nvidia's Maxwell architecture. It's much less expensive than the Nvidia GeForce GTX 980, but it offers the same low-power consumption and decent performance for its power envelope. Ultimately, the AMD Radeon R9 280X, is its arc competitor, is significantly cheaper—though it also consumes a great deal more power.
The differences between the GTX 970 and the Nvidia GTX 980 are relatively small in terms of memory. The GTX 970 has 1664 cores (down from the Nvidia GTX 980's 2048), 4GB of RAM, and a memory clock of 1050MHz. The MSI GTX 970 is clocked higher than the Nvidia GeForce GTX 970 reference model, with a base speed of 1,102MHz and a boost clock of 1,312MHz. Like the Nvidia GTX 980, the GTX 970 is extremely efficient, with a 145-watt power draw—which means there's no need for a big power supply unit.
The Sapphire AMD/ATI Radeon R9 290X Tri-X OC 4GB video card looks good and has the performance to back up the good looks especially after the massive price cut by AMD. The Toxic 3X GPU cooler is about as big of a GPU cooler that I've have ever seen on a dual-slot video card. It stretches 12-inches in length and is comprised of two aluminum finned heatsink arrays that use six copper heatpipes to help dissipate the heat from the AMD GCN 1.1 GPU. This card stands out from the crowd due to the WindForce 3X GPU cooler that uses six copper heatpipes (2x 8mm and 4x 6mm) and three 75mm cooling fans to keep this factory overclocked card running smoothly. This beefy GPU cooler marketed as being able to handle thermal designs of up to 450 Watts. It is able to keep the cards temperatures under control at both stock and overclocked speeds!
The R9 290X Tri-X OC 4GB comes clocked at 1000 MHz core and 1040 MHz boost with 2816 shader processors! The 4GB of GDDR5 memory runs on a 512-bit bus and is clocked at 1300MHz. It comes with a maximum resolution of 4096x2160 capable of handling high end games on ultra high on even a triple monitor setup or a 4K setup. It ships with dual-link DVI-I, dual-link DVI-D, HDMI and DisplayPort outputs. All of the video outputs are standard size, so no adapters are needed, which is nice.
Also to top it all up it supports quad CrossFire, which I don't think you'll ever be needing!
So this was the list that I came down upon as per what I observed and experienced, do leave a comment for any additions or suggestion if you have any. As always your queries regrading the same are most welcome.
Though the latest generation of processors be it AMD or Intel come with their respective AMD's Radeon HD and Intel's HD Graphics series built in to their processors, they are quite weak for playing the big titles. If you consider playing low end games like Fay Cry 1-3 or even the ones with low 3D requirements like Diablo III then these integrated GPUs are just fine to go with. New games like Assassin's Creed Unity, Crysis 1-3 or Battlefield 3-4 and even Hardline are graphic intensive games and require a good Graphic Card to run especially if you have a weak CPU like the AMD A4, Intel i3 or the Intel Pentium Dual Core installed!
After a long research and feedbacks from various users I've observed that the current generation of mid to high end graphic cards are good enough to play all the top rated titles at ultra high settings on 1080p resolution! Obviously they are not the titans of gaming industry for which you might have to sell a kidney to buy.
Besides a affordable price, one of the benefits of using a mid to high end card is that you won't likely need to upgrade your desktop's power supply. Many brand-new cards don't need extra leads from your power supply, saving you from that frustrating moment when you open the case to install your new card only to find your power supply unit can't handle it.
Below is the list of a few that I've shortlisted:
1.Sapphire Toxic R9 270X 2GB
The Toxic R9 270X is an overclocked version of the AMD Radeon R9 270X. It runs at a high clock speed of 1.1GHz, and will happily boost up to 1.15GHz. At 1.5GHz, the Toxic R9 270X’s memory speed is also high, which should mean higher speeds and better frame rate by faster utilization of the 2GB DDR5 memory at a 256bit memory bandwidth.
Having 1,280 stream processors and supporting cross-fire technology this is the best graphic card in its price slot both in terms of performance and catchy looks.
The sapphire r9 270x features a second generation vapor-x cooler design, lighter in weight but delivering the industry acclaimed quiet and efficient cooling associated with this brand.
Though the company claims a maximum digital resolution of 4096X2160 but it can go all the way upto 5,760x1,080 through the eyefinity technology delivering smooth gaming performance even at medium to high settings!
Unfortunately it has a down side, you’ll need a deep case in which to install it because the card is a massive 308mm long! Also once installed, you’ll need two spare 6-pin PCI-E connectors to power it.
I hate being bias but this is my personal favorite in the category.
2. HIS R9 270 iPower IceQ X² Boost Clock
Architecturally, the R9 270 is identical to the AMD Radeon HD 7870 that launched in the spring of 2012. Both cores feature 1,280 stream processors, 80 texture mapping units, and 32 render output units (ROPs). The difference between then and now boils down to clock speed (the HIS R9 270 runs at 900MHz base, 925 clock compared with an even 1GHz for the old AMD 7870) and of course, price. When it launched on March 12, 2012 the Radeon HD 7870 was a at double the price of that of R9 270 and that makes something of a difference when it comes to evaluating its overall performance. What makes the R9 270 potent at this price point is that it retains the same number of render outputs and a large frame buffer (2GB, more than enough for games in 1,920 by 1,080) but is only just over half the price of the MSI R9 280X Gaming 3G.
3. MSI R9 280X Gaming 3G
In most ways, the R9 280X is a re-branded AMD HD 7970 offered at a lower price. It offers substantially similar clock speeds, total RAM (3GB, with a 384-bit memory path) and display hardware. There are a few fringe benefits that come courtesy of the new R9 series, like the ability to attach up to three displays to the DVI and HDMI ports simultaneously, rather than being forced to use DisplayPort for two of three panels. But the big news here is thats not only is it newer but the price cut—a deep enough slash that even an older part suddenly acquires a nifty new gleam.
4. Nvidia GeForce GTX 650 Ti Boost
The new GTX 650 Ti Boost is the third graphics card to carry the "GTX 650" designation. The Ti Boost is clocked at 980MHz. It supports Nvidia's GPU Boost technology and will increase its clock speed up to 1033MHz if thermal headroom allows it to do so.
The GTX 650 Ti Boost has 768 shader cores and 64 texture mapping units (TMUs). This means the new GTX 650 Ti Boost's pixel fillrate is 23.5 GPixels per second! It even supports a Multi-GPU setup via SLI. The GTX 650 TiB has a 192-bit memory bus clocked at 1500MHz, for a total of 144.2GBps of RAM bandwidth.
All these features combined make it the best bet in the lower segments of the Nvidia GPU range.
5. Nvidia GeForce GTX 750 Ti
The GTX 750 Ti is a card that comes in two flavors ie 1GB and 2GB. Like Nvidia's previous GPU, Kepler, it's built on a 28nm process node—but don't be fooled. Nvidia has aggressively optimized this architecture for high performance and low power consumption, with truly impressive results. The GTX 750 Ti is rated for a board power of just 60W! This is what makes this card so special and worthy to be in the list.
The GTX 750 Ti's 640 cores, 40 texture mapping units, and 16 ROPs. Its not too powerful as compared to the others in the list but due to its low power consumption and price factor it has a very high price to performance ratio. So for a budget user who doesn't have a powerful PSU installed in your system, this should be your first pick.
6. AMD Radeon R9 270X
The AMD Radeon R9 270X is AMD's new midrange graphics card aimed at gamers who want strong 1080p performance, but can't afford luxury models. Like most members of the Radeon R7/R9 family, it's a refreshed version of a previous architecture—in this case, the AMD Radeon HD 7870 at PinnacleMicro. Specifically, it's a drop-in replacement for that chip, but at slightly higher clock speeds.
The old AMD 7870 ran at 1GHz core clock, while the new chip runs at 1,050MHz. Memory transfer speeds are also up significantly, from 1,200MHz to 1,400MHz, a gain of some 17 percent. Where the original AMD 7870 shipped in both 1GB and 2GB flavors, the new R9 270X is strictly 2GB only. All of the retail cards currently shipping have the same set of display outputs—one HDMI, one DisplayPort, and two DVI. This should allow for a great deal of flexibility, and users can run up to three monitors off a single card, without relying on DisplayPort alone.
7. Asus Radeon R9 280 Direct CU II
The Asus Radeon R9 280 Direct CU II card ships with a base clock of 874MHz and a maximum clock speed of 980MHz. The memory clock also gets the R9 280 Direct CU II a slight boost, from 1,250MHz to 1,300MHz, for an effective data rate bump from 5GBps to 5.2GBps.
The R9 280 Direct CU II is a solid choice if you use a 1080p monitor, and its near-silence when under load is definitely a boon. The only caveat to the cooling solution is that the card exhausts hot air directly into the case. If you don't have air conditioning in the summer months, or your chassis is already hot, you may not want the additional thermal load.
8. Nvidia GeForce GTX 660
The GTX 660 is based on the same Kepler architecture as Nvidia's other 600-series cards, and delivers all the same benefits, including significantly improved power usage over previous generations and GPU Boost, which dynamically increases the card's performance if there's the proper thermal and electrical headroom.
It has three Graphics Processing Clusters and five SMX units, leading to 960 CUDA parallel processing cores and 80 texture units. It's worth pointing out, however, that Nvidia has given the 660 a high base clock—980MHz and it's capable of boosting to even higher average levels at 1,033MHz. The GTX 660 has 2GB of video memory with 192bit video interface, and overall memory clock of 6,008MHz. This is the same frequency at which the higher models are clocked at in the Nvidia 660 range.
9. MSI Nvidia GTX 970 4GB OC
The MSI GTX 970 is a high-level graphics card based on Nvidia's Maxwell architecture. It's much less expensive than the Nvidia GeForce GTX 980, but it offers the same low-power consumption and decent performance for its power envelope. Ultimately, the AMD Radeon R9 280X, is its arc competitor, is significantly cheaper—though it also consumes a great deal more power.
The differences between the GTX 970 and the Nvidia GTX 980 are relatively small in terms of memory. The GTX 970 has 1664 cores (down from the Nvidia GTX 980's 2048), 4GB of RAM, and a memory clock of 1050MHz. The MSI GTX 970 is clocked higher than the Nvidia GeForce GTX 970 reference model, with a base speed of 1,102MHz and a boost clock of 1,312MHz. Like the Nvidia GTX 980, the GTX 970 is extremely efficient, with a 145-watt power draw—which means there's no need for a big power supply unit.
10. Sapphire AMD/ATI Radeon R9 290X Tri-X OC 4GB
The Sapphire AMD/ATI Radeon R9 290X Tri-X OC 4GB video card looks good and has the performance to back up the good looks especially after the massive price cut by AMD. The Toxic 3X GPU cooler is about as big of a GPU cooler that I've have ever seen on a dual-slot video card. It stretches 12-inches in length and is comprised of two aluminum finned heatsink arrays that use six copper heatpipes to help dissipate the heat from the AMD GCN 1.1 GPU. This card stands out from the crowd due to the WindForce 3X GPU cooler that uses six copper heatpipes (2x 8mm and 4x 6mm) and three 75mm cooling fans to keep this factory overclocked card running smoothly. This beefy GPU cooler marketed as being able to handle thermal designs of up to 450 Watts. It is able to keep the cards temperatures under control at both stock and overclocked speeds!
The R9 290X Tri-X OC 4GB comes clocked at 1000 MHz core and 1040 MHz boost with 2816 shader processors! The 4GB of GDDR5 memory runs on a 512-bit bus and is clocked at 1300MHz. It comes with a maximum resolution of 4096x2160 capable of handling high end games on ultra high on even a triple monitor setup or a 4K setup. It ships with dual-link DVI-I, dual-link DVI-D, HDMI and DisplayPort outputs. All of the video outputs are standard size, so no adapters are needed, which is nice.
Also to top it all up it supports quad CrossFire, which I don't think you'll ever be needing!
So this was the list that I came down upon as per what I observed and experienced, do leave a comment for any additions or suggestion if you have any. As always your queries regrading the same are most welcome.
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This is an excellent compile sir, really I was searching for such a detailed article.
ReplyDeleteYou've put the best cards from a wide price range that I like.
Thank you for sharing such rich information. Looking forward to more such articles regarding graphic cards.
Thank you for showing your interest and the generous appreciation.
DeleteKeep visiting.
very good info vishwesh... thanks a lot any good info regarding good sound card on budget for gaming
ReplyDeleteAsus xonar dx....that should be your pick in budget segment.
DeleteIt's the best out there in this price tag anything below it is worthless better to use the inboard sound cards of mobo rather than installing an external PCIe card waiting money n slot.
i have hp pavilion g6 laptop . when i try to play cod ghost it says it does not have enough ram what should i do?
ReplyDeleteYes cod ghosts needed 6gb n quad core processor as a minimum requirement in its early prints. A patch to lower these requirements was later on released, here is the link:
Deletehttps://www.google.co.in/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&ei=w1rsU7f4KJHc8AW6p4GACA&url=https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Dr7L6xVrBo_OS-02Fv1IQReP-kRhETdHQd8qGJJ22OM/mobilebasic&cd=5&ved=0CCYQFjAE&usg=AFQjCNGcAlW5Y0wvN89qOD5YLDcAn8spfg&sig2=8FZ-f4ON3K3WtYEgKH_UTA
Install it after installing the copy of the game n contact me if you face any further problems.
cod ghost runs but it freezes as the stage load
ReplyDeleteThat's insufficient memory most probably.
DeleteDisable all the background programs including downloading n anti virus scanners. Minimize the settings in the game with motion blur n anti analysing disabled peculiarly.
Hop this may help
I have disabled the anti analysing and reduced the settings to 640 X 800 resolution but still not running .I have heard of connecting pen drive to ready body
ReplyDeleteYour system has 4GB ram n this game requires a minimum of 4GB of vram to run making your system redundant n incompetent due to lack of memory to support the windows functions in the background alone.
DeleteReady boost will not help you as ready boost provides an external storage for third party applications which are stored on the ram otherwise. Windows functions need your primary memory to work ie your ram modules.
Upgrade your ram by a minimum of 1gb if possible or you'll end up damaging your system while trying to run a game.
I am looking to upgrade ram by 2 gb .please provide details on upgrading ram with cost of upgrading it
ReplyDeleteYou need at-least Kingston HyperX Blu DDR3 2 GB PC RAM.
DeleteIt will cost you around 1000/-
It is the best RAM in class and can be used along with any future upgrade as well.
I will have to remove 2gb ram module and add the.module which u have suggested 2gb ram module then how will it increase my ram up to 6gb plead explain I have hp pavilion g6 thank
ReplyDeleteu.hope not bored u
I'm really sorry i didn't know that you'd asked the questions in context of your laptop as you asked it in a different thread and the anonymous method of posting.
DeleteYou can certainly upgrade the RAM amount installed on your laptop to upto 8GB as said by HP on selected models of the G6 range but as you've not mentioned the full model name of your laptop i presume that it can be upgraded considering your will to go for an upgrade.
Buy the Kingston DDR3 2 GB Laptop RAM (KVR1333D3S9/2G) as your laptop will need a 204 pin CL=11 RAM at 1.5V to work in compatibility with yours.
Also you don't need to remove your old pre installed RAM as it has two RAM slots so you can run both simultaneously in dual channel at a total of 4+2=6GB config.
Feel free to ask any further questions.
thanks for help.hope cod ghost will run. really pleased to visit
ReplyDeleteIt certainly will don't think about it much.
DeleteJust upgrade the ram and try to run the laptop normally increasing loads gradually n not all of a sudden the system needs to get used to the ram making apt directories n registries.
I buyied a adata 2gb ddr3 as Kingston was not available ram in hp showroom the hp g6 my laptop ran but as soon as returned home from the hp showroom it was showing white strips on right hand side of laptop and laptop was hang I tried troubleshooting but it was not coming I shut down the laptop and restart it but the screen display was gone nothing coUlf be seen but the black colour of screen what should I do?
ReplyDeleteOk so there are many points that can be the cause of the problem.
DeleteFirst dies your laptop boot up at all, meaning that dies the lights blink and the exhaust fan starts running? If yes then read the following points otherwise contact your HP shop vendor who sold you the RAM as it can ba a mismatch to your motherboard CL and voltage rails, you haven't mentioned the full name of the product so I can't help you with that.
If the laptop boots up then it can be either a bad installation by the vendor that created a loose plug of the gpu ribbon cable to your screen that lost contact eventually. Or the driver or the lcd could be the issue. Try these steps before you conclude it as a bad installation.
Boot your laptop n press del and go to the bios, if the line is still there then it's the driver that's corrupt n hence you are not getting display. Just press f8 on the next restart select safe mode n boot up windows download the latest drivers from the manufacturer's site n install.
Plug your laptop to an external display like your lcd tv or your computer monitor n see if the display is fine with no lines etc then it's your broken lcd and nothing of the above.
Awesome blog... Never saw such type of blog or websites anytime. Can you please post something else more interesting related to PC GAMING. ???? And may I know that what would be the minimum system requirements for any nex gen PC games like ASSASSIN'S CREED UNITY, SHADOW OF MORDER, BATTLEFIELD HARDLINE, CALL OF DUTY ADVANCED WARFARE.. etc.??
ReplyDeleteThank you and yes i'll be posting a few more articles related to gaming and daily PC usage soon.
DeleteYou need this configuration at minimum for such games to work and run smoothly:
http://vishveshtech.blogspot.in/2013/05/budget-gaming-pc-under-rs.html
Feel free to ask any further questions if you have any related to the same.
Should I go for r7 260x or hd7770 or is there any other good in this price range
ReplyDeleteI recommend the R7 260X over any other card below the 10K price tag. You should buy the MSI or Sapphire edition of the same as they come with better equipped PCBs and are enhanced version of the reference card.
DeleteThis card will help you run anything that you want at 1080p resolution easily especially if you use Mantel and get the AMD Omega drivers.
Feel free to ask any further questions
Thnku sir
DeleteThe MSI GTX 650 is available on Amazon but for that price I'd suggest you rather get the GTX 950 for its better performance and features.
ReplyDelete