The Best Graphics Cards: Nvidia vs. AMD at Every Price Point

Information technology'due south been an eventful year for GPU releases with updated models and prices across all budgets from both AMD and Nvidia. Afterward finally shipping the Radeon R9 290X and R9 290 belatedly in 2013, AMD returned to rebadging parts in Feb with the R7 250X (essentially an HD 7770), followed by an overclocked HD 7850 (the R7 265) and then a clone of the ii-year old Hd 7950 (the R9 280).

Nosotros received something fresh with the R9 295X2 in April, but with pricing around $1,000 it was cheaper to buy two R9 290Xs for the same or improve performance. Rounding out the year, AMD delivered its next-gen Tonga architecture in the R9 285, but the card was bedridden past a 256-bit memory charabanc and struggled to outpace the similarly priced R9 280 while being slower than the 280X.

Meanwhile, Nvidia had already shown off its next-gen tech in Feb with the unassuming GeForce GTX 750 serial. Built using the new Maxwell architecture, the GTX 750 demonstrated amazing performance per watt just was out-priced past the R7 265. Still, information technology wouldn't be until seven months after the debut of the GTX 750 series that things would become truly interesting.

Mid-fashion through September Nvidia unleashed its Maxwell-powered GTX 900 series with the GTX 970 and GTX 980. Despite featuring 27% less transistors in a 29% smaller die using the same 28nm design process as Kepler, Nvidia was able to make Maxwell faster. The advantage of making Maxwell less circuitous meant that it consumed less power and so it was more than efficient.

In the terminate, the GTX 980 was 20% faster than the R9 290X while costing slightly more than and the GTX 970 was three% faster than the R9 290X and sixteen% faster than the R9 290 while costing 12% less than the old. With Maxwell burdensome Hawaii, AMD was forced to slash prices days after the GTX 980 and GTX 970 were revealed (a triple digit drib to $400 in the case of the the R9 290X).

AMD and Nvidia graphics cards past price range
$400 - $600			GeForce GTX 980	$580
			GeForce GTX 780 Ti	$450
$300 - $400	Radeon R9 290X	$370	GeForce GTX 970	$370
$250 - $300	Radeon R9 290	$280
			GeForce GTX 770	$270
	Radeon R9 280X	$260
$200 - $250	Radeon R9 285	$250
			GeForce GTX 760	$220
	Radeon R9 280	$200
$150 - $199	Radeon R9 270X	$190
	Radeon R9 270	$170
	Radeon R7 265	$150	GeForce GTX 750 Ti	$150
$100 - $149	Radeon R7 260X	$120	GeForce GTX 750	$120

Since so, pricing has continued to collapse with cards selling for under $350 with rebates, though the average price is about $370. It seems that AMD can't unveil its next-gen GPUs chop-chop enough, though we are told th ere won't exist any more releases from either camp in 2014, with both belongings off for the first quarter of 2015. Therefore a price war will be waged in the concurrently.

While we're always looking forward to testing the latest hardware from each outfit, information technology's still smashing news for PC gamers if the companies plan to make the existing high-end graphics cards more affordable, especially for those of you who take a shiny new GPU at the top of their Christmas list. Permit's break down each price bracket to determine which visitor offers the all-time value product.

Methodology

Although we collected the frame time data we didn't include it considering it's becoming less of import for single-GPU reviews. Our results showed the GeForce GTX 970 to be in line with the R9 290X for example, which is almost what nosotros would expect, so there isn't much to see here. Frame time data will still be included in our CrossFireX and SLI reviews.

For this review we've tested at 1920x1200 and 2560x1600, though we will only be discussing the 1920x1200 results as the lower terminate cards performed ameliorate hither. We are yet to include 4K results or higher because in that location isn't a single-GPU solution available that can provide playable operation at this resolution.