The Best Gaming Graphics Cards: 1920x1200 & 2560x1600

Find and Compare the Best Graphics Cards

By Steven Walton on July 11, 2012

A powerful graphics card is likely the most expensive component in your PC if you're a gamer, but with all current and past-gen GPUs available in the range of $100 to $500, it can be tough to pick the right solution for your needs.
In an effort to narrow things down, we're about to compare today's most relevant gaming cards that sell for $200 or more, testing them in a slew of games to see how it breaks down as we look for the best graphics cards for gaming at resolutions of 1920x1200 and 2560x1600.
Most GPU releases go through our testbench, however when we review these graphics cards, the GPUs are fairly new or barely making it to market, drivers are not entirely optimized, and most importantly, true market pricing has not settled down to its long-term value.

Models	Launch	Codename	Fab	Bandwidth	Release Price	Current Price
GeForce GTX 670	10-May-12	GK104	28nm	192.2 GB/s	$400	$400
GeForce GTX 680	22-Mar-12	GK104	28nm	192.2 GB/s	$500	$500
Radeon HD 7870	19-Mar-12	Pitcairn XT	28nm	153.6 GB/s	$350	$310
Radeon HD 7850	19-Mar-12	Pitcairn Pro	28nm	153.6 GB/s	$250	$250
Radeon HD 7950	31-Jan-12	Tahiti Pro	28nm	240.0 GB/s	$450	$350
Radeon HD 7970	9-Jan-12	Tahiti XT	28nm	264.0 GB/s	$550	$450
GeForce GTX 560 Ti	25-Jan-11	GF114	40nm	128.2 GB/s	$250	$230
Radeon HD 6870	22-Oct-10	Barts XT	40nm	134.4 GB/s	$240	$180

Relative performance leads more often than not remain the same through the life of the GPUs, but our take on best value is completely changed the second Nvidia or AMD decide to adjust their prices. To give you a clear example, the Radeon HD 7970 debuted to market last January with a sticker price of $550. A couple of months later the GeForce GTX 680 arrived offering better performance for less money. AMD quickly reacted slashing the HD 7970's price to $450. Similarly, the slightly slower HD 7950 was dropped from its original price of $450 to just $350.
The table above includes all the cards we'll be benchmarking, starting with the most recently released. Note that although we have the Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition on hand, we didn't include it in this review because we don't see why anyone would buy the factory overclocked solution at a $50 premium.

Testing Methodology

We picked ten games for our test, six of which are DX11 titles and include recent releases such as Max Payne 3 and Alan Wake. Games will be run at 1920x1200 and 2560x1600 as we believe these are the resolutions gamers are targeting with today's $200+ graphics cards, using monitors between 24 and 30 inches. All games will be tested with fraps which lets us record 60 seconds of gameplay.
Test System Specs