Best Graphics Card Under 400$

With that range, absolutely get either a GTX 1060 or a RX480. if you wanna spend a little more get a GTX 1070

Both 1060 and 480 are within your price range and shall max-out about anygame @1080p, while the 1070 can game @1440p.

Which is better? That's totally up to you, as there are a lot of threads discussing that question.
Basically, the NVIDIAs ones performs better in DX11 games while the RX480 in DX12 games and Vulcan.

If you already have a FreeSync monitor, that's a point up to the 480, if you got a G-Sync monitor then 1060/70 is way to go.

In the end, their performance is quite similar ( unless you choose the 1070, which in a complete different level ), so you gotta either choose Team Green or Team Red.

In terms of PSU, 550W are more than enough for either GPU, as long as it's a good quality PSU.

Hope to have helped.

I would not waste my time with a $200 card when i could have a GTX 1070 that would absolutely obliterate it.

The best GPU under $400 is the Gigabyte G1 GTX 1070 for $399.99.
https://www.amazon.com/Gigabyte-GeForce-Graphics-GV-N1070G1-GAMING-8GD/dp/B01H0WU884/ref=sr_1_3?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1482340480&sr=1-3&keywords=gtx+1070

The 1070 is significantly better than a 1060 or 480. That being said, if you are gaming on a 1080p 60Hz monitor the 1060 6GB and 480 8GB are good enough that you probably don't need to spend the extra $150 to get a 1070.

If you want to get a little further under $400 the Gigabyte Windforce GTX 1070 is $379.99.
https://www.amazon.com/Gigabyte-GeForce-GDDR5-Windforce-GV-N1070WF2OC-8GD/dp/B01HHCA1IO/ref=sr_1_8?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1482340480&sr=1-8&keywords=gtx+1070

Any of the cards mentioned will work fine with a 550W PSU assuming it is a decent quality unit.

The 480 8gb and 1060 6gb are pretty much equal.

In DX11 the 1060 is ~2% faster at 1080p and equal at 1440p.
In DX12 the 480 is ~6% faster at 1080p and 1440p.
(averaged from several games)

They are evenly matched but AMD's GPU's are shown to benefit from DX12 more, which more and more games are moving to. If you plan to keep the GPU a while (2+ years), the 480 will age better. If you will be upgrading in about 2 years, it's a toss up for the best price.

The 1070 is a completely different performance tier.

As i said, if it's a good quality PSU, then you have absolutely no problem.

About the two models. They're just made with different pieces, some are more quality than others and some has a higher base clock increasing their performance a little bit. Nothing really noticeable, maybe 3 or less FPS.

If you don't wanna worry at all with FPS try to get that 1070 posted above, it's gonna be great and much better than both 1060 or 480.

Assuming it's the Thermaltake London 550W it is in tier 3 on Tom's PSU tier list. Tier 3 is not the best quality but according to Tom's Hardware they are safe to use and stable so you should be fine. All the other Thermaltake PSUs I see are either in tier 1 or tier 2 so in general I think you are fine. What you don't want is tier 4 or 5.
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/id-2547993/psu-tier-list.html

Since you are also considering upgrading your monitor and the 1070 is available in a budget you feel comfortable with I say get the 1070. It is significantly better than the 1060 or 480.

Edit: I have the Gigabyte G1 1070 I recommend earlier and I can fully stand behind that card. There are plenty of other very good 1070s available but I don't think you will find another one with premium features like binned chips, a custom PCB with extra power phases, RGB LED lighting, and a backplate for $400 or less.

I have mine paired with a G-Sync 1440p 144Hz monitor and it works great. Even at full load the card sits at 65 degrees.

That motherboard will be fine. The Sandy Bridge CPU that goes with it might prevent you from being able to get 100+ FPS in most games though. With one of those older CPUs I think you might want to focus on a 1440p 60Hz monitor. Assuming you have an i5-2500k or i7-2600k you should be able to handle 60Hz at that resolution.

one of the reasons i dont get gigabyte cards anymore, they release cards with good chips (for reviews) and then tend to change to cheaper/slower vram without mentioning it in product description, which leads to lower performance/added oc (vs the first release).
just check how many of their cards have more than R1.0 going back till gtx200.

all custom board/cooled 1000 series will clock virtually the same.
binned chips will only make a difference when messing with added volt/LN2 cooling, as so far all 1070 i've seen max around 1950-2050MHz.

my zotac 1070 clocks at 2GHz without added V, just relaxed power/temp settings in afterburner, so dont waste money
and get the cheapest 2 or 3 fan card that has 2 power connectors.

one i would recommend: the asus strix has the same board/cooling as used for the 1080, so definitely
a little "overkill", but i've seen the strix 1060/6 (i had for a while) clocking about 50-100MHz higher than almost every other brand incl the msi.

1060
http://pcpartpicker.com/product/3bL7YJ/asus-geforce-gtx-1060-6gb-strix-video-card-rog-strix-gtx1060-o6g-gaming

1070. like the strix, the zotac has cooler/power/board from the amp 1080, so enough for some added oc.
http://pcpartpicker.com/product/MPX2FT/zotac-geforce-gtx-1070-8gb-amp-edition-video-card-zt-p10700c-10p


on cpu/board wait until we see what amd will release next month.
either faster and/or cheaper than intel.

The motherboard is completely fine with your current CPU and your current CPU should still be pretty decent for 60 FPS gaming at any resolution. It's just going to keep you from playing at 100+ FPS on a 144Hz monitor in many games.

The thing about motherboards is that changing them requires changing a lot of other parts too. CPUs are only built to support one kind of motherboard socket and also require a certain kind of RAM.

You aren't just going to be able to buy a new motherboard and use your current CPU and RAM. Even if you could the CPU and RAM have a lot more to do with performance than your motherboard does anyways.

This is the cheapest upgrade I would recommend for you and it's probably not something that needs to be done right now if you are okay with 60 FPS gaming.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-6500 3.2GHz Quad-Core Processor ($191.91 @ Jet)
Motherboard: MSI B150M MORTAR Micro ATX LGA1151 Motherboard ($75.18 @ OutletPC)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws V Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-2400 Memory ($79.99 @ Newegg)
Total: $347.08
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-12-21 14:59 EST-0500

I have a couple issues with this post. First, slower VRAM? Check out Nvidia's specs page for the 1070. VRAM speed is part of the card's standard specs. The 1070 comes with 8GB of VRAM with a memory speed of 8Gbps. It has a 256 bit bus and a memory bandwidth (GB/sec) of 256. This is the card's specifications and should be the same regardless of which manufacturer you choose. Most factory overclocked cards only increase the core clock speed and don't touch the memory clock speed. The Gigabyte G1 is one of those cards so unless the memory is performing under Nvidia's spec than it can't get slower.

https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/geforce/products/10series/geforce-gtx-1070/

You said that most 1000 series cards overclock to about the same level which I agree with. Every custom 1070 review I have read shows the card overclocking to the 2.0GHz-2.1GHz range. Then you say to buy a card with 2 power connectors though and I can't understand what your reasoning could be for this.

The Nvidia spec requires a single 8 pin PCIe cable. All of those custom 1070s that use the standard single 8 pin connector have enough power to overclock to the same 2.0GHz-2.1GHz range. Why would you need a card with two power connectors if that doesn't give the card any additional overclocking headroom?

You started off by arguing that the cheaper cards overclock the same and then finished by saying you should get the Asus Strix because it clocks better.

The reason I recommend the Gigabyte G1 is because at $399.99 it is one of the cheapest 1070s available while still offering premium features that more expensive cards advertise like chip binning, a custom PCB with extra power phases, RGB LEDs, a backplate, and great 3 fan cooling. Some of that stuff like the chip binning and the custom PCB might not make much difference but it's still there in a relatively cheap card.

I don't have a problem with the Asus Strix you recommended. It's just $30 more expensive than the Gigabyte G1. As you said in your own post, all the 1000 series cards get to the same clock speeds so what benefit do you get from that extra $30?

i forgot to say i was talking about ocing of the vram/and its quality (samsung for reviews, switched to cheaper micron later).
because a board designed to power the 1080 with 2 plugs will have load spread better, wont have thermal spots etc, just looking at keeping the card for a while, and less temps/stress on the components will help.
never stated that 2 pins will lead to better overclock (over single 8pin), but more because the pcb/power design was to handle a 1080.

the strix only because i had it myself, and all the 3 fan solutions from gigabyte i had in the past 3y were all "noisier",
e.g. the gigabyte 1060 is louder than any 1070 i/friends have (and i heard under load).

and reading till the end would have shown the zotac link (not the asus) which is 400$ (max budget) but with the 1070
chip running on board and cooler designed for a 1080.

besides that, poster already selected the bS...

I don't want to argue about which 1070s are best because we have already established that they all perform basically the same. I just want it to be clear that there is nothing wrong with the Gigabyte G1 1070 and it's a great value.

I'm sure the Zotac would be a fine choice too. I did read to the end though. There was no Zotac link when I read it. You edited your post and added that in after I had already started my response. I even quoted your post so you can see exactly what was there when I read it.

I'll leave it at that.

yeah, realized i missed it when posting, so added it later.