Honorable Mention:
AMD doesn't have the best track record when it comes to the thermal and acoustic performance of its reference designs. But the company made a good decision when it slapped a closed-loop liquid cooler on the dual-GPU Radeon R9 295X2. Armed with a staggering 5632 shaders operating at a slightly higher frequency than the Radeon R9 290X, AMD's flagship is the fastest board you can buy right now. Nvidia's dual-GK110-equipped GeForce GTX Titan Z might come close, but it's also three times as expensive (thanks to a current AMD promotion) with specs that fall well short of the Radeon.
Radeon R9 295X2
The Ultimate Dual-GPU Card
More Honorable Mentions: Assorted Multi-Card Configurations
At $440, the GeForce GTX 780 Ti delivers such compelling frame rates that we find it hard to recommend multi-card configurations able to serve up better performance per dollar, since they sometimes suffer from inconsistent results in comparison to a graphics card with a single GPU.
We'll call out some of the most viable options though, mostly for folks who are running high-resolution triple-monitor setups or 4K displays: two Radeon R9 290 cards for $560, two GeForce GTX 970s in SLI for $660, and finally two GeForce GTX 780 Ti cards for $880.
- Best Graphics Cards for the Money, October Updates
- Best Entry-Level Graphics Cards: $130 and Under
- Best Mid-Range Graphics Cards: $140 to $200
- Best Enthusiast Graphics Cards: $210 to $300
- Best High-End Graphics Cards: $300 to $800
- Best Extreme Graphics Cards: Over $800 and Multi-Card Configurations
- Graphics Card Performance Hierarchy Chart
- Conclusion: Performance Per Dollar
You have the GTX970 below GTX780ti and the GTX980 in the same level with GTX780ti, while the real performance at page 8 clearly shows GTX970 on par with GTX780ti and GTX980 one level (at least) ahead.
Your own benchmark results are not on par with your hierarchy chart. Isn't the hierarchy chart based on Tom's Hardware benchmarks?
Only regular retail prices are considered for the chart so you are not going to see those included until the retail price drop to integrate the discounts.
Little nuances like that are what clearly illustrate that as useful as the chart is, it is not a be-all/end-all. Consider it a substantial data point, but don't forget to consider others, such as benchmarks of the specific games you want to play.
It seems like it hasn't been updated in years (HD 4000 was Q2 '12).
At least their inclusion into the hierarchy chart as a base of comparison.
The reference 780 ti clocks are low compared to the 900 series cards. The gap in performance between the 980 and 780 ti is probably at stock. I know you can overclock the 900 series to over 1400 and what not but if you compare the out of box overclocks on, for example, the MSI 780 ti gaming and MSI 970 Gaming, you will see the 780 ti pulls ahead by quite a bit and in fact produces the same performance as an MSI 980 gaming. Don't take my word for it, here are the benchmarks...
MSI 980 Gaming - http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/MSI/GTX_980_Gaming/6.html
Asus Strix 970 - http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/ASUS/GTX_970_STRIX_OC/6.html
MSI 780 Ti Gaming- http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/MSI/GTX_780_Ti_Gaming/6.html
I was forced to buy a Radeon 280 and guess what? I spent 2 hours trying to get the damned card to accept the newest Catalyst drivers - install kept crashing. What the F is wrong with AMD and their drivers?
Including rebates isn't a good idea because...
Rebates are like letting a friend borrow money, you just have to accept you may never get it back.
With high quality comes a price. Or so I'm led to believe. Even with people complaining about AMD's drivers (with a few in the camp who say they've never had a problem), I still question their hardware engineering sometimes.
to keep the hierarchy list short and neat
its good idea to cut the table from bottom up to at least DX 10 capable card
because its not making any sense to keep such ancient card in the list
and there is no way to play nowadays games...
Yeah well you can get a more powerful R9 280 for 170 bucks, so the GTX 760 is just not a good buy at the moment.