In an effort to further express the performance you get for every dollar spent on our recommendations, we're charting out the hierarchy of cards from today's story. The red, black, and blue bars represent how each card fares at 1080p, 2160p, and the average of the two, while the orange line indicates cost. If you mouse over the bar chart, you get a pop-up that shows performance relative to AMD's Radeon R9 295X2 (our current 100% ceiling). Mousing over the dots on the orange line yields a low price easily attainable on Newegg. Clicking a bar or dot gives you the option to shop for that card, taking you to a link of our pick in each category. Often, our choices give you a lower price than the average displayed.
| Price | 1080p v R9 295X2 | 2160p v R9 295X2 | Avg v R9 295X2 | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| GeForce GT 730 64-bit GDDR5 | ![]() |
72.02 | Amazon | 11 | 10 | 11 |
| Radeon HD 7770, Radeon R7 250X | ![]() |
100 | Amazon | 23 | 16 | 20 |
| Radeon R7 260X | ![]() |
139.99 | Amazon | 25 | 18 | 22 |
| GeForce GTX 750 Ti | ![]() |
140 | Amazon | 27 | 22 | 25 |
| Radeon R9 270X | ![]() |
185 | Amazon | 37 | 31 | 34 |
| Radeon R9 280 | ![]() |
220.00 | Amazon | 43 | 36 | 40 |
| Radeon R9 290 | ![]() |
290 | Amazon | 61 | 58 | 59 |
| GeForce GTX 970 | ![]() |
330 | Amazon | 67 | 59 | 63 |
| GeForce GTX 780 Ti | ![]() |
440 | Amazon | 67 | 60 | 64 |
| GeForce GTX 980 | ![]() |
550 | Amazon | 80 | 69 | 74 |
| Radeon R9 295X2 | ![]() |
1000 | Amazon | 100 | 100 | 100 |
At the beginning of the chart, you see significant performance gains for every dollar spent. Clearly, the Radeon R7 250X is the price/performance card to beat under $150, while the Radeon R9 270X takes top honors under $200. Nvidia's GeForce GTX 750 Ti offers performance similar to the Radeon R7 260X for a similar price. It might not be the best value play, but this Nvidia card remains attractive to gamers stuck with low-end power supplies they don't want to upgrade.
Price hike up quickly from the Radeon R9 270X to the R9 290, but performance jumps just as much. After that, what you'll pay steadily increases, while performance doesn't scale as aggressively.
As you approach the upper echelon of frame rates, your dollar doesn't stretch as far. But if you're a hardcore gamer who wants to experience the highest resolutions and most taxing detail settings, the most expensive cards in this list might be attractive. Just keep in mind that two GeForce GTX 970s are going to cost you $660, and they're going to perform about as fast as a Radeon R9 295X2 at $1000.
Summary
There you have it folks, the best cards for the money this month!
And remember that the stores don’t follow this list. Things will change over the course of the month and you’ll probably have to adapt your buying strategy to deal with fluctuating prices. Good luck!
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- 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.