Radeon R7 240 And 250: Our Sub-$100 Gaming Card Round-Up

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Now that AMD's Radeon R7 240 and 250 are here, we want to know a little more about what the sub-$100 market looks like. Can the latest Oland-based boards serve up playable performance in the latest titles, or are there other hidden gems to discover?

Test Setup And Benchmarks

Because we want a sense of the entire sub-$100 graphics card market, we're generating two sets of benchmarks. For the first set, we're dropping detail settings and resolutions to the point where very low-cost cards can contend (down to a minimum of 1280x720). The next set is at 1920x1080 at more demanding detail settings.

We've almost completely eliminated mechanical storage in the lab, and instead lean on solid-state drives to alleviate I/O-related bottlenecks. Samsung sent all of our offices 256 GB 840 Pros, so we standardize on these exceptional SSDs.

Naturally, discrete graphics cards require a substantial amount of stable power, so XFX sent along its PRO850W 80 PLUS Bronze-certified power supply. This modular PSU employs a single +12 V rail rated for 70 A. XFX claims that this unit provides 850 W of continuous power (not peak) at 50 degrees Celsius (notably higher than the inside of most enclosures).

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Header Cell - Column 0 Test System
CPUIntel Core i5-2550K (Sandy Bridge), Overclocked to 4.2 GHz @ 1.3 V
MotherboardAsus P8Z77-V LX LGA 1155, Chipset: Intel Z77M
NetworkingOn-Board Gigabit LAN controller
MemoryCorsair Performance Memory, 4 x 4 GB, 1866 MT/s, CL 9-9-9-24-1T
GraphicsXFX Radeon R7 240 DDR3730/750 MHz GPU, 2 GB DDR3 at 900 MHz (1800 MT/s)XFX Radeon R7 250 GDDR51000/1050 MHz GPU, 1 GB GDDR5 at 1150 MHz (4600 MT/s)Sapphire Radeon HD 7730 GDDR5800 MHz GPU, 1 GB GDDR5 at 1125 MHz (4500 MT/s)Reference Radeon HD 6670 GDDR5800 MHz GPU, 1 GB GDDR5 at 1000 MHz (4000 MT/s)Gigabyte Radeon HD 6670 DDR3800 MHz GPU, 1 GB DDR3 at 900 MHz (1600 MT/s)Reference AMD Radeon HD 7750800 MHz GPU, 1 GB GDDR5 at 1125 MHz (4500 MT/s)Gigabyte Radeon HD 77701000 MHz GPU, 1 GB GDDR5 at 1125 MHz (4500 MT/s)Zotac GeForce GT 630 GDDR5810 MHz GPU, 1 GB GDDR5 at 900 MHz (3600 MT/s)Reference Nvidia GT 640900 MHz GPU, 1 GB DDR3 at 891 MHz (1782 MT/s)
Hard DriveSamsung 840 Pro, 256 GB SSD, SATA 6Gb/s
PowerXFX PRO850W, ATX12V, EPS12V
Software and Drivers
Operating SystemMicrosoft Windows 8 Pro x64
DirectXDirectX 11
Graphics DriversAMD Catalyst 13.11 Beta 9.5, Nvidia GeForce 331.93 Beta
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Benchmark Configuration
3D Games
Metro: Last LightVersion 1.0.0.0, DirectX 10, Built-in Benchmark
Grid 2Version 1.6.89.06, Version 1.5.26.05, 25-Sec. Fraps
Assassin's Creed IV:Black FlagVersion 1.04, Custom THG Benchmark, 60-Sec. Fraps
Battlefield 4Version 1.2, Direct X 11, Built-in Benchmark, 60-Sec. Fraps
BioShock InfiniteVersion 1.0.1441711, Built-in Benchmark, Fraps
Don Woligroski
Contributor

Don Woligroski was a former senior hardware editor for Tom's Hardware. He has covered a wide range of PC hardware topics, including CPUs, GPUs, system building, and emerging technologies.