Windows 10: The Best Graphics Cards: Nvidia vs. AMD at Every Price Point

Brink · Oct 25, 2015

You might say 2015 hasn't been the most exciting year for graphics cards, though in many ways it was more eventful than 2014. The only big highlight last year was the arrival high-end Maxwell GPUs in the form of the GeForce GTX 980 and 970. Then this year Maxwell did what many thought was impossible: becoming considerably faster.

Last year's GTX 980 featured 2048 CUDA cores, which now looks underwhelming put against the Titan X's whopping 3072 CUDA cores, a nice 50% bump for the architecture. Nvidia also went the other way, releasing the $160 GTX 950 which sports just 768 CUDA cores.

All told, Nvidia released four new GPUs in 2015, while AMD delivered eight cards if you're willing to be loose with the definition of "new" and three if you're not, namely the Radeon R9 Fury X, Fury and Nano.

Some of you are probably shouting that the 390X and 390 are new as well. Yes, the Radeon R9 390X and 390 received double the VRAM, but they are essentially the same GCN 1.1 GPUs -- 290X and 290, respectively. Thus far, the larger 8GB memory buffer has proven to be of little benefit, so we prefer the cheaper 290s anyway.

At this point, it looks like AMD and Nvidia have finally squeezed the most out of the 28nm design process. Before moving on, AMD will release a dual-GPU version of the Fury X which should become the Fury X2. Nvidia could also return fire with a dual-GPU monster of its own.

AMD and Nvidia Graphics Cards by Price Range $999+ GeForce Titan X $1000 $600+ Radeon R9 Fury X $650 GeForce GTX 980 Ti $630 $500 - $600 Radeon R9 Fury $550 $400 - $499 Radeon R9 390X $420 GeForce GTX 980 $480 $300 - $399 Radeon R9 390 $300 GeForce GTX 970 $300 $200 - $249 Radeon R9 380 $200 GeForce GTX 960 $210 $150 - $199 Radeon R7 370 $150 GeForce GTX 950 $160 $100 - $149 Radeon R7 360 $110 GeForce GTX 750 Ti $110
Something we haven't seen a lot of this year has been price cuts. AMD was forced into aggressive discounts last year to compete, but this year the company has been competitive at the upper end of the high-performance GPU market and has therefore felt less pressure to reduce prices.

As shown in the table above, the key battles are currently being played out between the GTX 750 Ti and R7 360 at ~$100, the GTX 950 and R7 370 at $150, the GTX 960 and R9 380 at $200, the R9 390 and GTX 970 at $300, the R9 390X and GTX 980 at $450 and finally the GTX 980 Ti and R9 Fury X at $650. By the end of this article we should have figured out what are the best buys at every price point...
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Read more: The Best Graphics Cards: Nvidia vs. AMD at Every Price Point - TechSpot

Page 2: Benchmarks: Battlefield 4, Thief

Page 3: Benchmarks: Watch Dogs, Far Cry 4

Page 4: Benchmarks: Civilization, Total War Attila

Page 5: Benchmarks: Assassin's Creed Unity, Dragon Age: Inquisition

Page 6: Power Consumption

Page 7: Wrap Up: Making Some Picks

Tip GPU - The Core Basics for Choosing One[

tinmar49 · Oct 25, 2015

My Palit GTX750ti overclocked may still be the fastest card not to require extra power connections, this is an important feature to many users. For non gaming use, there is nothing more than onboard graphics, motherboard or cpu/gpu required. For gamers without bottomless pockets, then keep an eye out for special offers which crop up from time to time.

:)

seahawks65 · Oct 25, 2015

Which processor should I buy for gaming and movies?

Tiger Direct is probably best place for Kits and amazon for individual prices.

AMD Ryzen Threadripper 1920X 12 Core

AMD Radeon R9 Series Gaming Graphics Cards, or

AMD Radeon Crossfire Gaming Graphics Cards

Western Digital HDD

Intel sucks, so many issues and failures.

Flamathos · Oct 25, 2015

Random Freezes, and I don't know what the problem is.

I tried installing it, but it said that AMD couldn't detect an AMD graphics card. I have an Nvidia graphics card but I have an AMD CPU.

Gary · Oct 25, 2015

My Palit GTX750ti overclocked may still be the fastest card not to require extra power connections, this is an important feature to many users. For non gaming use, there is nothing more than onboard graphics, motherboard or cpu/gpu required. For gamers without bottomless pockets, then keep an eye out for special offers which crop up from time to time.
Click to expand...

I have the same card and it is great. I paid $150 for it though. I can play COD AW without any issues. IMHO this is the best VC as you get the biggest bang your your Buck!

larc919 · Oct 25, 2015

I have the same card and it is great. I paid $150 for it though. I can play COD AW without any issues. IMHO this is the best VC as you get the biggest bang your your Buck!
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I ordered the EVGA GTX 750 Ti SC from Newegg just yesterday for $99.99 after a $10 rebate. *Smile

CountMike · Oct 25, 2015

Those prices do not apply here, Nvidia is up to 50% more expensive than comparable AMD for some reason. There's also a difference between manufacturers of either type in cooling solutions and too hot GPU can put a damper to it's speed and usability or noise. Most games are also inclined to work better on one kind or the other where support for APIs like Mantle can make a difference. Hopefully, Dx12 may level that to some degree if it lives to it's hype and game producers byte.
Newer cards also do not have limit to 300 MHz in 2D and can make much better frequencies than before. A Full HD movie for instance, can pull 450 MHz or more.

blutos cousin · Oct 25, 2015

My Palit GTX750ti overclocked may still be the fastest card not to require extra power connections, this is an important feature to many users. For non gaming use, there is nothing more than onboard graphics, motherboard or cpu/gpu required. For gamers without bottomless pockets, then keep an eye out for special offers which crop up from time to time.
Click to expand...

I was SRSLY thinking about a GTX 750Ti a short while back those seem like they would be pretty good on PCI power but I picked up a cherry slightly used EVGA GTX 670 for a Bengamin used on Pay Bay . I already have an upgraded PSU and aux power the card uses 140 Watts on the 7 x64 DAW configutration box in the studio my son uses most of the time .

I still might pick up a GTX 750Ti for this box to run on the stock PSU this one has an HD 6450 and beyond playing a 1080P movie or vidio , games aint happening on it at all .

GTX 670 plays Battkefield Star Wars beta and some other stuff including driving games at 1080p /60 @ ultimate settings with a Sandybridge i7 2600 it's OK for what it is . SWBF has awsome graphics and good physics it comes out 11/17 .

Passmark
GeForce GTX 750 Ti
3,686

GeForce GTX 670
5,381

GPU Boss scxore GTX 670 9.7 - GTX 750 Ti 9.0

GeForce GTX 750 Ti vs 670

blutos cousin · Oct 25, 2015

Those prices do not apply here, Nvidia is up to 50% more expensive than comparable AMD for some reason. There's also a difference between manufacturers of either type in cooling solutions and too hot GPU can put a damper to it's speed and usability or noise. Most games are also inclined to work better on one kind or the other where support for APIs like Mantle can make a difference. Hopefully, Dx12 may level that to some degree if it lives to it's hype and game producers byte.
Newer cards also do not have limit to 300 MHz in 2D and can make much better frequencies than before. A Full HD movie for instance, can pull 450 MHz or more.
Click to expand...

Nvidia is more expensive ( and efficiant ) but sometimes the compatability can be better. I've had AMD cards that wouldent run on an Intel based mother board where a similar Nvidia ran fine . ofc those were OEM MB's so who knows what they did with the BIOS .

OFC the Nvidia cards are much more efficaiant .....power wise vs performance they are miles ahead of AMD .

I dont know about the 300Mhz limit in 2D ( I dont think I have anything that old or slow anymore ) but my little 1 GB HD 6450 doesent have any trouble with 1080p BD ,streaming or downscaling high bit rate rate 4K demo loops to 1080p /HDMI or DVI-D it's not any good at all for gaming though .
This HD 6450 GPU is showing 625 MHz right now rendering this page to 2560 x1440 and that's an older budget desighn maybe 2011 or so .

eLPuSHeR · Oct 26, 2015

I have owned both AMD and nVidia cards. I am pretty satisfied with my Maxwell card right now. I also feel several games tend to favor nVidia over AMD (I am looking at you Dying Light). Next generation of nVidia cards (codenamed Pascal I think) it's also just around the corner.

blutos cousin · Nov 1, 2015

I have owned both AMD and nVidia cards. I am pretty satisfied with my Maxwell card right now. I also feel several games tend to favor nVidia over AMD (I am looking at you Dying Light). Next generation of nVidia cards (codenamed Pascal I think) it's also just around the corner.
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I'm starting to favor nVidia also .

CountMike · Apr 4, 2018

Last Nvidia card I had was 8800Gt and it was hottest thing I ever had in my computer, even hotter than old AMD Sempron 1300. I'm not picky about make but it just so happened that my last 3 GPUs were ATI/AMD.

Windows 10: The Best Graphics Cards: Nvidia vs. AMD at Every Price Point

The Best Graphics Cards: Nvidia vs. AMD at Every Price Point

The Best Graphics Cards: Nvidia vs. AMD at Every Price Point

The Best Graphics Cards: Nvidia vs. AMD at Every Price Point

The Best Graphics Cards: Nvidia vs. AMD at Every Price Point

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