Which Video Card

[whitewolf23000]

I just built my PC but haven't got a video card yet. I was wondering what video card has the best price to performance.

[Luay79]

best price to performance would be reference cards with lowest clocks. you can grab a ref. PNY GTX 670 close to $300 after rebate, overclock and that's the best you can do. You might (surely will) regret cheaping out once your ear starts to hurt from the fan noise.

MSI, EVGA, Gigabyte and Asus are the best out there and they are more expensive for a reason.

AMD cards tend to offer better bang per buck than Nvidia.

Check your case air flow. If you'r case doesn't have at least 4 fans (2 intakes front and side, 2 exhausts rear and top) then add them and get the card you like, or just get a reference card or Nvidia EVGA or AMD HIS with closed air cooling. These cards exhaust hot air outside your case while open air cooling cards dump hot air in it.

High end good deals:
Newegg.com - ASUS GTX670-DC2-2GD5 GeForce GTX 670 2GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card
Newegg.com - GIGABYTE GV-R797OC-3GD Radeon HD 7970 3GB 384-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card

Mid end:
Newegg.com - GIGABYTE GV-R795WF3-3GD Radeon HD 7950 3GB 384-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card
Newegg.com - ASUS GTX660 TI-DC2-2GD5 GeForce GTX 660 Ti 2GB 192-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card

Low end:
Newegg.com - GIGABYTE GV-R785OC-2GD Radeon HD 7850 2GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card
Newegg.com - ASUS HD7850-DC2-2GD5-V2 Radeon HD 7850 2GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card

[whitewolf23000]

ok thanks for the advice

[hossdaddy]

it would be easier to answer your question if we knew the application. What resolution do you want to run? How much eye candy? What games? Multi-monitor setup now or in future? Budget? What games do you want to play? What psu do you have?

[Masteroderus]

In terms of raw 3dmark performance score per dollar go with the 7950. A single 7950 is now a high end card. Over 10k 3d marks is a high end card imo (timestamp 2013 january!).

7950 has a higher cost of ownership due to power draw. You can offset cost by mining bitcoins with amd hardware though. My hardware has actually made me a profit.

I don't know why the 670 is rated higher than a 7950 when new 7950's are higher scoring in 3d mark and in most relevant games. I got a highly respected source for my data!

HIS HD 7970 IceQ X² & HD 7950 IceQ X² Review


People must forget that amd fixed its drivers and now its hardware works!

[Jachin]

GTX 690
Or
GTX 680 SuperClocked.

[Bond007]

We really need to know what the rest of your computer components are, games you play, resolution, and max budget to make a recommendation.

[whitewolf23000]

I have a Intel i5-3470 @ 3.20GHz 8GB G-Skill ripjaws RAM Termaltake 500w PSU and my budget is about $250 but i could pay $300. I play games like FC3 BF3 BO2 AC3 and WoW

[trayton]

500W PSU is going to lower the graphic cards your able to get (without taxing it and causing issues long term).

[Bond007]

Without changing the power supply I would lean towards a hd 7850. If you want to go to a higher quality power supply I would go to a gtx 660 with that budget.