5. Asus Radeon HD 7870 DirectCU II

• Reviewed on: 16 May 12
• RRP: £280 inc. VAT
• Rating:

Overall the Asus Radeon HD 7870 DirectCU II looks like a pretty good graphics card. The problem is that it finds itself up against the brand new nVidia GTX 670. And on that score it's a loser. The latter card may be more expensive, but for an extra £50 it gives you far more performance, and a slight improvement in power consumption too. Unless you really can't go up the extra, the 7870 remains, without a price drop, the second choice in its category.

4. HIS 7970 3GB review

• Reviewed on: 13 February 12
• RRP: £480 inc VAT
• Rating:

At the time of writing, the price of these HIS 7970 cards hadn’t settled. Around £480 seems par for the course, although it may be possible to get the card for around £20-£30 less. At these prices, the 7970 does seem a little expensive. The new architecture marks quite a change for AMD, although this hasn't yet turned into a card that'll blow away gamers. The 7970 is a nice card, but not one that's ground-breaking in terms of performance, and we suspect there is potential for nVidia. With that in mind, we'd recommend waiting a few weeks to see what the new nVidias can do.

 

3. nVidia GeForce GTX 770

• Reviewed on: 8 August 13
• RRP: £340 inc VAT
• Rating:

The nVidia GTX 770 might not quite have the showmanship of the 780, but it is better value for money. It offers strong gaming performance without being extortionately priced. The 2GB memory is a small concern as this may look a little dated two years hence. For use with games today and over the next year or so, though, it's likely to remain a compelling choice.

2. Asus GeForce GTX 660 Ti

• Reviewed on: 18 September 12
• RRP: £280 inc VAT
• Rating:

The Asus GeForce GTX 660 Ti is a nice card that offers decent performance, and just about gets the nod ahead of the now rather old-fashioned 7870 cards. However, the loss of a memory controller is a significant setback, and given that the price difference between this and the GTX 670s is only around £20, we can't really recommend this over its more expensive sibling. Once the price falls another £20, it may start to become a very interesting product.

1. MSI GeForce GTX 760 OC

• Reviewed on: 12 August 13
• RRP: £216 inc VAT
• Rating:

The 660 Ti may be a touch quieter and draws marginally less power than the 760. The difference is slight though, and the 760 is very much the superior on game benchmarks. Given that the difference in price is only around £15, this makes the 760 very much better value for money in our book. The 670 is slightly faster, but the difference isn't as great as you might expect - rarely much more than 2 fps - and this makes the significantly cheaper 760 exceptional value. The overpriced 7950 is both considerably slower and very much more expensive. We didn't expect too much from this new release, but nVidia seems to have found the perfect value-for-money card in the £200+ bracket. And that, in our book, makes this an exceptional release.