eTeknix Christmas Hardware Buying Guide

The best Graphics Cards for Christmas

£50 + Price point

AMD can offer the HD 6670 graphics card for about £60, offering very good performance which is about 30% faster than that of Nvidia’s closest priced competitor the GT 440. Paired with a decent low cost processor like the Athlon II 455 this would give you a nice little gaming system for around the £250 mark.

Nvidia’s equivalent as we already stated is the GT 440 priced at £5o but then they also have the GTS 450 priced at £70 which slightly outperforms the HD 6670. Evidently this price point is particularly difficult because each interval has different competitors and Nvidia do not really have a £60 card.

We would recommend: The HD 6670 at the £60 interval, if you have £70~ go for a HD 6770.

£100+ Price Point

AMD has the HD 6850 at the £110 mark, this is an extremely competitive card and it offers very good gaming performance. But Nvidia provides the GTX 460 for the same price which at stock speeds is roughly equivalent to the HD 6850 in performance. However, the GTX 460 has mammoth overclocking capabilities and if you are interested in squeezing more performance out of your cards then the GTX 460 is certainly the way to go.

We would recommend: The GTX 460 every time.

£150+ Price Point 

Nvidia offers the GTX 560 card for around £140, the GTX 560 is essentially an improved GTX 460 but with a higher price tag. The performance gains seen by the GTX 560 over the GTX 460 are minimal for the extra money paid as a result we would say do not consider buying the GTX 560, go straight the the GTX 560Ti 384 core at around £175.

AMD are more competitive at this price range as the HD 6870 is a little faster than the GTX 560 but there really isn’t much in it here. You are talking about 5% difference.

We would recommend: The HD 6870 but it really is close.