Budget graphics cards compared

Budget graphics cards are rarely very compelling at launch. That's because it's a crowded market with new cards competing with more powerful previous-generation gear that vendors are trying to flog off cheap. To see if this still holds true, we tested four new cards under $150 — AMD's Radeon HD 6570, Radeon HD 6670 and Radeon HD 6450, and Nvidia's GeForce GT 520 — and put them up against discounted older cards, the AMD Radeon HD 5770 and Nvidia GeForce GT 430.

One thing for sure: we don’t think anyone really needs a $900 graphics card. Indeed, most games will run just fine at 1080p with a $200 lower-mid-range card from either AMD or Nvidia (take your pick between the Radeon HD 6850 and GeForce GTX 460). The question is whether it's worth saving $100 or so on a low-end card.

AMD Radeon HD 6570 reviewed

By Dominik Krupinski – June 29, 2011

Graphics cards, Reviews

Rating:

The AMD Radeon HD 6570 is one of the better examples of a new budget graphics card. It's falls well short of the Radeon HD 6850, of course, or even the aging Radeon HD 5770, but taken in isolation, this half-height budget card is a decent performer. It's not really up to more intense shooters like Crysis or Aliens vs. Predator, where it struggles to clear 30fps at anything but the lowest resolutions, but for Unreal Tournament 3 (UT3) engine games and even DiRT 2, a DirectX 11 title, it's actually more than adequate, which seems about right to us for a bit of casual gaming.

AMD Radeon HD 6670 reviewed

By Dominik Krupinski – June 29, 2011

Graphics cards, Reviews

Rating:

The Radeon HD 6670 is a small step up from the HD 6570, offering twice the onboard memory and slightly higher clock speeds, but otherwise identical space. In practice, this translates to slightly more compelling performance in our more demanding benchmarks (rendering Crysis playable, barely, at 1,680 x 1,050 pixels). In fact it's the best performing of the new budget cards, but you'll pay around $120. That's around the same as the Radeon HD 5770, but the HD 6670 is far from a performance match for AMD's older card.

The case against new budget graphics cards

By Dominik Krupinski - June 30, 2011

PC upgrading, Guides

The case for a new budget graphics card is very difficult to make with the cheapest new models tested our latest budget card comparison. The AMD Radeon HD 6450 and Nvidia GeForce GT 520 are both dirt cheap at $70 and $60, respectively, but depending on the processor you plan to match them with, they may not offer much in the way of additional performance over your CPU's onboard graphics. We're specifically talking about Intel's Sandy Bridge CPUs here, which now come with onboard graphics that aren't at all the joke they once were.