The best video cards of 2016
March 3, 2017 | News
During the release of new video cards, IT magazines are conducting a detailed test, comparing dozens of models in the different graphic settings and permits, benchmarks, and different versions drivers. In 2016 all important video cards have already been presented. New models with chips technology 14nm and 16nm process are bringing a major change to market video cards over the past 2-3 years.
The Nvidia is moving the market forward by presenting the most powerful chip in the history of video cards. The card GTX 1080 is a real monster with appropriate price over $600. Then, GTX was released for $380, which is a more attractive offer in terms of price and quality. Even in the range of $400 – $450 1070 GTX is a tempting purchase for gamers, who can afford it, because the performance of the card is higher, that the models of previous generation.
Finally, gamers will get cheaper video cards of all categories, AMD is offering a model from $150 to $250, while the 2017 AMD Vega chip is not released.
The new card Nvidia Titan X is at the highest-level price range – $1,200 in Pascal graphics architecture. It received 25% performance boost, compared to 1080 GTX twice at higher price, so it is not the best option.
The best Video Card
Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080
Price: $650. Users score: 8.6.
Without taking Titan X under consideration, GeForce GTX 1080 is the most productive on the market. At the time of the review in May the card was given a rating of 100 points (first in its class) and it doesn’t become less attractive after four months. GTX 1080 is 60% more productive than the leader of the previous generation GTX 980, consuming same amount of energy, and 22% faster than the model Titan X on the Maxwell architecture.
The are a lot of different cards on the GTX 1080 chip available. Gigabyte offers WindForce version for $630, Zotac promotes the AMP! Edition at the same price. Those who wish to part with the sum of $700 May consider such models as Gigabyte Xtreme Gaming, Asus ROG Strix and MSI Gaming X.
GTX 1080 belongs to the few number of chips, which alone can cope with games in 4K format. This makes GTX 1080 the best option to use multiple video cards in the 4K resolution, if the budget is unlimited.
The best performance / price ratio
Nvidia GeForce GTX 1070
Price: $400. Users score: 9.2.
Those who wishes to boost the performance and are not willing to sell a kidney for that may draw their attention to the GeForce GTX 1070. This is an excellent offer for games at 1440p resolution at Titan X level on the Maxwell architecture, worth about $400.
You can get two Radeon RX 470 at about the same price, but it will be 50% slower and noisier and will consume more energy than GTX 1070.
Cards like Gigabyte GTX 1070 WindForce are cool and quiet even at full load. In this price range, the only option is GeForce GTX 1070.
The best video card in the mid-price category
Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 3 Гб
Price: $200. Users Score: 9.6.
In the price range of $200- $250, there are two different options. The version of the GeForce GTX 1060 3 GB of sufficiently high performance for the price of $200. An alternative is Radeon RX 480 4 GB for the same $200, but it is more expensive in reality, and the model with 8 GB of memory is sold for as low as $270.
As for GTX 1060 3 GB, it is approximately 10% faster in the games Hitman, Deus Ex: Mankind Divided and Doom GUI Vulkan, created for Radeon. RX 470 consumes more energy and accelerates slower than GeForce.
It is believed that 1060 GTX at some point will be not as productive in 3 GB of video memory, but this is unlikely to happen on those resolutions where it makes sense to use these video cards. In the worst case, the quality of graphics can be a little lower.
When the RX 480 4GB will fall in its price to $200, the price will establish parity between AMD and Nvidia, and the choice becomes even wider.
The best budget model
AMD Radeon RX 460
Price: $125. Users Score: 9.6.
Radeon RX 460 looks like the competing GTX 950 in terms of performance, Ian’s it is more affordable. We are talking about a version with 2 GB of memory. The model with 4 GB of memory costs about $140 and does not offer a considerate performance boost. RX 460 is fast enough to use such amount of memory.
In October, Nvidia plans to release 1050 GTX card, which will be more expensive, compared to RX 460, but still should attract part of AMD buyers.
The best HTPC / Compact Card
Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1070 Mini ITX OC 8 Гб
Price: $398. Users Score: 9.4.
AMD Radeon R9 Nano was previously a leader in this category. Since January, a lot had changed, and now the card from AMD is not so attractive, besides it is taken out of production.
Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1070 Mini ITX OC is the most attractive portable solution priced at $400, being faster, more economical, and better dispersed. GTX 1070 Mini ITX the OC is being compared to Nano (169 mm), but still quite compact and easily fits in Mini ITX format buildings, occupying two slots.
GTX 1070 has also became the best choice in the category of the price-performance ratio, so it’s a double victory for Nvidia (and Gigabyte).
The best Mobile Video Cards
Series Nvidia GeForce GTX 10
It will be difficult for loyal AMD fans to challenge the choice. Nvidia shocked their fans with a news that they will be able to play GeForce 10 series on laptop with same power as on desktop.
Laptop Asus ROG GX800 analysis showed that mobile chip GTX 1080 is not inferior to the discrete. This should give an unprecedented gaming performance and increase of their sales to new laptops. There are already notebooks with GTX 1060 at a price of $1,400, the GTX 1070 for $ 2,000 and GTX 1080 to about $3000 released
