Top 15 video cards

Gamers with a limited budget should pay attention to the line of Gigabyte accelerators, equipped with a WINDFORCE 2X cooling system. These video cards are slightly warmer than their “cooler” relatives from the G1 Gaming series, but given the fairly moderate power consumption of new chips made using the 16-nanometer process, this feature can be neglected.

By the way, compared with the category leader, the recommended model has such an important advantage as the presence of three Display Port connectors, although the outdated analog interface (VGA) is not supported in it either. In addition, an amplifying plate is installed on the back side of the card, which gives the whole structure additional rigidity and protects the printed circuit board from external influences.

Other family lines (in particular, OC and D5) are even cheaper, but also less interesting, since they are built on a graphic core with a simpler configuration, lack a backplane and have only one DP connector.

Video cards based on the Radeon RX560 graphics processor went on sale later than everyone else, so they cannot yet boast a large range.From our point of view, the most interesting models are overclocked in the factory and equipped with four gigabytes of memory. ASUS turned out to be the most operational one - it is her offer that we give preference to. This is a joke. The real reason is more prosaic: the named accelerator has the highest operating frequencies and a fairly efficient cooling system with heat pipes. In addition, ASUS engineers traditionally equip their developments with a special connector that allows you to control an additional case fan.

In terms of performance, the card is somewhere in the middle between the devices on the GTX 1050 and GTX 1050 Ti. Using it at resolutions 2K and higher will be uncomfortable, but for Full HD - it is just right.

Another accelerator from Gigabyte, equipped with two-fan cooling system WINDFORCE, is now a higher class. The choice of our rating in favor of this particular line of video cards from the manufacturer, in this case, is due to the solid amount of RAM in the recommended model. First of all, the map will be interesting to those users who are not used to or cannot regularly update such an important component of their PC. But after a year or two, 6 gigabytes of “operatives” may turn out to be a comfortable minimum for demanding games. We don’t forget that now we are talking about medium-level accelerators, costing up to $ 300, so there’s still not very many competitors for this graphics card. The accelerator is equipped with a powerful backplate, which distinguishes it from related models on the GTX 1050 processor, and the minimum factory overclocking leaves room for your own experiments in terms of performance.

The only serious disadvantage of this video card is its solid dimensions, so it is hardly suitable for building compact gaming systems.At the same time, the model is a low-level, mid-level accelerator that can successfully cope with any tasks of today, but does not have a "margin of safety" for the future. If you need a good gaming graphics card for Full HD right now, and financial options are limited, this is the best choice. The card is very quiet, which is facilitated by both the efficient cooling system TWIN FROZR VI, and the GP106 graphics core, which is quite economical in terms of power consumption. The additional overclocking capabilities of the model are quite good. Well, the support of all modern technologies, including solutions for virtual reality or streaming gaming sessions, the manufacturer stated.

Gigabyte has so far limited itself to releasing an entire pair of modifications of video accelerators on Radeon RX570 chips, and conventionally the oldest among them is a model from a separate gaming lineup Aorus. It has a more “advanced” cooling system with four heat pipes, which allows the graphics processor to operate at higher frequencies more stably. It is noteworthy that at present its cost in the Russian market is even lower than that of the “simple” Gaming.

The novelty does not have a direct competitor (meaning NVidia-based video cards), and of the existing proposals, the accelerator on the GeForce GTX 1060 with 3 GB of memory demonstrates the closest possibilities. Of course, it is much cheaper, but we must take into account the element of novelty and the peculiarities of our pricing. Note also that the recommended model supports a number of interesting technologies. In particular, the Radeon Chill, which can adjust the frame rate depending on the speed of movement of the pointer (cursor). As a result - reduced power consumption, heating and noise.

If you need a quiet and productive accelerator for relatively affordable money right now (for Full HD resolution), and you are ready to put up with some decline in quality in the most “hard” games - this video card will be a good choice. The model is slightly overclocked in the factory, and also has a small potential for additional overclocking. However, given the relative simplicity of the cooling system, you should not count on record numbers.

It cannot be said that the top-end video card Vega 64 has become an unambiguous maestro for building a system for heavy games. According to the usual tradition of “red” cards, it is not economical: the standard power limit is not set at 220 W, but can be raised by native software up to 330 W. At the same time, despite the high-quality cooling (whatever one may say, a radiator with a nickel-plated sole instead of direct contact with heat pipes plus three fans), the VRM temperature at peak loads is not ideal: according to the test results, it reaches 100 degrees. But on average loads, the video card not only remains in the acceptable temperature range, but also minimally rustles.

An interesting feature of the video card is a competent work with memory. Any video adapter, faced with the exhaustion of reserves of its own memory, accesses the external RAM, but Vega does it elegantly: it turns the built-in fast memory into a cache, storing only the least frequently used data in the external memory. And this promises a tangible improvement in frame time when playing on the "ultrax" in high resolution, when 8 GB of video memory does not seem large.

However, we are primarily interested in gaming performance, is not it? Well, most of the games, the creators of which have at least some concept of optimization and do not ignore the "red" intentionally, in the resolution of FullHD, "Vega" pulls out at a maximum quality with a stable frame rate over a hundred, which is more than enough. Often, it even overtakes GTX 1080 (without Ti) operating at reference frequencies - for example, if in Nvidia's DirectX 11 Battlefield 1, the video card from Nvidia is at least one or two frames per second, but it is ahead of the Radeon, then on DX 12 more break. In Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War III, the "red" video card is already noticeably breaking away: then you involuntarily begin to believe in the power of the AAAAGH, because any Warhammer orc knows that DA RED GOEZ FASTA (red is faster if translated from Orcish to Russian)!

It is necessary to be able to manage to maximize the maximum load of this video card, but even in this case its temperature does not rise above 72 ° C, and the fan noise is barely visible against the general background. Unlike the reference model, which has a five-phase power scheme, the MSI designers used a reinforced eight-phase one, so any voltage “drawdowns” are completely excluded. On various Internet resources there are reviews about the whistle chokes. It is possible that individual instances have a similar defect, although the company emphasizes that they use only Super Ferrite Chokes (SFC) for their quality assembly. And all the other electronic components correspond to the Military Class 4 category. Everything previously said about the advantages of the MSI thousandth series accelerator fully applies to the model in question.Its owner receives an excellent product, support for virtual reality technology and a functional management utility. Including c version for Android / iOS.

Pay attention to the design of the fans on this card: their blades are “looped back”, which is remembered only in memory of the NoiseBlocker fans of the eBLoop series.Indeed, the disruption of air from the edges of the blades is sensitive even for standard frame fans, even more so for “hanging in the air” without the flow guide frame of video card fans. The ring, limiting the space around the blades, well cuts the "reverse exhaust", which can be felt in any fan of classical design, if it does not blow into the empty space. So, we already have a good request for quiet and efficient cooling by no means the coldest video card: two eight-pin power connectors completely characterize its “appetite”. At low loads, the fans stop completely - the map is absolutely silent outside the games.

8 gigabytes of GDDR6 memory (yes, and “normal” memory still hung at the DDR4 stage), operating at 14 gigahertz (oi-wei!) In combination with the overclocking of the graphics processor up to 1.77 GHz in OC Mode, provide the video card Excellent performance when using high-quality textures in games on 4K monitors. However, pay attention to the dimensions of the cooling system: the video card has an unconventional format "2.7 slots", that is, it actually takes all 3, which may already be a problem for owners of micro-ATX motherboards - for example, a free slot for a PCIe sound card can no longer to be.

In the RTX line, the "seventies" were younger, but this does not make them "whipping boys." Especially, if you take this video card from Gigabyte as an example: if you don’t want to play the lottery, buying a card at “near-reference” frequencies and choosing a stable overclocking mode on your own, just take Aorus Extreme, which was “given pepper” at the factory (1.815 GHz - this is the standard frequency, and the boost is as much as 1.95, while the memory is overclocked to 14.142 GHz), and ensures its operation at overclocking frequencies.

If you do not include the notorious raytracing, then the video card will confidently take any modern AAA-hits on the "ultrax". But the inclusion of "rays" instantly "otkvlyaet" to ... hmm ... we will not even mention what level: internal Toad instantly reminds of itself, hinting that it is to live at less than 60 fps for the sake of the opportunity to try new technology in one and a half games (and - an amateur) - the option is not for her.