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Graphics Card Reviews

A good graphics card is essential for smooth 3D gaming, but choosing the right one isn't always easy. With 3D-compatibility, energy consumption, noise levels, size and operating temperature all factors to consider, our reviews will help you find the right graphics card for your needs.

Régis Jehl
Updated: May 25, 2012

Some Key Terms

FPS: Frames Per Second. The higher the FPS, the more smooth and fluid the game will be.

Filters / Texture filters: antialiasing and anisotropic filters. The former reduces aliasing on 3D objects while the latter gives more detail on distant textures.

For desktop computing, AMD (formerly ATI) and NVIDIA graphics cards still dominate the market. Neither brand is better than the other, but both manufacturers' cards are capable of great things and not-so-great things within a single product range.

Choosing the right graphics card is about finding a product in your price range that suits your needs—bearing in mind that one user's needs aren't necessarily the same as another's. For those who prioritise performance above everything else, the choice is fairly straight forward, as once they've decided on a budget they just need to look for the fastest card.

For others though, a quiet graphics card can be just as important, while others will look for a compromise between performances and power consumption. You'll therefore find that our graphics cards are scored on these three key criteria: power consumption, noise output and 3D gaming performance.

Calculating the Final Score

A graphics card's final score is calculated automatically. The contributing factors are, however, weighted: the 3D gaming performances accounts for 75% of the final score, while the remaining 25% is split 50:50 between noise output and power consumption.

The score for 3D performance is automatically calculated from our practical test results, then a performance index rating is calculated in relation to the most powerful card we've tested to date. This automatic system means that the 3D score for each graphics card—as well as its overall score—will be automatically recalculated when a new super-fast model is reviewed (thus becoming our new benchmark). A five-star product therefore won't necessarily hang onto its five stars forever!

Detailed Results and Performance Index Tables

We won't bombard you with stats in the product reviews. To compare cards against one another and to see all the test results obtained, you can go to our graphics card face-off. A performance overview for all the different cards reviewed can be found in our performance index summary tables. Note that a smaller such table is now also included in each product review.

More information about our test procedure and hardware used can be found here.

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