Best Graphics Cards of 2011

by Atul On June 28th, 2011

2011 has been another great year(so far) for GPU enthusiasts as both AMD and Nvidia have released their flagship graphic cards one after the other. PC elitist only settle for the best, but there are times that people want to be a part of the PC Master Race with a budget Graphic Card, so we’ve tried to put together a list of GPUs for different budgets, based on performance vs price. Check out the best graphics cards of 2011.

AMD Radeon HD 6990 [High-End]

The monstrous card from AMD comes at a high price, but the unprecedented gaming performance is exceptional and is well worth the price. It comes with two high-end graphic cores(codenamed Antilles) which are tweaked versions of the Cayman XT core(seen in 6970 HD). The card comes default with a 830MHz Engine Clock which can be overclocked to 880MHz by flipping a switch, in the process increasing the power consumption from 375W to a whopping 450W. The only downside to this beast of a graphic card is that it’s very expensive, power hungry and a bit on the noisy side, but that shouldn’t be a concern if you’re looking to build the ultimate gaming machine.

Dimensions
10.7 x 1.5 x 4.5 inches

Specs:

Up to 830MHz Engine Clock
PCI Express 2.1 x16 bus interface
4GB GDDR5 Memory
1250MHz Memory Clock (5.0 Gbps GDDR5)
320 GB/s memory bandwidth (maximum)
Full DirectX® 11 support
OpenGL 4.1 support

Power Supply Requirement
750W Watt or greater power supply with two 150W 8-pin PCI Express power connectors recommended (1000W and four 8-pin connectors recommended for AMD CrossFireX technology in dual mode. 1200W recommended for optimal performance).

Asus GTX 590 [High-End]

The ASUS GTX 590 is basically an all-in-one silent GTX 570 SLI package and is another powerhouse from Nvidia equipped with two full size GF110 GPUs. The specs make it look relatively weak in comparison to AMD’s 6990 graphics card which contains 3,072 stream processors/5.2 billion transistors, whereas the GTX 590 packs 1,024 processors/3 billion transistors. In terms of benchmarks the GTX 590 performs as good or slightly better in comparison to the 6990, but the bearable noise makes it a better option as the 6990 can be very noisy at times.

Dimensions
3.5 x 9 x 16 inches

Specs:

Up to 607MHz Engine Clock
PCI Express 2.1 x16 bus interface
3GB GDDR5 Memory
853MHz (3,414MHz effective)
2 x 163.9 GB/s memory bandwidth (maximum)
Full DirectX® 11 support
OpenGL 4.1 support

Power Supply Requirement
700W or Higher.

AMD HD 6970 [Medium]

AMD’s 6970 has the specs to match up against the similarly priced GTX 570(Nvidia), but does it match up in the other departments? A straight forward answer would be “NO,” it has high noise levels, lower efficiency and
overall lower performance in comparison to the GTX 570. It’s rather the best alternative to the GTX 570 and an affordable option for Medium-High Performance.

Dimensions
9.8 x 4 x 14.8 inches

Specs:

Up to 880MHz Engine Clock
PCI Express 2.1 x16 bus interface
2GB GDDR5 Memory
1375MHz Memory Clock (5.5 Gbps GDDR5)
176 GB/s memory bandwidth (maximum)
Full DirectX® 11 support
OpenGL 4.1 support

Power Supply Requirement
550 Watt or greater power supply with one 150W 8-pin PCI Express power connector and one 75W 6-pin PCI Express power connector recommended

Nvidia GeForce GTX 570 [Medium]

Nvidia’s GTX 570 is probably one of the best graphic cards for its price and is cooler, quiet and faster than AMD’s graphic cards in a similar price range. It’s basically a tweaked version of the GTX 580 and is faster. GTX 570 would be a great buy for new PC elitists, since you’ll probably be getting a glimpse of high performance at a decent price.

Dimensions
9.5 x 2.9 x 11.8 inches.

Specs:

Up to 732MHz Engine Clock
PCI Express 2.1 x16 bus interface
1,250MB GDDR5 Memory
1464MHz Memory Clock
152 GB/s memory bandwidth (maximum)
Full DirectX® 11 support
OpenGL 4.1 support

Power Supply Requirement
550 W or Higher.

AMD HD 6870 [Budget]

This Graphic Card is definitely “not” for the PC enthusiasts, so if you’re looking for ultimate performance this might not be the card you’re looking for. On the other hand, the “AMD HD 6870″ is a great graphics card for budget users, with peak temperatures of 78 degrees and maximum power consumption of 287 Watts, it’s very efficient and great value for money.

Dimensions
1.5 x 4.4 x 10.3 inches

Specs:

900MHz Engine Clock
PCI Express 2.1 x16 bus interface
1GB GDDR5 Memory
1050MHz Memory Clock (GDDR5)
134.4 Gbps memory bandwidth (maximum)
Full DirectX® 11 support
OpenGL 4.1 support

Power Supply Requirement
500 Watt or greater power supply with two 75W 6-pin PCI Express power connectors recommended (600 Watt and four 6-pin connectors for AMD CrossFireX technology in dual mode).

Geforce GTX 550 Ti [Budget]

Another budget graphics card from Nvidia which will fit into the smallest of cases and has a single six-pin power connector, consuming a maximum of 271W when overclocked. It’s a great alternative to the GTX 460 which has slightly better performance, in case you have a really tight budget.