Best Gaming Video Cards $400 And Higher

Best PCIe Card For $1000:
GeForce GTX 690

Nvidia's GeForce GTX 690 is the fastest graphics card in the world. It's essentially two GeForce GTX 680 cards on a single PCB, with a slightly lower core clock and a 300 W TDP. The company sets this card's MSRP right around $1000, which is two times higher than a single GeForce GTX 680. That's not a bad deal if you were planning to go with a pair of GTX 680s in SLI anyway.

Like the GeForce GTX 680, though, this card suffers from very poor availability. We don't expect this to improve; the 690 is seen as a very niche product.


Best PCIe Card For $500

Honorable Mention:
GeForce GTX 680
GeForce GTX 680 is the fastest single-GPU card available. It keeps up with dual-GPU cards like the GeForce GTX 590 and Radeon HD 6990. Aside from questionable availability, this card's biggest problem is that the GeForce GTX 670 is not much slower, but it is notably less expensive. Because of this, the GeForce GTX 680 is reduced to honorable mention status.

Best PCIe Card For $400
GeForce GTX 670

The GeForce GTX 670 brings Radeon HD 7970 performance down to the $400 price point. That's an impressive feat considering that AMD's card was selling for $550 a couple of months ago. Moreover, we've seen Nvidia's new second-fastest in stock and available for purchase since it was introduced. With the Radeon HD 7970 at $460, the GeForce GTX 670 earns our sole recommendation and takes its place as the high-end value leader.