Weekend Hardware Sales - Cheap Graphics Cards in All Price Ranges

We hope you all had a great, Star Citizen-filled Halloween! Now that it's over and the sugar rush is subsiding, let's see what goodies are still out there. This week, we decided to focus on video card sales, having found some great deals on both AMD and NVIDIA cards.

XFX Radeon R7 265 ($110): First up, we found a great deal on one of the most competitive low-budget video cards: the R7 265. This is the perfect video card for the casual, entry-level gamer. If you mainly play games like League of Legends, DOTA2, World of Warcraft, and similar titles, this GPU should be ideal. It has 1024 Stream Processors and 2GB of GDDR5 RAM on a 256-bit interface. You'll be able to play most games out at medium settings, with a few at high settings; games like Crysis 3 and Wolfenstein may give it a little trouble, though. For the price, you get a great entry-level video card.

Sapphire Dual X Radeon R9 280 ($165): Next up, I found another deal on an AMD GPU. This Sapphire R9 280 has 1792 Stream Processors with 3GB of GDDR5 RAM on a 384-bit interface. The dual-fan heatsink will also aid in keeping this video card cool during those intense gaming sessions. This card will play just about any game out at highest settings and at a reasonable price. As usual, you get Alien Isolation and Star Citizen for free with purchase.

MSI Gaming N760 TF GTX 760 ($180): Our first NVIDIA card of the sales is this MSI GTX 760, listed for only $180 after MIR. Since the new GTX 900 series released, the prices of the GTX 700 series have come down substantially, allowing us to reap the benefits of mid-range and budget gaming cards. The GTX 760 has 1152 CUDA Cores and 2GB of GDDR5 memory on a 256-bit interface. Performance should rival that of the Radeon R9 280, so if you're on a budget, the above mentioned Radeon R9 280 is a better deal. If you prefer NVIDIA, this is the budget GPU for you. You will be able to play most games out at medium to high settings, a few more demanding games like Star Citizen and Wolfenstein will play at medium settings comfortably.

Gigabyte Windforce GTX 770 ($270): For those of you who want a good GPU for rendering, live capture, and high-quality gaming, this GTX 770 is a solid mid-range option. This Gigabyte GTX 770 has 1536 CUDA Cores and 2GB of GDDR5 memory on a 256-bit interface. The three cooling fans should do a great job of heat dissipation, keeping it reasonably cool. You should be able to play most (if not all) games out at the highest settings on 1080p, with some video rendering optimization on Adobe software.

Pick of the Week

ASUS DirectCU II Radeon R9 290 ($280): I really wanted to find a good sale on a GTX 900 series card, but they're not even in stock right now, and the few that we can find aren't yet on any kind of sale. Instead, I found this bargain for a Radeon R9 290 from ASUS. This ASUS Radeon R9 290 comes with 2816 Stream Processors and 4GB of GDDR5 memory on a 512-bit interface. This should be more than enough video card for any game out there on ultra settings. The Direct CU II thermal setup does a great job of keeping this GPU cool under full load during those long gaming sessions. You also get Alien Isolation and Star Citizen free with purchase.

There are many more deals out there to find, so until next time.

- Michael "Mikagmann2" Mann.