Nvidia GeForce GTX 1070
For VR and (a fair bit) beyond.
We’re getting up into the big leagues at this price point and, to be completely honest, it’s probably overkill to spend this much on a graphics card if you’re only gaming at 1080p — unless you want to take advantage of highframerate techs like G-Sync and FreeSync.
If you’ve got a higher-res monitor, you’ll be able to achieve very comfortable 1440p/Ultra gaming at this price, and you can often even manage 4K resolution at Medium detail settings. This is also the kind of card you’ll need to aim for if you’re buying one of the new 32-inch, 3,440 x 1,440 ultrawide displays.
This price point has been a bit of a one-horse race for much of 2016 and 2017, with AMD not really having anything that can compete with the GTX 1070. That changed recently with the launch of the Radeon RX Vega 56, a $650 card that, in most tests, is neck and neck against that GTX 1070.
The real key here is price. With 1070s starting at $600 (the cheapest Vega 56s start at $650), the Nvidia card becomes our defacto choice — even though it’s a full year older. When the Vega 56 comes down in price — once the initial supply shortfall and cryptocurrency miner demand tapers off — then it will be the better long-term choice. But by then, Nvidia may well have its 2000series (or whatever it ends up calling them) GeForce cards to market...
It’s also a bit more economical in terms of power use — around 15–20% at peak. There is one use case where we’d favour the Vega 56, however, and that’s if you’re planning on pairing it with a FreeSync monitor.
Verdict
With AMD’s Vega 56 prices suffering due to demand, it’s a bit of a no brainer to grab this instead.