Nvidia GeForce GTX 1070
For VR and (a bit) beyond.
We’re getting up into the big leagues at this $600 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, of course, you want to take advantage of high-framerate (HFR) techs like G-Sync and FreeSync.
If you’ve got a higher-res monitor, you will be able to achieve very comfortable 1440p/Ultra gaming at this price, and you can 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 ultrawide displays, which generally come at a resolution of 3,440 x 1,400 pixels.
At present, this price range is a bit of a one-horse race for Nvidia. With AMD’s R9 Fury cards now all approaching 18-months old, they’re not particularly competitive anymore — their Polaris replacements should hopefully arrive in the next few months.
But in the interim, there’s really only one choice: the GeForce GTX 1070. It’s faster than last-generation’s GTX 980 Ti and Titan X, has an ample 8GB of memory and proves to be an impressive overclocker too.
Even at 4K resolution, we were able to squeeze an extra 13% out of our test card (using only a single 8-pin power connector), for an average framerate of 50.2fps — decidedly playable, if not always buttery-smooth. 1080p performance approached a glorious 120fps.
If you want HFR or 4K gaming on a budget, this is the most economical option you’ll find.