DirectX 11: graphics card performance Full HD & WHQD

We test at Very high quality settings as perfect balance for mainstream, high-end and enthusiast class graphics cards. We'll add normal and Ultra quality settings tests in the next 24 hours as well.

For PC gaming your goal always should be 60+ FPS. However, we say 40 FPS for any game should be your minimum threshold, while 60 FPS (frames per second) or higher can be considered optimal. The type of game is relevant though, an first person shooter game is nice at 60 fps , an online shooter on a 144Hz monitor feels better at 100 fps. And totally on the opposing side, for RTS gaming things are different, and there we are comfortable with an FPS ranging as low as 30~35 FPS. Gaming below 30 FPS is consider to be poor. At all times if your framerate is low, you can opt to change in-game image quality settings. For example the cheapest trick to gain performance is to lower your anti-aliasing mode (or even disable it). It's the small tweaks herein that will allow you to balance out performance versus image quality settings. Above the most popular and use monitor resolution at 1920x1080 pixels also known as Full HD. Any card measured starting at the GeForce GTX 770 or Radeon R9 280/285 series really is fast enough for the rendering engine at good image quality settings. Cost / perf / resolution wise combined and weighed we'd recommend a GeForce GTX 960 or Radeon R9 380. Both cards sit in the 200 EURO/USD range.

For the more hardcore PC gamers a preferred resolution is WQHD which is short for Wide Quad HD, a resolution of 2560 x 1440 pixels. Let's just call this the more more sexy resolution opposed to the ever so popular Full HD. Again, these are the same quality settings. Starting at a GeForce GTX 970 or an AMD Radeon R9 290 you can already game in 2560x1440 if you wanted too with these terrific quality settings.