Best New Graphics Card / GPU PC Gaming 2014

When it comes to building a gaming rig one of the most important components for your computer's overall performance is the graphics card. In this post you'll get all the need-to-know information so you can decide what graphics card would be the best value for the money in 2014. I'll give you my top ten and then let you vote for your favorite below. This post, along with all the others I've written, is then updated each month based upon what you voted for.

Information You Should Know

Integrated Graphics Card: You may have heard of the term integrated graphics card before. Previously these were only included in low to mid range motherboards. Today, integrated graphics cards are a part of the CPU. Because these come with a minimal amount of ram a certain portion of your system's ram is dedicated to it. While the performance of integrated graphics cards have come quite a bit in the last year a dedicated graphics card, built separate from the CPU and motherboard, is ideal for gaming.

PCI Express: PCI Express is used to connect your computer's peripherals to the motherboard. Expansion or PCI slots vary by motherboard and differ according to type and size in order to accommodate a variety of peripherals. Slot sizes include x 1, x 4, x 8, and x 16 and may be compatible with PCI express 1.0 - 3.0 cards depending on your motherboard. These slots are backwards compatible and may accommodate cards which are their size and smaller . Only Gen3 Z68 motherboards as well as newer Ivy Bridge Motherboards are compatible with the latest PCI Express 3.0 standard. While in-game FPS may improve by using PCI express 3.0 it's unlikely that you'll be able to set your settings higher simply because you're using the latest standard. In addition, it seems that there's a greater impact on GeForce than Radeon cards.

Radeon Vs. GeForce: This is a competition that many have made a personal preference; however, I would strongly suggest you choose your graphics card based upon benchmarks and price vs. performance.

With the rebate, this great card is right around $150. It's perfect if you're building a budget Gaming PC.

For around $130 you can also find another great card in the Radeon R7 260.

This card is under $150 with the rebate. Right now it's available, but it may disappear by the time I update this post again next month.

The rebate for this HD6950 puts it under $200. A legitimately good deal.

This revamped and re-released GTX 480 from EVGA is a steal in the Under $250 and a better performer than similarly priced GTX 560 TI or the HD6950.

A rebate is available on this product that puts it in the $259.99 range. A few months ago these were $100 more.

If you are looking at a higher end video card, then this GTX 670 gives you a serious bang for your buck and is my choice for video cards right around $400. It's capable of handling just about any kind of configuration you throw at it.

It might seem funny to some of you that I'm mentioning my favorite GPU in the under $1000 range in a "for the money" article, but showcasing it just seemed like the right thing to do.

For this poll please vote for the GPU you'd purchase based upon what your budget is rather than what is the best performing GPU overall. This poll will affect the results of next month's top ten. Also be sure to vote in the best gaming headset for the money poll.

Approval of comments is delayed so be sure to subscribe for e-mail alerts of when a new comment is posted. Also be sure to check out this new post on the best motherboards for the money.