6. Zotac GTX 260 Amp2! - £176
So good it deserves an exclamation mark, Zotac's GTX 260 includes 216 stream processors, rather than the GTX 260's standard 192. What on earth does that mean? Basically, it's a bit faster than your standard chip, although not hugely so - our benchmarks were much the same as the original card's. But when we reviewed it the price was a tad too high at £235, but now that's tumbled it's worth looking into.
Read our Zotac GTX 260 Amp2! review
7. Asus EAH5830 DirectCU - £183
Asus' version of AMD's ultra-brilliant 5830 is the cheapest DirectX 11 graphics card in our round-up. Essentially a pruned version of the 5870, it still includes a whopping 1,120 stream processors, and a 256-bit memory bus. Asus has included its own overclocking software, which makes getting more performance out of the card a doddle. Admittedly, there are better-performing AMD cards out there for just a little bit more, but if you've got exactly £183, it's the card for you.
Read our Asus EAH5830 DirectCU review
8. EVGA Superclocked GTX 460 768MB - £188
It may only include a humble 768MB of memory, but EVGA has overclocked this GTX 460 to the point of no return, and into the realms of incredibly high benchmarks. It scored a whopping 38 frames per second in the verdant tropics of Just Cause 2, although it did lose out to Zotac's non-overclocked card in some tests. But the best bit is EVGA's 10-year warranty - it's truly a card for life. If we're still playing games in 10 years' time.
Read our EVGA Superclocked GTX 460 768MB review
9. Zotac GeForce GTX 460 1GB - £200
Most cheaper graphics cards are merely chopped-back versions of high end cards, but Nvidia went back to the drawing board with the GTX 460, perhaps understanding the importance of the price point. It's a moved that paid off, with the re-jigged GPU pumping out smooth frames per second in all our tests, and even providing a bit of all-important overclocking headroom. It's also DirectX 11 friendly, so you can enjoy those beautifully tesselated flags and puddles..
Read our Zotac GeForce GTX 460 1GB review
10. ATI Radeon 5850 - £200
We're truly in the lofty heights of graphics cards now, with both Nvidia and AMD's top chips floating around. The latter's 5850 is a stripped-back version of the far pricier 5870, but that also means cooling and efficiency are improved, so there's less noise and heat emanating from your PC. It puts on a hell of a performance, too, able to run the likes of Crysis and Just Cause 2 without even flinching. It's not the fastest card you can buy, but it definitely gives you the most bang for your buck.
