The $109 Console-killer GPU: AMD’s Radeon R7 260 Graphics Card Reviewed

For about as long as GPU-accelerated games have existed, an ideal performance target has been 60 frames-per-second. Owing thanks to this is the standard 60Hz monitor, which delivers its best result when the framerate matches its refresh rate. To make sure the monitor’s refresh rate and game’s framerate keep aligned, to avoid visible tearing, VSync should be enabled.

While I believe our Best Playable results will appeal to any gamer, they could especially prove useful to those intrigued by livingroom gaming or console replacements. The goal here is simple: With each game, the graphics settings are tweaked to deliver the best possible detail while keeping us as close to 60 FPS on average as possible.

Because our Metro Last Light and Total War: SHOGUN 2 tests are timedemos, and because this kind of testing is time-consuming, I am sticking to six out of the eight games I test with for inclusion here.

With all that said, let’s get to it.

	Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag
1920×1080	Minimum		Average
AMD Radeon R7 260X	51		60
Graphics Settings & Screenshot	Environment:	High	Shadow:	Normal
	Texture:	High	Reflection:	Normal
	Anti-aliasing:	FXAA	God Rays:	Off
	Ambient Occlusion:	Off	Volumetric Fog:	On
	Motion Blur	On
AMD Radeon R7 260	48		58
Graphics Settings & Screenshot	Environment:	High	Shadow:	Normal
	Texture:	High	Reflection:	Normal
	Anti-aliasing:	Off	God Rays:	Off
	Ambient Occlusion:	Off	Volumetric Fog:	Off
	Motion Blur	Off

When the GPU in question is about as budget as it gets price-wise, anti-aliasing is often the first thing to go when trying to achieve the smoothest framerate possible. While FXAA was suitable enough on the 260X, it had to be disabled on the 260. To improve things further, Volumetric Fog was also disabled.

	Battlefield 4
1920×1080	Minimum		Average
AMD Radeon R7 260X	49		62
Graphics Settings & Screenshot	Texture Quality:	High	Texture Filtering:	High
	Lighting:	High	Effects:	High
	Post Processing:	High	Mesh:	High
	Terrain:	High	Terrain Decoration:	High
	Anti-aliasing Deferred:	Off	Anti-aliasing Post:	Off
	Ambient Occlusion:	Off
AMD Radeon R7 260	48		58
Graphics Settings & Screenshot	Texture Quality:	High	Texture Filtering:	High
	Lighting:	High	Effects:	High
	Post Processing:	Medium	Mesh:	High
	Terrain:	High	Terrain Decoration:	High
	Anti-aliasing Deferred:	Off	Anti-aliasing Post:	Off
	Ambient Occlusion:	Off

Post-processing is one of the biggest hogs with Battlefield 4, so simply decreasing that from High to Medium helped us inch closer to 60 FPS. While we don’t have AA or AO enabled, the fact that we see Battlefield 4 look like that on a $109 GPU without dipping below 48 FPS is downright impressive. Note that these results are not representative of online play.

	Crysis 3
1920×1080	Minimum		Average
AMD Radeon R7 260X	36		54
Graphics Settings & Screenshot	Anti-aliasing:	Off	Texture:	Medium
	Effects:	Medium	Object:	Medium
	Particles:	Medium	Post Processing:	Medium
	Shading:	Medium	Shadows:	Low
	Water:	Low	Anisotropic Filtering:	x16
	Motion Blur:	Medium	Lens Flares:	Yes
AMD Radeon R7 260	36		50
Graphics Settings & Screenshot	Anti-aliasing:	Off	Texture:	Medium
	Effects:	Medium	Object:	Medium
	Particles:	Low	Post Processing:	Low
	Shading:	Medium	Shadows:	Low
	Water:	Low	Anisotropic Filtering:	x16
	Motion Blur:	Medium	Lens Flares:	Yes

When “budget GPU” and “Crysis” appear on the same line, it can be assumed that “disabled anti-aliasing” has to come next. That’s the case here. Overall, we have a blend of medium and low settings here, and still didn’t manage to reach 60 FPS. However, I found the game to play extremely well when averaging to 50 FPS; good enough to make me think twice about degrading image quality further just for a gain that won’t be too noticeable (the motion blur helps with that).

	GRID 2
1920×1080	Minimum		Average
AMD Radeon R7 260X	50		58
Graphics Settings & Screenshot	Multisampling:	4x MSAA	Night Lighting:	High
	Shadows:	Ultra	Advanced Fog:	On
	Particles:	Ultra	Crowd:	Ultra
	Cloth:	High	Ambient Occlusion:	Low
	Soft Ambient Occlusion:	Off	Ground Cover:	High
	Vehicle Details:	High	Trees:	Ultra
	Objects:	Ultra	Vehicle Reflections:	Ultra
	Water:	High	Post Process:	High
	Skidmarks:	On	Advanced Lighting:	On
	Global Illumination:	Off	Anisotropic Filtering:	Ultra
AMD Radeon R7 260	41		64
Graphics Settings & Screenshot	Multisampling:	4x MSAA	Night Lighting:	High
	Shadows:	High	Advanced Fog:	On
	Particles:	Ultra	Crowd:	Ultra
	Cloth:	High	Ambient Occlusion:	Low
	Soft Ambient Occlusion:	Off	Ground Cover:	High
	Vehicle Details:	High	Trees:	Ultra
	Objects:	Ultra	Vehicle Reflections:	Ultra
	Water:	High	Post Process:	Medium
	Skidmarks:	On	Advanced Lighting:	On
	Global Illumination:	Off	Anisotropic Filtering:	Ultra

GRID 2, as gorgeous a game as it is, isn’t that demanding. We didn’t need to tweak much to reach 60 FPS on the R7 260; in fact, it was just post-processing, which was knocked down to Medium, from High. The 260X, by contrast, was able to keep the High setting while also delivering a better minimum FPS.

	Sleeping Dogs
1920×1080	Minimum		Average
AMD Radeon R7 260X	62		71
Graphics Settings & Screenshot	Anti-aliasing:	Normal	High-res Textures:	On
	Shadow Resolution:	High	Shadow Filtering:	High
	Ambient Occlusion:	High	Motion Blur:	High
	World Density:	Extreme
AMD Radeon R7 260	55		63
Graphics Settings & Screenshot	Anti-aliasing:	Normal	High-res Textures:	On
	Shadow Resolution:	High	Shadow Filtering:	High
	Ambient Occlusion:	High	Motion Blur:	High
	World Density:	Extreme

Sleeping Dogs is graphically impressive, but despite that, it tends to run well on modest hardware. In this case, all that had to be reduced was anti-aliasing, which in truth doesn’t make a huge difference due to its weird implementation (let’s hope the game’s sequel includes proper AA modes).

	Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell: Blacklist
1920×1080	Minimum		Average
AMD Radeon R7 260X	51		77
Graphics Settings & Screenshot	Texture Detail:	Medium	Shadow:	Medium
	Parallax:	On	Tessellation:	Off
	Texture Filtering:	2x	Ambient Occlusion:	Field AO
	Anti-aliasing:	Off
AMD Radeon R7 260	48		72
Graphics Settings & Screenshot	Texture Detail:	Medium	Shadow:	Medium
	Parallax:	On	Tessellation:	Off
	Texture Filtering:	2x	Ambient Occlusion:	Field AO
	Anti-aliasing:	Off

For Blacklist, I kept the exact same settings that I settled-on with the 260X. Increasing even a single option here brought me below 60 FPS enough to disregard it as an option, and unlike Crysis 3 which plays well with 50 FPS, Blacklist definitely favors 60+.