Budget Graphics cards with reasonable capabilities.

Nvidia GeFore GTX 760, 770, 780 if you have enough try with those GPU.

i have an Nvidia GT610(1GB) which i got for $20 running with an intel pentium 2.7Ghz and i can run Tomb raider 2013 on ultra settings without tressfx and vsync turned off at 1600x900 just fine with only a few sputters when a lot of fog or dust comes onto your field of view. If you dont care about graphics and you have a screen that maxes resolution at 1366x768 a GT610 would probably be nice for you, but if not go for the stronger cards that reach your budget

NVIDIA GTX650. Comes with Watch_Dogs ;)

would you consider cross-fire GPUs?

Asus HD 6670 is under $100 and runs my games at up to 1920x1200 without fuss.

Thanks for all the responses, guys. I'll take a look through it all but, many people are suggesting the Asus GTX 760. Is there any reason NOT to go with that one?

If you're gaming on 1080p on a budget get a 270X. Or a bit more for a 760 if you prefer green team.

If you dont already have one, then I say get a GTX 660. I use one now and I am ale to play everything perfectly. Latest game I got is Watchdogs and it runs like a charm. I think the price range is between 150-200. I'm gonna upgrade from mine though. It's time for me to get into the 7 series department.

The cheapest would be to think ahead a little and buy a card that will last you comfortably for the next 4 - 5 years, potentially through an upgrade of motherboard / CPU. Even if you'd spend a little more than getting something which would service you merely for the immediate future (say, next year or so) with reasonable performance at low - medium settings in games, it's cheaper to try and find something that'll last a bit, rather than hitting the annoying "I can't run games at more than 20 - 30 FPS at lowest settings" limit and having to buy a new GPU in a year or two.

Now, there's always a ceiling you hit for the "bang for your buck" factor, above which spending more would mean getting diminishing value per dollar spent (in performance relative to other cards). I spent about a month researching stuff last year to try and find a good card that would last me a bit, and have since not only bought the card, but also migrated it into a new build (my CPU was really limiting things massively and an upgrade was really needed - it was holding my GPU's performance way back).

I can heartily recommend the Sapphire HD7950 Vapor-X. You can get it for around $230 now, and that's not considering the fact that you get a bunch of free games with it (depending on where you order it from - stores get to pick which cards they offer which promotion on, AMD currently has several levels of promotional codes they're offering; Bronze, Silver and Gold - check the store, or email them and ask for an exception ;) ). You can trade off the games, or keep them. Either way, free value.

Why I recommend it? It won't eat into your budget tremendously, while offering top-notch performance (as noted in the link I provided). I sits among the top cards right now, right at the upper/mid-end. Now I've thrown it in my new rig (with an i5-3570k CPU) and it has the room to play, it eats all games I throw at it up. I run at 1440x900, and can play most games at their highest settings, save for games with large multiplayer components, like Battlefield 4, where I might have to tweak a setting or two down to get a stable 60 FPS. The thing is, in those performance charts, the red value is the card with it's stock overclock value (950 Mhz core / 1250 Mhz memory clocks), while you can quite easily run it as high as 1100 / 1500 without frying your card. That's where the Vapor chamber comes into play - the hotter it gets, the better it cools stuff down. And since I looked up so much about this card, I can also say that the PCB design is quite good, with quality components which will last a good while, as well as that the Vapor chamber also helps cool down the VRAM.

If / when games begin performing a little sub-par (which I estimate will happen in about a year or two / three at the earliest), I can overclock the card a little more, turn another setting or two down a little, and it will most likely run fine. If games really begin becoming enormously demanding within that time-frame, I can always buy a second copy of the card (which will likely have dropped closer to $130 - 150) and go Crossfire.

So, yeah, that's my recommendation. If you spend much more than that, the extra "oomf" you'll get won't really be a tremendous amount, while the premium for that slight bump in performance will be costly.

EVGA 750ti SC hands is the best value for money at around 150$

I'm pretty much in the same boat as you and I was planning on either a R9 270 or R7 265, but if it can fit in my mini ATX case I may jump the gun and get a R9 280

I have an MSI R7 250 2GB GPU in my budget PC build and it runs great, I'm very happy with it's performance.

I can play any game in my Steam library on at least medium settings and get 50+ FPS.(I get about 40FPS on medium settings on average in Crysis 2 Maximum Edition)

The card is only around $90USD as well, so if you want something cheap that will last for a couple of years, it's a decent choice.

Though it is an AMD card, it still performs great!

If you really only want to go with Nvidia, then I suggest one of their new cards, either the GTX 750 or the GTX 750Ti, their price/performance numbers look excellent and I've only heard good things about them.

Also, I suggest looking through some YouTube videos about different GPUs, TinyTomLogan (OC3D) is really informative, as well as Linus/Tech Quickie and also the guys over at Tek Syndicate.

Just do some research and get multiple opinions before you commit money.

i have a msi gtx770 right now, but i still miss my old zotac gtx275 amp. raw powwah!

r9 270x - if you can get it under 200 - grab one.