What's the best affordable graphics card?

Let's say I wanted to buy a graphics card for 200 bucks or less. What would be the best options? Also, can someone give me a quick top 5 of the most affordable, and a top 5 of the best, period?

Unfortunately sub $200 segment of GPUs is really poor atm.

Most sites go from suggesting a $160 GPU str8 to $230+ GPU.

But I will make a try and propose a couple.

1. SAPPHIRE DUAL-X 100365L Radeon R9 270 2GB $159^.99

2. MSI AMD Radeon R9 270X Gaming 2GB $179.99

3. MSI N660 Gaming 2GD5/OC GeForce GTX 660 2GB $179^.99

The 3rd is only recommended if you absolutely want an Nvidia GPU.

R9 270 (150$), GTX660 (160$), R9 270X (180$)

(the 270X is the best of them all, not because of the pricing)

if you're looking into a value GPU, the R9 270 for 150$ is the best out of all

I can vouch for the GTX660 2G. Great card for the money. Just don't expect miracles.

Buy used, much better options out there.

at that price range i would with a 270/270x hands down

Get the 270.

This. If you want raw power in that range, 270X is the one. If you want value in that range, 270 is the one.

270 is just a downclocked 270X. No point getting a 270X really.

Exactly. That's why at my top 3 R9 270 is 1st.

Usually people don't know that R9 270 and R9 270X are the same chip (2800M transistors), have the same cores(1280), the same amount of memory (2048MB) and the same memory type of bandwith (256bit GDDR5).

R9 270X has just higher clocks...

You can buy a MSI RECERTIFIED GTX 760 on amazon for $200. Which is faster Then the 270x and GTX 660

I'm still salivating on my r9 290 $230 purchase hngg. Worth the noise.

Toss up between the R9 270x and the Nvidia 660, you can't go wrong with ether.

Newegg has been regularly having the Radeon 7870 on sale for anywhere from $100-$130 for the last couple of months. That would be my vote.

I'm just going to echo what everyone has said already... Get a R9 270 with a after market cooler and overclock that thing to 270X levels.

Also if you are willing to increase your limit to by another $30.... You can get R9 280, for $30 over your limit you can get a 20-40% performance boost. I think its worth it.

The NVIDIA 750ti is pretty good, currently what im running. Its cheap, has extremely low power consumption, and requires no external power cables.

I'm getting 50-60 fps on high-med settings on BF4, 60+ on BF3 and Skyrim is beyond 100.

As other have stated, I'd get a r9 270 and OC it to the levels of the r9 270x. Also, don't be afraid to look into used cards. Just make sure the seller has a good rep and etc.

For a budget of $200 get the R7265, like the Sapphire Radeon. This guy has a pretty good video on graphic cards on a budget https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvNg-zFibzo . Hopefully it helps.