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 AMD Radeon R7 260 48 58 Graphics Settings

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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 AMD Radeon R7 260 48 58 Graphics Settings

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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 AMD Radeon R7 260 36 50 Graphics Settings

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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 AMD Radeon R7 260 41 64 Graphics Settings

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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 AMD Radeon R7 260 55 63 Graphics Settings

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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 AMD Radeon R7 260 48 72 Graphics Settings

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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+.