Asus R9 270X

The last card on test is another from the substantial Asus range. Its full title is the R9 270X DirectCU II TOP, and it's worth every syllable.

The R9 270X is a performance card launched by AMD late in 2013. Since then, the prices have dropped significantly, and the manufacturers have tinkered with its abilities to hone it into a finely tuned piece of technology.

It's based on the Curacao XT variant GPU, with a core clock speed of 1050MHz and a GPU boost clock speed of a rather impressive 1120MHz, which is about 7% faster than the standard R9 270X. Furthermore, the 2GB of GDDR5 memory is clocked at 1400MHz with a memory bandwidth of 179GB/S.

Asus GTX 760

Moving up towards higher-performance cards, we have this entry from Asus, the GTX 760 - or to give it its full title, the GTX 760 DirectCU II OC Mini. It's a very capable card and, but it’s also one that's nearly £200. But is it worth that amount?

The GeForce 760 GPU used here is from the GK104 processor line, as featured in the slightly older GTX 680 model. One of the main features of this GPU is the Nvidia Boost Technology, which takes into consideration the current temperature, power and the graphical load on the GPU, then boosts it as it sees fit, but keeping within the limit of the card's tolerance.

Asus R7 240

The Radeon R7 240 from Asus sits roughly on a par with the MSI GT 730. Both cards cost more or less the same, and both deliver some excellent visuals considering they're classed as entry-level hardware.

The Asus R7 240 was released early last year and is based on the Oland Pro graphics processor from AMD. It uses the same GPU as the HD 8670, which itself was an unlocked version, but in this case, some of the shading units have been disabled, bringing the total to 320.

MSI GT 730

MSI is something of the leader in terms of graphics card technology. Its products are cutting edge, utilise the best components and more often than not include some extra feature or two that benefits the customer and keeps the competition on their toes.

The MSI GT 730 is certainly no exception. This is a relatively modern card, being released early last year and built on the 28nm process. It's based on the Nvidia GK208 graphics processor, with a core clock speed of 700MHz, 2GB of DDR2 memory at 1800MHz, 384 shading units, 16 texture mapping units and a TDP of 49W. So you could essentially get away with a lower-end 300W PSU if needed, although we'd recommend one with a little more power to factor in the other components.

Asus HD 5450

Standing pretty much toe to toe with the GT 610 is the Asus HD 5450. This is another extremely low cost 2GB card, costing in the region of £36, and as before, it has one or two drawbacks that need to be considered.

The Radeon HD 5450 range of cards were released way back in 2010, making them at least two years older than the GT 610s, which in computing terms is an absolute age. It uses the Cedar Pro variant of the Cedar GPU, with a core clock speed of 650MHz and memory clock of 450MHz. There are 80 shading units, eight texture mapping units, a TDP of 19W, DVI, VGA and HDMI outputs.

Gigabyte GT 610

The Gigabyte GT 610 is one of the cheapest 2GB Nvidia GeForce cards we've ever seen. At around £34 (depending on where you shop), it's certainly worth considering. But there are some areas of concern that must be addressed before you go out and buy one.

It’s an upgraded version of the GT 520 from some years ago, and it even uses the same GF119 GPU but without the unlocked features. It's not based on the Kepler GeForce design, as was expected when the GT 610, 620 and 630 were released; instead the 610 is actually based on the Fermi 40nm GPUs that saw a tour of duty in OEM laptops and desktops before being used in these examples.

Free Music Apps For Android

Dance around your phone or tablet with Keir Thomas' examination of five apps that offer free access to music

Unlike the evil Apple empire, Google doesn't implicitly link tablets and phones to its Google Play music and video services. Sure, you'll find the Google Play music and video apps preinstalled on devices, but you can also use other services if you wish (or just rip your own audio and movies). The choice, really, is yours. This is Android's greatest strength.

Below, we look at five apps that let you listen to music in some fashion - whether that's downloading direct to your device, or streaming, or both. As always the apps were tested on a phone and tablet running Android 4.3 Jelly Bean, and all are free of charge within the Google Play store.

Vapour Rub

Mark Pickavance looks at a collection of products that seemingly can't make the transition from glitzy promo launch to purchasable product

Work for any time in the tech industry and you might easily come to the conclusion that it's an odd blend of reality and fantasy.

Companies often commit to product launches without an actual product to sell or even a completed design. This can often lead to a curious discord where the practicalities of delivering on a marketing presentation are entirely out of sync.

Depending how wrong things go, this can be just a timing issue, where a product takes longer to deliver than was anticipated. Or it can be that the concept is horribly flawed, impractical or the market just isn't ready for it.