NVIDIA GeForce GT 520

Running the open-source Nexuiz game at 2560 x 1600 was a bit too demanding for the GeForce GT 520 to handle at a playable frame-rate with the proprietary NVIDIA Linux graphics driver. The average GeForce GT 520 frame-rate was just 21 FPS while the GeForce GT 240, which is also a $50~60 USD graphics card, was up at 39 FPS. The GeForce GT 220 meanwhile was just at 15 FPS for this test, which is still in the same ballpark price. The Radeon HD 4650, which carries a retail price as low as $40 USD, was over twice as fast as the GeForce GT 520 and had even beat out the GeForce GT 240 with a 46 FPS frame-rate.

With Xonotic, the successor to Nexuiz, the Radeon HD 4650 continued being the best budget performer with a frame-rate near 50 FPS while the low-end Fermi failed to breach 30 FPS. At least the GeForce GT 520 was still a minor upgrade over the GT 220 and was outdoing the Radeon HD 5450, a $30~40 USD graphics card.