Best Graphics Card for Gaming in 2022

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090

Best Graphics Card

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 is currently the fastest graphics card on the market, so it’s no wonder that it tops our list of the best graphics cards. Coming in at a starting price of $1,499, this card features NVIDIA’s powerful Amere architecture. Whether you want to play games in 4K or in 1440p at the highest graphics settings, you’re sure to get nothing but the best gaming experience here. For those looking to use it for playing in 1080p, this graphics card may be a little overkill. However, if your 1080p games support ray tracing, the RTX 3090 will be one of the best cards you’ll ever have.

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 features an 8nm GPU, enhanced Tensor Cores, a huge number of CUDA cores, 2nd-gen RT cores, and 24GB of superfast G6X memory to deliver the ultimate gaming performance. It can run games like Crysis beautifully, and the thermal design allows for excellent thermal performance without sacrificing fan acoustics. Fast, quiet, and beautiful, this GPU is simply the best graphics card around, which is probably why it’s currently so scarce on the market.

NVIDIA Titan RTX Graphics Card

Ultimate AI Powerhouse

The NVIDIA Titan RTX Graphics Card is one that’s meant to provide nothing but the best performance. Endowed with dual 13-blade fans, this GPU is ultra-quiet and offers three times normal airflow. Thanks to the Titan RTX NVLink Bridge technology featured on this card, users can double the memory capacity while scaling the total performance, ensuring higher bandwidth as well as enhanced performance. Unlike the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 3080, the NVIDIA Titan RTX is powered by the Turing GP and comes with 72 RT cores, 4609 NVIDIA CUDA cores, and 576 Tensor cores for AI workflows.

With a boost clock of 1770MHz and a 24GB GDDR6X memory, you’ll be able to engage in 1080p, 4K, and 1440p gaming with ease. However, it’s worth noting that while this GPU is indeed excellent for gaming, it isn’t the best for gaming. Instead, it’s more geared towards enhancing AI, CAD, deep learning, machine learning, video editing, data analysis, and other creative and programming workflows. No matter how demanding your workflow might be, this high-end GPU will help you render, research, and create much faster while delivering better results. If you’re looking for the very best gaming graphics card, we urge you to go with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 above.

Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1050 Ti

Best Mid-Range Gaming Graphics Card

The Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1050 Ti is a graphics card that gets a lot of accolades as one of the best graphics cards in the mid-range segment. Based on NVIDIA’s Pascal architecture, this GPU offers excellent gaming capabilities. You can easily play games in 1080p with no stress. It’s fast, smooth, and provides a power-efficient gaming experience. While it doesn’t come with as much RAM or power as the best high-end options above, it sure holds its own well, not to mention it’s reasonably priced.

The Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1050 Ti supports the latest DirectX 12 features. It comes with a low-profile backplate and works with both PCIe 2.0 and 3.0. The cooling system is also quite reliable thanks to the dual fan, alternate spinning fan design, and copper composite heat pipes. All of these come together to dissipate heat effectively, ensuring that you get the best performance possible from this GPU.

The fan on this graphics card runs pretty silently, and you also get an LED indicator to help you keep track of your fan’s status. With a boost clock of 1455MHz and 4GB DDR5 memory, this is one of the best graphics cards to run your 1080p games on.

AMD Radeon RX 590

Great Value for Money

An inexpensive price tag and a GPU that works efficiently are some of the reasons why many people love the AMD Radeon RX 590. This Radeon RX 590 Graphics Card is made by XFX, an American company dedicated to making AMD cards, amongst other accessories. The RX 590 is based on AMD’s Polaris GPU and comes with an overclocking capability while still staying under the $200 price point. While the design isn’t anything too special, you still get top-notch performance as well as better value for your money.

The AMD Radeon RX 590 Graphics Card utilizes 8GB GDDR5 RAM, ideal if you’re more of a QHD gamer. This GPU comes with a 256-bit memory interface and operates at a frequency of 1469MHz, which can be boosted up to 1545MHz.

The AMD Radeon RX 590 is also VR-ready, allowing you to enjoy a seamless VR experience by providing low latency, resulting in a virtually stutter-free environment. If you aren’t bothered about flashy aesthetics and would love to have an excellent GPU for under $200, the RX 590 is one of the best graphics cards you can buy.

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Ti

Best Graphics Card for Enthusiasts

If you’re looking to get nothing but the absolute best graphics card, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Ti is the card you should choose. Not only is it the king of GPUs, but it has remained so ever since it first launched in 2018. Whether you want to use it for gaming, deep learning, machine learning, or any creative task, this card is good enough to handle just about all pursuits. The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Ti is built on the brand’s Turing architecture and endowed with real-time ray tracing. It features 11GB DDR6 RAM, 4352 CUDA cores, and a maximum digital resolution of 7680 x 4320.

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Ti is a card that can deliver 4K graphics at 60fps. Its Tensor cores and impressive ray tracing technology allow it to handle any graphics-intensive task with ease. Pair this GPU with a powerful processor and a good monitor, and you won’t have to worry about building another rig for a while. With that said, it’s worth noting that the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Ti is an expensive and large GPU. This card costs well over a thousand bucks and has a 10.5 x 1.75 x 4.55 inches dimension. If you must have the absolute best of the best and you’ve got the cash and space for it, then the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Ti is the ideal graphics card for you.

AMD RX 6700 XT

Best Graphics Card By AMD

Not everyone has the budget to go after high-end cards. Some are simply looking for an excellent card in a reasonable price range. If you’re one of these people, the AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT is one of the best graphics cards you could choose. Sitting in the $400 price range, the AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT is designed with AMD’s Navi 22 architecture. AMD’s graphics cards often handle games using Vulkan and DirectX 12 APIs better than NVIDIA cards, while the latter does well with DX11 games.

In terms of performance, the AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT is just a little behind the NVIDIA 3070, which we’ve covered below. The 7nm FinFET manufacturing process allows the RX 6700 XT to use less power than AMD’s Radeon VII even when being used for 1080p and 1440p gaming. If your budget is within the $400 price range and you’d like the best graphics card for 1440p gaming, the AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT is one of the top choices to look at.

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070

Best Graphics Card for 1440p Gaming

Looking to get a good deal on a 1440p gaming card? Look no further than the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070. Built on NVIDIA’s Ampere architecture, this card is excellent for both 4K and 1440p gaming, though it does better at 1440p. Endowed with the Ampere GA104 GPU, this card is close in performance to the more expensive RTX 3080 graphics card. While the GeForce RTX 3070 may be considered to be an enhanced version of the RTX 2070, we feel it’s more like a lite version of the RTX 3080 when it comes to performance.

Featuring a base clock of 1500MHz, boost clock of 1725MHz, and 5888 GPU cores, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 is fast and comes with ray tracing and DLSS support. It also beats its predecessor as well as every AMD GPU available right now in terms of sheer performance. If you’re looking to get a great graphics card with excellent performance at an affordable price point, this card could be your best bet.

AMD RX 5600 XT

Best Budget 1080p Graphics Card

Don’t have a $400 budget for the AMD RX 6700 XT? Go with the AMD RX 5600 XT. While it isn’t as super as its sibling above, this entry-level card is one of the best for 1080p gaming PCs. At launch, this card was 15% faster than NVIDIA’s GTX 1660 Ti card, which happened to be its main competitor. This made NVIDIA drop the price of its GTX 2060 card and partner with EVGA to release a unique model, the RTX 2060 KO, for just 300 bucks. AMD then responded to this notion by adding a BIOS update that increased the RX 5600 XT’s performance, making it 17% faster than the 1660 Ti cards. The BIOS update made it possible for users to run their GPUs at 14GB/s instead of the initial 12GB/s memory clock.

Fast forward to the present, prices have dropped, and the AMD Radeon RX 5600 XT is one of today’s best deals. While it doesn’t feature ray tracing and DLSS, it’s still the best value you can get for the price. Most of these cards now run at 14GB/s right out of the box or via a BIOS update. If you’re looking to get a new graphics card for your gaming PC at the best possible price, the AMD RX 5600 XT is one of the best graphics cards you can buy.

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Super

High-End But Pricey

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Super is another awesome high-end graphics card. Launched in July 2019, this GPU was built on the TU104 processor, just like the RTX 2070 Super. However, the variant used for the RTX 2080 Super is the TU104-450A1. It supports DirectX 12 Ultimate, thereby ensuring that all modern games run efficiently on this GPU. This graphics card also comes with hardware ray tracing capabilities as well as variable-rate shading, making it one of the best graphics cards dedicated to futuristic gaming. The RTX 2080 features 384 Tensor cores, 3072 shading units, 48 ray tracing acceleration cores, and 64 ROPs. Designed with 8GB GDDR6 RAM, the NVIDIA RTX 2080 Super operates at a frequency of 1650MHz, boostable to 1815MHz.

Whether you’re buying it for gaming, deep learning, or machine learning, you’re sure to get the most out of this card. It’s a dual-slot GPU, and it draws power from one 6-pin and one 8-pin connector. Display outputs include 3 DisplayPort, 1 USB-C port, and one HDMI port. It uses a PCIe 3.0 x16 interface to connect to the rest of the system. The RTX 2080 Super is capable of playing both 1440p and 4K games with ease. This is a top-of-the-shelf card that many will find interesting.

EVGA GeForce RTX 2060

Best Graphics Card for 1080p Ultra Gaming

The EVGA GeForce RTX 2060 is a great GPU and one of the best graphics cards around. Sitting at the same price range as NVIDIA’s Founders Edition RTX 2060, this card offers incredible performance as well as boosted core clock speeds. While it’s faster than the original GeForce RTX 2060, its performance is still lower than what you get on the RTX 2060 Super. However, the EVGA GeForce RTX 2060 is still one of the least expensive and best RTX 2060s around. It stands toe-to-toe with higher-performing models of the AMD RX 5600 XT, and it’s capable of gaming in 1080p at 60fps quite easily. This GPU can also handle 1440p gaming, though you may have to play your games at medium settings.

The EVGA GeForce RTX 2060 uses the TU104 GPU, which is usually found in higher-end models like the RTX 2070 Super and RTX 2080 Super cards. However, EVGA was able to reduce the performance so as to make it match the specifications of the original RTX 2060. Some of the remodeling done on this GPU includes the addition of basic I/O and a smaller heatsink. However, this doesn’t stop it from providing excellent performance for both gaming and computing tasks. While AMD’s RX 5700 XT may be a better choice, the EVGA GeForce 2060 RTX is one of the best RTX cards to work with if your budget isn’t huge or if you’re looking for an excellent GPU for 1080p and 1440p gaming.

AMD Radeon RX 5300

Best Entry Level GPU

AMD recently released the Radeon RX 5300. It’s a GPU that’s meant to serve entry-level users. This is a Navi 14 graphics card touted to provide better performance than NVIDIA’s entry-level option, the GTX 1650. Endowed with a 22 CU shader configuration as well as 1408 shader cores, the RX 5300 sits in the $130 price range while still offering great entry-level performance. Compared to the RX 550 XT, the RX 5300 features one less memory controller, thereby bringing the bus-width to a low 96-bit. This makes it the lowest desktop part of the Radeon 5300 series.

The RX 5300 features 3GB VRAM instead of the 4GB featured on the GTX 1650, and its power consumption is down to 100 Watts. While the power consumption may be lower than what’s featured on the RX 550 XT, users will still need some external power as the power consumption is still higher than the 75 watt limit of a PCIe slot. Now, despite the fact that AMD has reduced the memory of the RX 5300, this GPU still has an advantage over the NVIDIA GTX 1650 when we consider their raw shading power. AMD’s claim that the RX 5300 has a better performance than the GTX 1650 is expected to be true.

MSI GeForce GTX 1650 Super

Best Budget GPU

The MSI GeForce GTX 1650 Super looks quite identical to NVIDIA’s GTX 1660. This GPU comes with a dual-fan heatsink that helps maintain low temperatures but features no backplate. It’s a dual-slot card with 3 DisplayPort outputs and one HDMI output. Like the original GTX 1650, this custom-made GPU from MSI runs on the Turing architecture and features Display Stream Compression (DSC) technology from VESA. Combining these technologies allows the GPU to support 8K at 60Hz when DSC is on or 8K at 30Hz with just one HDMI cable.

This GPU also features 4GB DDR6 RAM and runs at 12Gbps compared to the 8Gbps bandwidth featured on the original GTX 1650. While you’ll be able to get a decent frame rate when running games on 1080p, the 4GB RAM this card is endowed with holds back its capabilities a little. The card can exceed its performance, but the RAM it comes with serves as a hindrance. The MSI GTX 1650 Super runs really cool, but there’s no support for DLSS or RTX technologies. And even if they were available, the 4GB GDDR6 RAM wouldn’t be enough to run them while allowing you to play games at decent frame rates.