Updated on August 14, 2022
Gaming rigs and live streaming setups necessitate the use of both CPUs and Graphics Cards. To help you discover the best graphics card for your needs, we’ll go over the most crucial considerations to keep in mind while shopping for a new one.
What does a graphics card do?
This card’s principal role is to send data from your CPU to your monitor.
In addition, they manage the data that a CPU can’t process, as well. This is due to the fact that the CPU’s bandwidth and memory accesses are constrained, making the workload of modern games (200+ fps) prohibitively heavy.
As a result, in order for high-end graphics cards to perform to their maximum capacity, a powerful CPU is required. According to our guide on the best gaming displays, our frame rate has a huge impact on responsiveness and smoothness, thus upgrading your gaming rig’s graphic card and CPU power is critical!
How to recognize a good Graphics card?
For many gamers, the graphics card is the most important component because it enhances the immersion in the game. There has been a dramatic increase in GPU costs due to the COVID Pandemic, making it imperative to assess the cost of a new graphics card versus its additional performance.
Adding new gear and upgrading existing hardware on a regular basis, keeping future improvements in mind, is a good idea when money is tight.
How are you using it?
The majority of live streamers may be classified into gamers that play a variety of games on a regular basis and die-hard gamers who acquire the newest and fastest-paced games that put the most strain on the Graphics card and CPU.
Serious graphics cards are required by the most dedicated gamers, whilst a ‘consumer card,’ designed for content creation and lighter games, is appropriate for casual players.
MSI, AMD, and Nvidia
MSI, AMD, and Nvidia are the three most common brands you’ll come across if you’re looking for a new graphics card.
AMD
At first, AMD was a producer of semiconductors, but they later branched out into creating graphics cards for computers and video gaming systems, such as Sony’s Playstation. With their formidable hardware, they have become one of the leading innovators in both fields.
MSI
Founded in 1986, MicroStar International (MSI) is a Taiwanese firm with headquarters in Taiwan that has been designing computer components for other companies since then.
Following the breakup of MSI’s original business partner AMI in 1994, MSI became an independent firm (American Megatrends Inc).
MSI is a graphics card maker, while Nvidia is a semiconductor designer.
Nvidia
Gamers all over the world have come to love Nvidia’s graphics processing units (GPUs), which the company has been developing since 1999. The RTX 3090, one of the best graphics cards currently available, is a shining example of their superior hardware.
How important is your monitor when picking a new GPU?
GPU data transmission to a display device is a critical task.
The computer’s performance is only as powerful as its weakest link, which is the CPU, the GPU, and the computer monitor. In this instance, the performance of the GPU will be determined by the Computer monitor.
You’ll need a high-end graphics card for gaming and live streaming at 4K resolutions if you’re using a mainstream card at 1080p rates between 30-60 fps. In this way, even the most demanding AAA games can have their in-game settings tweaked to the max. Because of this, matching the performance of your GPU with the capabilities of your gaming monitor is essential.
What to look for when buying a Graphics card for gaming?
There is a lot to consider when purchasing a graphics card because the GPU is the heart of the machine.
Monitor resolution
First, we’ll need to determine what kind of monitors we’ll be using with your PC. This is due to the fact that your computer’s visual resolution is determined by the size of your monitor. Select a strong graphics card that can render 4K graphics quickly if you have a 4K resolution monitor.
This is because the more pixels your GPU has to process, the more power you’ll require to run it at its highest resolution.
Refresh Rate
In addition to your monitor’s resolution, we’ll need to check its refresh rate.
In hertz (Hz), the Refresh Rate of a monitor displays how frequently the monitor refreshes the image on your screen. For gamers, however, refresh rates of up to or above 144 Hz are common on gaming displays.
Video Memory
Graphics processing units (GPU) already know how to create a frame in virtual memory and store it until it can be displayed on a monitor. It seems to reason that as the resolution of the frame grows, so does the need on GPU memory.
The reason for this is because graphics processing units (GPUs) now days come with anywhere from 4 gigabytes (GB) to 24 gigabytes (GB) of memory.
Form factor
The form factor, or physical size, of your graphics card is an important consideration because it must be able to fit inside your computer case. It isn’t unusual for all of these distinct GPUs to come in a variety of different sizes and shapes.
Why is there a shortage of Graphics cards?
COVID-19 has caused a number of supply chain challenges for a number of technology industries, particularly the makers of graphics processing units (GPUs). There has also been a shortage of fresh GPU cards due to the surge in cryptocurrency mining as well.
Best Graphics Cards for Live Streaming
Investing in a high-quality graphics card is one of the best investments you can make as a streamer. Three of our best graphics cards for twitch streaming have been evaluated, and we think they’ll help you improve your gaming prowess even more.
Type & Model GPU | Price |
---|---|
MSI NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Ventus 3X OC | € 1050 / $ 1250 |
AMD Radeon 6900 XT DirectX 12.00 | € 1725 / $ 2050 |
MSI NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 Graphics Card | € 2300 / $ 2725 |
1. MSI RTX 3070
- CUDA cores: 5,888
- Base clock: 1,500 MHz
- Boost clock: 1,725 MHz
- TFLOPs: 20.37
- Memory: 8GB GDDR6
- Memory clock: 14 GT/s
- Memory bandwidth: 448 GB/s
Price: €1050 / $1250
Only one high-end graphics card is now available for an affordable price in our opinion: MSI GeForce RTX 3070. Overall, this is a good deal: high-quality at a reasonable price, and powerful cooling.
However, it’s the Nvidia ecosystem, not the MSI GeForce RTX 3070 gaming performance, that wins us over.
Pro
- Relatively low power compared to competitors
- Strong cooling
- Pricing
Cons
You can’t reach 4K ultra at 60 fps in some games
2. AMD Radeon 6900 XT
- RDNA cores: 5,120
- Base clock: 1,825 MHz
- Boost clock: 2,250 MHz
- TFLOPs: 23.04
- Memory: 16GB GDDR6
- Memory clock: 16 GT/s
- Memory bandwidth: 512 GB/s
Price: € 1725 / $ 2050
In most cases, Nvidia’s implementations are superior to AMD’s, however this is not always the case. For those looking to strike a compromise between price and performance, AMD GPUs are a viable option.
The AMD Radeon 6900 XT is one of these AMD GPUs that hit the sweet spot and is a real threat to MSI Nvidia graphics cards.
Pro
- AMD’s Fastest GPU
- Excellent overall performance
- 16GB VRAM
Cons
Almost impossible to find
3. MSI NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090
- CUDA cores: 10,496
- Base clock: 1,395 MHz
- Boost clock: 1,695 MHz
- TFLOPs: 35.68Memory: 24GB GDDR6X
- Memory clock: 19.5 GT/s
- Memory bandwidth: 935.8 GB/s
Price: € 2300 / $ 2725
In some cases, gamers (or cryptocurrency miners) seek out the most powerful graphics card available, regardless of cost. The MSI NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 is a wonderful match for these streamers!
In spite of the fact that the RTX 3090 performs only 10% to 20% better, it costs twice as much. As a result of its new GA102 chip, new ampere architecture, and 24-gigabyte video memory, this is the case. The card’s 24GB of VRAM is a major factor in its speed.
Pro
- 24 GB of VRAM
- Fastest GPU available
- 4K and maybe even 8K gaming
Cons
- Expensive
- Extremely limited availability for now
- High power requirements
Other sites also recommend
As we can’t test every Graphics Card released in the market, we thought we’d include some of the Graphics Cards that some other reputable sources have mentioned. Keep in mind that most of these other sites included the same recommendations that we have given above.
4. NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080
- CUDA cores: 8,704
- Base clock: 1,440 MHz
- Boost clock: 1,710 MHz
- TFLOPs: 29.76
- Memory: 10GB GDDR6X
- Memory clock: 19 GT/s
- Memory bandwidth: 760 GB/s
Price: € 1555 / $ 1845
5. NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti
- CUDA cores: 4,864
- Base clock: 1,410 MHz
- Boost clock: 1,665 MHz
- TFLOPs: 16.20
- Memory: 8GB GDDR6
- Memory clock: 14 GT/s
- Memory bandwidth: 448 GB/s
Price: € 820 / $ 970