Updated on May 29, 2023
The greatest graphics cards are the beating heart of any gaming PC, blasting forth wonderfully rendered pixels to your screen. While there is no one-size-fits-all answer, we’re here to separate the must-haves from the want tobes. Some people want the quickest graphics card, while others want the best value, and many more want the best card at a particular price. Balancing performance, pricing, functionality, and efficiency is critical since no other component has as big of an impact on your gaming experience as the graphics card.
Whereas our GPU benchmarks hierarchy rates all cards solely on performance, our ranking of the top graphics cards attempts to consider the entire package. Price, availability, performance, features, and efficiency are all essential considerations, but the weighting becomes more subjective. With cryptocurrency and Ethereum miners presumably still snatching GPUs and ongoing supply chain difficulties, reasonably priced graphics cards appear to be out of reach.
Except you might look for the Radeon RX 6500 XT, GeForce RTX 3050, or Intel Arc Alchemist. Although the first two are already available (and sold out), AMD and Nvidia have theoretical MSRPs of $199 and $249, respectively. With bitcoin mining revenues declining, GPU prices are following suit, but there is still a long way to go until graphics cards revert to pre-pandemic levels. That hasn’t happened yet, but we’re at least moving in the right direction.
Deals on graphics cards
For more than a year, supply constraints, price gouging, and scalping have driven up GPU prices. Visit our RTX 3080 bargains, RTX 3070 deals, and RTX 3060 deals sites if you’re looking for a decent deal on a new graphics card. There, you’ll find several suggestions on ways to save costs on either the graphics card itself or a prebuilt system that includes it. The greatest offers typically only cost 25–50% more than the listed MSRPs. A pre-built PC can be a good option if you’re wanting to upgrade your entire system because these typically have lower GPU prices.
| GPU | Performance Rank | DXR Rank | Value Rank – eBay (MSRP) |
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| Nvidia GeForce RTX 3090 | 2 – 124.6 fps) | 1 – 75.7 fps | 13 – $2,341 ($1,499) |
| AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT | 1 – 128.4 fps | 4 – 49.5 fps | 11 – $1,421 ($999) |
| AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT | 3 – 122.9 fps | 5 – 45.8 fps | 10 – $1,176 ($649) |
| Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 | 4 – 114.5 fps | 2 – 66.6 fps | 12 – $1,440 ($699) |
| AMD Radeon RX 6800 | 5 – 110.1 fps | 7 – 39.1 fps | 9 – $1,033 ($579) |
| Nvidia GeForce RTX 3070 | 6 – 98.4 fps | 3 – 49.7 fps | 8 – $988 ($499) |
| AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT | 7 – 95.0 fps | 9 – 30.5 fps | 6 – $783 ($489) |
| Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 Ti | 8 – 90.3 fps | 6 – 43.3 fps | 7 – $847 ($399) |
| AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT | 9 – 84.0 fps | 10 – 24.1 fps | 4 – $568 ($379) |
| Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 12GB | 10 – 69.4 fps | 8 – 31.9 fps | 5 – $636 ($329) |
| Nvidia GeForce GTX 1660 Super | 11 – 44.3 fps | N/A | 3 – $422 ($229) |
| Nvidia GeForce GTX 1650 Super | 12 – 33.1 fps | N/A | 1 – $265 ($159) |
| AMD Radeon RX 5500 XT 4GB | 13 – 36.2 fps | N/A | 2 – $277 ($169) |
Please keep in mind that the prices for the majority of graphics cards are still significantly messed up right now. We’ve included the most recent eBay average pricing, which are what we’d expect to pay right now, as well as the official launch MSRPs. The majority of these cards cost at least 50% more than the official MSRPs, and in some cases more than twice as much.
While we sorted the cards above in order of performance (taking into account both regular and DXR performance), we’ve sorted the cards below in order of performance as well as our own subjective rankings. This subjective viewpoint takes into account performance, price, power, and features as well as our own preferences. Furthermore, considering the current costs, it’s difficult to determine how to rank anything.
Best Graphics Cards for Gaming 2022
Best Graphics Card Overall, for 4K and More
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Nvidia’s GeForce RTX 3080 incorporates the new and improved Ampere architecture. It’s more than 30% faster than the previous generation 2080 Ti and allegedly $500 less expensive. The new RTX 3080 Ti was unable to replace the incumbent because to its substantially higher price. This is the card to get if you’re serious about maxing out all graphics settings and playing at 4K or 1440p – it’s normally overkill for 1080p gaming, although enabling all ray tracing effects in games that allow it makes 1080p still doable.
If you missed out on the first set of RTX GPUs, the RTX 30-series might be just what you need to get on board the ray tracing train. The RTX 3080 is your best alternative for playing ray traced games without breaking the bank, with potentially double the ray tracing speed of Turing and titles like Cyberpunk 2077 utilising even more ray tracing effects.
Ampere also incorporates improved DLSS tensor cores, a technique that will almost surely emerge in future games now that it does not require per-game training by a supercomputer. We’re seeing a lot more games utilising DLSS 2.0 these days, which is facilitated by the fact that it’s only a toggle and UI update in Unreal Engine and Unity to get it working. Nvidia’s RT and DLSS performance is also substantially faster than AMD’s new RX 6000 cards, which is fortunate given Nvidia sometimes falls behind in traditional rasterization speed (which is what our raw numbers are based on).
The RTX 3080’s most difficult part will be finding one in stock at a fair price. For example, the average eBay price over the last month has been more over $1,440. However, considering the higher prices of the 3080 Ti and 3090, this is our current top pick for a fast GPU.
Read: Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 Review
Best AMD GPU, Forget About DLSS
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AMD’s Radeon RX 6800 XT is the best GPU for Team Red. Although the RX Radeon 6900 XT is technically 5-7% faster, it costs 54% more. That’s not a great value, especially since you don’t get any additional VRAM or other perks. In terms of performance and functionality, the RX 6800 XT exceeds and outperforms the previous iteration RX 5700 XT. It now supports ray-tracing (through DirectX Raytracing or VulkanRT) and performs 70-90 percent faster in our tests.
Before its release, the enthusiast community dubbed the GPU ‘Big Navi,’ and we received exactly what we expected. Navi 21 is more than double the size of Navi 10, with twice the shader cores and RAM. Clock rates have also been boosted to 2.1-2.3 GHz (depending on the card model), which is 300 MHz faster than the highest clock rates we’ve ever seen from a reference GPU. And AMD did it all without considerably boosting power requirements: the RX 6800 XT has a 300W TDP, which is somewhat lower than the RTX 3080’s 320W TDP.
The massive 128MB Infinity Cache boosts AMD’s speed tremendously. It improves effective bandwidth by 119%. (As stated by AMD). We expect that few, if any, games will demand more than 16GB in the coming years, putting the 6800 XT in a solid position.
What’s not to appreciate about that? Ray tracing performance is, to put it mildly, mediocre. Perhaps because modern games are more likely to be optimised for Nvidia’s RTX GPUs, but the 6800 XT is only slightly faster than the RTX 3070 in ray tracing performance, and it lags behind by up to 25% in some titles. And that’s without DLSS, which can increase RTX card performance by 20-40% even in Quality mode (sometimes more). Despite the fact that AMD is developing FidelityFX Super Resolution to compete with DLSS, it is not yet accessible, despite the fact that it is sorely needed.
Pricing and availability, as with other modern GPUs, remain awful. The average selling price for an RX 6800 XT on eBay last month was around $1,200. Although this is potentially superior to the RTX 3080, it is still more than double the AMD MSRP.
Read: AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT Review
Fastest Graphics Card, Great for Creators
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Some people believe that the best card is the fastest card, regardless of price! The GeForce RTX 3090 from Nvidia caters to this consumer. Despite costing more than twice as much as the RTX 3080, performance in most workloads is just significantly better (10-15%). It’s effectively a Titan RTX replacement at a still astronomical price. That’s OK if that’s what you’re looking for; the 12GB RTX 3080 Ti doesn’t dramatically lower the price to shake things up.
Until (or unless?) the RTX 3090 Ti is announced, the RTX 3090 is likely to be Nvidia’s top GPU. There isn’t much room for a new Titan card because it includes a nearly complete GA102 chip based on the Ampere architecture. Nvidia has also indicated that the 3090 brings Titan-class performance and features (especially 24GB VRAM) to the GeForce brand. If you absolutely must have the fastest graphics card available, the RTX 3090 is the best option. However, current online prices often approach $2,000, with the average eBay price last month exceeding $2,300, so expect to pay a high premium for the privilege.
Of course, it isn’t all about games. The RTX 3090 is the only GeForce Ampere with NVLink support, which is more advantageous for professional applications and GPU calculation than SLI. The 24GB of GDDR6X memory can also be used for a variety of content creation applications. Blender, for example, has often demonstrated 30% higher performance than the 3080 and more than twice the performance of the Titan RTX. Just keep a look out for lower-than-expected performance in certain of the SPECviewperf 13 tests, as Titan RTX has additional features enabled in its drivers that GeForce cards do not.
AMD’s RX 6900 XT competes with the RTX 3090 in classic rasterization. It also performs well in a few SPECviewperf tests. However, if you’re searching for the fastest graphics card available right now, Nvidia comes out on top, especially if you play games that support ray tracing and DLSS. The GeForce RTX 3090 Ti, on the other hand, will be released at the end of this month and is likely to grab the top spot in terms of performance due to higher clock speeds and more GPU cores.
Read: Nvidia GeForce RTX 3090 Review
Best Bang for the Buck Graphics Card
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The Ampere march of Nvidia continues, possibly with the best of the group. The GeForce RTX 3060 Ti, which starts at $399, has all of the same features as the other GPUs in the 30-series. Of course, that is just in theory, because it naturally sold out just as quickly as all the other new graphics cards. The average eBay price is currently around $850, which is more than double the original MSRP. <Sigh>
In every test, the 3060 Ti exceeds the previous generation 2080 Super. It is also only about 9% slower than the 3070 but costs 20% less. If you’re still using a GTX series or equivalent GPU, such as a GTX 1070 or RX Vega 56, the 3060 Ti is up to twice as fast – and occasionally quicker in newer games.
The only major concern is a lack of VRAM. For the time being, 8GB is sufficient, although some games are approaching that limit. Of course, you can reduce the texture quality by a level and not see the difference, but you’ll be unhappy deep within. (Not really – the difference between high and ultra settings is usually imperceptible.)
Although AMD’s more recent RX 6600 and RX 6600 XT chips compete with the 3060 Ti, Nvidia’s component is still faster, particularly in ray tracing games. The RX 6600 XT, on the other hand, is currently available for approximately $250 cheaper than the 3060 Ti — not that either card should be purchased at such a low price. At $399, nothing else comes close to competing with the 3060 Ti. It’s 35-45 percent faster than the 2060 Super and 25-30 percent faster than the RX 5700 XT, but it’s the same price.
Right now, the most important concern is just finding one of these cards for sale. Mining performance is comparable to the 3070 (at least for non-LHR variants) and AMD’s newest generation cards, meaning that pricing is still prohibitively expensive. Furthermore, 8GB of memory feels a little meagre, given that the GTX 1070 had as much memory over five years ago.
Read: Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 Ti Review
Excellent 1440p Performance
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The GeForce RTX 3070 is the latest addition to the Ampere assault and next-generation architecture march. With half the VRAM of AMD’s RX 6800 series cards, it’s a substantial step down from the 3080. The 3070, on the other hand, is (sort of) less expensive than AMD’s latest GPUs while still giving normally superior ray tracing and DLSS performance. Regrettably, all 3070 cards are still selling at or around their quoted prices. The new RTX 3070 Ti provides slightly higher performance for an extra $100, but it also consumes 30% more power, so we recommend sticking with the non-Ti card for now.
Because of the $300 price difference between the 3060 Ti and the 3070, the 3070 is less tempting. In general, it is 10% to 12% faster but 25% more expensive. In reality, the 3070 Ti sold for more than $1,000 on eBay last month, around $150 more than the 3060 Ti. When the rest of your gaming PC is taken into account, that extra $100–$175 isn’t going to be a deal breaker, but that much money would typically buy the fastest non-Titan GPU. You should avoid purchasing anything that costs $300 or more for a new gaming PC unless it has an Ampere or Big Navi GPU. However, we have some reservations.
While 1440p and 4K gaming are both viable options, top-quality 4K gaming often falls below 60 frames per second. If a game supports it, DLSS can help, although ray tracing, even with DLSS, frequently recommends 40-50 frames per second at 4K. The 8GB of GDDR6 RAM is also a source of concern for us. It not only has less memory on a narrower bus than the 3080, but it also operates at a slower clock speed. At highest resolution, we’ve already encountered a few games where 8GB becomes a bit of a constraint, and this will only get worse in the future. AMD’s decision to offer 16GB on its Navi 21 GPUs makes Nvidia’s 8GB look even worse, and Nvidia included 12GB on the RTX 3060, making Nvidia’s 8GB look even worse on the 3070 and 3060 Ti.
The 3060 Ti is the way to go if you want a fast Nvidia GPU at the lowest possible price. If you have an extra $100, the 3070 is an excellent upgrade, followed by another $100 for the 3070 Ti, and finally, why not just get the 3080? It is, after all, the “best” card in the deck. That is the problem with thinking about higher-priced cards, as well as the concept of decreasing returns. If you’ve always wanted an RTX 2080 Ti but couldn’t justify the price, the starting price has been lowered in half (kind of).
Read: Nvidia GeForce RTX 3070 Review
Good 1440p Graphics Card, Lower Price
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Begin with the Navi 21 GPU, then reduce the numerous functional units to make a smaller chip that can be sold at a lower price, and you have AMD’s Navi 22 and the RX 6700 XT. It contains the same number of GPU cores as the previous generation RX 5700 XT, but slightly faster clock speeds and additional cache provide a 25% performance gain (at higher settings and resolutions, at least).
AMD’s RX 6700 XT has some of the highest clock speeds we’ve ever seen on a GPU, boosting at 2.5GHz and higher during gaming sessions – and that’s with the base card at stock. With some tweaking and overclocking, we were able to achieve speeds of 2.7-2.8GHz while not overheating the GPU. That’s quite amazing, albeit we’re a little disappointed that it only has 2,560 GPU cores.
The RX 6700 XT trades blows with the RTX 3070 and RTX 3060 Ti in our performance testing. It’s a little faster than the latter and a little slower than the former, so the $479 starting price seems reasonable. Except that when we include almost any game with DLSS or ray tracing, the 6700 XT begins to resemble a 3060 Ti contender.
The real issue, as with everything else, is the same. The RX 6700 XT, like other GPUs, sells out quickly, even at exorbitant prices. On eBay, the card is currently selling for approximately $775. That’s better than the 3060 Ti and 3070, at the very least, but considerably more than we’d spend for what should be a $500 high-end option.
Read: AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT review
Great 1440p Graphics Card, Okay Ray Tracing
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Take everything great about the new Navi 21 GPU that powers the 6800 XT (above) and subtract around 10% to get the standard RX 6800. You still get 16GB of GDDR6 memory and 128MB of Infinity Cache, but only 96 ROPs and somewhat lower clock speeds. It’s a good compromise, but we think the 6800 XT is the better overall choice (unless pricing eventually drops a bit more on the vanilla cards).
In that regard, the RX 6800 is presently selling on eBay for $1,033, which is around $140 less than the 6800 XT and somewhat more than the 3070 Ti. Do we even need to emphasise how exorbitant the rates are? The RX 6800 exceeds Nvidia’s RTX 3070 by 12% overall, and it also outperforms the 3070 Ti by 5% – without ray tracing or DLSS, of course.
Ray tracing performance appears to be subpar, roughly matching the previous generation RTX 2080 Super from Nvidia. AMD’s FSR as a DLSS alternative may be advantageous in the long run, but it is not used in as many games and cannot match with DLSS image quality. When rendering in native mode, the RTX 3070 is already 12 percent faster than the 6800, but when DLSS Quality mode is set, the disparity grows to more than 50 percent.
AMD may be slightly better suited now that FidelityFX Super Resolution is available, but FSR is also compatible with Nvidia GPUs. We’d prefer have an RX 6800 for its rasterization capabilities than ray tracing. In actuality, however, we’d wait for prices to drop to more reasonable levels, such as $600 or less for this specific card. RDNA 3 and Lovelace are expected to arrive before the end of 2022, if not sooner.
Read: AMD Radeon RX 6800 review
An Excellent Mainstream Graphics Card
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We’re approaching the bottom of the price and performance ladder with Nvidia’s desktop Ampere series, and the cutbacks in processing power may have gone too far. This is the first GA106 card, with a 192-bit memory interface and 12GB VRAM, which is an upgrade over the RTX 3050 but still a step down from GA104. With 26% fewer GPU cores and less memory bandwidth than the 3060 Ti, total performance is just on pace with the RTX 2070. So, after two and a half years, a $500 graphics card may suddenly be matched by a $330 substitute.
According to the theory, at least. Unfortunately, demand has outstripped supply once again, with RTX 3060 12GB cards selling for more than $625 on eBay. Despite Nvidia’s efforts to cut Ethereum mining performance in half, which were proved worthless when Nvidia hacked its own drivers, this remains the case (on accident). Even with fresh firmware to ‘fix’ the mining lock, it is clear that miners are still using the cards.
VRAM capacity isn’t an issue, and the 3060 12GB begins to close the gap with the 3060 Ti in a few scenarios. It never quite makes it, and if you can get one at a reasonable price, the 3060 Ti is still the better choice.
The Radeon RX 6700 XT from AMD has the same amount of VRAM, but it performs substantially better — and costs significantly more – because to the enormous 96MB Infinity Cache. AMD’s RX 6600 XT, on the other hand, provides somewhat better non-ray tracing performance and costs about $5 less (on eBay), making it a potentially better deal right now.
Excluding ray tracing and DLSS, the RTX 3060 runs nearly as well as AMD’s RX 5700 XT from 18 months ago. It’s not exactly going to set the world on fire, but that’s to be expected from mainstream fare. We can only hope that supply and price will return to normal as soon as feasible.
Read: Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 Review
Good Mainstream Performance, Weak RT
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The Navi 23 architecture is AMD’s (sort of) answer to the RTX 3060. Normally, we’d expect a 32-CU Navi 22 variant, dubbed the RX 6700 non-XT, but AMD reduced CU counts, memory interface width, and Infinity Cache sizes to create a smaller, less expensive processor that nevertheless performs well.
Performance is somewhat better than the previous generation RX 5700 XT, which is impressive given that the memory bus has been reduced to 128 bits. However, there is a reasonable concern about the 8GB of VRAM, and there are certainly scenarios where the RTX 3060 is the superior pick. Even still, when you consider the memory bandwidth, it’s astonishing how much a 32MB Infinity Cache appears to improve performance. This is essentially a smaller chip than Navi 10, produced on the same TSMC N7 node, that produces 10–15 percent faster framerates at 1080p.
However, there are some areas where it falters, ray tracing being one of them. Several games we tried with DXR (DirectX Raytracing) compatibility couldn’t even manage 20 frames per second at 1080p. Without DLSS, Nvidia’s RTX 3060 was around twice as fast (where available). FSR doesn’t really help either, as it delivers a similar performance gain to AMD, Nvidia, and even Intel GPUs. The RX 6600 XT is a letdown after the other Big Navi chips delivered tremendous levels of VRAM.
Furthermore, $379 as a starting point for a GPU that is presumably a replacement for the previous generation RX 5600 XT ($279 launch price) does not inspire confidence. And, while initial retail availability was adequate, the RX 6600 XT is already sold out and commands prices at least 50% higher on sites like eBay, where it presently sells for roughly $570.
Read: AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT Review
AMD’s Fastest GPU, Severely Expensive
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This is the polar opposite of the Navi 21 spectrum. Whereas the 6800 reduces performance and raises the price slightly, the RX 6900 XT raises the (theoretical) price by more than 50%. It’s a hefty jump for minor advantages, and you don’t even get more VRAM (the one saving grace of the RTX 3090). Also, right now, good luck finding one for less than $1,400.
AMD went above and above with the RX 6900 XT. It boasts a fully activated Navi 21 GPU, which contributes to its scarcity. It’s still a large chip, which implies AMD would be better off producing more Zen 3 CPUs or console processors rather than Big Navi. Even as a mining solution, it falls short, as the RX 6800 outperforms it in Ethereum hashing performance.
The same red flags remain, such as the inadequate ray tracing performance and the lack of a direct alternative to DLSS. FSR, on the other hand, works on everything, whereas DLSS only runs on Nvidia and has a three-year head start in persuading game developers to use it. In short, if you want the finest RT experience right now, Nvidia remains the clear winner (not that you need RT to enjoy games).
Those looking for the fastest AMD GPU will be satisfied with the 6900 XT. Unless you mean ‘fastest’ in terms of mining performance, in which case the previous Radeon VII is still almost 30% faster. (It’s also selling at exorbitant prices these days.)
Read: AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT review
Best Mainstream Esports / 1080p High Graphics Card
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When you get close to $200 (sort of), you have the GeForce GTX 1660 Super, the normal GeForce GTX 1660, the RX 5500 XT 8GB, or the new RX 6500 XT to choose from. They’re all viable choices, but we evaluated them all and discovered that the GTX 1660 Super is 15% faster than the regular 1660, nearly 20% faster than the RX 5500 XT 8GB, and 20% faster than the 6500 XT. In general, we strongly suggest you to spend the extra money on improving your performance. Or, at the very least, we would if you could find a 1660 Super for less than $230. However, paying more than $400 for a GTX 1660 Super isn’t exactly a steal.
We compared the GTX 1660 to the RX 5500 XT and found the Nvidia card to be superior, but we also believe the GTX 1660 Super is superior to the GTX 1660. We used to believe that the RTX 2060 or RX 5600 XT were even better, but rising pricing have made those cards less enticing. In terms of performance, the next RX 6500 XT and RTX 3050 could exceed the 1660 Super. Maybe. To discover out, check back later this month.
Despite the use of TSMC 12nm FinFETs, actual power consumption is approximately the same as AMD’s Navi 14 chips, which employ TSMC 7nm FinFETs. The fact that Nvidia is quicker and uses less power despite using an earlier manufacturing node says a lot. For $230, the GTX 1660 Super delivers the same level of performance as the older GTX 1070 in a more efficient design. It also has enhanced Turing NVENC, making it an ideal candidate for video streaming.
The GTX 1660 Super’s main disadvantage is that Ampere and RDNA 2 cards are currently approaching $250. Or, at the absolute least, they make an attempt, depending on how long the shortages endure. The GTX 1660 Super is nearly as fast as a GTX 1070 while using less power, and it handles 1080p pretty well, albeit the current market conditions make buying any card dangerous.
Read: Nvidia GeForce GTX 1660 Super Review
Best Budget Gaming Card That’s Not Ancient Tech
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Budget GPUs frequently use older technology, and now that Ampere and RDNA 2 have come, we’re a generation behind the latest and finest. The GTX 1650 Super has officially supplanted the RX 570 4GB, which had been retailing for what seemed like an eternity for $120-$130. The 1650 Super outperforms the 1650 by roughly 30% while consuming significantly less power. It also costs more than the 570, or at least what the 570 used to cost – it appears that supply of the old AMD card have finally run out.
Unfortunately, if pricing is your primary motivator, even the most affordable GPUs are vulnerable to current shortages. We used to see pricing for the 1650 Super around the $150-$160 range, but it’s currently rare to buy a card for less than $250. Other GPUs, such as the RX 5500 XT 8GB, have seen their prices rise to the point where they threaten the (also costly) GTX 1660 Super. RX 570 4GB cards are now selling for around $190 on eBay, though we’d be wary of purchasing a secondhand GPU.
We appreciate Nvidia’s inclusion of the most recent NVENC hardware on the 1650 Super. That implies that if you’re looking for a low-cost streaming PC, this will serve, especially for lighter games like CSGO or LoL. It can also aid in the use of video conferencing apps, which are becoming increasingly popular in our COVID-infested environment. Just keep in mind that, unlike previous-generation GTX 1050 cards, the 1650 Super requires a 6-pin power adapter.
Read: Nvidia GeForce GTX 1650 Super review
Best AMD ‘Budget’ Gaming Card
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The GTX 1650 Super and RX 5500 XT 4GB have nearly equal characteristics. In terms of performance and power, they’re basically the same, and pricing is just as messed up here as it is anywhere else. You could certainly make a case for buying a used GPU, such as a GTX 970, for less money, but you’d be getting an older GPU that hasn’t been through much. The RX 6500 XT is also available, however it is nearly as expensive, and the older Navi 14 GPU is actually somewhat quicker at high quality settings.
The RX 5500 XT offers sufficient horsepower and can play any game at 1080p and medium to high quality, although not always at 60 frames per second. This should be a $150 graphics card, so if you can postpone upgrading, for the time being, we recommend doing so. If you don’t want to wait, the 5500 XT averaged more than 60 frames per second in our 1080p medium testing, leaving lots of opportunity for improvement.
The RTX 3050 and RX 6500 XT should have proclaimed previous-generation cards “obsolete” at $450 and $270, respectively, but we’re still not seeing anything that truly counts as a “cheap” alternative.
AMD Radeon RX 5500 XT 4GB Review
How We Test the Best Graphics Cards
Determining pure graphics card performance is best accomplished by removing all other bottlenecks – at least as much as possible. Our 2022 graphics card testbed includes a Core i9-12900K CPU, an MSI Z690 DDR4 motherboard, 32GB Corsair DDR4-3600 CL16 memory, and a Crucial P5 Plus 2TB SSD, as well as a Cooler Master PSU, chassis, and CPU cooler.
We ran tests in the three most common gaming resolutions, 1080p, 1440p, and 4K, with the’medium’ and ‘ultra’ settings. For all of our tests, we use’reference’ cards, such as Nvidia’s Founders Edition versions and AMD’s reference designs, whenever possible. However, most mid-range and lower-end GPUs lack reference versions, and in such circumstances, we can only evaluate factory overclocked cards. In such circumstances, we do our best to identify cards that are close to the reference specs.
We use the same testing technique for each graphics card. After launching the game, we run one pass of each benchmark to “warm up” the GPU, then at least two passes at each setting/resolution combination. If the two runs are almost identical (within 0.5 percent of one another), we use the faster of the two. If there is a significant disparity, we repeat the test at least twice more to assess what “normal” performance should be.
We also examine all of the data and look for abnormalities, so the RTX 3070 Ti, RTX 3070, and RTX 3060 Ti will all generally perform within a limited range – 3070 Ti is around 5% faster than 3070, which is about 5% faster than 3060 Ti. If we see games with apparent outliers (i.e. performance is more than 10% higher for the cards stated above), we’ll go back and retest whichever cards are exhibiting the anomaly to determine what the “right” result might be.
Due to the length of time required to test each GPU, updated drivers and game updates that potentially affect performance will unavoidably be released. We retest a few sample cards on a regular basis to ensure that our results are still valid, and if they are not, we go through and retest the affected game(s) and GPU (s). We may additionally add games to our test suite in the future year if they are popular and conducive to testing – see our what constitutes a good game benchmark for our selection criteria for more information.
Choosing Among the Best Graphics Cards
We’ve listed a dozen options for the top graphics cards, acknowledging that there will be some overlap. Nvidia’s Ampere architecture cards and AMD’s RDNA2 architecture chips comprise the latest generation of GPUs. You can read our launch reviews of Nvidia’s GeForce RTX 3090, GeForce RTX 3080 Ti, GeForce RTX 3080, GeForce RTX 3070, GeForce RTX 3060 Ti, GeForce RTX 3060, and GeForce RTX 3050, as well as AMD’s Radeon RX 6900 XT, Radeon RX 6800 XT and RX 6800, Rade
That’s a baker’s dozen of new GPUs in approximately the same amount of time, and we can now look forward to the RTX 3090 Ti and Intel Arc Alchemist GPUs. Arc has a current launch window of “Q1-2022” and may arrive later. Arc Alchemist, RDNA2, and Ampere cards all support the same general capabilities (DirectX 12 Ultimate and ray tracing), while Arc and RTX cards have additional tensor core technology.
We’ve compiled a list of the top graphics cards that are potentially available right now, along with their starting pricing. As an illustration of the issue, the GeForce RTX 3060 12GB sells on eBay for roughly $635, and the Radeon RX 6700 XT sells for around $780 – both much more than the suggested retail value (SEP). If you’re desperate for a new GPU, you might be able to justify paying 25% more than the launch price, but paying double or treble the MSRP is simply out of the question. If you need to upgrade, we recommend looking into pre-built gaming PCs. Or simply wait, although prices may not return to anything resembling ‘normalcy’ until late 2022. (if then).
In theory, cards like the RTX 3070 and RX 6800 cost less than half the price of the previous generation RTX 2080 Ti and generally match or outperform it in terms of performance. Meanwhile, the RX 6800 XT and RTX 3080 are 30% to 35% quicker than the 2080 Ti for less money, while the RTX 3090 is 10-20% faster than the 3080 despite costing more than twice as much. You may also see how the RTX 3080 performs with a broader range of CPUs. Hint: You’ll want anything from the last few years, with at least 6-cores and 12-threads, and 8-core and higher add a few percent in performance.
Unfortunately, it is just in theory, since cryptocurrency mining, paired with an already restricted supply, has resulted in a significant increase in GPU costs – see our GPU price index for more information. Our advice: Don’t spend more today for hardware that was made yesterday. If you want an RTX 30-series or RX 6000-series graphics card, stay patient and you’ll be able to get one for a price near to the official MSRP. If you already have a good GPU, keep it – or sell it for a profit and store the money until prices fall (assuming you have a spare you can live with in the interim). Or, hell, just pass on Ampere and RDNA2 and wait for Lovelace and RDNA3, which will most likely arrive in late 2022 and will presumably have better availability (don’t bank on it just yet!).
If gaming is your primary goal, you must not overlook the CPU. Having the best gaming GPU available won’t assist you much if your CPU is underpowered and/or out of date. Check out our Best CPUs for Gameplay page, as well as our CPU Benchmark hierarchy, to ensure you have the correct CPU for the level of gaming you want to attain.
Our current recommendations reflect the changing GPU market, taking into account all of the details mentioned above. The GPUs are sorted mostly by performance, although price, features, and efficiency are still considered, so a slightly slower card may be rated higher in some circumstances. There has already been a significant shift at the top of the performance rankings, and these are the finest graphics cards if you can find them in stock.
Additional Shopping Tips
Keep the following in consideration while looking for a graphics card:
• Resolution: The more pixels you add, the more processing power you’ll want. A high-end GPU is not necessary to play 1080p games.
• Power supply: Ensure that your power supply has adequate juice and the correct 6- and/or 8-pin connector (s). For the RTX 3060, Nvidia recommends a 550-watt power supply, as well as at least an 8-pin connector and maybe a 6-pin PEG connector.
• Memory for video: A 4GB card is currently considered the basic minimum; 6GB cards are preferable, and 8GB or more is strongly recommended. Some games now support 12GB of VRAM, however this is the exception rather than the rule.
• FreeSync vs. G-Sync Either variable refresh rate technique will synchronise your GPU’s frame rate with the refresh rate of your screen. Nvidia supports G-Sync and G-Sync+. Compatible monitors (recommendations may be found on our Best Gaming Monitors page), whereas AMD’s FreeSync technology is only compatible with Radeon GPUs.
• Ray Tracing, DLSS, and FSR: Ray tracing is supported by the latest graphics cards and can be used to improve photos. With intelligent upscaling and anti-aliasing, DLSS enhances performance while maintaining visual quality; unfortunately, it is only available on Nvidia RTX cards. AMD’s FSR provides upscaling and improvement on nearly every GPU, but only in a few games.
Graphics Cards Performance Results
Our current test suite comprises of eight games. The data in the following charts is from testing that took place during the last few months. Only the most powerful cards are tested at 1440p and 4K, however we make every effort to test everything at 1080p medium and ultra.
AMD’s FSR, FidelityFX Super Resolution, has been available for a few months, and Nvidia’s DLSS has been available for a few years, but FSR is not supported by any of the games in our core suite of benchmarks. That means we’re running all of these tests at native resolution. We have a separate post that compares FSR vs DLSS, and the main conclusion is that DLSS improves performance while sacrificing image quality less, but FSR works on any GPU.
The charts include the current generation RTX 30-series and RX 6000-series GPUs, and we’re currently evaluating additional GPUs from the previous three generations. If you notice a missing GPU, such as the RTX 2070, rest assured that it is on our list of GPUs to evaluate. Our GPU benchmarks hierarchy includes findings from prior generation data, obtained with our 2020-2021 test equipment and a Core i9-9900K. To make it simpler to see what’s going on, the charts are colour coded with AMD in red/grey and Nvidia in blue/black.
The following charts were up to date as of March 4, 2022. All current-generation GPUs are included, and we’ll be updating additional previous generation GPUs over the coming weeks.
Best Graphics Cards — 1080p Medium
Best Graphics Cards — 1080p Ultra
Best Graphics Cards — 1440p Ultra
Best Graphics Cards — 4K Ultra
Besides performance, we also test graphics card power consumption. We tested all current GPUs using Powenetics equipment and software, and while Nvidia generally had an efficiency lead on previous generation parts, AMD’s RDNA2 GPUs now rate as the most efficient options in most cases. Here are the main power charts from our testing, along with clock speeds, temperatures, and fan speeds — and we’ve retested the GTX 1650 Super to get correct data now.
Best Graphics Cards — Power Consumption
All GPUs Ranked
Using aggregate information from the gaming test suite, our comprehensive GPU Benchmarks hierarchy ranks all current and prior generation GPUs by performance. The hierarchy below is abbreviated, with all of the cards you can still acquire (plus a few extras) rated in order of performance, from best to worst. The score measures overall performance as compared to the RTX 3090.
| Graphics Card | 1080p Ultra | 1080p Medium | 1440p Ultra | 4K Ultra | Specifications |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Radeon RX 6900 XT | 100.0% (129.2fps) | 100.0% (182.0fps) | 100.0% (105.8fps) | 100.0% (63.0fps) | Navi 21, 5120 shaders, 2250MHz, 16GB GDDR6 16Gbps, 300W |
| GeForce RTX 3090 | 96.5% (124.6fps) | 95.4% (173.7fps) | 99.2% (105.0fps) | 107.2% (67.6fps) | GA102, 10496 shaders, 1695MHz, 24GB GDDR6X 19.5Gbps, 350W |
| GeForce RTX 3080 12GB | 95.2% (123.0fps) | 95.9% (174.5fps) | 96.9% (102.5fps) | 103.3% (65.1fps) | GA102, 8960 shaders, 1845MHz, 12GB GDDR6X 19Gbps, 400W |
| Radeon RX 6800 XT | 95.1% (122.9fps) | 96.9% (176.3fps) | 94.6% (100.1fps) | 92.8% (58.5fps) | Navi 21, 4608 shaders, 2250MHz, 16GB GDDR6 16Gbps, 300W |
| GeForce RTX 3080 Ti | 94.2% (121.7fps) | 94.5% (172.0fps) | 96.5% (102.1fps) | 104.0% (65.6fps) | GA102, 10240 shaders, 1665MHz, 12GB GDDR6X 19Gbps, 350W |
| GeForce RTX 3080 | 88.6% (114.5fps) | 93.5% (170.1fps) | 88.8% (94.0fps) | 93.6% (59.0fps) | GA102, 8704 shaders, 1710MHz, 10GB GDDR6X 19Gbps, 320W |
| Radeon RX 6800 | 85.3% (110.1fps) | 93.9% (170.9fps) | 82.8% (87.6fps) | 80.0% (50.4fps) | Navi 21, 3840 shaders, 2105MHz, 16GB GDDR6 16Gbps, 250W |
| GeForce RTX 3070 Ti | 79.6% (102.8fps) | 87.6% (159.4fps) | 76.9% (81.4fps) | 73.3% (46.2fps) | GA104, 6144 shaders, 1770MHz, 8GB GDDR6X 19Gbps, 290W |
| GeForce RTX 3070 | 76.2% (98.4fps) | 84.8% (154.4fps) | 72.1% (76.3fps) | 67.5% (42.5fps) | GA104, 5888 shaders, 1725MHz, 8GB GDDR6 14Gbps, 220W |
| GeForce RTX 2080 Ti | 74.3% (96.0fps) | 83.3% (151.6fps) | 71.2% (75.3fps) | 70.8% (44.6fps) | TU102, 4352 shaders, 1545MHz, 11GB GDDR6 14Gbps, 250W |
| Radeon RX 6700 XT | 73.6% (95.0fps) | 87.0% (158.4fps) | 66.6% (70.5fps) | 61.2% (38.5fps) | Navi 22, 2560 shaders, 2581MHz, 12GB GDDR6 16Gbps, 230W |
| GeForce RTX 3060 Ti | 69.9% (90.3fps) | 80.4% (146.4fps) | 65.2% (69.0fps) | GA104, 4864 shaders, 1665MHz, 8GB GDDR6 14Gbps, 200W | |
| Radeon RX 6600 XT | 60.6% (78.3fps) | 75.1% (136.6fps) | 52.2% (55.2fps) | Navi 23, 2048 shaders, 2589MHz, 8GB GDDR6 16Gbps, 160W | |
| Radeon RX 5700 XT | 57.1% (73.7fps) | 69.1% (125.8fps) | 50.4% (53.3fps) | 46.4% (29.3fps) | Navi 10, 2560 shaders, 1905MHz, 8GB GDDR6 14Gbps, 225W |
| GeForce RTX 3060 | 53.7% (69.4fps) | 64.2% (116.8fps) | 49.0% (51.9fps) | GA106, 3584 shaders, 1777MHz, 12GB GDDR6 15Gbps, 170W | |
| Radeon RX 6600 | 51.9% (67.0fps) | 64.8% (117.9fps) | 44.0% (46.5fps) | Navi 23, 1792 shaders, 2491MHz, 8GB GDDR6 14Gbps, 132W | |
| Radeon RX 5600 XT | 45.0% (58.1fps) | 55.3% (100.6fps) | 39.7% (42.0fps) | Navi 10, 2304 shaders, 1750MHz, 8GB GDDR6 14Gbps, 160W | |
| GeForce RTX 2060 | 42.7% (55.2fps) | 53.2% (96.8fps) | 36.6% (38.7fps) | TU106, 1920 shaders, 1680MHz, 6GB GDDR6 14Gbps, 160W | |
| GeForce RTX 3050 | 39.5% (51.0fps) | 48.1% (87.6fps) | 35.2% (37.3fps) | GA106, 2560 shaders, 1777MHz, 8GB GDDR6 14Gbps, 130W | |
| GeForce GTX 1660 Super | 34.3% (44.3fps) | 45.5% (82.8fps) | 29.7% (31.5fps) | TU116, 1408 shaders, 1785MHz, 6GB GDDR6 14Gbps, 125W | |
| GeForce GTX 1660 Ti | 34.0% (43.9fps) | 45.0% (81.9fps) | 29.8% (31.6fps) | TU116, 1536 shaders, 1770MHz, 6GB GDDR6 12Gbps, 120W | |
| GeForce GTX 1660 | 30.9% (39.9fps) | 41.2% (75.1fps) | 27.0% (28.5fps) | TU116, 1408 shaders, 1785MHz, 6GB GDDR5 8Gbps, 120W | |
| Radeon RX 5500 XT 8GB | 30.7% (39.6fps) | 39.8% (72.4fps) | 26.9% (28.5fps) | Navi 14, 1408 shaders, 1845MHz, 8GB GDDR6 14Gbps, 130W | |
| Radeon RX 5500 XT 4GB | 25.9% (33.5fps) | 36.8% (66.9fps) | Navi 14, 1408 shaders, 1845MHz, 4GB GDDR6 14Gbps, 130W | ||
| GeForce GTX 1650 Super | 25.7% (33.1fps) | 37.3% (67.9fps) | 21.7% (23.0fps) | TU116, 1280 shaders, 1725MHz, 4GB GDDR6 12Gbps, 100W | |
| GeForce GTX 1060 6GB | 24.8% (32.1fps) | 31.5% (57.3fps) | 21.5% (22.8fps) | GP106, 1280 shaders, 1708MHz, 6GB GDDR5 8Gbps, 120W | |
| Radeon RX 570 4GB | 23.8% (30.8fps) | 36.2% (65.9fps) | 16.8% (17.7fps) | Polaris 20, 2048 shaders, 1244MHz, 4GB GDDR5 7Gbps, 150W | |
| Radeon RX 6500 XT | 21.9% (28.3fps) | 29.5% (53.6fps) | 18.9% (20.0fps) | Navi 24, 1024 shaders, 2815MHz, 4GB GDDR6 18Gbps, 107W | |
| GeForce GTX 1650 | 20.6% (26.6fps) | 28.1% (51.1fps) | TU117, 896 shaders, 1665MHz, 4GB GDDR5 8Gbps, 75W |
Finding Discounts on the Best Graphics Cards
With all of the GPU shortages these days, you’re unlikely to find significant bargains on a graphics card, but you might be able to save some money by checking out the newest Newegg promo codes, Best Buy promo codes, and Micro Center coupon codes.
Do you have any thoughts on our best graphics cards for gaming? Please share your thoughts in the Tom’s Hardware Forums.
