Updated on August 14, 2022
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
In a gaming PC, the greatest graphics cards are like the heart: they pump forth stunningly rendered pixels to your monitor. While there is no one-size-fits-all answer, we’re here to separate the must-haves from the wish-list items. Some people are seeking for the quickest graphics card, while others are looking for the best overall value. The graphics card has the greatest impact on your gaming experience of any other component, so finding the right balance between performance, affordability, features, and efficiency is critical.
In contrast to our GPU benchmarks hierarchy, our ranking of the top graphics cards takes a more holistic approach to evaluating the performance of a graphics card. The weighing of factors such as cost, availability, performance, functionality, and efficiency becomes more subjective as time goes on. Supply chain concerns and cryptocurrency and Ethereum miners appear to be stealing GPUs from manufacturers, making it difficult to find competitively priced graphics cards.
Other options include the Radeon RX 6500 XT, Nvidia’s GeForce RTX 3050, or perhaps the upcoming Intel Arc Alchemist. AMD and Nvidia have theoretical MSRPs of $199 and $249, respectively, but the first two are already available (and sold out). GPU prices have continued to fall as bitcoin mining revenues have decreased, but there is still a long way to go before they return to pre-pandemic prices. That hasn’t happened yet, but we are at least on the correct path.
Graphics Card Deals
It’s been more than a year since supply shortages, price gouging, and scalping influenced GPU pricing. You can save money on a new graphics card by checking out our pages for RTX 3080 deals, RTX 3070 discounts, and pre-built systems that include the graphics card, which can save you money on either the graphics card or a pre-built system. For the most part, you’ll pay no more than 25–50% more than the suggested retail price (MSRP). If you’re in the market for a whole system update, a pre-built PC can be a good option because the GPU is usually cheaper.
| 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) |
For the time being, graphics card prices are still severely inflated. You give you an idea of what to anticipate to pay upon launch, we compared eBay’s most recent average prices with the official MSRPs. It’s not uncommon for these cards to sell for prices that are more than twice what they’re advertised to be.
While the cards in the list above were sorted by performance (taking normal and DXR performance into account), the cards listed below were sorted by performance and our own personal rankings. It’s based on our own perceptions of things like efficiency, cost, and power, as well as other characteristics. Moreover, it’s difficult to rank anything given the current market conditions.
Best Graphics Cards for Gaming 2022
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New and enhanced Ampere architecture powers Nvidia’s GeForce RTX 3080. In comparison to the previous generation 2080 Ti, this one is said to be 30 percent quicker and $500 cheaper. Due to its much higher price, the new RTX 3080 Ti was unable to displace the previous model. It’s overkill for 1080p gaming unless you enable all ray tracing effects in games that support it, but 1080p is still reasonable if you’re serious about maxing out all of your graphics settings.
The RTX 30-series may finally get you on board the ray tracing train if you bypassed the initial generation of RTX GPUs. In titles like Cyberpunk 2077, the RTX 3080 is your best chance for ray tracing-enhanced gaming without breaking the budget, thanks to the card’s possible performance boost over Turing and the inclusion of even more ray tracing effects.
We should expect to see more use of DLSS in future games now that it doesn’t require a supercomputer to be trained per game. These days, we’re seeing a growing number of games featuring DLSS 2.0 thanks to the fact that it’s just a simple toggle and UI update in Unreal Engine and Unity to enable it. Even while Nvidia’s RT and DLSS performance are significantly quicker than AMD’s new RX 6000 cards, Nvidia still falls behind in traditional rasterization performance (which is what our raw numbers are based on).
The main issue with the RTX 3080 will be finding one in stock at a reasonable price. In the last month, the average eBay price was almost $1,440. Although the 3080 Ti and 3090 are more expensive, this is still our top option for a fast GPU at the moment.
Read: Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 Review
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For Team Red, AMD’s Radeon RX 6800 XT is the top card. Technically, the RX Radeon 6900 XT is faster by 5-7 percent, but it’s 54% more expensive. In light of the fact that you won’t be receiving any additional VRAM or bonuses, that’s a poor offer. In comparison to the RX 5700 XT, the RX 6800 XT offers a significant performance and feature improvement. Using DirectX Raytracing or VulkanRT, it adds support for ray tracing and is 70-90 percent faster in our tests than its predecessor.
“Big Navi” was a nickname given to the GPU by the enthusiast community previous to its release. With twice the shader cores and twice the RAM, Navi 21 is nearly double the size of its predecessor, Navi 10. As a result, the GPU now runs at clock speeds of up to 2.1-2.3 GHz, which is 300 MHz faster than the previous record set by a reference GPU. The RX 6800 XT has a TDP of 300W, which is somewhat lower than the RTX 3080’s 320W TDP. AMD managed all this without significantly raising the power needs.
The enormous 128MB Infinity Cache is responsible for a significant portion of AMD’s speed. It has a 119 percent increase in effective bandwidth (according to AMD). The 6800 XT is in a strong position because we believe that very few games will require more than 16GB in the near future.
What could be better? The ray tracing performance, on the other hand, is only passable. For whatever reason, Nvidia’s current games are more likely to have RTX-optimized graphics. However, the 6800 XT is just barely ahead of the 3070 in ray tracing performance, and there are numerous titles where it falls behind by as much as 25%. Without DLSS, which even in Quality mode can boost the performance of RTX cards by 20% to 40%. (sometimes more). However, AMD hasn’t yet released its FidelityFX Super Resolution to compete with DLSS, and it is urgently required.
Sadly, as with other contemporary GPUs, pricing and availability are as bad as they’ve ever been. Last month, an RX 6800 XT was selling for about $1,200 on eBay. That’s better than the RTX 3080 in terms of performance, but it still costs more than AMD’s MSRP.
Read: AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT Review
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The quickest card is the best card for some people, regardless of price. The GeForce RTX 3090 from Nvidia is aimed towards users in this situation. Even though the RTX 4080 costs twice as much as the RTX 3080, the difference in performance is quite marginal in most workloads (between 10 and 15 percent). It’s essentially a Titan RTX replacement, albeit at a much higher price. For those who are looking for a more affordable option, the RTX 3080 Ti’s 12GB of GDDR5X isn’t going to do anything to change things.
Until the RTX 3090 Ti is released, Nvidia’s top GPU is set to be the RTX 3090. The Ampere architecture GA102 chip is nearly ready, therefore a new Titan card is out of the question. According to Nvidia, the 3090 offers Titan-class performance and features to the GeForce brand (particularly the 24GB VRAM). The RTX 3090 is your only option if you must have the fastest graphics card on the market. As of this writing, the average price on eBay last month was over $2,300, so expect to pay a lot for the privilege of owning one.
Of course, it’s not just about video games. This is the only GeForce Ampere with NVLink capability, which is arguably more helpful for professional applications and GPU computation than SLI is. Content-creation apps benefit from the GDDR6X’s 24GB of memory. When comparing the 3080 to the Titan RTX, for example, Blender frequently showed a 30% increase in performance, whereas the Titan RTX was twice as fast. In several SPECviewperf 13 programmes, Titan RTX has additional capabilities activated in its drivers that aren’t available to GeForce cards, resulting in lower than expected performance.
AMD’s RX 6900 XT competes with NVIDIA’s RTX 3090 in classic rasterization. In several SPECviewperf tests, it also comes out on top. In terms of raw performance, though, Nvidia is the clear winner right now, especially if you plan on playing games that take advantage of ray tracing and depth of field spatial sampling (DLSS). However, the GeForce RTX 3090 Ti will be released at the end of this month and is expected to take the performance crown thanks to faster clocks and more GPU cores.
Read: Nvidia GeForce RTX 3090 Review
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Nvidia’s Ampere march continues with the finest of the best. With a starting price of $399, the GeForce RTX 3060 Ti has all the same features as the other GPUs in the 30-series. As a matter of fact, as all the other new graphics cards sold out rapidly. At the moment, the average eBay price is over $850, which is more than twice the minimum MSRP.. <Sigh>
The 3060 Ti outperforms the previous generation 2080 Super in every test we conducted. Only 9% slower than the 3070 and 20% cheaper, it’s a great deal. Gaming on the 3060 Ti can be up to twice as quick compared to your current graphics card, such as an Nvidia GTX 1070 or RX Vega 56, in the most recent titles.
The absence of VRAM is the only serious issue. There are some games that require more than 8GB of RAM, but for now, 8GB should plenty. If you lower the texture quality a notch, you won’t notice much of a change, but you’ll feel bad about it in the long run. As a matter of fact, high and ultra settings are sometimes indistinguishable from one another.
Even though AMD’s more modern RX 6600 and RX 6600 XT cards compete with the Nvidia 3060 Ti, the latter’s performance remains superior in ray tracing games. As a result, the six-figure RX 6600 XT is currently on sale for a whopping $250 less than its more expensive counterpart, the 3060 Ti. At $399, the 3060 Ti is the only option that comes close to competing. The RX 5700 XT is 25-30 percent quicker than the RX 2060 Super, while the RX 5700 XT is 35-45 percent faster than the 2060 Super.
Right now, the most pressing worry is locating a card like this for sale. The 3070 (at least for non-LHR variants) and AMD’s newest gen cards are comparable in terms of mining performance, which means pricing are still outrageous. Aside from the fact that the GTX 1070 had 8GB of memory five years ago, 8GB feels a little underwhelming in comparison.
Read: Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 Ti Review
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Next-generation architectures and Ampere’s ambush continue with GeForce’s RTX 3070. In comparison to AMD’s RX 6800 series, this card is a significant drop down. While AMD’s new cards are faster and have better ray tracing capabilities, the 3070 is also less expensive and still has DLSS. It’s unfortunate that all of the 3070 cards have sold out at any price close to the recommended retail price. In terms of performance, the new RTX 3070 Ti is $100 more expensive than its non-Ti counterpart, but it also consumes 30% more power.
To put it another way, the 3070’s $400 price tag makes the 3060 Ti less appealing. In principle, it’s 10-12 percent faster, but it costs 25% more. Last month, the 3070 Ti sold for an average of $1,050 on eBay, $150 more than the 3060 Ti did. With the rest of your gaming PC, the extra $100–$175 shouldn’t be an issue, but that much money would generally be spent on the fastest non-Titan GPU. When purchasing a new gaming PC, stay away from anything costing more than $300 unless it has an Ampere or Big Navi GPU. However, there are some things we aren’t sure about.
Despite the fact that 1440p and 4K gaming are both viable, 4K at its highest quality often slips below 60 fps. If a game supports it, DLSS can alleviate this problem, although even with DLSS, ray tracing often results in frame rates of 40-50 fps at 4K. The 8GB of GDDR6 is also a source of concern. That’s not only less memory on a smaller bus, but it’s also clocked a lot lower than the 3080. When playing at their highest quality, we’ve already discovered a couple titles where 8GB is a little too constrained. While the 8GB of Nvidia’s 3070 and 3060 Ti make the 8GB of AMD’s Navi 21 GPUs look even worse, AMD’s decision to put 16GB on its Navi 21 GPUs makes Nvidia’s 8GB look even worse.
The 3060 Ti is your best bet if you’re on a tight budget and need a powerful Nvidia GPU. After spending an additional $100 on the 3070 (and another $100 on the 3070 Ti), upgrading to the 3080 seems like a no-brainer. It is, after all, the best all-around card. When you consider more expensive cards, you run into the law of diminishing returns. It’s now possible to get into an RTX 2080 Ti for a fraction of the price you’d previously had to pay.
Read: Nvidia GeForce RTX 3070 Review
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AMD’s Navi 22 and the RX 6700 XT were born when the various functional components of AMD’s Navi 21 were reduced in size to make a smaller die that could be offered for a lower price. A 25% increase in performance, despite having the same number of GPU cores as before, can be achieved thanks to its higher clock speeds and more cache (at higher settings and resolutions, at least).
At 2.5GHz, the stock clock speed for AMD RX 6700 XT is one of the highest we’ve ever seen on a GPU. Even after some tweaking and overclocking, we were able to get the GPU to run at 2.7-2.8GHz without any problems. While it has 2,560 GPU cores, it is still very powerful.
In our performance tests, the RX 6700 XT competes with the RTX 3070 and RTX 3060 Ti. In light of the fact that it’s a hair faster and a hair slower than the previous model, the $479 price tag is reasonable. A 3060 Ti rival would be more appropriate, of course, unless we include games that make extensive use of DLSS and/or ray tracing.
It all comes down to the same thing in the end, just like every other issue. Even at exorbitant prices, the RX 6700 XT sells out quickly. The card is currently selling for around $775 on eBay. It’s a step forward from the 3060 Ti and 3070, but not enough to make a $500 high-end device worthwhile.
Read: AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT review
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Take everything great about the new Navi 21 GPU that powers the 6800 XT (above), then trim it by about 10% and you get the vanilla RX 6800. You still get the full 16GB GDDR6 and 128MB Infinity Cache, but only 96 ROPs and slightly lower clock speeds. It’s a reasonable compromise, but we think the 6800 XT is the better option all things considered (unless pricing eventually drops a bit more on the vanilla cards).
Speaking of which, right now the RX 6800 goes for $1,033 on eBay, about $140 less than the 6800 XT and just a bit more than the 3070 Ti. Do we even need to say how ridiculous those prices are? The RX 6800 puts in a good showing against Nvidia’s RTX 3070, beating it by 12% overall, and it also beats the 3070 Ti by 5% — without factoring in ray tracing or DLSS, of course.
Ray tracing performance looks a bit weak, basically matching Nvidia’s previous generation RTX 2080 Super. AMD’s FSR as a DLSS alternative could help long-term, but it’s not used in as many games and can’t match DLSS image quality. The RTX 3070 is already 12% faster than the 6800 in ray tracing performance at native rendering, but turn on DLSS Quality mode and the gap increases to more than 50%.
With AMD’s FidelityFX Super Resolution now available, AMD might be a bit better off, but FSR works on Nvidia GPUs as well. We’d grab an RX 6800 more for the rasterization prowess and not worry so much about ray tracing. But really, we’d wait for prices to get down to reasonable levels, like $600 or less for this particular card. Hopefully that will happen before the end of 2022, but RDNA 3 and Lovelace will likely arrive first.
Read: AMD Radeon RX 6800 review
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It’s possible that Nvidia’s desktop Ampere lineup’s processor power savings have gone too far as we approach the lowest price and performance rung. Even if it’s better than RTX 3050, this is still the first GA106 card, which has an improved memory interface and 12GB of VRAM. Only the RTX 2070 can match the 3060 Ti in terms of total performance, with 26% less GPU cores and 26% less memory bandwidth. Two and a half years later, you can now get a $500 graphics card for $330.
That, at least, is the prevailing view. We’re seeing RTX 3060 12GB cards selling on eBay for over $625 because demand has once again outstripped availability. Despite Nvidia’s efforts to reduce Ethereum mining performance by half, which were rendered irrelevant when Nvidia hacked its own drivers (on accident). However, despite the fact that the mining lock has been supposedly fixed with new firmware, it is evident that the cards are still being used by miners.
In terms of VRAM, the 3060 12GB isn’t a problem, and there are a few occasions when it comes close to the 3060 Ti in performance. Until then, if you can get your hands on a 3060 Ti for a fair price, it’s the superior option.
Despite having the same amount of VRAM, AMD’s Radeon RX 6700 XT outperforms the competition thanks to its massive 96MB Infinity Cache, but it also costs a lot more. If you’re looking for a better offer right now, AMD’s RX 6600 XT with slightly better non-ray tracing performance and a $5 price cut (on eBay) might be a better option.
AMD’s RX 5700 XT and Nvidia’s RTX 3060 are nearly the same performance 18 months after the RX 3060 was released. Not exactly a world-shatterer, but that’s to be expected in the mainstream. We can only hope that supply and pricing return to their normal levels as soon as possible.
Read: Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 Review
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With the Navi 23 architecture, AMD has a solution to the RTX 3060. For the RX 6700 non-XT, AMD lowered CU counts, memory interface width, and Infinity Cache sizes in order to make the chip smaller and more affordable while still delivering excellent performance.
The RX 5700 XT performs marginally better than the previous generation, which is impressive given that the memory bus has been reduced to just 128 bits. However, the 8GB of VRAM is a legitimate problem, and in some circumstances, the RTX 3060 is a better option. Even still, when you consider the memory bandwidth, it’s astonishing how much a 32MB Infinity Cache seems to improve performance. Smaller than Navi 10, but with 10–15 percent greater 1080p frame rates, this is simply a smaller version of the N7 TSMC N7 node.
However, ray tracing is one of the areas where it has difficulty. DXR (DirectX Raytracing) supported games couldn’t even get 20 frames per second at 1080p. Without DLSS, the RTX 3060 from Nvidia was nearly two times as quick (where available). Even if you’re using an Nvidia or AMD GPU, you’ll get the same performance increase with FSR as you would from using an Intel GPU. The RX 6600 XT feels like a disappointment after giving tremendous levels of VRAM on other Big Navi CPUs.
Even the $379 price tag for what is supposed to be the successor to the RX 5600 XT ($279 launch price) isn’t a positive sign. Even while retail retailers initially had plenty of stock, the RX 6600 XT is now sold out and selling for at least 50% more on sites like eBay, where it is presently listed for $570.
Read: AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT Review
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This is the polar opposite of a Navi 21. When compared to the 6800, the RX 6900 XT offers somewhat better performance at a significantly higher (theoretical) cost than the 6800. In exchange for only marginal improvements, such as an increase in virtual memory (VRAM), this is a significant increase (the one saving grace of the RTX 3090). Good luck finding one for less than $1,400 at this moment.
The RX 6900 XT was AMD’s best effort yet. It has a fully functional Navi 21 GPU, which is why it is so rare. As a result, AMD may be better suited creating additional Zen 3 CPUs or console processors rather than attempting to manufacture Big Navi. However, even as an Ethereum mining solution, the RX 6800 matches it in terms of hashing power.
The same warning signs remain, such as the poor ray tracing performance and the absence of a direct alternative to DLSS. DLSS, on the other hand, is solely supported by Nvidia and has a three-year head start in persuading game developers to implement it. For the time being, Nvidia is still the clear winner when it comes to Radeon Technologies (RT) (not that you need RT to enjoy games).
The 6900 XT is still the fastest AMD GPU for those who only care about speed. Assuming you don’t mean mining performance, in which case the older Radeon VII is still superior by more than 35%. This item is likewise being sold at exorbitant costs right now.)
Read: AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT review
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A GeForce GTX 1660 Super, a GeForce GTX 1660 vanilla, an RX 5500 8GB, or a brand-new, lower-priced Radeon HD 6500 XT are the only options that come close to $200 (kind of). In our tests, we found that the GTX 1660 Super is 15% quicker than the ordinary version of this card, which is roughly 20% faster than the RX 5500 8GB, which is 20% faster than the 6500 XT. For the most part, we recommend that you shell out the extra cash for the performance boost. If you could locate a 1660 Super for less than $230, we’d buy it. On the other hand, paying over $400 for a GTX 1660 Super is a bad deal.
Aside from our conclusion that Nvidia’s graphics card is superior to AMD’s in a head-to-head comparison, we also think the GTX 1660 Super is superior. The RTX 2060 and RX 5600 XT used to be even better in our opinion, but the rising pricing of both cards have made them less appealing recently. In addition, the RX 6500 XT and RTX 3050 are on the way, and they are expected to outperform the 1660 Super. Maybe. See what happens at the end of the month.
AMD’s Navi 14 chips built with TSMC’s 7nm FinFET are nearly identical in power consumption to TSMC’s new 12nm FinFET Navi 14 chips. Even though Nvidia is employing an earlier manufacturing node, they are faster and use the same amount of electricity. The GTX 1660 Super delivers the same level of performance as the GTX 1070 for $230 less than the GTX 1070’s older counterpart. Streaming video is a breeze with the improved Turing NVENC included.
GTX 1660 Super’s biggest disadvantage is that Ampere and RDNA 2 cards are now in the $250 price bracket. In theory, if shortages persist, they will succeed. If you’re in the market for a new graphics card, the GTX 1660 Super is a great option, but the current market conditions make it difficult to make a decision.
Read: Nvidia GeForce GTX 1660 Super Review
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We’re now a generation behind the latest and greatest in graphics cards because of the arrival of Ampere and RDNA 2. The RX 570 4GB, which has been selling for $120-$130 for what felt like an eternity, has been replaced by the GTX 1650 Super. The 1650 Super is 30 percent more powerful while consuming significantly less electricity. Aside from that, it’s also more expensive than a comparable AMD card, or at least what the 570 used to cost.
Unfortunately, even low-cost GPUs aren’t exempt from the present shortages if cost is your primary priority. Now, it’s very impossible to find a 1650 Super for less than $250. Previously, we saw prices of $150-$160. Many other GPUs (such as the 8GB R9 5500 xt) have also seen their prices soar that they are now competing with the (also exorbitantly priced) GTX 1660 Super. We’d be wary of buying a secondhand RX 570 4GB card on eBay for $190 right now.
This is a nice gesture from Nvidia, and we appreciate it. As a result, if you’re looking for a low-cost PC capable of streaming games like CSGO or League of Legends, this will do the job just fine. A growing trend in our COVID-ravaged society is the use of video conferencing apps like this one. Just keep in mind that the 1650 Super requires a 6-pin power adapter, as opposed to the 4-pin one found on the GTX 1050 Ti.
Read: Nvidia GeForce GTX 1650 Super review
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The RX 5500 XT 4GB and GTX 1650 Super are virtually neck-and-neck. Price is just as out of control as it is everywhere else. They’re virtually identical in terms of performance and power. It’s possible to save money by purchasing a used GTX 970, but you’ll be receiving a really old GPU and who knows what it’s gone through?. The RX 6500 XT is also an option, however it costs the same and the Navi 14 GPU from the previous generation is faster while playing games at high quality settings.
Although the RX 5500 XT is capable of running any game at 1080p and medium to high resolution at 60 fps, it does not. In our opinion, this graphics card should cost no more than $150, so if you can hold off on upgrading for the time being, you should. The 5500 XT averaged more than 60 frames per second in our testing at 1080p medium, so you have some leeway to experiment if you’re impatient.
For $450 and $270, we’re still not seeing anything that truly qualifies as a “affordable” solution for RTX 3050 and RX 6500 XT, which should have made prior generation cards redundant.
Read our review of the AMD Radeon RX 5500 XT 4GB.
How We Test the Best Graphics Cards
By eliminating all other obstacles, it’s ideal to measure pure graphics card performance. Core i9-12900K, MSI Z690 DDR4 motherboard, 32GB Corsair DDR4-3600 CL16 memory, and Crucial P5 Plus 2TB SSD are the components of our 2022 graphics card testbed.
For the three most prevalent gaming resolutions, 1080p, 1440p, and 4K, we tested on both medium and high settings. In most of these tests, we use’reference’ cards, such as Nvidia Founders Edition models and AMD’s reference designs, if possible In some circumstances, we only have factory overclocked cards available for testing for mid-range and lower GPUs. Where possible, we try to stick with cards that are as near to the reference spec specifications as possible.
Each graphics card is tested in the same way. In order to get the GPU “warmed up” before running the tests, we run through each benchmark at least twice, once for each combination of settings and resolution. We use the fastest of the two runs if the two runs are within 0.5 percent of each other. If the discrepancy is more than a modest amount, we repeat the test at least twice to ascertain what “normal” performance should be.
This means that RTX 3070 Ti is roughly 5% faster than 3070 Ti, which is about 5% faster than RTX 3060 Ti. However, we also look at all the data and look for abnormalities, so these cards will all normally perform within the same tight range. To determine the “right” outcome, we’ll retest any cards that indicate an anomaly and go back to retest games where there are apparent outliers (i.e. performance is over 10% higher for the cards just described).
Due to the amount of time it takes to thoroughly test each GPU, new drivers and game updates are inevitable. If our findings haven’t held up over time, we’ll go back and retest the game(s) and GPU that were previously tested (s). Our test suite may also include games in the following year if one is popular and amenable to testing – read our selection criteria for what constitutes a good game benchmark.
Choosing Among the Best Graphics Cards
In order to avoid any confusion, we’ve put up a dozen different graphics card options. This series of graphics cards includes Nvidia’s Ampere cards and AMD’s RDNA2 devices. There are reviews of the Nvidia and AMD graphics cards, including the GeForce RTX 3090 and 3080 Ti, GeForce RTX 30,70, GeForce RTX 30,70, GeForce RTX 3060, and GeForce RTX 3050, as well as AMD’s Radeon RX 6900, RX 6800, RX 6800, RX 6700, and the Radeon 6500 XT, all of which can be found on our launch page.
The RTX 3090 Ti and Intel Arc Alchemist GPUs are now on the horizon, completing the GPU baker’s dozen in about the same amount of time. There is a “Q1-2022” launch window for Arc, however it may be pushed back a few months. It’s convenient that Arc Alchemist, RDNA2, and Ampere all support the same general features (DirectX 12 Ultimate, Raytracing), but Arc and RTX cards have additional Tensor Core hardware.
Our list of the finest graphics cards currently available, along with their costs, has been compiled. There are two examples of this problem: the GeForce RTX 3060 12GB and the Radeon RX 6700 XT are both selling on eBay for much more than the retail price of $635 and $780, respectively (SEP). If you need a new GPU urgently, you might be able to get away with paying 25% more than the MSRP, but paying twice or three times the MSRP is simply unreasonable. Pre-built gaming PCs are a more convenient option if you’re looking to make an upgrade. Wait it out, but prices may not return to “normal” until as late as 2022. (if then).
In theory, GPUs like the RTX 3070 and RX 6800 cost half as much as the RTX 2080 Ti of the previous generation while offering performance that is on par with or better than that of the previous generation. RTX 3080 and RX 6800 XT are 30% to 35% faster than the 2080 Ti while costing less, while the RTX 3090 is 10%-20% faster than the 3080 despite costing more than twice as much. Meanwhile, Another interesting aspect to note is that this GPU performs well with CPUs of varying speeds. To be on the safe side, look for a recent model that has at least six cores and twelve threads, and anything with eight or more cores will give you a speed boost of a few percent.
Unfortunately, this is only possible in principle, as GPU prices have skyrocketed as a result of cryptocurrency mining and a restricted supply. If you want to save money, don’t pay extra for old technology. The official MSRP for the new Nvidia graphics cards, such those in the RX 6000 and RTX 30 series, will come down in the near future if you’re patient enough. Stay with your current graphics card, or sell it for a profit and put the money away until the price drops (assuming you have a spare you can live with in the interim). Lovelace and RDNA3 are expected to arrive in late 2022 and may have greater availability (don’t count on it yet) than Ampere and RDNA2.
It’s impossible to ignore the CPU if your primary purpose is gaming. If your CPU is underpowered and/or out of date, even the best gaming GPU won’t assist you much. Check out our CPU Benchmark hierarchy and the Best CPUs for Gaming page to make sure you have the correct CPU for the gaming experience you want to have.
All of these factors have been taken into account while developing our current GPU recommendations. However, price, features, and efficiency are still taken into account when ranking the GPUs, so in certain circumstances a somewhat slower card may actually be placed higher. There’s been a lot of movement at the top of the performance rankings, and these are the greatest graphics cards available right now, assuming you can find them.
Additional Tips for Buying
Additional Shopping Tips
Consider the following when purchasing a graphics card:
If you’re pushing a lot of pixels at once, you’ll need additional processing power. At 1080p, you don’t need a high-end graphics card.
Be sure your power supply has adequate juice and the correct 6- and/or 8-pin connector. • PSU (s). At least an 8-pin PEG connector and potentially an additional 6-pin connector are required for the RTX 3060, according to Nvidia’s recommendations.
In terms of video memory, a 4GB card is the very least; 6GB cards are better, while 8GB cards or more are highly recommended. A select few games can now take advantage of the additional 12GB of VRAM, but this is still something of an anomaly.
Do you use G-Sync or FreeSync? Either variable refresh rate technique will synchronise the frame rate of your GPU with the refresh rate of your screen. AMD’s FreeSync works with Radeon cards, whereas Nvidia’s G-Sync works with G-Sync Compatible displays (for recommendations, see our Best Gaming Monitors list).
There are a number of new graphics cards on the market that allow ray tracing, which can be used to improve the looks of your game. DLS enables intelligent upscaling and antialiasing to enhance performance while maintaining the same image quality, but only on Nvidia RTX graphics cards. A different selection of games benefit from AMD’s FSR, which works on any GPU and provides upscaling and improvement.
Graphics Cards Performance Results
Our current test suite of games consists of eight titles. The data in the following charts is from testing conducted during the past several months. Only the fastest cards are tested at 1440p and 4K, but we do our best to test everything at 1080p medium and ultra.
AMD’s FSR, FidelityFX Super Resolution, has now been out for a few months, and Nvidia’s DLSS has been around for a few years, but none of the games in our core suite of benchmarks support FSR. That means we’re running at native resolution for all of these tests. We have a separate article looking at FSR and DLSS, and the bottom line is that DLSS improves performance with less compromise to image quality, but FSR works on any GPU.
The charts contain the current generation RTX 30-series and RX 6000-series, and we’re in the process of testing additional GPUs from the past three generations. If you see a specific GPU that’s missing, like the RTX 2070 for example, rest assured it’s on our list to test. Our GPU benchmarks hierarchy does contain results from the previous generation data, using our 2020-2021 test system with a Core i9-9900K. The charts are color coded with AMD in red/grey and Nvidia in blue/black to make it easier to see what’s going on.
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
Our full GPU Benchmarks hierarchy ranks all current in previous generation GPUs by performance, using aggregate data from the gaming test suite. Below is the abbreviated hierarchy with all the cards you can still buy (plus a few extras) ranked in order of performance, from best to worst. The score represents aggregate performance, scaled relative 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
If you’re looking for a good deal on a graphics card, you may want to check out the newest Newegg discount codes, Best Buy promo codes, and Micro Center coupon codes.
We’d love to hear what you think about our top gaming graphics recommendations. In the Tom’s Hardware Forums, let us know what you think.
