Updated on April 17, 2023
(Image credit: AMD and Nvidia)
To get the most out of your PC gaming, you need a graphics card capable of delivering smooth frame rates, as well as being affordable and accessible to obtain. In the current market, that final one can be difficult, but prices are starting to stabilise and stock levels are increasing, so things aren’t looking as dismal as they once did. It’s been a rough few years for PC gamers, but things are looking up.
We’ve tested all of the latest graphics cards and put them through our comprehensive benchmarking tests. To come up with a definitive list of the best graphics cards on the market (at around MSRP). If you’re looking for the best prebuilt gaming PC(opens in new tab), which may still be the easiest method to get the greatest graphics cards in 2022, this information is extremely helpful.
As long as GPUs are finally competitive again, we can have a good time. When AMD’s Radeon RX 6800 XT was released, the competition between Nvidia and AMD took a dramatic turn. Even though it’s a close race, the GeForce RTX 3080(opens in a new tab) takes the prize. Although the GeForce RTX 3080 and RTX3070 are two of the greatest graphics cards to date, they’re not the only ones. Intel’s Arc Alchemist(opens in new tab) graphics card, due out soon, will further confuse the GPU situation.
If you’re not sure where to begin your search for a graphics card, we have lots of advice on how to do so right now(opens in new tab). If you haven’t decided on a GPU yet, keep reading for our picks from the current GPU lineups from Nvidia and AMD.
Best graphics card
Even though the RTX 3080 is now as scarce as a pair of pigeon eyelashes, it is undeniably the greatest graphics card on the market right now. The RTX 20-series has been superseded in terms of performance by this model. Compared to the RTX 2080 or 2080 Super, this is impressive, but when compared to the $1,200 RTX 2080 Ti, it really hits home.
We found that ray-tracing performance improved significantly as a result of our testing. Most consumers were put off by the massive frame rate drop required by the first generation of ray tracing-capable cards, but that’s no longer the case with this generation.
There’s no mistaking this as a new beast when ray-traced performance now exceeds what you’d get from an unmodified RTX 20-series top card. It’s worth noting that the RTX 3080 can play Crysis (opens in new tab).
Adding a lot more CUDA cores and upgraded Tensor Cores (for more DLSS goodness) and second-generation RT Cores to this 8nm GPU allowed Nvidia to achieve this.
Although the RTX 3080 requires an 850W PSU and is difficult to obtain, this is the most sought-after graphics card on the market today. That’s why it’s so hard to get your hands on.
When shopping for a GeForce RTX 3080, the Founders Edition is the one to go for if you can get your hands on it. Because the RTX 3080 Founders Edition is ****ing fantastic, pick your profanity. Due to its new cooler and improved PCB, the Ampere 3080 RTX is more than simply the ‘flagship’ Ampere graphics card; it’s the ultimate embodiment of the 3080. I’m afraid that if you end up with a different version of this fine-ass GPU, you’ll feel a little shortchanged.
Most likely, you’ll be forced to improvise. In comparison to the third-party cards from Asus, MSI, Gigabyte, Palit, and Colorful to mention a few, the Founders Edition cards are not made in the same quantity. You’ll have to settle for any RTX 3080 you can get your hands on given the stock constraints. It’s even better if you can buy one close to the original price. Moreover, some of these third-party cards have remarkable cooling features of their own, so it’s not all awful.
Regardless of whichever card you get your hands on, the performance uplift you get over the previous generation is huge and pretty much unprecedented. Perhaps we’ve become accustomed to more incremental generational deltas, such as the tiny gap between the GTX 1080 Ti and RTX 2080. However, we’ll keep banging the Ti drum because the $699 RTX 3080 completely destroys the $1,200 RTX 2080 Ti is still astounding.
The RTX 3080 from Nvidia establishes a new standard for both high-end 4K gaming performance and ray tracing with its exceptional performance. It is now up to Nvidia and Samsung to produce more of them so that everyone can enjoy the finest GPU of this generation at the same time.
Read our full Nvidia RTX 3080 review(opens in new tab) (10GB Founders Edition).
SPECIFICATIONS
REASONS TO BUY
+
+
REASONS TO AVOID
–
–
As a red team alternative to Nvidia’s high-end graphics cards, there have been few finer than the RX 6800 XT. A very competitive card that comes so close to its competition, with a minor performance disadvantage to the RTX 3080, is certainly an enthusiast card worth considering for any PC gamer with 4K in their eyes.
The RX 6800 XT was the first of AMD’s RDNA 2 GPUs to enter the ring, and while we’ve had plenty of other cards since, this is the one that shines brighter than others and makes the most sense monetarily. At least it does if you consider its MSRP, and with AMD’s GPUs reverting to sensible price levels quicker than Nvidia’s, this could actually give the red team the edge in the short run.
A primary battlefield for Nvidia and AMD this generation has been on the memory front—covering both bandwidth and capacity. The RX 6800 XT comes with 16GB of GDDR6 across a 256-bit bus for a total bandwidth of 512GB/s. That implies AMD has Nvidia’s 10GB RTX 3080 on the ropes in terms of capacity but lags slightly behind in raw bandwidth to the RTX 3080’s 760GB/s.
AMD has an ace up its sleeve in throughput metrics in the form of its Infinity Cache, which bolsters the card’s ‘effective bandwidth’ greatly. Some 1,664GB/s, by AMD’s making—a 3.25x gain over the RX 6800 XT’s raw bandwidth. In gaming terms, it means you’re looking at identical performance, despite the extremely different underlying technologies.
It’s a tough pick between the RX 6800 XT and the RTX 3080, but the latter pips AMD to the post with the last touches à la RTX. The RX 6800 XT is $50 cheaper, offering strong 4K performance, and a substantial VRAM increase over the RTX 3080. However, it’s easy to argue that an extra $50 paid on the RTX 3080 is money well spent: a modest price to pay for higher 4K performance, much-improved ray tracing, and DLSS. All are available today and with years of development support in the bank.
That said, AMD’s FidelityFX Super Resolution has garnered tremendous momentum among developers and offers good upscaling that’s worth enabling in supported games. For those eager to see what the future holds, Deathloop’s launch of FSR 2.0 provides a tantalising preview.
Thanks to the RX 6800 XT, AMD is well-positioned for the future, giving what the industry needs to take notice and having an attractive offer for gamers right out of the gate. It should come as no surprise that Zen and RDNA engineers collaborated on this, too.
It’s all this and more to suggest that AMD has improved on RDNA’s already impressive architecture to create the RX 6800 XT. It’s also impressive in how quickly it has matched Nvidia’s performance level. While RTG still has a long way to go in regaining market share lost to the green team, the debut of the RX 6800 XT marks a significant milestone for the company.
The RX 6800 XT is a welcome return to form for AMD’s Radeon Technology Group, which injects much-needed competition into the GPU market and provides a red team alternative for any high-end gaming PC build.
Read our full AMD RX 6800 XT review(opens in new tab).
SPECIFICATIONS
REASONS TO BUY
+
+
+
REASONS TO AVOID
–
–
In terms of value, the RTX 3060 Ti is the best value Ampere to date. In terms of graphics memory, both use the same 8GB of GDDR6 on a 256-bit bus on the same GA104 GPU (the RTX 3060 Ti has less SMs enabled).
This card’s core count is only 17 percent lower than the RTX 3060 yet it still has GPU Boost frequencies that are well-chosen to make up for it. Due to this, the RTX 3060 Ti is just 17 percent to a few decimal places slower than the RTX 3070 even though it is working at a silicon disadvantage. An excellent value for the money, considering it only costs $399! (if you can find it for that price).
Do the math if you need to: The RTX 3060 Ti is 20% less expensive than the RTX 3070, which means that performance per dollar is on the rise with the smaller graphics card. This is why we love it so much; it’s an excellent GPU for all resolutions and has decent ray tracing capabilities to boot, thanks to the second-generation RT Cores in its architecture.
In terms of generational advances over even the RTX 20-series, the RTX 3060 Ti delivers gaming performance that is absolutely staggering—next to the GTX 10-series, it’s downright terrifying. For the price of a laptop, you’re getting top-notch 1080p and 1440p performance in a compact form factor that would have cost you nearly twice as much a few years ago. And I think that’s fantastic.
High-fidelity 4K gaming is possible, but you’ll need to fiddle with the graphics settings if you want to get a steady 60 frames per second in more demanding titles. To keep your GPU over 60fps, you’ll have to do a lot of experimenting with your settings. As a result, 4K gaming might sometimes be less enjoyable than it was to begin with. At 1440p, things run much more smoothly, and at 1080p, you can just much do whatever you want.
DLSS, Reflex, and even Nvidia Broadcast are all Nvidia features that can aid here as well. While the Nvidia and RTX packages already have a solid foundation, Ampere only adds to it, especially in terms of ray-tracing performance.
Availability has always been a concern for all of the RTX 30-series launches so far. Due to recent price increases, this card has lost most of its appeal. Until it returns to its original MSRP of $399, it won’t be worth purchasing.
In any case, the RTX 3060 Ti is an adequate replacement for the RTX 3080 and 3070. The fact that it beats the RTX 2080 Super in practically every test is perhaps the most stunning proof of what this card has accomplished.
Read our full Nvidia RTX 3060 Ti review(opens in new tab) (Founders Edition).
SPECIFICATIONS
REASONS TO BUY
+
+
+
REASONS TO AVOID
–
There aren’t many high-end Ampere cards that can compete with the RTX 2080 Ti’s performance for less than half the price. The RTX 3070 is one of those rare cards.
With a list price of $499, it’s not exactly a bargain when compared to today’s top PC graphics silicon, but it’s still a hefty investment (we’re talking next-gen console similar pricing). Instead, you get a 4K graphics card with playable, if not high, framerates that doesn’t need much tweaking. At 1440p, there’s no denying that it’ll be a total stomper.
Surprised to see an 8-to-12-pin converter in the packing for an 8-to-12-pin adapter for the 8-pin power connector on the RTX 3070 Founders Edition The FE card’s shroud is significantly smaller than the RTX 3080’s thanks to Nvidia’s delivery of yet another ultra-compact PCB.
However, despite the presence of two front-loading fans, a spinner located at the card’s tail appears to enhance the cooling performance of this smart little GPU.
Additionally, the RTX 3070 has Nvidia’s dependable driver stack, the GeForce Experience app and ShadowPlay’s recording, and a new Broadcast suite, the outstanding Reflex latency-spiking setup, and the latent potential of the next-generation console’s most potent feature RTX IO(opens in new tab). Ray tracing and the ever-improving DLSS upgrades are also available.
For many folks, that’s a significant boost on top of the RTX 3070’s already amazing raw performance.
The RTX 3070 is one of Nvidia’s xx70-series cards, which are a great sweet spot for PC gamers. Most of us can almost afford this Ampere card, which offers a significant performance boost for a relatively inexpensive cost. Those who have been holding onto their GTX 1080 and GTX 1080 Ti cards for the duration of the RTX 20-series have an excellent opportunity to do so.
Read our full Nvidia RTX 3070 review(opens in new tab) (Founders Edition).
Best CPU for gaming(opens in new tab) | Best DDR4 RAM(opens in new tab) | Best gaming motherboards(opens in new tab)
Best SSD for gaming(opens in new tab) | Best gaming laptop(opens in new tab) | Best gaming monitors(opens in new tab)
SPECIFICATIONS
REASONS TO BUY
+
+
REASONS TO AVOID
–
–
AMD’s RX 6900 XT, dubbed ‘Big Navi,’ arrived not long after Nvidia’s RTX 3090 remained undefeated at the pinnacle of graphics performance. In order to bring down Ampere’s best, the RX 6900 XT plans to use its brute force. In addition, it comes close to matching the RTX 3090’s 4K performance while costing one-third less.
So, for any PC gamer who isn’t interested in supporting pro-creator causes, this is the superior option. This card is ranked lower than an RTX 3080 for the simple reason that it isn’t all that much better, if at all, in our graphics card guide today. Adding $300 to the recommended price of the RTX 3080, you’d expect it to perform better in rasterized and ray-tracing workloads, respectively. Its ray-tracing acceleration, on the other hand, always falls short of the competition.
No compelling reason exists to choose this over AMD’s more cost-effective options. Even though it costs $350 more, the RX 6900 XT is only 5.25 percent faster than the RX 6800 XT when it comes to gaming performance, making it a poor value for your money.
As a result, it’s odd that AMD is making such a big deal about the RX 6900 XT being a gaming-focused card. Even Nvidia didn’t make that mistake, advertising the RTX 3090 as a pro-creator card with a significant increase in memory capacity over the second-run gaming card underneath to help justify the expense..
In light of the fact that RX 6900 XT shares many of its features with far less expensive cards, it is much more difficult to justify its high price tag.
However, as much as I admire AMD RTG’s rapid progress in getting RDNA 2 to this point, the RX 6900 XT isn’t the best example of the technology. Even for those who have their sights set on the top end, it’s not the easiest card to suggest. The RTX 3080 is still the card to beat for the majority of users.
But the RX 6900 XT does have some advantages over the RTX 3080, including as its 16GB of GDDR6 memory, which is 6GB more than the RTX 3080’s 10GB of GDDR6X memory. With this in mind, the RX 6900 XT is a more affordable alternative to the RTX 3090 when it comes to pure gaming. Despite the fact that it’s a victim of its own high price, however.
Read our full AMD RX 6900 XT review(opens in new tab).
SPECIFICATIONS
REASONS TO BUY
+
+
+
REASONS TO AVOID
–
–
–
Nvidia’s RTX 3080 Ti isn’t their strongest GeForce graphics card. The RTX 3090 was the first to receive this honour, however the RTX 3090 Ti has already claimed it (opens in new tab). All things considered, the RTX 3080 Ti is the card we’d suggest to the most extreme PC gamer seeking to spend as much money as possible on their next setup.
The debut of the Ampere generation reduced the discomfort or finicky nature of 4K gaming, but the RTX 3080 Ti absolutely smothers it. Setting up for high-performance 4K gaming still costs a lot of money, but you don’t have to be as picky as you used to be when it comes to individual games. At 4K resolution, you may enjoy smooth, even high frame rates by playing at high or ultra settings.
When gaming at 4K resolution, the last thing you want to do is lower the quality of the graphics, and the RTX 3080 Ti shouldn’t force you to do that as much as we’ve come to expect at 3840 x 2160.
When it comes to core counts and memory, it appears the more costly card is only marginally better than the less expensive one—the RTX 3080 Ti is just a few percentage points behind.
The RTX 3080 Ti is just as powerful of a gaming graphics card as its predecessor, the RTX 3090. An enormous number of CUDA Cores and fast GDDR6X memory allow this card to easily handle any game you throw at it. It has 80 RT Cores for real-time ray tracing, thus it’s more than capable.
Despite some pricing inflexibility, the GeForce RTX 3080 Ti is still an amazingly powerful graphics card, allowing some gamers to save a few pence on their ultra-high-end gaming PC designs without sacrificing performance. The Ampere architecture is superb, and packing even more of it into that understated black and (polished) grey casing just makes for an even better gaming chip.
Even at 4K resolution, though, it achieves exactly what it set out to do: break the backs of just about every game or API or graphics-intensive application. Although the RTX 3080 Ti FE doesn’t have the same high-end price-to-performance advantage as the RTX 3080, it’s still a better option than the RTX 3090.
Its price, however, is the reason why this card doesn’t make our list of the top graphics cards. The RTX 3090 is just a few hundred dollars away from the $1,200 RTX 3090. Regardless of the high price or lack of stock.
Read our full Nvidia RTX 3080 Ti review(opens in new tab) (Founders Edition).
SPECIFICATIONS
REASONS TO BUY
+
+
+
REASONS TO AVOID
–
–
When it was first announced that the RTX 3060 would come with 12GB of GDDR6 memory, it seemed odd, and it still does. While slower than the RTX 3080, it has more RAM than the RTX 3060 Ti as well. In practise, the RTX 3060 outperforms the RTX 2060 by a wide margin in most games and by a significant margin in the remainder.
YOUR NEXT TECHNOLOGY
It’s a picture by Future.
The best pre-built gaming PCs from the pros are here.
Gaming laptops (opens new tab) are the best for on-the-go play.
When 6GB is the most likely option, we’re not going to sneer at 12GB.
To keep the Nvidia RTX 3060 from overheating while mining Ethereum, Nvidia introduced a hash rate limiter(opens in a new tab), which was designed to keep the card from running at its peak capacity. Nvidia thought it would entice miners to switch to its new CMP line-up, which was created from off-cut GPUs not suitable for gaming usage, while apparently allowing more GeForce cards for gamers to use. Of course, it didn’t stop it from selling out.
At 1080p and 1440p, the RTX 3060 12GB is a solid choice for gamers looking to get the most out of their system’s processing power.
While the RTX 2060’s launch price was nominally lower than the RTX 2070’s, it isn’t as easy to locate the precise number currently. However, this card is frequently found in pre-built gaming PCs, and at a reasonable price all-inclusive as well.
In the mid-range, the RTX 3060 Ti continues to reign supreme. To have the same impact generation after generation, the Nvidia RTX 3060 is too far apart from the pack of high-end Ampere. The RTX 3060 is an excellent upgrade for a 10-series or older card, especially if purchased for close to the MSRP, and one that should get you through the next few years of big game releases with confidence.
Read our full Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 12GB review(opens in new tab) (Zotac Twin Edge).
SPECIFICATIONS
REASONS TO BUY
+
+
REASONS TO AVOID
–
–
The GeForce RTX 3050 is the only graphics card under $300 that we would suggest. Despite this, the Radeon RX 6500 XT from AMD was easily defeated. However, the RTX 3050 is still a difficult GPU to strongly recommend due to its lack of availability and high price.
It goes without saying that the larger GPU, the RTX 3060 12GB, outperforms the smaller RTX 3050. However, if you can’t afford a GTX 1660 Ti, the RTX 3050 will provide you the performance of a GTX 1660 Ti plus the bonus of DLSS.
As a result, you’ll have a graphics card that can handle 1080p on most settings, however some games will cause you to fall well short of the 60fps target that many of us strive for. However, even if this Nvidia graphics card may be the most cost-effective of the current generation, it’s still a significant investment when compared to other Nvidia graphics cards.
The RTX 3050 can also perform ray tracing, but its flimsy internals won’t allow it to do much.
To get the frame rates we sought, we ended up with GTX 1660 Ti and RTX 2060 performance. As far as I can tell, this is just another example of Nvidia’s silicon wizardry being showcased at its lowest possible price point in order to meet the needs of a pandemic and scarcity of GPUs.
If you’re looking for a prebuilt gaming PC, the RTX 3050 is the best option on a tight budget. Having said that, great RTX 3060 12GB PC offers pop up all the time, and if you’re willing to wait, you may save a lot of money on a much better graphics card.
Read our full Nvidia GeForce RTX 3050 review(opens in new tab) (Gigabyte Eagle).
Graphics card FAQ
How do I get a GPU in the the graphics card shortage?
There is still a shortage of cards that can be held for lengthy periods of time, despite the fact that prices are starting to go back to normal levels It’s possible to manually refresh every store page in the aim of finding a new resupply; that’s one option. Alternatively, you may download a reliable software that does all the legwork for you, such as RetailMeNot. Unlike other bots, this one doesn’t try to buy stock in the improper way; instead, it refreshes the page for you.
There are similar services in the US such as Stock Informer(opens in new tab), but we haven’t used them ourselves to score stock. In the UK, we’ve had luck using the app HotStock.
StockDrops, for example, is a popular free Discord server with dedicated stock alert bots and eagle-eyed community members (opens in new tab).
Streams on Twitch are also worth noting. You may hear a deafening klaxon from those who are dedicated to finding your stock. Falcodrin on Twitch(opens in a new tab) is a good place to start if you have an Nvidia GPU, but there are many others out there.
Is there an easy way to get a new graphics card?
Prebuilt gaming PCs are not for everyone, but they are the best method to guarantee that you will receive a graphics card this year and a contemporary one at a price near to MSRP. Even if you don’t plan on a complete remodel in the near future, it’s worth contemplating. Graphics cards are more readily available to PC builders, and while some still foresee delays, you can rest assured that a PC with a GPU will be delivered at some point.
Which is better GTX or RTX?
To distinguish older Nvidia graphics cards that lack the AI and ray tracing technology of the RTX-level GPUs, the GTX prefix is now utilised. For three years now, this prefix has been used to identify cards with GPUs capable of real-time ray tracing and Deep Learning Super Sampling, as well as a combination of RT Cores and Tensor Cores.
Is ray tracing only for RTX cards?
It is only used to designate cards with Nvidia GPUs with dedicated ray tracing hardware, although they are still using the same DirectX Raytracing API Microsoft has built, and which is also utilised by AMD’s RDNA 2 GPU. It is possible to run real-time ray tracing on these AMD GPUs, however it does so at a cost to performance.
It is expected that Intel’s new Xe-HPG GPUs, which will be used by the Alchemist graphics cards when they are released early next year, will also support Microsoft’s DirectX Raytracing API.
Is SLI or CrossFire still a thing?
In the past, running two graphics cards in SLI or CrossFire was the only way to get the best performance. Major games, on the other hand, are increasingly ignoring multi-GPU players. All of the DXR titles are included in this. Additionally, there are fewer next-generation cards that allow for the connecting of two cards. The $1,500 RTX 3090 from Nvidia is the only one with NVLink connections, and that’s just for creative software.
In other words, no. It doesn’t exist.
Do I need a 4K capable graphics card?
Only if you’re using a 4K gaming monitor, of course (opens in new tab). However, there are other factors to take into account, such as what type of games you enjoy playing. Aim for really high frame rates if you enjoy intensely competitive shooters where frame rates are king. Right now, 1440p and 1080p resolutions are the best bets for this.
As a result, the more games like CoD: Warzone use DLSS, the more Nvidia GPUs will be able to make a close approximation of 4K images on a 4K panel, but at greater frame rates.
What’s a Founders Edition graphics card?
The Founders Edition cards are Nvidia’s own designs for its graphics cards, rather than those produced by its partners. Typically, these cards are used as reference clocks.
The Founder’s Editions of the RTX 20-series from Nvidia feature factory overclocks. Nvidia’s decision to stop creating Founders Edition cards made it tough to compare GPUs, although they have recently resumed production.
