Updated on April 17, 2023
The most popular sandbox game to date is Minecraft. When it comes to building your own digital shelter, like the game, you need very little to get started and lots of area for optimum zombie-slaying potential.
Is a game that seems like it was made in the 1990s going to operate well if it doesn’t have the latest and fastest graphics cards?
As you may have suspected, you don’t really need an RTX 2000 series and above GPU to get started with Minecraft, which was introduced by Mojang in 2011.
Contrary to popular belief, a CPU with adequate graphics processing capability and an integrated video card are all you need to run Minecraft without a hitch.Best Minecraft Graphics Card
Minecraft (Java Edition) has a list of system requirements:
CPU: Intel Core i3-3210 3.2 GHz / AMD A8-7600 APU 3.1 GHz or an alternative.
4GB of RAM
Intel HD Graphics 4000 (Ivy Bridge) or AMD Radeon R5 series (Kaveri line) with OpenGL 4.4*
Storage: At least 1GB of HDD space is required for the game core, maps, and additional data
Windows 7 and higher are supported.
Any 64-bit Mac OS X operating system that supports Mavericks or later.
Linux: Any 64-bit distribution released after 2014
A graphics card isn’t required to play Minecraft, as previously thought. Isn’t it possible that we don’t want to settle for “just barely enough” when it comes to our needs?
Why can’t we have fun by playing Minecraft with all of the great mod packs and shaders?
Suppose we want to see how ray tracing affects the performance of the game. We’ll be looking into upgrading our graphics card arrangement in order to do so.
The Best Minecraft Graphics Card: Demystified
Most of us have no idea where to begin when it comes to graphics cards.
The most expensive credit card may be easy for those of us with larger wallets, but for those of us on a smaller budget, appropriate research must be done.
If you’re looking for the finest graphics card for Minecraft, here are a few things to keep in mind:
Find The Right Price for the Right Graphics Card, Not the Other Way Around
The amount you’re willing and able to spend on any piece of equipment will serve as a useful guide for what to acquire when making any purchasing decision.
Having a specific budget in mind will allow you to eliminate graphics cards that are out of your pricing range.
If you’re on a tight budget, don’t waste your time looking at the most powerful graphics cards on the market right away.
Instead, shop around to find good models that are within your budget range.
Don’t fall into the trap of thinking you’d be better off with a more expensive model because it would last longer if you get a lower-priced graphics card instead.
If you’re a novice computer builder, spending $100 more on a graphics card may also mean you’re skimping on a high-quality monitor.
It’s up to you to decide whether or not that trade-off is worth it.
If you’re on a tight budget, you may want to choose a low-end Minecraft GPU.
Your General PC specifications
The first step in upgrading your GPU for Minecraft is to make sure it’s compatible with your current PC setup, assuming you already have one.
This might be anything from the amount of power you have, to the size of your project, to the specifics of your current hardware.
If your current PSU isn’t up to the task of powering a high-end graphics card, you may need to upgrade to a larger PSU or a lower-end graphics card in order to meet your needs.
It’s possible that the graphics card you buy will be influenced by the motherboard you’re using.
You’ll need to ensure sure your new graphics card is backwards compatible with your system if you’re still using PCI Express 2.0 or a different version of the PCI Express protocol entirely.
The amount of pins on your board must also be taken into consideration.
The most powerful GPUs may require two ports instead of just one, and this can be either a 6-pin or an 8-pin connector.
If you’re intending to buy a new computer, it’s a good idea to find out if the graphics card you’re considering will fit in your computer’s chassis.
Additional components like additional RAM, a larger PSU, or even liquid cooling solutions will require a larger chassis to accommodate them all if you plan on using a video card that comes with its own fans.
Vanilla vs RTX vs Java Shaders
We’ve already established that the best graphics card isn’t required to run Minecraft smoothly, but if the default settings aren’t your thing, you might want to consider upgrading your graphics card.
Fortunately, when it comes to Minecraft, there are a myriad of options for doing so. Some of them may come in the form of various shader packs and mods for the Java Edition of Minecraft.
Also recently released and available for Bedrock Edition is the usage of ray tracing.
Do keep in mind that a 64-bit version of Windows 10 is required to play the latter game.
A considerable upgrade in the graphics card is required for either RTX or shader support.
Ray Tracing (RTX) on Minecraft – Yay or Nay?
To begin, let’s check out Minecraft with the RTX option turned on.
According to the Minecraft RTX FAQ, the following are the system requirements for the game to run:
NVIDIA’s GeForce® RTX 20 Series and AMD RadeonTM RX 6000 Series and higher are DirectX hardware ray tracing-capable GPUs. Windows 10 64-bit OS
Virtual reality (VR) and Mixed Reality (MR) headsets are not supported by the game.
CPU: Core i5 or higher-class processor from Intel.
Over 8 GB of RAM.
Minecraft version 1.16.200 or higher is required to play
RTX requires at least an NVIDIA 2060 graphics card on the PC side of things, as you may have seen
Because these cards feature built-in RT cores that allow hardware acceleration for those ray-tracing calculations, this is the case.
As a result, if you want to play Minecraft RTX, you’ll need a more capable graphics card.
As if that wasn’t bad enough, the CPU and RAM requirements aren’t anything to scoff at.
With RTX enabled, you won’t get that’smooth AF’ experience, even if you have the bare minimum hardware.
Lower frame rates and render distances are the result.
You’ll have to spend a lot of money to acquire that sharp, picturesque image and high FPS figures, so think hard about if you’re willing to make that investment.
However, there’s good news: even if you don’t want to shell out $300 on a video card for Minecraft just yet, you can still use an earlier card to enable ray tracing.
We recently received an NVIDIA RTX driver update that allows us to play around with some of the new functions of the graphics card. NVIDIA 1060 6GB cards are sufficient.
After that, all you have to do is go to the GeForce Experience app and download the newest driver update.
If an RTX 2000 series or higher video card is out of your price range, but you still want to experience the game’s ray tracing effects, there are some less expensive solutions available.
This is self-explanatory by now: a non-RTX card will not produce a playable frame rate.
Playing with Mods & Shader Packs
Java shaders will be the next topic of discussion.
Things aren’t as simple as enabling RTX on Minecraft using Java shaders.
For starters, there are a lot of different shader packs available, and each of them has its own set of visual-enhancing effects at the cost of GPU processing power and RAM.
SEUS (Sonic Ether’s Unbelievable Shaders), Continuum, and BSL shaders require a high-end GPU in order to work properly.
At the absolute least, we’re looking at an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 / RTX 2070 or AMD RX 5700.
Continuum shaders can be run on Minecraft with the following minimum graphics requirements:
Intel/AMD dual-core processors from the last five to seven years are likely to work.
AMD RX 580 or NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 or similar.
4GB of RAM
OS: Windows 7 (64-bit) or newer; (MacOS not supported at this time)
You can of course make some compromises in visuals and frame rates with a lower-end GPU because there are so many shader packs available.
In fact, there are entire guides on the finest shader packs for those of us with more limited budgets.
You’ll need a powerful computer if you want to play Minecraft at its highest settings with the incredibly stunning graphics.
The choice between RTX and shaders is mostly a matter of personal preference. To run at a reasonable level, both choices demand strong graphics cards.
While some high-end AMD cards can technically perform ray tracing, they lack critical upscaling technology such as DLSS, allowing you to play the game at playable frame rates. This is an important distinction to make.
When it comes to playing with shaders, you don’t have to choose between NVIDIA and AMD graphics cards. Some mod packs have recorded greater performance figures with AMD graphics cards than NVIDIA.
Minecraft GPU Top Picks
Now that we’ve covered our bases on what to look out for when it comes to buying a graphics card for Minecraft, let’s take a look at the 5 best options we think you should consider:
1. MSI GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER™ GAMING X
Versatile High Performance
The MSI GeForce RTX 2070 SUPERTM GAMING X is ready to give that cutting-edge Java shader experience with no glitches in the FPS category.
Boosting the clock speed from 1605 MHz to 1770 MHz, the card has a large 8GB GDDR6 VRAM coupled to the main memory via a 256-bit memory bus.
Additionally, there are 40 ray-tracing acceleration cores among the 2560 shading and 160 texture mapping units.
With this, the RTX capabilities on Minecraft Bedrock will be handled with ease, and the rendering computations won’t even bother it.
Summarized Technical Specifications:
| Graphics Processing Unit | NVIDIA® GeForce® RTX 2070 SUPER™ |
| Interface | PCI Express x16 3.0 |
| Cores | 2560 Units |
| Core Clocks | Boost: 1800 MHz |
| Memory Speed | 14 Gbps |
| Memory | 8GB GDDR6 |
| Memory Bus | 256-bit |
| Output | DisplayPort x 3 (v1.4a)HDMI x 1(Supports [email protected] as specified inHDMI 2.0b) |
| Power consumption | 215W |
| Power connectors | 6-pin x 1 / 8-pin x 1 |
| Recommended PSU | 650W |
| Card Dimension (mm) | 297 x 143 x 56 mm |
| Weight (Card / Package) | 1421g / 1969g |
| Multi-GPU Technology | NVIDIA® NVLink™ (SLI-Ready), 2-way |
| Digital Maximum Resolution | 7680 x 4320 |
2. ZOTAC GAMING GeForce GTX 1650
Great Value for Money
Look no farther than the ZOTAC GAMING GeForce GTX 1650 OC when it comes to finding a high-performance graphics card at a reasonable price.
At 1080p, you should expect to get more than 200 FPS, and even at 1440p, you can expect to see a significant amount of frame rate.
Although it can execute some Java shaders efficiently with its boost frequency of up to 1695 MHz, its 4GB of GDDR5 VRAM and a 128-bit memory interface, this low-cost graphics card’s performance degrades slightly with the addition of larger modules.
It is technically supported, but don’t expect to see playable content.
Summarized Technical Specifications:
| Graphics Processing Unit | NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 1650 |
| Interface | PCI Express x16 3.0 |
| CUDA Cores | 896 |
| Core Clocks | Boost: 1695 MHz |
| Memory Speed | 8 Gbps |
| Memory | 4GB GDDR5 |
| Memory Bus | 128-bit |
| Output | DisplayPort 1.4HDMI 2.0bDual Link DVI-D |
| Power consumption | 75W |
| Recommended PSU | 300W |
| Card Dimension (mm) | 151 x 111.15 x 38.8 mm |
| Multi-GPU Technology | N/A |
3. MSI Gaming GeForce GT 710
Best Entry-Level Choice
For those of us on a restricted budget, the MSI Gaming GeForce GT 710 is a true bargain.
At high settings and 1080p resolution, you may expect to see frame rates around 60 FPS for both Bedrock and Java variants of Minecraft.
With the exception of the new RTX, this is not enough for any form of shader pack.
However, if you’re looking to play the original version of Minecraft, this GPU will be more than adequate without squeezing your wallet too much.
Summarized Technical Specifications:
| Graphics Processing Unit | NVIDIA GeForce® GT 710 |
| Interface | PCI Express 2.0 x16 (uses x8) |
| Core Clocks | 954 |
| Memory Speed | 1600 |
| Memory Size | 2048 |
| Memory Bus | 64-bit |
| Output | HDMI x 1(Supports [email protected] as specified inHDMI 1.4)Dual-link DVI-D x 1D-Sub x 1 |
| Recommended PSU | 300W |
| Card Dimension (mm) | 146 x 69 x 19 mm |
| Weight (Card / Package) | 1421g / 1969g |
4. XFX AMD Radeon™ RX 5700`
The AMD Alternative
The XFX AMD RadeonTM RX 5700 is a less expensive alternative to the more expensive RTX cards, yet it still performs well with Java shaders.
NVIDIA’s high-end graphics cards can be expensive, but the 8GB GDDR6 VRAM, 256-bit memory bus, and up to 1750 MHz internal clock speed of the GeForce GTX 1060 can be yours without breaking the bank.
Summarized Technical Specifications:
| Graphics Processing Unit | AMD Radeon™ RX 5700 |
| Interface | PCI Express 4.0 x16 |
| Stream Processors | 2304 |
| Core Clocks | Boost: 1750 MHz |
| Memory Speed | 14 Gbps |
| Memory | 8GB GDDR6 |
| Memory Bus | 256-bit |
| Output | DisplayPort x 3HDMI x 1 |
| Power connectors | 6-pin x 1 / 8-pin x 1 |
| Recommended PSU | 650W |
5. MSI NVIDIA GTX 1660 Ti
Best Mid-Range Performance
If you’re willing to pay a bit more on a high-end GPU, go no further than the GTX 1080 Ti.
MSI’s NVIDIA GTX 1660 Ti graphics card might be right up your alley.
There’s no limit to what this graphics card can handle when it comes to Java shaders, with a boost frequency of up to 1830 MHz and up to 6GB of GDDR6 VRAM spanning 192 bits.
With this GPU in the driver’s seat, you can expect strong frame rates and crystal clear images, with only the most resource-intensive shader packs affecting performance.
Summarized Technical Specifications:
| Graphics Processing Unit | NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 1660 Ti |
| Interface | PCI Express x16 3.0 |
| Cores | 1536 Units |
| Core Clocks | Boost: 1830 MHz |
| Memory Speed | 12 Gbps |
| Memory | 6GB GDDR6 |
| Memory Bus | 192-bit |
| Output | DisplayPort x 3 (v1.4a)HDMI x 1(Supports [email protected] as specified in HDMI 2.0b) |
| Power consumption | 120W |
| Power connectors | 8-pin x 1 |
| Recommended PSU | 450W |
| Card Dimension (mm) | 204 x 128 x 42 mm |
| Weight (Card / Package) | 669g / 1028g |
| Digital Maximum Resolution | 7680 x 4320 |
