Updated on August 14, 2022
The greatest graphics cards are the heart and soul of any gaming PC, spewing out gorgeously rendered pixels to your monitor at the speed of your command. While there is no one-size-fits-all answer, we’re here to help you identify the must-haves from the nice-to-haves. Some people are seeking for the quickest graphics card, while others are looking for the best overall value. To maximize your gaming experience, it is critical to choose a graphics card with the right balance of performance, features and efficiency.
In contrast to our GPU benchmarks hierarchy, our ranking of the best graphics cards takes a more holistic approach to assessing performance. When it comes to determining a product’s value, price, availability, performance, features, and efficiency all play an essential role. In the absence of lower-cost graphics cards, cryptocurrency and Ethereum miners appear to be able to hold onto their GPUs despite ongoing supply chain difficulties.
Unless, of course, you want to wait for the Radeon RX 6500 XT, GeForce RTX 3050, or Intel Arc Alchemist to be released. AMD and Nvidia have theoretical MSRPs of $199 and $249, respectively, whereas the first two are already out (and sold out). GPU costs continue to fall in tandem with bitcoin mining profits, but it will be a long time before graphics cards return to their pre-pandemic levels. So far, no, but we are on the correct track for the time being.
Graphics Card Deals
It’s been more than a year since supply shortages, price gouging, and scalping influenced GPU pricing. But if you’re searching for a good deal on a new GPU, check out our RTX 3080 deals, RTX 3070 deals, and RTX 3060 deals sites, where we recommend several methods to save on the GPU itself or a prebuilt system that comes with it. For the most part, you’ll pay no more than 25–50% more than the suggested retail price (MSRP). Buying a pre-built PC may be a preferable option for a total system update because the GPU is generally cheaper on these.
| 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) |
The prices of most graphics cards are still messed up, so keep that in mind. Please note that these prices are based on recent eBay averages and do not include the official MSRPs for these products. Most of these cards are at least 50 percent more expensive than their official MSRPs, and in some cases more than double the stated amount.
While the cards in the previous list were ordered by performance (both regular and DXR), the cards in the next list were sorted by performance and our own subjective rankings. That subjective view encompasses performance, price, power, and features tailored to our own preferences. In addition, the existing prices make it difficult to assign a value to anything.
Best Graphics Cards for Gaming 2022
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The updated and upgraded Ampere architecture is included on 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. You should acquire this card if you want to play at 4K or 1440p and want to push your graphics settings to their very limit. It’s overkill for 1080p gaming, but you can enable ray tracing effects in games that allow it to make it playable.
The RTX 30-series GPUs may be your ticket to ray tracing if you missed the first generation of RTX GPUs. The RTX 3080 is your best bet if you want to experience ray tracing in all its glory without breaking the budget, thanks to titles like Cyberpunk 2077, which use even more ray tracing effects.
Ampere also has better tensor cores for DLSS, a technology that will be used more frequently in future games as it doesn’t require a supercomputer to train it per game. To get it running in Unreal Engine and Unity you just need to toggle and change the UI. This has led to an increase in the number of games using DLSS 2.0. There are some advantages to Nvidia’s RX 6000 cards over AMD’s RX 580 cards in terms of performance, but Nvidia still lags behind when it comes to classic rasterization (which is what our raw numbers are based on).
When it comes to the RTX 3080, the most difficult part will be locating one in stock at a reasonable price. Using eBay as an example, the average selling price was over $1,440 in the past month. Although the 3080 Ti and 3090 are more expensive, this is still our top option for a fast GPU right now.
Read our review of the Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080.
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Team Red’s best GPU is AMD’s Radeon RX 6800 XT. The RX Radeon 6900 XT is technically about 5-7 percent faster, but it costs 54 percent more than the previous generation. Even if you don’t get any additional VRAM or other perks, that’s not a good deal. In terms of performance and features, the RX 6800 XT is a massive improvement over the RX 5700 XT, which was released in 2012. With DirectX Raytracing or VulkanRT support, it’s up to 70-90 percent faster in our tests.
Before its release, the GPU was dubbed “Big Navi” by the enthusiast community because of its impressive performance. There are twice as many shader cores and RAM in Navi 21 than there were in Navi 10. There’s also a 300 MHz boost to the highest clock speeds we’ve ever seen from a reference GPU, which range from 2.1-2.3 GHz (depending on the card model). The RX 6800 XT has a TDP of 300W, which is slightly lower than the RTX 3080’s 320W TDP. AMD did all this without significantly increasing the power requirements.
The 128MB Infinity Cache is a major factor in AMD’s performance. It boosts the bandwidth by a whopping 119%. (according to AMD). The 6800 XT is in a strong position because we believe that few games will require more than 16GB of RAM in the near future.
How can you dislike this? Aside from that, the Ray Tracing performance isn’t quite what I’d expect. For some 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 several games where it falls behind by as much as 25%. Without DLSS, which even in Quality mode can increase the performance of RTX cards by 20% to 40%.. (sometimes more). However, AMD has not yet released FidelityFX Super Resolution to compete with DLSS, and it is urgently needed.
As with all current GPUs, the price and availability are still awful. Last month, the average selling price of an RX 6800 XT on eBay was close to $1,200. Technically, it’s better than the RTX 3080, but the MSRP is still more than twice as high.
Read our review of the AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT.
Nvidia RTX 3090 Founders Edition is the best graphics card.
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The fastest card is the best card for some people, regardless of price. The GeForce RTX 3090 from Nvidia is aimed at users in this situation. Performance is only marginally better (10-15 percent) than the RTX 3080 at a price more than double that of the RTX 3080’s official price. It’s essentially a Titan RTX replacement, albeit at a much higher price. That’s fine if you’re looking for a deal, because the 12GB RTX 3080 Ti doesn’t make a significant dent in the price.
It’s likely that Nvidia’s top GPU will be the RTX 3090 until (unless?) the RTX 3090 Ti is available for purchase. There isn’t much room for a new Titan card because it has a nearly complete GA102 chip based on the Ampere architecture. According to Nvidia, the 3090 brings Titan-class performance and features (specifically, the 24GB VRAM) to the GeForce lineup. The RTX 3090 is the fastest graphics card currently on the market. As of this writing, the average price on eBay was more than $2,300, so expect to pay a lot for the privilege of owning one.
But it’s not just about gaming, you know. This is the only GeForce Ampere with NVLink support, which is more useful for professional apps and GPU computation than SLI. In addition, the 24GB of GDDR6X memory is useful for a wide range of content creation tasks. It’s not uncommon for Blender, for example, to show a 30% improvement over the 3080, and more than double the Titan RTX’s performance. Some of the SPECviewperf 13 apps may perform worse than expected if you use a GPU powered by Titan RTX because the driver has additional features enabled that aren’t available on GeForce cards.
When it comes to rasterization, the AMD RX 6900 XT is competitive with the Nvidia RTX 3090 in AMD’s RX 6900 series. There are some SPECviewperf wins as well. But if you’re looking for the fastest graphics card on the market right now, Nvidia is the clear winner. This month, however, the GeForce RTX 3090 Ti will be released, and it is expected to be the most powerful GPU on the market.
Check out our review of the Nvidia GeForce RTX 3090 here.
These are images of the GeForce RTX 3060 Ti.
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What may be Nvidia’s finest Ampere yet is on the way. There is no difference in performance between the 30-series GeForce RTX 3060 Ti and other 30-series models. As a matter of fact, as all the other new graphics cards sold out rapidly. For the time being, the average eBay price is $850, which is more than twice the minimum MSRP. <Sigh>
In the end, the 3060 Ti outperforms the 2080 Super from the previous generation, taking first place in each of our benchmarks. Even though it’s only around 9% slower, the 3070 is 20% cheaper. Up to twice as fast as your current graphics card, like a GTX 1070 or RX Vega 56, the 3060 Ti is a great option if you’re looking to upgrade your PC.
The absence of VRAM is the only serious issue. For the time being, 8GB of RAM is sufficient, although certain games are beginning to exceed that limit. You can, of course, lower the quality of the texture, but deep down you’ll feel remorse for doing so. (It’s not really a difference, because high and ultra settings are typically indistinguishable in appearance.)
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. If you don’t mind shelling out a little more money, you can get the RX 6600XT for about $250 less than the 3060 Ti, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Other than the 3060 Ti, nothing else comes close to matching the 3060 Ti’s $399 price tag. Compared to the 2060 Super, it’s 35-45 percent faster, while the RX 5700 XT is 25-30 percent faster.
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. It’s also a little disappointing that the GTX 1070 had 8GB of RAM five years ago.
RTX 3060 Ti Review: Nvidia’s latest high-end graphics card
The Nvidia GeForce RTX 3070 FE is the best graphics card available right now.
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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, it is a significant step down in performance and has less than half the VRAM. 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 a shame that all of the 3070 cards are still selling out at prices that are even somewhat close to the suggested retail. Our recommendation is to remain with the non-Ti RTX 3070 for the time being because it offers slightly higher performance for $100 more, but it also consumes 30% more power.
The $400 price tag on the 3060 Ti detracts from the 3070’s allure. In theory, it’s roughly 10% to 12% faster, but it costs 25% more. On eBay, the 3070 Ti was selling for roughly $150 more than the 3060 Ti last month. In the grand scheme of things, the extra $100–$175 isn’t a significant deal, but that much money would ordinarily buy 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, we do have some concerns.
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 DLSS, it can be fixed, but ray tracing even with DLSS often results in a frame rate of 40 to 50 fps at 4K. The 8GB of GDDR6 is also a source of concern for us. Not only does it have a smaller bus than the 3080, but it’s also clocked significantly lower. A few games have already shown that 8GB isn’t enough to run at full resolution, and it’s just going to grow worse in the future. 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 the 8GB of Nvidia look even worse.
The 3060 Ti is the best option if you’re looking for a powerful Nvidia GPU at the lowest potential price. After spending an additional $100 on the 3070 (and another $100 on the 3070 Ti), upgrading to the 3080 seems like a no-brainer. After all, it’s the finest overall card. When you consider more expensive cards, you run into the law of diminishing returns. In the past, the RTX 2080 Ti was prohibitively expensive for the average gamer. Now, that cost has been halved.
Read our review of the Nvidia GeForce RTX 3070.
The AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT.
An image taken from Tom’s Hardware shows the AMD RX 6700 XT reference model.
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AMD’s Navi 22 and the RX 6700 XT are the result of cutting down the various functional parts of the Navi 21 GPU to make a smaller die that can be sold at a lower price. With the same number of GPU cores, but slightly higher clock rates and additional cache, it improves performance by around 25% over the previous generation RX 5700XT (at higher settings and resolutions, at least).
Even on the reference card, AMD’s RX 6700 XT reaches some of the fastest clock speeds we’ve ever seen on a GPU, clocking in at 2.5GHz and higher during gameplay. We were able to get speeds of 2.7-2.8GHz with a little tweaking and overclocking without damaging the GPU. We’re a little disappointed that it only has 2,560 GPU cores, though.
The RX 6700 XT competes with the RTX 3070 and RTX 3060 Ti in our performance testing. The launch price of $479 seems reasonable given that it’s a touch quicker than the latter and a bit slower than the former. The 6700 XT, on the other hand, begins to appear more and more like a 3060 Ti competition when we add games that use DLSS or ray-tracing.
The fundamental problem, as with everything else, is the same. The RX 6700 XT, like other GPUs, sells out rapidly, even at exaggerated pricing. It currently sells on eBay for $775. Better than the 3060 Ti, but still more than we’d advocate paying for a $500 high-end offering that should ostensibly cost that much.
Read the review of AMD’s Radeon RX 6700 XT graphics card.
Reference model of the AMD Radeon RX 6800
An image of the AMD Radeon RX 6800 reference model.
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In order to get the RX 6800, all you have to do is cut 10% off of the new Navi 21 GPU that powers the xt version of the card (above). Only 96 ROPs and somewhat lower clock speeds are provided, however the 16GB GDDR6 and 128MB Infinity Cache remain fully functional. But we think the 6800 XT is a better choice all things considered (unless pricing eventually drops a bit more on the vanilla cards).
About $140 less than a 3070 Ti and a little more than a 6800 XT now sells for on eBay for $1,033. Is it really necessary to point out how outrageous these prices are? Nvidia’s RTX 3070 is outperformed by the RX 6800 by 12 percent, and the 3070 Ti is outperformed by 5 percent, both without ray tracing or DLSS.
In terms of ray tracing performance, it appears to be on par with the RTX 2080 Super from Nvidia’s previous generation. A long-term DLSS substitute, AMD’s FSR, might help, but it’s utilized in fewer games and cannot equal DLSS image quality. DLSS Quality setting raises the margin to more than 50% when comparing ray tracing performance between the 3070 and the 6800. The 3070 already outperforms the 6800 by 12 percent in native rendering.
But FSR is also available on Nvidia GPUs, so AMD may be a little better off now that they have FidelityFX Super Resolution. We’d rather buy an RX 6800 for its rasterization capabilities than its ray tracing abilities. For the time being, we’d rather wait till the price of this card drops to a more acceptable level, such as $500 or $60. However, it is expected that RDNA 3 and Lovelace will arrive first, hopefully by the end of 2022.
A review of AMD’s new RX-6800 graphics card is available at the following link:
RTX 3060 12GB from Nvidia
Graphics card with 12GB of DDR4 memory. In this image courtesy of Tom’s Hardware,
8. RTX 3060 GeForce
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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. It has a 192-bit memory interface and 12GB of VRAM, which is a significant improvement over the RTX 3050 but a significant drop from the GA104. Overall performance is only on par with the RTX 2070 due to a 26% reduction in GPU cores compared to the 3060 Ti and a 20% reduction in memory bandwidth. As a result, two and a half years later, a $330 graphics card can now compete with a $500 graphics card.
In theory, at least. We’re seeing RTX 3060 12GB cards on eBay for over $625 because demand has once again surpassed availability. Despite Nvidia’s efforts to reduce Ethereum mining performance by half, which were rendered irrelevant when Nvidia hacked its own drivers (on accident). It is apparent that miners are still utilizing the cards even after the firmware was upgraded to “fix” the mining lock.
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. If you can get one for a fair price, the 3060 Ti is still the best option if you can afford it.
Despite having the same amount of VRAM, AMD’s Radeon RX 6700 XT performs significantly better thanks to its 96MB Infinity Cache. In the meanwhile, AMD’s 6600 XT may be a better option because it has slightly higher non-ray tracing performance and costs around $5 cheaper (on eBay).
If you exclude ray tracing and DLSS, the RTX 3060 is almost 18 months behind AMD’s RX 5700 XT in terms of performance. This isn’t going to blow the world away, but it’s typical of popular products. There’s only one thing we can do now: hope that supply and pricing revert to nominal levels as soon as possible.
Read our review of the Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060.
RX 6600 xT from AMD
Radeon RX 6600 XT Phantom Gaming OC from ASUS. In this image courtesy of Tom’s Hardware,
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The Navi 23 architecture is AMD’s (kind of) response 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.
Although the memory bus has been halved from 256 bit to 128 bit, the card still performs better than the previous generation RX 5700 XT. Even though 8GB of VRAM is an issue, the RTX 3060 is still a superior option in some circumstances because to its lower price. Even a 32MB Infinity Cache appears to enhance performance when compared to the memory bandwidth, which is remarkable. At 1080p, this is essentially a smaller version of Navi 10, built on the same TSMC N7 node, and it produces 10–15 percent greater framerates.
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, Nvidia’s RTX 3060 was approximately twice as fast (where available). Neither AMD nor Nvidia — or even Intel — GPUs benefit from FSR’s performance improvement, so it doesn’t fix the problem. The RX 6600 XT feels like a letdown after the other Big Navi processors delivered tremendous quantities of VRAM.
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. In addition, the RX 6600 XT is now completely out of stock in retail locations, and the price on eBay is at least 50% higher than it was when it first went on sale.
Check out our review of the AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT to learn more.
Radeon 6900 XT from AMD
a reference model of AMD’s Radeon RX 6900 XT graphics card
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This is the polar opposite of the Navi 21. The RX 6900 XT raises performance a bit and increases the (theoretical) price by more than 50% compared to the standard 6800. To put it another way, you’re paying a lot of money for very little benefit (the one saving grace of the RTX 3090). It’s also unlikely that you’ll be able to find one for that price right now.
With the RX 6900 XT, AMD went all out. Its rarity can be explained in part by the fact that it has a fully functional Navi 21 GPU. As a result, AMD may be better suited manufacturing additional Zen 3 CPUs or console processors rather than Big Navi, which is still quite a large piece of hardware. While the RX 6800 may match it in terms of Ethereum hashing performance, it’s still subpar.
The same red flags remain, such as the poor ray tracing performance and the absence of a direct alternative to DLSS. When it comes to the implementation of DLSS, Nvidia has a three-year advantage over the rest of the industry. Nvidia is still the best option if you’re looking for the finest current RT experience (not that you need RT to enjoy games).
The 6900 XT is still the fastest AMD GPU for those who only care about speed. When it comes to mining performance, the old Radeon VII is still more than 30 percent quicker than the new one. These days, you can get your hands on something for a price that isn’t quite reasonable.
Review of the AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT
GPU of the Year: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 TI
GTX 1660 Ti OC from Nvidia (Image credit: Nvidia)
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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). However, in our tests, the GTX 1660 Super is 15% quicker than the ordinary 1660 and 20% faster than the RX 5500 XT 8GB, which in turn is 20% faster than the 6500 XT (see below). For the most part, we recommend that you shell out the extra cash for the performance boost. You could get one for under $230, or we would. On the other hand, spending more than $400 on a GTX 1660 Super is not a fantastic deal.
In our comparison of the GTX 1660 with the RX 5500 XT, we proclaimed the Nvidia card the winner, but we also believe the GTX 1660 Super is superior to the GTX 1660. Our initial impressions of these cards were that they were even better, but the rising cost of those cards has made them less appealing to us these days. In addition, the RX 6500 XT and RTX 3050 are on the way, and they are expected to outperform the 1660 Super. Maybe. To discover out, tune in at the end of the month.
This chip’s power consumption is virtually equal to AMD’s Navi 14 processors built with TSMC 7nm FinFET, despite the use of TSMC 12nm FinFET. Even though Nvidia is employing an earlier manufacturing node, they are faster and use the same amount of electricity. The GTX 1660 Super has essentially the same performance as the GTX 1070, but in a more efficient design, for a price of $230. Turing NVENC makes it an excellent candidate for streaming video, as well.
GTX 1660 Super’s biggest disadvantage is that Ampere and RDNA 2 cards are now in the $250 price bracket. Depending on how long the shortages last, they may or may not be able to. 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.
Take a look at our review of the Nvidia GeForce GTX 1660.
GTX 1650 Super Twin is the best graphics card currently available.
GeForce GTX 1650 Super from Zotac (Image credit: Future)
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Even in the low-cost GPU market, we’re already one generation behind the freshest and greatest thanks to the arrival of Ampere and RDNA 2. A few months ago, the RX 570 4GB was selling for $120-$130 and has recently been supplanted by the GTX 1650 Super. The 1650 Super is 30 percent more powerful while consuming significantly less power than the standard 1650. Moreover, it’s more expensive than the 570, or at least it used to be, as AMD’s old card supplies have all but dried up.
If price is your primary priority, you’ll have to settle for a lower-end graphics card. For a while, the 1650 Super was available for around $150-$160, but now days it’s hard to locate one for less than $250. 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 purchasing a pre-owned RX 570 4GB card, which sells for around $190 on eBay.
Nvidia’s inclusion of the latest NVENC hardware on the 1650 Super is greatly appreciated. So, if you’re looking for a low-cost PC that can stream games like CSGO or League of Legends, this is a good option. Even in our COVID-infected environment, video conferencing apps are becoming increasingly popular. Just keep in mind that the 1650 Super requires a 6-pin power connector, unlike the previous generation GTX 1050 cards.
Take a look at our review of the Nvidia GeForce GTX 1650.
If the RX 5500 XT 4GB wasn’t so pricey, it would be fantastic.
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It’s a bit of a wash between the GTX 1650 Super and the RX 5500 XT 4GB. They’re basically equal in performance and power, and prices are just as messed up here as anywhere else. You can certainly make the argument for picking up an older used GPU like a GTX 970 for less money, but then you’re getting a really old GPU and who knows what it’s been put through? There’s also the RX 6500 XT, but the price is about the same, and the older Navi 14 GPU actually tends to be a bit faster at high quality settings.
The RX 5500 XT offers a decent amount of performance and can handle any game at 1080p and medium to high quality, though not necessarily at 60 fps. This really should be a $150 graphics card, so if you can find any way to hold off upgrading for the time being, we recommend waiting for prices to come back down. If you can’t wait, the 5500 XT averaged over 60 fps in our testing at 1080p medium, giving you room to experiment if you want to improve visual fidelity.
The RTX 3050 and RX 6500 XT should have made previous generation cards “obsolete”, but with prices of $450 and $270, respectively, we’re still not seeing anything that really qualifies as a “budget” solution.
How We Test the Best Graphics Cards
Determining pure graphics card performance is best done by eliminating all other obstacles – as much as feasible, at least. Our 2022 graphics card testbed consists of a Core i9-12900K CPU, MSI Z690 DDR4 motherboard, 32GB Corsair DDR4-3600 CL16 memory, and Crucial P5 Plus 2TB SSD, with a Cooler Master PSU, chassis, and CPU cooler.
We test across the three most prevalent gaming resolutions, 1080p, 1440p, and 4K, utilizing ‘medium’ and ‘ultra’ settings. Where possible, we use ‘reference’ cards for all of our tests, such Nvidia’s Founders Edition models and AMD’s reference designs. Most mid-range and lower GPUs do not have reference models, however, and in some cases we only have factory overclocked cards for testing. We do our best to identify cards that are similar to the reference specs in such circumstances.
For each graphics card, we perform the same testing technique. We run one pass of each benchmark to “warm up” the GPU after launching the game, then run at least two passes at each setting/resolution combination. If the two runs are virtually identical (within 0.5 percent or less difference), we use the quicker of the two runs. If there’s more than a tiny variance, we run the test at least twice more to ascertain what “normal” performance is meant to be.
We also look at all the data and check for abnormalities, so for example RTX 3070 Ti, RTX 3070, and RTX 3060 Ti all generally going to perform inside a tight range — 3070 Ti is around 5 percent faster than 3070, which is approximately 5 percent quicker than 3060 Ti. If we witness games where there are apparent outliers (i.e. performance is more than 10 percent higher for the cards just indicated), we’ll go back and retest whichever cards are showing the anomaly and figure out what the “right” result would be.
Due to the length of time required for evaluating each GPU, updated drivers and game updates unavoidably will come out that can impair performance. We periodically retest a few sample cards to verify our results are still valid, and if not, we go through and retest the afflicted game(s) and GPU(s) (s). We may also add games to our test suite during the following year, if one comes out that is popular and conducive to testing – see our what makes a good game benchmark for our selection criteria.
Choosing a Graphics Card from the Best
In order to avoid any confusion, we’ve put up a dozen different graphics card options. Nvidia’s Ampere architecture cards and AMD’s RDNA2 architecture chips comprise the latest generation of GPUs. Nvidia’s GeForce RTX 3090, GeForce RTX 3080 Ti, GeForce RTX 3080, GeForce RTX 3070 Ti, GeForce RTX 3070, GeForce RTX 3060 Ti, GeForce RTX 3060, and GeForce RTX 3050 are all covered in our launch reviews.
As of this writing, we have a dozen new GPUs to look forward to, including the RTX 3090 Ti and Intel Arc Alchemist. There is a “Q1-2022” launch window for Arc, although it may be pushed back further. DirectX 12 Ultimate and Raytracing are supported by Arc Alchemist, RDNA2, and Ampere; the only difference is that Arc and RTX cards include additional Tensor Core technology.
We’ve compiled a list of the top graphics cards currently available on the speculative market, along with a rough estimate of their actual cost. RTX 3060 12GB cards sell for roughly $635 on eBay, while the Radeon RX 6700 XT sells for around $780, both of which are much more expensive than the suggested retail prices for these cards (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. We recommend looking into pre-built gaming PCs if you need to upgrade. Alternatively, you can wait, but prices may not return to a “normal” level until the end of 2022. (if then).
RTX 3070 and RX 6800 cards should cost less than half as much as the previous generation RTX 2080 Ti and generally match or outperform it in terms of performance, however this is not always the case. 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, It’s also possible to see how the RTX 3080 handles a larger range of CPUs. Hint: You’ll want a recent model with at least six cores and twelve threads, and anything with eight or more cores will give you a few more percentage points of performance.
Cryptocurrency mining and an already limited supply have produced a significant increase in GPU pricing, thus this is only true in principle. Our recommendation: Don’t overpay for hardware that you can get for less now. 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. The finest gaming GPU will do you little good if your CPU is weak or outdated. Because of this, you should take a look at the best processors for gaming and our CPU Benchmark hierarchy to see if your system is up to snuff.
All of these factors have been taken into account while developing our current GPU recommendations. The GPUs are sorted mostly by performance, but price, features, and efficiency are also taken into consideration, thus a somewhat slower card may be placed higher in the list. If you can locate the various cards in stock, these are the greatest graphics cards on the market. There has already been a big shakeup at the top of the performance rankings.
Additional Advice for Shopping
Consider the following when purchasing a graphics card:
There is a direct correlation between resolution and performance. Gaming at 1080p doesn’t necessitate a high-end graphics card.
Be sure your power supply has adequate juice and the correct 6- and/or 8-pin connector. • PSU (s). For the RTX 3060, for example, Nvidia recommends a 550-watt power supply, and an 8-pin connector is required, as is a 6-pin PEG connector.
In terms of video memory, a 4GB card is the very least; 6GB cards are better, while 8GB or more cards are strongly recommended. • Graphics Memory In recent years, a few games have been able to take advantage of 12GB of VRAM, but they’re rare.
• FreeSync or G-Sync? • Either variable refresh rate technique will synchronize the frame rate of your GPU with the refresh rate of your screen. AMD’s FreeSync technology works with Radeon cards, whereas Nvidia’s G-Sync and G-Sync Compatible displays are supported by Nvidia (for recommendations, check our Best Gaming Monitors list).
Graphics cards with the most recent generation support ray tracing, which can be utilized to improve the visuals in games. DLS delivers intelligent upscaling and antialiasing to enhance performance while maintaining the same image quality, but only on Nvidia RTX card. A different selection of games benefit from AMD’s FSR, which works on any GPU and provides upscaling and improvement.
Results of Graphics Card Testing
Currently, we’re running eight different games in our lab for testing purposes. The following charts are based on data gathered during the past few months. Aside from 1440p and 4K, we test everything at 1080p medium and ultra.
Even though AMD’s FSR, FidelityFX Super Resolution, and Nvidia’s DLSS have been available for several months and years, respectively, none of the titles in our main set of benchmarks support either technology. This signifies that all of these tests are being done at their native resolution. FSR and DLSS have been compared in a separate paper, and the conclusion is that DLSS improves performance while sacrificing less image quality, while FSR works on any GPU.
As of this writing, we’re evaluating additional graphics cards from the previous three generations and will add them to the charts as soon as possible. This list is always being updated, so don’t worry about seeing any missing GPUs like the RTX 2070. A Core i9-9900K is used in our 2020-2021 test system, which includes data from the previous generation of GPUs. To make things easier to understand, the graphs have been color coded to show AMD in red/grey and Nvidia in blue/black.
The graphs below reflect the most recent data available as of March 4th, 2022. This update includes all of the current generation of GPUs, and we’ll be adding more older GPUs in the coming weeks as well.
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
There won’t be many graphics card sales these days due to the GPU shortages, but you can save money by using the latest Newegg, Best Buy, and Micro Center coupons.
Let us know what you think of our top gaming graphics recommendations! The Tom’s Hardware Forums are a great place to share your thoughts.
