If you’re buying a new GPU in 2019, you have a lot of choices to pick from. Ones made for 4K, ones that can get the most out of your new 144Hz display, ones that are good for VR, and ones that are a great value (well, there’s a lot of overlap here, but shh…).
In this article, we’ve gathered our favorite top nine gaming cards or graphics cards for different price ranges and needs. Below, we’ll dive into each of what are really the best cards, give our impressions of the cards, provide links to external benchmarks, and also outline everything you need to know about GPUs in our buying guide at the bottom of the article in case you are unfamiliar with any of the specs being discussed.
Note: We’ve linked to specific models of each card. The given specs correspond to that model; other models will be slightly different. Overall, each model of a given graphics card should perform the same, sans differences in OC headroom and cooling.
best overall
Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080 Ti
- Architecture: Nvidia Turing
- Clock Speed: 1350 MHz
- VRAM: 11GB GDDR6
- Width: 2-Slot
- Length: 383 mm
- Ports: 2 DP, 1 HDMI, 1 USB-C
best GPU for 4K gaming
Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080
- Architecture: Nvidia Turing
- Clock Speed: 1710 MHz
- VRAM: 8GB GDDR6
- Width: 2-Slot
- Length: 280 mm
- Ports: 3 DP, 1 HDMI, 1 USB-C
best AMD GPU
AMD Radeon VII
- Architecture: AMD Vega
- Clock Speed: 1400 MHz
- VRAM: 16GB HBM2
- Width: 2-Slot
- Length: 269 mm
- Ports: 3 DP, 1 HDMI
best GPU under $600
Nvidia GeForce RTX 2070
- Architecture: Nvidia Turing
- Clock Speed: 1410 MHz
- VRAM: 8GB GDDR6
- Width: 2-Slot
- Length: 295 mm
- Ports: 3 DP, 1 HDMI, 1 USB-C
Best AMD card for most people
AMD Radeon RX 5700
- Architecture: RDNA Architecture
- Clock Speed: 1465 MHz
- VRAM: 8GB GDDR6
- Width: 2-Slot
- Length: 268 mm
- Ports: 3 DP, 1 HDMI
top GPU for 1440p gaming
Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060
- Architecture: Nvidia Turing
- Clock Speed: 1365 MHz
- VRAM: 6GB GDDR6
- Width: 3-Slot
- Length: 190 mm
- Ports: 1 DVI, 1 HDMI, 1 DP
Strong 1440p & VR performance
AMD RX 580 8GB
- Architecture: AMD Polaris
- Clock Speed: 1366 MHz
- VRAM: 8GB GDDR5
- Width: 2-Slot
- Length: 270 mm
- Ports: 1 DVI, 2 HDMI, 2 DVI
best GPU under $300
Nvidia GTX 1660 Ti
- Architecture: Nvidia Pascal
- Clock Speed: 1500 MHz
- VRAM: 6GB GDDR6
- Width: 2-Slot
- Length: 206 mm
- Ports: 3 DP, 1 HDMI
best budget
AMD RX 570 4GB
- Architecture: AMD Polaris
- Clock Speed: 1168 MHz
- VRAM: 4GB GDDR5
- Width: 2-Slot
- Length: 225 mm
- Ports: 1 DVI, 3 DP, 1 HDMI
Table of Contents
1. Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080 Ti
The best Nvidia GPU is also the best overall
- Architecture: Nvidia Turing Architecture
- Clock Speed: 1350 MHz
- VRAM: 11GB GDDR6
- Width: 2-Slot
- Length: 383 mm
- Ports: 2 DP, 1 HDMI, 1 USB-C
- Stellar… everything performance
- The pinnacle of gaming GPUs
- Highest price
- Poorest value
Well damn, I guess you can spare both kidneys.
Let’s be nice first: this is definitely the most powerful graphics card on the market, featuring both Raytracing cores and Tensor cores. You know those scenes in anime where a character’s power level is so high that all other characters in the scene collapse to their knees? The RTX 2080 Ti is that when compared to other cards.
While the RTX 2080 Ti is undoubtedly the best graphics card, it is still very impractical. Its real-world performance gains over the 2080 usually top out at around 20%, and that card costs half as much as this one. If you’re buying an RTX 2080 Ti, price simply isn’t a concern for you, or you really want bragging rights.
If bragging rights are what you want… you got it, dude. This card will decimate everything for years to come, and its RTX features will ensure a high degree of futureproofing. Consider one of the other graphics cards on this list unless you have the money to spend on a statement like that. But if money isn't really an issue at all and you're looking for literally the best money could buy, get an Nvidia RTX Titan cards and live the dream.
2.Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080
The best GPU for 4K gaming is the RTX 2080
- Architecture: Nvidia Turing Architecture
- Clock Speed: 1710 MHz
- VRAM: 8GB GDDR6
- Width: 2-Slot
- Length: 280 mm
- Ports: 3 DP, 1 HDMI, 1 USB-C
- Stellar 4K, 1440p, and VR performance
- Most of the 2080 Ti’s performance at a more affordable price
- High price
- Somewhat poor performance per dollar
While the RTX 2080 isn’t Nvidia’s strongest GPU, we still consider it to be the best graphics card for gaming at 4k. When you compare gaming performance between this card and its Ti older brother, you’re only going to see a ~20% boost in real-world gaming performance. For this 20% boost in gaming performance in the 2080 Ti, you’re seeing nearly twice the price.
Unless you want to pay double for slightly better 4K performance, the RTX 2080 is the card for you. This is the card that you buy when you want the best that PC gaming has to offer, but can only spare one of your kidneys for the purchase, not two.
3. AMD Radeon VII
The Radeon VII is the best AMD GPU on the market
- Architecture: AMD Radeon RX Vega
- Clock Speed: 1400 MHz
- VRAM: 16GB HBM2
- Width: 2-Slot
- Length: 269 mm
- Ports: 3 DP, 1 HDMI
- Stellar 4K, 1440p, and VR performance
- Great utility for professional use and gaming
- High price
- Poor value for gaming performance alone
The AMD Radeon VII is a curious card.
For many generations now, Nvidia has dominated the high-end graphics card market. The Radeon VII doesn’t really change this too much, but it does serve as a somewhat viable competitor to the RTX 2080...especially if you’re doing more than just playing games. But since Nvidia has discontinued the RTX 2080 and replaced it with the GeForce RTX 2080 Super cards, it might be easier to compare this with the RTX 2070 Super card instead.
The massive amounts of HBM2 VRAM inside this card and its overall architecture make it a surprisingly powerful workstation GPU that just happens to have high-end gaming capabilities. These two applications are usually divorced from one another, but the Radeon VII combines them in a way we haven’t really seen before.
If you’re only gaming, Radeon VII AMD cards will definitely be a harder sell. It doesn’t have Nvidia’s RTX features or an AMD equivalent, and the RTX 2080 will beat it in most gaming scenarios for about the same price. The main reasons to buy this card is to throw your support behind AMD, the market underdog, or for hybrid professional/gaming use.
If you don’t fall into that niche audience, though, the Radeon VII probably isn’t the card for you. It may be the best AMD graphics card by a considerable margin, but chances are AMD isn’t going to compete in pure gaming performance until the launch of Navi cards.
4. Nvidia GeForce RTX 2070
The RTX 2070 is the best GPU under $600
- Architecture: Nvidia Turing
- Clock Speed: 1410 MHz
- VRAM: 8GB GDDR6
- Width: 2-Slot
- Length: 295 mm
- Ports: 3 DP, 1 HDMI, 1 USB-C
- Stellar 1440p, 1800p and VR performance; great 4K performance
- A fair bit more affordable than 2080 or 2080 Ti
- Still expensive
- Diminishing returns in performance per dollar start here
If you want PC’s high-end gaming experiences but don’t have an unlimited amount of money to spend on that goal, the RTX 2070 is a strong compromise between extremes. It also really represents the start of high-end graphics card on this list.
While it may not pack the sheer performance of something like the 2080 Ti (in fact, it has roughly 50% of its power), it’s also roughly half the price. The RTX 2070 performs slightly behind the GTX 1080 Ti but is on par, if not better than Nvidia’s last-gen GTX 1080, which means it’s great for 1800p and 4K gaming experiences.
With RTX features enabled, however, you’ll typically need to play at 1440p to maintain framerates above 60. When this Nvidia graphics card launched, you would sometimes have to go as low as 1080p, but fortunately, ray-tracing performance has improved dramatically since then. With RTX features enabled, the 2060 is a 1080p card, the 2070 is a 1440p card, and the two 2080s including the NVidia GeForce RTX 2070 Super cards are 4K cards.
While you could theoretically stuff this card into a $1K PC build, we seriously recommend against it: the required compromises in other components will result in this card being severely bottlenecked. This graphics card is recommended instead for PC builds in the ~$1500 price range.
5. AMD Radeon RX 5700
The best AMD graphics card for most people
- Architecture: RDNA Architecture
- Clock Speed: 1465 MHz
- VRAM: 8GB GDDR6
- Width: 2-Slot
- Length: 268 mm
- Ports: 3 DP, 1 HDMI
- Stellar 1440p performance
- Cheaper than the competition NVIDIA cards
- No RTX feature
- The blower-style cooler has higher temps
If AMD is being serious about taking over the graphics card market, the RTX Radeon RX 5700 and Radeon RX 5700 XT graphics card might be the start of a bright future for AMD.
It's packed with technologies that have never been used or seen even in the latest Nvidia cards. Among the most notable edges that this card boasts is the 7nm manufacturing process (it's also why they released this on July 7). This is also the first graphics card that utilizes the ultra-fast PCIe 4.0 interface.
On top of that, it also features the new RDNA architecture, which basically delivers massive power efficiency boost. They have also upgraded to GDDR6 memory technology, which makes it easy now to achieve a buttery smooth 144 frames at 4K resolution when gaming.
Now, seeing all these basically means they're really serious about performance here. But even though they managed to pack everything inside a blower-style cooler design, the sheer power still is hotter than Nvidia's founders edition cards. Nonetheless, it's still better overall after learning from the mistakes of the Vega 64.
6. Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060
Nvidia’s RTX 2060 is our top GPU for 1440p gaming
- Architecture: Nvidia Turing
- Clock Speed: 1365 MHz
- VRAM: 6GB GDDR6
- Width: 3-Slot
- Length: 190 mm
- Ports: 1 DVI, 1 HDMI, 1 DP
- Stellar 1440p and VR performance; good 4K performance in most games
- Hits a budget sweet spot for ~$1K system builds
- Performance-per-dollar beginning to fall short
- High price
The RTX 2060 is the best graphics card for 1440p gaming, and arguably the best mid-range graphics card (so, the best for most gamers). Its excellent performance in 1440p and VR allow for demonstrably higher-fidelity experiences than consoles can offer, and with the right settings adjustments, you can push this card to 1800p and 4K gaming experiences, too. If you’re assembling a $1,000 gaming PC build, this is the obvious go-to pick for your graphics.
In addition to sheer performance, you also have a great implementation of RTX features. Games like Battlefield 5 and Metro Exodus can both be played at 1080p with RTX features enabled, providing some seriously great-looking graphics for those still playing on 1080p displays.
This will be a tougher compromise for those gaming in 1440p or higher resolutions, though, since the RTX 2060 will not be able to use RTX features and achieve 60+ FPS at those resolutions.
If you’re only gaming in 1080p and don’t care for ray-tracing and the such, this graphics card is probably not the right choice for you. If you have a higher-fidelity display or are looking to better futureproof your gaming experience, though, the RTX 2060 is at an ideal price point for just that. Or you could get the RTX 2060 Super instead if you could spare a little more for a tad better performance.
7. AMD Radeon RX 580 8GB
The best GPU for the money is the Radeon RX 580
- Architecture: AMD Polaris
- Clock Speed: 1366 MHz
- VRAM: 8GB GDDR5
- Width: 2-Slot
- Length: 270 mm
- Ports: 1 DVI, 2 HDMI, 2 DVI
- Stellar 1080p performance
- Strong 1440p & VR performance performance (w/ settings adjust)
- Great overall value
- Sometimes undercut by cheaper RX 570 models
The RX 580 8GB is definitely one of our favorite picks, and arguably the best graphics card for the money in budget builds. While the 570 slightly edges it out in performance-per-dollar (at least when both cards are at their cheapest), the 580 typically retails for right around $200 and provides significant performance improvements in 1440p and VR.
If you can’t afford cards like the GTX 1660 Ti or RTX 2060 but still want to play games above 1080p, the RX 580 8GB is the obvious go-to option here. While you’ll likely need to cut down on things like AA for solid 1440p performance, you’d be surprised at just how well this card stands up despite years on the market.
8. Nvidia GeForce GTX 1660 Ti
The GTX 1660 Ti is the best GPU under $300
- Architecture: Nvidia Pascal
- Clock Speed: 1500 MHz
- VRAM: 6GB GDDR6
- Width: 2-Slot
- Length: 206 mm
- Ports: 3 DP, 1 HDMI
- Stellar 1080p performance; great 1440p and VR performance
- Good value
- RTX 2060 is better value for not much more
- No RTX features
The GTX 1660 Ti or is the oddly-named successor to the GTX 1060, and it boasts performance equivalent to that of not the GTX 1070 Ti, but the GTX 1070. This means this 1536 Cuda cores graphics card is a fairly solid card for 1440p and VR; it also absolutely decimates 1080p games, even with high refresh rate displays.
The 1660 Ti is ideal for gamers who don’t really care about ray-tracing and its price premiums yet but still want a solid 1440p/VR gaming experience. If your graphics card budget is right around or below $300, then, the 1660 Ti becomes the obvious choice: it considerably outstrips the Radeon RX 580 and Radeon RX 590, and should serve as a more futureproof card overall.
However, if $300 isn’t your hard limit… you should seriously consider paying the extra $50 for an RTX 2060 (discussed below). Not only will you see an across-the-board performance increase, but you’ll also be futureproofing your system for when games have better support for ray-tracing and DLSS, even if they don’t now.
While this may be the newest Nvidia card, it’s also worth noting that in the coming months Nvidia is expected to release a non-Ti GTX 1660 and 1650. They may end up undercutting this card in value, especially if you only plan to do 1080p gaming. But regardless if you get one from Gigabyte, ASUS, Strix, MSI, EVGA, or ZOTAC, you won't go wrong.
9. AMD RX 570 4GB
The best budget GPU is an AMD favorite
- Architecture: AMD Polaris
- Clock Speed: 1168 MHz
- VRAM: 4GB GDDR5
- Width: 2-Slot
- Length: 225 mm
- Ports: 1 DVI, 3 DP, 1 HDMI
- Stellar 1080p performance
- The best overall value
- Not good for VR or 1440p, especially 4GB models
- The cheapest models are often out of stock
Last but not least is our pick for budget gamers or entry-level gamers this 2019, the AMD RX 570. This is the cheapest graphics card that we recommend buying, but don’t worry: this is a good graphics card for gaming despite its affordability (the GeForce GTX 1050, the GeForce GTX 1050 Ti, and RX Vega 56 usually retail for around the same price, but can be missing as much as half of the total performance). The RX 570’s pricing means it is usually the best graphics card for the money; in fact, we heartily recommend it to any gamer on a thin budget. Even recommend getting one ASAP on Amazon Prime Day to get an even cheaper price.
Despite the best value on the list, you won’t see yesteryear’s budget performance. Even at maximum settings, modern games can easily be pushed to 60 FPS. Where compromises are necessary, it’s usually found in slight adjustments to things like AA or shadow resolution, both of which can easily be turned down when gaming at 1080p.
If you find an 8GB model of the 570 for about the same price on Amazon Prime Day, feel free to opt for that one as well. It’ll improve this card’s 1440p and VR capabilities significantly since those are VRAM-intensive tasks. 1080p performance likely won’t change much.
Finding The Best Graphics Card For You
If you’re sitting there asking yourself, ”What graphics card should I get?” and aren’t familiar with the specs and technical terms we’re tossing around, don’t worry: we have you covered.
While the last section covered the best video cards, in this section, we’ll go over key GPU specs and technical terms used throughout our reviews to make sure that you understand what’s going on when buying a new graphics card. For instance, you’ll want to be aware of GPU bottlenecking when buying a GPU and its partner CPU.
GPU Size
Yes. Its literal size. For most situations, this shouldn’t be a huge concern. However, certain cases and/or motherboards may cause problems.
For instance, some cases are smaller (like, smaller form factor cases, obviously) or just accommodate parts in such a manner that one might get in the way of another. More common than this is your motherboard having pieces mount in such a way that your large graphics card might get in the way of something else.
Of course, this problem is usually magnified by cards that are literally large, like the RTX 2080 we choose that has 3 fans.
GPU Architecture
GPU architecture is, simply speaking, the baseline upon which a GPU is built. Typically, the first version of a GPU architecture debuts in a high-end card– like the RTX 2080 Ti with Turing– and what you see afterward are cut-down versions of that same architecture. This means reductions in clock speed, VRAM, cores, etc. in order to manufacture cheaper versions of the basic architecture and target more price ranges.
We’re going to go ahead and list the common architectures below:
- Nvidia Turing – Used by the RTX 20- series and the GTX 16- series. Outside of the GTX cards, enables features like real-time ray-tracing and DLSS.
- Nvidia Pascal – Nvidia’s previous generation architecture, used by the GTX 10- series. If you can find these cheap, they’re still worth a buy.
- AMD Polaris – Used by AMD’s RX 500 series.
- AMD Vega – Used by AMD’s Vega-branded graphics cards and the Radeon VII.
- AMD Navi – AMD’s next-gen architecture, coming Soon™.
Clock Speed
Like with an Intel or AMD CPU, clock speed is really only useful as a measure of performance between GPUs with the same architecture. Sometimes, it’s only useful as a measure of performance between different versions of the same graphics card. Your exact clock speed usually won’t matter all that much, but factory overclocked versions of GPUs are quite common nowadays, and this will serve to enhance out-of-box performance.
Don’t expect graphics card overclocks to push, say, an RX 570 to the level of an RX 580. Expect roughly 10% performance gains in the absolute best of scenarios. With that said, overclocking isn’t really going to give you outstanding gains, just a tad more frames.
VRAM
VRAM is used by the GPU to handle streaming textures, post-processing effects, and high resolutions; you know, those things that video games are constantly doing. The higher your VRAM, the better it should be able to handle resolutions like 1440p and 4K. You’ll generally want a minimum of at least 4GB VRAM available in a graphics card if you plan on playing VR games, for instance.
Where VRAM comes most into consideration is when comparing multiple models of the same GPU. The RX 570 and 580 both come in 4 and 8GB variants. Where possible, always opt for the 8GB version of these cards, unless you’re only playing in 1080p.
Framerate and Resolution
Framerate (FPS) and resolution refer to how your game is rendered. In simple terms, framerate is how smooth your gaming experience is, and resolution is how clear your experience is. Low framerates will have increased input latency and look choppier, while low resolutions will look blurrier and less defined.
Below, we’re going to list common framerate and resolution targets, which will better contextualize how we refer to each card’s performance.
FPS Targets
Note: Your gaming monitor’s refresh rate corresponds directly to the maximum framerate it can display.
- 30 FPS – The minimum acceptable framerate. The least smooth of the bunch. Most console games are around this range.
- 60 FPS – The baseline for a smooth gaming experience. Most monitors cap out at displaying 60FPS or 60 frames due to a 60 Hz refresh rate.
- 80 FPS – A common target for FPS on a G-Sync/FreeSync monitor, ideal for completely preventing screen tearing during performance drops.
- 100 FPS – A target for 120 Hz+ refresh rate monitors, where a benefit over 60 can be seen without completely sacrificing visuals.
- 120 FPS – Ideal for 120 Hz+ refresh rate monitors. Hyper-smooth.
- 144+ FPS – Ideal for 144 Hz+ refresh rate monitors. As smooth as it gets.
Resolution Targets
Note: “Native” resolution is the maximum resolution of a display in solution. A “native” image will always look sharper and clearer than an “upscaled” one.
- 720p (HD) – Considered low resolution by today’s standards. Can still look decent on smaller monitors or longer viewing distances, though.
- 1080p (Full HD) – Target resolution for most budget PC builds and gaming consoles. Matches with the native resolution of most HD TVs.
- 1440p (Quad HD) – Target resolution for higher-end PC monitors. PS4 Pro and Xbox One X also upscale from this resolution to achieve 4K visuals.
- 1800p (Quad HD+) – A common resolution used by gamers on 4K monitors who can’t push native resolution. Xbox One X and (more rarely) PS4 Pro also upscale from this resolution to 4K.
- 2160p (4K Ultra HD) – Native resolution of high-end monitors and 4K TVs. PS4 Pro and Xbox One X generally can’t achieve this without upscaling; PC gamers will need great graphics cards to do this without compromising settings.
Other Tech and Terms
Occasionally, you may see mentions of other GPU technologies in reviews and product pages. We’ll explain these here.
- AA (anti-aliasing) – An intensive post-processing technique that removes jagged edges, or “jaggies”, from an image. This can also provide the illusion of a higher resolution.
- Real-time ray-tracing – Highly-advanced lighting, reflections, and shading. Currently exclusive to Nvidia RTXGPUs, but an AMD equivalent may emerge eventually. Only supported by a few games so far.
- DLSS – An AA technique supplemented by AI deep learning, currently exclusive to RTX cards. Only supported by a few games.
- V-Sync – Prevents screen-tearing at the cost of higher latency and performance costs.
- G-Sync and FreeSync – Supported by Nvidia and AMD graphics cards, respectively. Identical technologies that replace V-Sync except with no input lag or performance loss. Only works alongside a monitor that’s equipped with either G-Sync or FreeSync.
- SLI/NVLink – Nvidia technology for multi-GPU setups. NVLink is superior, but multi-GPU setups have fallen out of fashion.
- CrossFire – AMD technology for multi-GPU setups. Has also fallen out of fashion.