Again at the Top for a New Game
The best graphics cards in 2022
The best graphics card for PC gaming fuels your games and does it without charging you an incredibly high price in today'southward market place. Nvidia and AMD GPUs are starting to drop down to normal prices, but stock tin can still flicker in and out. It'south meliorate, but not so much amend that yous tin safely await consistent, retail prices. And the concluding thing you want to do is pay for an overpriced menu on Ebay or through a 3rd-party seller.
That said, nosotros've still managed to check the latest graphics cards and put them through our extensive benchmarking tests. In order to provide a definitive list of the top GPUs worth buying (at around MSRP). This information is especially useful if you plan on shopping around for the best prebuilt gaming PC which, honestly, might be the easiest way to nab the best graphics cards in 2022.
At least nosotros tin can revel in the fact the GPU market is finally getting competitive again. With the launch of the Radeon RX 6800 XT things got very interesting, leaving both Nvidia and AMD vying for the height accolade. It's a close call, but the GeForce RTX 3080 just near takes the crown. In fact, the GeForce RTX 3080 and GeForce RTX 3070 are 2 of the all-time graphics cards to engagement. Shortly, Intel volition driblet in with its Arc Alchemist graphics menu—that's going to make the GPU landscape a piffling more complicated.
Right at present we accept plenty of tips on how to purchase a graphics card if you're unsure where to starting time your hunt. If you lot're not 100% on a GPU just yet, scroll on to see our recommendations from Nvidia and AMD's latest line-ups.
All-time graphics card
Okay, right now, the RTX 3080 is rare as dove eyelashes, but there is no uncertainty Nvidia's new RTX 3080 is the best graphics card today. Information technology represents a huge generational performance boost over the previous RTX 20-series. That'south impressive when put upwardly against either the RTX 2080 or 2080 Super, just when you consider that this nominally $699 card tin can non just lucifer but massively outperform the $i,200 RTX 2080 Ti, it really hits home.
The affair which really stands out from our testing is the difference it makes to ray-tracing operation. The first generation of ray tracing-capable cards required such a huge frame rate sacrifice that near people shied away from turning it on, but that'southward no longer the case with this generation.
When yous can at present get ray-traced performance that exceeds the frame rates you'd become out of the superlative menu of the RTX 20-series when running without it, you know that this is a whole different beast. And hey, the RTX 3080 tin can really run Crysis.
Nvidia has managed this by calculation a whole load more than CUDA cores to the mix in this 8nm GPU and updated Tensor Cores (for actress DLSS goodness) and 2nd-gen RT Cores to make with the ray-traced pretties.
The RTX 3080 may need a fair chunk more power—yous'll want at to the lowest degree an 850W PSU—and be tricky to get hold of, but this is the well-nigh desirable graphics bill of fare around today. Which I gauge is also why information technology'southward then tricky to get agree of.
If there was one fleck of advice for buying a GeForce RTX 3080 information technology would exist that it's worth trying to get your easily on the Founders Edition if at all possible. Selection your curse, because the RTX 3080 Founders Edition is ****ing bang-up. Far from simply being the reference version of the 'flagship' Ampere graphics card, because of that cooler and redesigned PCB, information technology is the ultimate expression of the RTX 3080. And if you end up with some other version of this fine-ass GPU then I'm afraid you're likely to feel a little hard done past.
Chances are yous're going to have to make do. The Founders Edition cards are not produced in the same volumes every bit the third-political party versions from the likes of Asus, MSI, Gigabyte, Palit, and Colorful, to name just a few. Given the stock shortages, you're going to be happy with whatever RTX 3080 you tin get your easily on. Peculiarly if yous can get one well-nigh to the MSRP. And besides, some of the cooling options on these 3rd-party cards are impressive in their own right, and so it's not all bad by whatsoever stretch.
Regardless of whichever card yous get your hands on, the performance uplift you become over the previous generation is huge and pretty much unprecedented. Perchance nosotros've become used to more than iterative generational deltas, especially considering the slight difference betwixt the GTX 1080 Ti and RTX 2080, for example. But we're going to continue beating the Ti drum, because it bears repeating—the fact the $699 RTX 3080 absolutely smashes the $ane,200 RTX 2080 Ti is withal staggering.
Nvidia has gone big with the RTX 3080, and the result is an outstanding gaming carte that sets a new criterion for both high-end 4K gaming performance and for ray tracing. At present nosotros just need Nvidia and Samsung to make more than of them then nosotros can all relish the best GPU of this generation.
Read our full Nvidia RTX 3080 review (10GB Founders Edition).
Every bit a carmine team culling to Nvidia's high-end graphics cards, there have been few finer than the RX 6800 XT. A highly competitive card that comes then close to its rival, with a nominal performance differential to the RTX 3080, is truly an enthusiast card worth consideration for any PC gamer with 4K in their sights.
The RX 6800 XT was the first of AMD's RDNA 2 GPUs to enter the fray, and while nosotros've had plenty of other cards since, this is the ane that shines brighter than near and makes the most sense financially. At least information technology does if you consider its MSRP, and with AMD's GPUs returning to reasonable cost levels quicker than Nvidia'southward, this could actually give the scarlet team the edge in the short term.
A key battleground for Nvidia and AMD this generation has been on the memory front—covering both bandwidth and chapters. The RX 6800 XT comes with 16GB of GDDR6 across a 256-bit bus for a full bandwidth of 512GB/s. That ways AMD has Nvidia's 10GB RTX 3080 on the ropes in terms of chapters but falls slightly behind in raw bandwidth to the RTX 3080'due south 760GB/south.
AMD has an ace up its sleeve in throughput terms in the class of its Infinity Cache, which bolsters the cards 'constructive bandwidth' considerably. Some one,664GB/s, by AMD's making—a 3.25x improvement over the RX 6800 XT's raw bandwidth. In gaming terms, it means you're looking at similar performance, despite the very different underlying technologies.
Information technology'due south a tough phone call between the RX 6800 XT and the RTX 3080, but the latter pips AMD to the postal service with the last touches à la RTX. The RX 6800 XT is $l cheaper, delivers high 4K operation, and a hefty VRAM increase over the RTX 3080. However, it'southward like shooting fish in a barrel to fence that an extra $l dropped on the RTX 3080 is money well spent: a pocket-size price to pay for greater 4K performance, much-improved ray tracing, and DLSS. All are available today and with years of developer support in the bank.
That said, AMD's FidelityFX Super Resolution has gained considerable momentum amongst developers and offers solid upscaling that'south worth enabling in supported games.
The RX 6800 XT leaves AMD in an incredibly potent position going forrad, delivering what is required to go the unabridged industry to accept notice, and with a strong proposition to offering gamers instantly at launch. And information technology's no surprise to hear the cooperation between Zen and RDNA engineers had a role to play in all this, besides.
All of which is to say that AMD has evolved on what was already a promising compages in RDNA and delivered it in a fantastic graphics card in the RX 6800 XT. And non the least bit impressive in just how swiftly it has achieved near performance parity with Nvidia. There's however some way to get to hook back marketplace share from the green squad, but step one on RTG'southward to-do list (build a high-stop GPU) can be confidently checked off with the release of the RX 6800 XT.
Nosotros're big fans of what AMD has managed to reach with the RX 6800 XT, a render to form for the Radeon Technology Group that injects some much-needed contest into the GPU marketplace and offers a worthy red team alternative for any high-stop gaming PC build.
Read our full AMD RX 6800 XT review.
The all-time value Ampere to date, the RTX 3060 Ti is very closely related to the RTX 3070. Both utilize the same GA104 GPU (the RTX 3060 Ti has fewer SMs enabled), with the aforementioned 8GB of GDDR6 retentivity beyond a 256-chip bus.
While 17% less capable in core count than its pricier sibling, the RTX 3060 Ti makes up for it with some judicious GPU Boost frequencies. That partially explains why the RTX 3060 Ti can exist inside 17% to but single digits off the pace of the RTX 3070, despite operating at a silicon disadvantage. Groovy for a $399 bill of fare (if you tin find it for that price).
If you haven't already done the maths: At $399, the RTX 3060 Ti is 20% cheaper than the RTX 3070, so operation per dollar is on the up with the diminutive graphics bill of fare. That's why we love information technology then; it's a great GPU for the full stack of resolutions and has decent ray tracing capability to boot, courtesy of 2nd-generation RT Cores.
The RTX 3060 Ti delivers gaming performance that'due south rather stupendous when you look at generational gains over even the RTX xx-series—adjacent to the GTX 10-series, information technology'southward quite frightening, actually. There's exceptional 1080p and 1440p performance in a tiny package here, the likes of which would've set yous back something shut to twice as much cash a couple of years ago. And that's pretty great.
This card is even capable of dabbling with high-allegiance 4K gaming, although you lot're going to have to massage some graphics settings in order to actually scissure a solid 60fps in more enervating games. And that'south oftentimes only in terms of average framerates, to proceed your GPU above 60fps requires a lot of tinkering. That tin can sometimes accept the fun out of 4K gaming in the starting time place. It's a much smoother affair at 1440p, and at 1080p you can pretty much max everything out and but go.
The Nvidia extras can assist hither too—DLSS, Reflex, and even Nvidia Broadcast all add together to the overall feel. There's a solid base of genuinely nifty features behind RTX and the Nvidia package that'due south only been improved upon with Ampere, none more and so than the ray-tracing performance for that affair.
There's just the pocket-size outcome of availability, that which has loomed over all the other RTX 30-serial launches to date. Price hikes have undermined this card'southward very reason for existing, and until it returns to something similar its MSRP of $399, it just isn't as enticing a card.
Nonetheless, if the RTX 3080 and RTX 3070 are out of reach, the RTX 3060 Ti certainly makes for a decent stand-in. Perhaps the most impressive demonstration of what this card has achieved is seeing how it stacks up to the xx-series generation: It topples the RTX 2080 Super in nearly every test.
Read our full Nvidia RTX 3060 Ti review (Founders Edition).
Peradventure the only loftier-end Ampere that's annihilation close to reasonably affordable, the RTX 3070 is also impressive for its ability to match the elevation-string Turing graphics card, the RTX 2080 Ti, for less than half of its cost tag.
At $499, it's still a significant sum past any means—nosotros're talking next-gen panel equivalent pricing here—merely it's inappreciably an exorbitant sum when compared to PC gaming'south acme graphics silicon today. In return, you lot're gifted a 4K-capable graphics menu that doesn't require too much piddling to achieve playable, if not high, framerates. And information technology'll absolutely smash it at 1440p, no question almost that.
It's a little surprising to see the RTX 3070 Founders Edition still sporting the 12-pin power connector of the RTX 3080, and therefore it comes with a unmarried 8-pin to 12-pin adapter in the packaging. Nvidia has once more delivered a super-compact PCB with this FE card, which makes the whole shroud far smaller than the RTX 3080.
Despite coming with ii front-loaded fans the spinner at the tail of the carte is in that location to dilate the airflow beyond the heatpipes and that does seem to assist the cooling performance of this smart footling GPU.
The RTX 3070 also offers up Nvidia'due south reliable driver stack, the GeForce Feel app, ShadowPlay's recording, and the new Broadcast suite, the impressive Reflex latency-spiking setup, and the latent potential of RTX IO bringing the next-gen consoles' virtually potent feature to the PC. And of course, you have ray tracing and the always-improving DLSS enhancements.
That's a lot to add onto the impressive raw functioning that the RTX 3070 offers, and it does make a difference to a lot of people.
Nvidia's xx70 series of cards is often the real sugariness spot for PC gamers, and the RTX 3070 is ever that. This is the Ampere card which represents a genuine performance upgrade for the vast majority of us, at a price that we can almost swallow. For all those people who saturday on their GTX 1080 and GTX 1080 Ti cards throughout the RTX 20-series, now really is the fourth dimension to upgrade.
Read our full Nvidia RTX 3070 review (Founders Edition).
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The RTX 3090 may have sat unchallenged at the top rungs of graphics performance at launch, but information technology wouldn't exist long until AMD rustled together a challenger in the RX 6900 XT, or 'Big Navi.' The RX 6900 XT hopes to knock Ampere'southward finest from its perch on high and ship it spiralling back down to Earth. And it gets kind of close, besides, with 4K performance a little off the pace of the RTX 3090—and all for one-third off the asking price.
For that reason, it's but the better purchase for any PC gamer without any ulterior motives of the pro-creator variety. But at that place's a reason it's not number one in our graphics menu guide today, and that'south just due to the fact information technology's not that much amend than an RTX 3080, and sometimes not at all. Information technology's another $300 on top of the RTX 3080'due south recommended price tag, and you'd hope for college performance in both rasterized and ray tracing workloads. Yet, inevitably its ray-tracing acceleration lags behind the competition.
Fifty-fifty within AMD's line-up, there's no pressing statement to pick this upward over more-affordable offerings. With a $350 price premium over the RX 6800 XT, the RX 6900 XT offers little return on your sizeable investment—the RX 6900 XT is 53% more expensive than the RX 6800 XT yet offers just v.25% more functioning in games.
That's why it's strange that AMD is making a point of the RX 6900 XT existence a card built for 'gaming get-go'. Fifty-fifty Nvidia didn't brand that mistake, billing the RTX 3090 equally a pro-creator bill of fare with a substantial increase in retentiveness capacity over the 2nd-run gaming card below to help justify the price.
Information technology's far more hard to justify the cost of the RX 6900 XT, sharing equally many qualities with far cheaper cards as it does and with the slight performance proceeds it's able to evangelize from its few upgrades.
While I'm a big fan of RDNA two and the leaps AMD RTG has made to get it to compete at this level in a curt period of time are impressive, the RX 6900 XT is merely not its finest form. It's not the easiest card to recommend for the vast bulk of gamers, even those that have their sights set on the loftier-cease. For most, the RTX 3080 is nevertheless the card to beat.
But the RX 6900 XT does come with assurances that the RTX 3080 can't make, such every bit its 16GB of GDDR6 memory, which is a whole 6GB greater than the 10GB of (faster) GDDR6X retentivity on the greenish team menu. With that in mind, for raw gaming alone, the RX 6900 XT is a cheaper alternative to the RTX 3090. It'south all the same a victim of its own extreme toll tag, though.
Read our full AMD RX 6900 XT review.
The RTX 3080 Ti isn't the mightiest GeForce graphics carte that Nvidia makes. That laurels originally went to the RTX 3090, by a hair, and was more recently claimed by the RTX 3090 Ti. Though when all is said and benchmarked, it is the uber high-cease RTX 3080 Ti that we'd recommend to any PC gamer looking to go all out on their side by side build.
The arrival of the Ampere generation did a lot to diminish the clumsiness or fiddly nature of 4K gaming, but the RTX 3080 Ti truly squashes information technology. Setting upwardly for high operation 4K gaming remains a pricey investment, but y'all needn't be as cautious as we once had to be on a game-by-game basis. You lot tin can relatively comfortably gear up your game to high or ultra settings and get comfortable, even high, frame rates at 4K.
The last thing yous want when gaming at 4K is to plough downward graphics quality settings, and with the RTX 3080 Ti y'all shouldn't have to nigh as much as we've come up to look at 3840 x 2160.
The RTX 3080 Ti tends to fall a little behind the RTX 3090, although it appears the more than expensive bill of fare only sees marginal do good for an increase in core counts and retention—the RTX 3080 Ti is simply single per centum points off the stride.
With performance shut to the RTX 3090 at 4K, the RTX 3080 Ti is as much a gaming graphics card as its progenitor. With a vast bounty of CUDA Cores and speedy GDDR6X memory, this card demolishes whatever game y'all can throw at it with relative ease. It's besides more capable of real-time ray tracing, courtesy of fourscore RT Cores.
The GeForce RTX 3080 Ti remains an impressively powerful graphics card despite some inflexibility ingrained in the price—information technology will come across some save a few pennies on ultra-high-terminate gaming PC builds and all the same claim top performance. The Ampere architecture is excellent, and stuffing more of information technology under that unassuming blackness and (polished) greyness shroud merely makes for a great gaming scrap.
It does, then, accomplish what it set out to exercise: intermission the back of only most any game, API, or graphics-intensive job, fifty-fifty at 4K, and do then in a mode that appeals straight to gamers' sensibilities. Though it's not quite the high-end price-to-performance champion the RTX 3080 is, the RTX 3080 Ti Fe is in pocket-sized office a better buy than an RTX 3090 FE.
The reason we don't rate this bill of fare higher up in our list of the all-time graphics cards, still, is down to its price. Launching at $i,200, it's only a stone's throw away from the $1,499 RTX 3090. Massively inflated pricing, or lack of stock, however.
Read our full Nvidia RTX 3080 Ti review (Founders Edition).
The decision to load the RTX 3060 with 12GB of GDDR6 memory appeared a strange one at offset, and in many means information technology still is. It's more memory than the RTX 3080, later all, albeit slower stuff, and information technology tops out the RTX 3060 Ti likewise. However, the RTX 3060 wields information technology well, managing to dispatch the RTX 2060 by a large margin in most games, and past enough of a gap in the rest to make information technology worthwhile.
And we're non going to turn our noses upwardly at 12GB of VRAM when 6GB is the likely culling.
Perhaps the about newsworthy milk shake-upward for the Nvidia RTX 3060 came with the announcement of a hash charge per unit limiter, which was designed to keep the bill of fare from operating at its total adequacy while mining Ethereum, the crypto of option for GPU mining. Nvidia hoped that'd sway miners towards its new CMP line-up, congenital from off-cut GPUs non fit for gaming consumption, while supposedly leaving more GeForce cards for gamers. Information technology didn't stop the card from selling out of form.
With a decent generation-on-generation improvement and plenty of speed at 1080p and 1440p, the RTX 3060 12GB is a graphics bill of fare easily argued for.
It'south also nominally cheaper than the RTX 2060 was on launch day, though information technology'due south not so like shooting fish in a barrel to discover it equally a detached number present. That said, this card often crops upwards within pre-built gaming PCs, and for a decent toll all-inclusive likewise.
The RTX 3060 Ti remains the mid-range champion. The Nvidia RTX 3060 strays a little too far from the pack of high-end Ampere to have the same impact generation on generation. Just in that same breath, it must be said that the RTX 3060 is a fine upgrade for a 10-series or older bill of fare, especially if at close to the MSRP, and one that will likely run across you confidently through the next few years of major game releases.
Read our full Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 12GB review (Zotac Twin Edge).
There is no graphics card under $300 that we would recommend bar the GeForce RTX 3050. Though it didn't take much to defeat AMD'south Radeon RX 6500 XT. The RTX 3050 is withal a difficult GPU to recommend heartily, still, as it's neither readily available nor as cheap every bit it should be.
The RTX 3050 is a much smaller GPU than the RTX 3060 12GB, and like any good PC gamer, nosotros would recommend the larger chip. That said, if you can't stretch your upkeep any farther, the RTX 3050 will deliver GTX 1660 Ti performance with the benefit of DLSS.
That ways yous're getting a graphics card that can handle 1080p at decent settings nearly of the fourth dimension, although some titles will push you well below the 60fps goal many of u.s. aim for. And while this may be the most affordable Nvidia graphics card of this generation, it'south withal a hefty chunk of cash when yous can't just whack everything on full and enjoy your game of choice the way it was meant to exist played.
There's likewise support for ray tracing with the RTX 3050, though its weak-heart innards aren't going to stand for much of that.
Where we wanted at to the lowest degree RTX 2060 operation, nosotros ended upwardly with GTX 1660 Ti frame rates with a piddling RTX frosting on summit. Sure, that's tasty where it sticks, but is another example of a card designed and priced within the limits of a pandemic and a GPU shortage, rather than showing off Nvidia'south silicon wizardry to its fullest.
Equally the basis of a prebuilt gaming PC, the RTX 3050 is the better choice of what'southward out there on a tight budget. That said, you tin find actually good RTX 3060 12GB PC deals fairly regularly, and with a footling patience, you lot may exist able to grab a much more than capable graphics card.
Read our full Nvidia GeForce RTX 3050 review (Gigabyte Eagle).
Graphics menu FAQ
How do I become a GPU in the the graphics bill of fare shortage?
Fifty-fifty though prices are starting to drop downwardly to normal levels, it'due south nonetheless difficult to observe cards in stop for long periods of time. You could endeavour to manually refresh every shop folio in the hopes of hit gold on the adjacent restock; that's one manner to go about it. Or, you lot could sign upward for a trusty app that goes almost trawling major retailers for you. Information technology's not a bot that tries to snap upwards stock the wrong way; it just does the refreshing, so you don't have to.
We've had success with the app HotStock in the UK, and sites such equally Stock Informer offer a similar service in the US, although we've not used this service to score stock personally.
Similarly, you tin find plenty of complimentary Discord servers with dedicated stock alert bots and eagle-eyed customs members, such as the popular StockDrops server.
And don't forget Twitch streams. Those dedicated to finding your stock will often burn down out a deafening klaxon the moment stock appears. We recommend checking out Falcodrin on Twitch for Nvidia GPUs, but there are plenty of kind souls out at that place offering a similar service.
Is in that location an easy way to become a new graphics card?
It'southward not for everyone, but the best manner to ensure you'll receive a graphics card this year, and a modern one at something close to MSRP, is to buy a prebuilt gaming PC. Information technology'southward a worthy consideration if you're considering a total rebuild at some point in the time to come, at to the lowest degree. System builders appear to enjoy a more stable supply of graphics cards, and while some withal await delays, you are at least guaranteed a PC with GPU in situ somewhen.
Which is amend GTX or RTX?
The older GTX prefix is at present used to announce older Nvidia graphics cards which don't have the extra AI and ray tracing silicon that the RTX-level cards do. This RTX prefix was introduced 3 years ago with the RTX twenty-series, and highlights which cards accept GPUs which sport both the Tensor Cores and RT Cores necessary for existent-time ray tracing and Deep Learning Super Sampling.
Is ray tracing just for RTX cards?
The RTX prefix is only used to denote cards which house Nvidia GPUs with dedicated ray tracing hardware, but they are still using the same DirectX Raytracing API Microsoft has created, and which is used past AMD's RDNA 2 GPUs. These AMD GPUs are able to suport real-time ray tracing, though with a higher performance impact than on Nvidia'due south GPUs.
Intel's upcoming Xe-HPG GPUs, with the Alchemist graphics cards get-go to use them, will likewise back up ray tracing using Microsoft's DirectX Raytracing API when they launch early next year, also.
Is SLI or CrossFire notwithstanding a affair?
If yous're looking for maximum performance, you lot used to run two cards in SLI or CrossFire. Still, it'south become increasingly mutual for major games to ignore multi-GPU users completely. That includes all DXR games. In that location'southward likewise the fact that fewer of the adjacent-gen cards actually support the linking of two cards. On the Nvidia side, but the $1,500 RTX 3090 comes with NVLink connections, just for creative apps.
So, no. It'south not a matter.
Exercise I need a 4K capable graphics card?
The obvious answer is: Simply if you take a 4K gaming monitor. But there are other things to consider hither, such as what kinds of games practise you play? If frame rates are absolutely king for you, and y'all're into ultra-competitive shooters, then you desire to be aiming for super high fps figures. And, right now, you're meliorate placed to practise that at either 1440p or 1080p resolutions.
That said, the more games, such equally CoD: Warzone that incorporates DLSS, the more Nvidia cards will be capable of making a close approximation of 4K visuals on your 4K monitor, only at higher frame rates.
What's a Founders Edition graphics card?
The Founders Edition cards are just Nvidia'due south in-business firm designs for its graphics cards, as opposed to those designed by its partners. These are ordinarily reference cards, meaning they run at stock clocks.
Briefly, for the RTX 20-serial, Nvidia decided to offering Founders Editions with manufacturing plant overclocks. These had made it a fiddling difficult to compare cards, as Founders Edition cards give us a baseline for performance, just Nvidia has since returned to producing them as reference again.
Source: https://www.pcgamer.com/the-best-graphics-cards/
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