When building a gaming PC or looking to buy a gaming PC, a Graphics card is the most important component and also the costliest component in the PC. In this GPU buying guide, I will tell you how to choose the right GPU.
There are various types of GPUs/Graphics cards or Video cards. GPU in the short form is mainly used for Graphical Processing Unit.
There are GPUs for AI or data center uses, GPUs for mainstream PCs or Gaming PCs, Integrated Graphics, and Dedicated/mobile graphics cards used in laptops.
We’ll talk about desktop GPU or discrete graphics cards. Generally, we all know these consumer-grade graphics brands as the most famous in the gaming industry are Nvidia graphics card and AMD graphics card.
While Intel which is known for its CPU brand started making discrete graphics cards for gaming and streaming purposes, Intel graphics card is very new in the GPU market and it will take time to grow.
Current generation graphics cards by Nvidia are RTX 40 series GPUs, AMD has RX 7000 series graphics cards, and Intel has its ARC Alchemist series GPUs.
Graphics card prices always fluctuate due to supply and demand. Other than Gaming, Desktop GPUs can also be used for video editing, machine learning, Mining, AI model training, and other graphics-intensive tasks.
Things to Remember Before Buying a GPU
What are the things you have to remember before buying a graphics card? let’s discuss –
Note- Before buying your graphics card always adhere to GPU benchmarks and GPU comparison which will help you a lot whether it’s price-to-performance or other aspects of graphics card performance.
1. Budget
You may be new to building a Gaming PC or want to upgrade your graphics card from the old one. The right budget for graphics cards will save you from putting extra holes in your wallet.
If you are new to gaming PC or building a gaming PC you have to manage your budget accordingly as there are other PC components you have to buy.
The graphics card is the most expensive component of your gaming PC. So setting a budget correctly will help you look for other PC components of good quality instead of cheaping out on them.
If you are upgrading from the old one, you have to look for performance uplift of the new graphics card against the old one and the price differences and then set a budget accordingly.
GPU comparisons and GPU benchmarks will help you figure out which GPU you have to look for. Graphics card prices mainly range from $200 to $2000 and above.
If you don’t have enough budget, you can also consider buying a used graphics card but always verify the seller and the product because buying a second-hand GPU can be a risk.
2. Right CPU combination
If you’re building a new PC, the right CPU and GPU combo is important otherwise you will face bottleneck either with CPU or GPU.
Intel core i5 and AMD Ryzen 5 CPUs with budget graphics cards and mid-range graphics cards like RTX 3060, RX 6600, RX 7600, RX 7700 XT, RTX 4060, RTX 4060 Ti, and RTX 4070 graphics cards are a good combination.
Intel core i7/i9 and Ryzen 7/9 can be coupled with Mid-range and High-End graphics cards like RTX 4070, RTX 4070 super, RTX 4080, RTX 4090, RX 7800 XT, RX 7900 XTX.
You may see the CPU and GPU combination like Ryzen 7 7800X3D/i9 13900K and RTX 4060/RX 7600 or Ryzen 5/ i5 with RTX 4080 or RX 7900 XTX in youtube benchmark videos.
Those are for benchmark purposes to check out CPU and GPU potential so don’t get confused by that.
3. Motherboard Compatibility
You may have a question about Motherboard compatibility with GPU. Is this an issue to remember? Actually yes.
From RTX 30-series onwards for Nvidia and RX 5000 series onward for AMD, they have PCI-e 4.0 x16 connectivity, and Intel ARC Alchemist also supports PCI-e 4.0 x16.
Well, older motherboards only support PCI-e 3.0 x16 whether it is an Intel motherboard or AMD Motherboard. The new norm started with the AMD 500 series and Intel 500 series motherboards for PCI-e 4.0.
So if you have any older motherboards and you are buying any RTX 30 or 40 series cards / RX 5000, 6000, or 7000 series graphics cards; you won’t able to fully utilize your GPU potential, though they have backward compatibility.
You must have a motherboard that supports PCI-e 4.0 for these graphics cards to run at full potential.
4. Power supply and PC Case
The next thing you have to check is the Power supply. Will your Power supply be able to supply enough power to run your graphics card?
If not then you have to buy a power supply that will able to handle your graphics card and other PC components like CPU, RAM, etc.
You also have to look for power connectors that come with a power supply and does your power supply has the correct type of power connectors like 12VHPWR or 16-pin for higher-end RTX 40 series Nvidia cards.
For AMD, Intel, and Mid-Range Nvidia cards, up to 4x 8-pin power connectors are compatible.
The other thing you have to keep in mind is the PC case. Does your PC case have enough space to accommodate your graphics card?
The normal Gaming PC cases can support Graphics cards of lengths of up to 320mm while graphics cards especially custom-designed ones can be up to 360mm in length. So keep that in mind to check for graphic card dimensions.
5. Don’t rely on overclocking
If you are going to buy a custom design or 3rd Party vendor graphics card, there isn’t any room for overclocking as they were already factory overclocked.
For example, the RTX 4070 is less powerful than the RTX 4070 super, if you try to overclock your RTX 4070 you will barely see any difference in performance, in most cases only 5-10%, and will consume more power and produce more heat which may affect your GPU health.
If you want a more powerful card then buy a powerful graphics card which will be much better.
6. Monitor Resolution and Refresh Rate
What type of gaming monitor resolution do you have and what is its refresh rate? Budget graphics cards and mainstream or Mid-range graphics cards can run games at 1080p and 1440p resolution.
For 4k gaming you need to buy a high-end graphics card, if you have a 4k monitor to display those frames. You also have to check your monitor refresh rate.
If you buy a graphics card that can push around 140+ FPS and your monitor refresh rate is 60Hz, you won’t be able to see or enjoy those smooth framerates gaming.
If you buy a graphics card that can run games at 1080p 60 FPS but you have a 1440p or 4k gaming monitor with high refresh rates, you won’t be able to enjoy those games.
How to Choose a GPU Vendor?
There are mainly three main Graphics card brands for desktops which are the Big 3 in the gaming industry; Nvidia, AMD, and Intel for now. Intel is kind of new in the GPU-making sector.
Nvidia has the biggest market share in the Graphics cards business whether it’s consumer market, AI sector, or data center uses.
AMD also makes consumer graphics cards and graphics cards for business purposes similar to Nvidia. Its market share is rising due to AI-blooming.
Intel is new in the discrete graphics card-making sector for consumers but makes business-grade graphics cards for data centers.
They all have 3rd-Party vendors who have partnered with respected brands like Asus, MSI, Gigabyte, Colorful, etc.
Which Graphics card brand to choose?
Nvidia
Nvidia is the Apple of the Graphics card market, Most of the GPU market share is dominated by Nvidia whether it is on the consumer market, AI, datacenter, or other business purposes.
Nvidia is known for its class, It makes the most powerful GPU in every generation till now which is RTX 4090. They target mostly the mid-range segment and high-end segment market.
Their Graphics cards are known for reliability, performance, and power efficiency and come with many perks like DLSS (Deep Learning Super Sampling), DLSS 2, DLSS 3 Frame Generation, DLSS 3.5 Ray Reconstruction, DLAA (Deep learning Anti Aliasing), and many more.
DLSS is the upscaling feature that upscales lower-resolution images to higher-resolution images by doing that it improves the gaming performance, reducing load on the GPU to render native-resolution images.
A lots of games today supports DLSS 2 and 3 which is great and helpful in its own way though Nvidia’s features are limited to their RTX series cards only.
Nvidia graphics cards are always good at ray tracing and overall performance compared to AMD though their graphics cards cost more than AMD.
Nvidia’s latest line of graphics cards are RTX 40 series, and the previous lineup was the RTX 30 series. If you want to buy a Nvidia GPU you should focus on getting RTX 30 series and RTX 40 Series graphics cards.
You should also remember that not all graphics cards are worth buying due to their performance uplifts compared to an older generation.
Nvidia graphics cards range from $292 which is for their mid-range segment, RTX 4060 to $2259 for their enthusiast-level graphics card, RTX 4090,
Nvidia has already announced their next generation, RTX 50 series graphics card according to the rumors RTX 50 series cards will be a beast and may cost you a kidney.
AMD
AMD is the android of the GPU market, It targets mostly the mid-range segment market though it has some graphics cards that compete with Nvidia on the higher-end side.
AMD mostly focuses on price-per-performance though with the current-gen AMD GPUs it is not the case. They have also elevated their graphics card prices compared to the previous gen.
RX 7000 series graphics cards are the latest lineup and RX 6000 series graphics cards are the previous generation cards,
The performance uplift of the RX 7000 series on mid-range cards is not much compared to the RX 6000 series in their previous gen.
AMD also offers features similar to Nvidia, like FSR, FSR 2.0, and FSR 3.0, as opposed to Nvidia DLSS 2, DLSS 3, and DLSS 3.5. AMD FSR (FidelityFX Super Resolution) is a counter to Nvidia DLSS, AMD has Fluid motion frames against Nvidia Frame Generation.
AMD FSR 2.0 is now supported by many games but FSR 3 is integrated into very few games and integration is slow. The advantage of FSR is, it is supported by other brand graphics cards like Nvidia and Intel.
However, AMD doesn’t have other features like Nvidia, such as Ray reconstruction, DLAA, Shadow Play, etc. Ray tracing performance is worse than Nvidia, but in pure rasterization, AMD is neck to neck with Nvidia and sometimes even bested Nvidia.
AMD graphics cards are much more affordable than Nvidia and offer more VRAM as games released after 2020 often consume more VRAM which will help you in future-proofing and their GPU efficiency has also improved quite a lot.
AMD’s Latest generation RX 7000 series cards start from $250 for budget/mid-range RX 7600 and go up to $1150 for their high-end RX 7900 XTX graphics cards.
Intel
Intel is quite new in the consumer market for discrete graphics cards. They introduced their ARC Alchemist lineup in the year 2022.
Their graphics cards mainly focus on a Budget segment with $110 for the ARC A310 and ranging to $400 for the ARC A770. They have faced many challenges regarding GPU driver issues which they have fixed and their GPU performance has improved quite a lot compared to their release date.
Intel ARC A770, A750, and A580 challenge to Nvidia RTX 3060, RTX 3060 ti, and RTX 4060 graphics card while on AMD’s side, it is RX 6500, RX 6600, and RX 7600.
Intel has its own version of DLSS or FSR which is XESS ( XE Super Sampling) though it is integrated into very few games and it only works on Intel ARC graphics cards.
Intel had problems with DX9 and DX11-based games but now they have somewhat solved this issue and are continuously working to make their drivers better and compatible with each new game.
Intel consumes more power against the competition to give the same performance.
Intel will soon release its next generation which is Battlemage GPUs, We will see how it will perform against the competition.
What to look for in a graphics card?
Graphics card Memory or VRAM – It is the most important. Earlier 6GB was sufficient for 1080p gaming but now even 8GB struggles to run some games at 1080p max settings but 8GB is still enough for 1080p gaming at high settings.
For 1440p gaming 12GB VRAM or more is sufficient and for 4K gaming 16GB or more is sufficient.
TDP – It is important as you need to have the right wattage of power supply to run a GPU and an entire PC. GPUs can draw power of 115W to up to 450W. All brands of GPUs consume power in between these while some custom design GPUs consume more.
Some GPU vendors name TDP (Thermal Design Power) and some TBP (Typical board power) or TGP(Total Graphics power). So picking the right Power Supply is also important.
A Good PSU with 80+ efficiency will handle your GPU and other PC components. It depends on what components you are using.
On avg. your CPU and other PC components consume 200-300W with GPU combined it will shoot up to 350W – 750W. So 650W to 850W PSU will able to handle your PC components (Stock settings).
Form Factors – It is also important that your graphics card dimensions will be able to fit in your PC case. Mainly GPUs are Dual slot and triple slot while some are Quad slot designs with lengths up to 360mm.
Always look for the length, height, and thickness of the Graphics card. GPUs come with a minimum of 200mm in length and a maximum of 360mm.
Most PC cases will be able to handle up to 340mm with some high-end cases that can accommodate up to 415mm length of GPUs.
Power Connector – You have to look for the power connector what type of connector does your graphics card have and is it compatible with your PSU cables?
All graphics cards use 75W from the PCI-e x16 lane with some requiring additional power especially mainstream and high-end graphics cards.
They require 6, 8, 12, and 16-pin connectors. AMD and Intel require 6 and 8-pin connectors while Nvidia requires 12 and 16-pin for high-end cards and 8-pin for mainstream graphics cards.
Ports – All graphics cards whether Intel, AMD, or Nvidia use HDMI and DP ports. You have to check for which type of HDMI or DP ports GPUs have and do they match your monitor ports.
AMD graphics cards use HDMI 2.1 and DP 2.1 ports while some GPUs also support USB-C ports. Intel GPUs use HDMI 2.1 and DP 2.0 and Nvidia GPUs use HDMI 2.1 and DP port 1.4a. However, there are Some GPU vendors that provide DVI ports also.
Verify your monitor outputs; Will it be compatible with your Graphics cards? and also look for cables and their versions. For example, HDMI 2.0 cables are required for HDMI 2.0 ports.
Clock Speed – You may see the differences in clocks for various GPU vendors among the same brands. Does Clock speed matter? somewhat.
GPU vendors have various variants of the same GPU with Stock and OC clocks the only differences between them are the cooling solution and a little bit of design and dimensions.
You will see only 3-5% performance differences in them due to higher clocks compared to stock clocks. You also have to look for thermal solutions in that particular vendor’s GPUs. Better cooling means better performance.
TFLOPS – TFLOPs (Trillions of Floating Operations per second) is the maximum theoretical performance of a GPU. It is calculated by GPU core count x Clock speed (GHz) x 2 (for Fuse Multiply Add Instructions, or FMA) equals in TFLOPS of a GPU.
It doesn’t mean much in gaming; however, if you are using it for AI or machine learning, the performance of a graphics card is directly related to the TFLOPS of a GPU.
Comparing the TFLOPS of a GPU within the same architecture tells us how much faster these GPUs are, and comparing them across architecture is not at all useful.
Cuda Cores/Shader/Stream Processors – It is the core count in GPUs that determines how much computing potential your GPU has. The more GPU cores the better the performance but within the same architecture.
You can’t compare RTX 4070 Cuda cores against RX 7700 XT Stream processors as both are of different architectures.
It doesn’t mean it is all there is for a GPU performance the other factors also count such as VRAM, Memory speed and bandwidth, and architecture.
Memory Speed and Bandwidth – Faster VRAM and Higher bandwidth do improve the Graphical performance of a video card, just like higher clocks.
However, new RTX 40 series graphics cards, especially mid-range cards have lower bandwidths compared to the previous gen; Even then these new cards are a little bit ahead in terms of performance.
This happens due to more L2/L3 cache, Even AMD uses this same method to compensate for lower bandwidth memories.
You must look for GPUs that have faster memory for Ex: RTX 4060 ti GDDR6 version and RTX 4060 Ti GDDR6X version. RTX 4060 Ti GDDR6X will perform a bit better than the GDDR6 version due to having faster memory and higher bandwidth.
Which graphics card should you choose for 1080p, 1440p, or 4K resolution?
You have to choose graphics cards according to your desired monitor resolution.
1080p Gaming Resolution
For 1080p gaming, you need a 1080p graphics card to run games at that resolution or get a 1080p gaming monitor.
1080p graphics cards or budget graphics cards are RTX 3060, RTX 3060 Ti, RTX 3050, and RTX 3070 for the RTX 30-series line; RTX 4060 and RTX 4060 Ti for the RTX 40-series for the Nvidia brand.
1080p graphics cards for AMD are RX 6600, RX 6700, RX 6700 XT, and RTX 6750 XT for RX 6000 series and for RX 7000 series: RX 7600 and RX 7600 XT.
Graphics cards that can run games at 1080p for Intel are ARC A580, ARC A750, and Arc A770. All these graphics cards can run games at 1080p High/Very high or even at Ultra settings.
You can turn down your settings to High for 60-100+ FPS on some games. These 1080p GPUs are even capable of running games at 1440p at med/High settings with 50-70 FPS. So buying a good 1080p High refresh rate monitor with these GPUs is a great match.
1440p (2K) Gaming Resolution
For 1440p gaming or 2K gaming, Get a 1440p graphics card and a 1440p Gaming Monitor to utilize that graphics card properly. Running a 1080p monitor with a 1440p graphics card will work but you will be CPU bound in most scenarios.
1440p graphics cards for Nvidia are RTX 3070 ti, RTX 3080, RTX 4070, RTX 4070 Super, RTX 4070 ti, and RTX 4070 Ti Super.
1440p graphics cards for AMD are RX 6750 XT, RX 6800 XT, RX 7700 XT, and RX 7800 XT. On the Intel side, only the ARC A770 Graphics card can run at both 1080p and 1440p resolution.
4K Gaming Resolution
4K graphics cards match well with 1440p High refresh rate gaming monitors, 1440p Ultrawide gaming monitors, and 4K High-End Gaming monitors.
4K graphics cards for 1080p gaming aren’t worth it as you will leave so much performance on the table. At 1080p, games are mostly limited by your CPU; but at 1440p and 4K, games utilize your graphics cards instead of taxing your CPU.
Some 1440p graphics cards can run games at 4K high settings or by tweaking some in-game graphical settings at playable framerates.
Also, remember to get a CPU that can handle your 4K graphics card otherwise, your system will face bottleneck. Intel Core i7 and i9 CPUs and AMD Ryzen 7 and 9 CPUs will be a good CPU and GPU combo.
4K graphics cards for Nvidia are RTX 4080 or RTX 4080 Super, and RTX 4090. AMD GPUs are RX 7800 XT, RX 7900 GRE, RX 7900 XT, and RX 7900 XTX. Intel doesn’t offer any high-end graphics cards.
Which is better Reference Design GPUs or 3rd Party Design GPUs?
First, we have to know what is Reference cards and 3rd party design cards. Reference cards are generally marketed by the GPU maker itself, like Nvidia’s Founder Edition designed by Nvidia and made by Nvidia.
AMD Reference cards are designed by AMD and made by 3rd party partners and Intel’s Limited Edition is designed by Intel and made by 3rd party partners.
So what are the differences?
The difference is that reference cards are simple in design with stock GPU clocks, power limits, and thermal solutions with more headroom for overclocking.
While 3rd Party design graphics cards are eye catchy with higher GPU clocks, Extreme OC mode, with RGB lighting, custom coolers, extra fans for cooling, and a bit high power limit.
This means custom design cards/3rd party designs are more expensive than reference cards. 3rd Party graphics cards come in different sizes from dual fan designs with 177mm to 240mm in length and Triple fan design cards are from 280mm to 360mm in length.
Also, remember you will see a single brand with a similar type of graphics card with a different name. For example, the MSI Ventus series Geforce RTX 4070 Ventus 3x E1 12G has 3 fans, while the Geforce RTX 4070 Ventus 2x E1 12G has 2 fans.
One is compact with a small cooler while the other is huge with a bigger cooler and more fans. Then there is the RTX 4070 Gaming Slim White 12G with a bit more costly than other ones due to the color white.
It is similar to smartphone naming schemes like Pro, ultra, and Ultra+ with no specification differences at all but differences in designs, GPU clocks, and better cooling solutions.
Which GPU Should I buy?
You also have to decide for what purpose you are buying a graphics card, Are you a gamer, content creator, or developer, or do you work with GPU-intensive software?
If you are in serious gaming and content creation and don’t want to spend more than $600 you should go for mid-range graphics cards with 12 GB and above VRAM.
If you are just a casual gamer, Budget graphics cards that can run games at 1080p high settings with decent framerates of 60 – 100 FPS with 8GB VRAM is sufficient for now but for future-proofing, you should lean towards 12GB VRAM graphics cards.
If you are a 4K gaming enthusiast, professional content creator, Professional game developer, Train AI, or do GPU-Intensive tasks; you should choose High-end graphics cards with a minimum of 16GB VRAM. Higher-end GPU prices are above $600 – $2000 and above.
Suppose you’re just learning game development or an engineering/medical student who does GPU-intensive tasks. In that case, you can buy Mainstream graphics cards like RTX 4060, RTX 4060 Ti, and from the AMD side RX 7600, RX 7600 XT, or previous generation GPUs that will be cheaper and get your job done.
My Suggestions
In my view, What GPU should you pick according to use cases and budget?
For 1080p gaming, the best budget graphics cards in the $200-$300 price range are AMD RX 6600 and RTX 3060 12GB from the previous gen.
Nvidia RTX 4060 and AMD RX 7600 are the mainstream budget GPUs in this price range. Intel graphics cards under $300 are the ARC A580, ARC A750, and ARC A770 which are good for 1080p gaming.
If you have a budget of $300-$450 then the Intel Arc A770 with better coolers, AMD RX 7600 XT, AMD RX 7700 XT, Nvidia RTX 4060 Ti 16GB will be a better choice.
For 1440p gaming, the best graphics card under $400 is AMD RX 7700 XT with 12GB VRAM, which is much cheaper than the RTX 4060 Ti 16GB and performs much better.
In the range of $400-$600 price, AMD RX 7800 XT is the best graphics card according to performance and price. From Nvidia’s side, It is the Geforce RTX 4070 Super although it is a bit costly; you will get better Ray tracing and Upscaling performance.
For 4K gaming, In the range of $600 – $800, you can get AMD’s RX 7900 XT and Nvidia’s RTX 4070 Ti Super. and If you increase the budget to $800 -$1000, AMD’s RX 7900 XTX and Nvidia’s RTX 4080 Super are great.
For someone who wants the absolute best, Nvidia’s RTX 4090 is for them an enthusiast-level graphics card.
FAQs
What is the best budget graphics card for 1080p gaming?
RX 7600 8GB is the best budget graphics card according to the performance and price.
Which is the best 1440p graphics card?
RX 7900 GRE is the best 1440p graphics card due to its performance and being much cheaper.
Which is better AMD graphics card or Nvidia Graphics card?
Nvidia does make the best graphics card on the higher-end but the price is off the charts but AMD focuses on mid-range. In the mid-range segment, AMD makes the best graphics cards due to price to performance ratio.
Each of them has its own perks Nvidia gives you performance and features AMD grants you cheaper Graphics cards with rasterization performance and slowing progress.