Deeper Dive: Our Top Tested Picks
Best Budget AMD Graphics Card
AMD Radeon RX 7600
Pros & Cons
Effective performance at 1080p resolution
Competitively priced
8GB of GDDR6
Compact design in reference board suggests compact partner-card designs are possible
Poor performance above 1080p
Lackluster showing in legacy games
Specs & Configurations
Graphics Processor
AMD Navi 33
GPU Base Clock
2250 MHz
GPU Boost Clock
2625 MHz
Graphics Memory Type
GDDR6
Graphics Memory Amount
8 GB
HDMI Outputs
1
DisplayPort Outputs
3
Number of Fans
2
Card Width
double
Card Length
8 inches
Board Power or TDP
165 watts
Power Connector(s)
1 8-pin
Why We Picked It
The Radeon RX 7600 is currently the lowest-end member of AMD’s Radeon RX 7000 series. This makes it one of the newest graphics cards to be considered a budget option and one of the few current-generation cards under $300. Its use of the new RDNA 3 graphics architecture enables it to perform better and more efficiently than the last-gen Radeon RX 6000-series cards, and it comes loaded with 8GB of graphics memory, making it exceptional for 1080p gaming.
Who It’s For
There’s very little to criticize about the Radeon RX 7600. At its introduction price, it is the least expensive graphics card in AMD’s modern Radeon RX 7000 series, and its performance while running games at 1080p resolutions is excellent. As a budget option, it should be one of the cards you most strongly consider if you can afford it. Note, however, that its performance drops quickly as you up the resolution, and this card should not be used for gaming at 4K. Gaming at 1080p is the decided sweet spot.
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AMD Radeon RX 7600 Review
Best Budget Nvidia Graphics Card
Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060
Pros & Cons
Excellent ray-tracing performance for a lower-cost card
Supports DLSS 3
8GB of video memory
Competitive price
Lackluster performance at higher resolutions
Some issues running older games
Specs & Configurations
Graphics Processor
Nvidia AD107
GPU Base Clock
1830 MHz
GPU Boost Clock
2505 MHz
Graphics Memory Type
GDDR6
Graphics Memory Amount
8 GB
HDMI Outputs
1
DisplayPort Outputs
3
Number of Fans
2
Card Width
double
Card Length
9 inches
Board Power or TDP
115 watts
Power Connector(s)
1 8-pin
Why We Picked It
As a member of the Nvidia GeForce RTX 40 series, the GeForce RTX 4060 features support for key modern PC-gaming technologies, including DLSS 3 and ray tracing. It’s also one of the fastest cards in its price range and highly efficient, making it a standout option in the current-generation gaming-card market.
Who It’s For
The GeForce RTX 4060 performs exceedingly well at running games at 1080p and has a modern feature set. Arguably, in one sense of the word, it is the best budget graphics card that money can buy on pure performance. At $299, however, it barely qualifies as a budget card and is really only an option for those who can afford to spend a little more. It’s a safe option in the budget market if you worry that the other budget cards won’t be fast enough or have a long enough shelf life for emerging games. Beware that its 4K gaming experience is relatively poor, however, and this should not be considered a budget option for gaming at higher resolutions. Keep it at 1080p, and you’ll be very, very happy.
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Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 Review
Best Budget Intel Graphics Card
Intel Arc A580
Pros & Cons
Excellent price point
Speedy performance for price
Impressive ray-tracing performance
Sizable factory overclock
Now stable!
Relatively high power consumption
Lackluster performance in older titles
Specs & Configurations
Graphics Processor
Intel Arc A580
GPU Base Clock
1700 MHz
Graphics Memory Type
GDDR6
Graphics Memory Amount
8 GB
HDMI Outputs
1
DisplayPort Outputs
3
Number of Fans
2
Card Width
double
Card Length
10.7 inches
Board Power or TDP
185 watts
Power Connector(s)
2 8-pin
Why We Picked It
Intel’s Arc A580 is a surprisingly capable graphics card that costs less than $200. In our in-house testing, it ran most games at playable frame rates with maxed-out graphics settings and the resolution set to 1080p. Highly demanding games, like Returnal with ray tracing, also ran at playable speeds on the Arc A580, while other, more demanding games like Cyberpunk 2077 fell just short.
Who It’s For
The Arc A580 is a competent option for running many games at 1080p resolution and with maximized detail settings, including ray tracing. It’s arguably one of the fastest cards you can buy for under $200, making it an excellent option for cash-strapped PC gamers. Anything notably more potent than this card costs at least $100 additional.
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Intel Arc A580 Review
Best Last-Gen Budget AMD Graphics Card
AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT
Pros & Cons
Performance a bit below its price class in most titles
High MSRP in test sample versus AMD’s reference specs and pricing
Only a modest overclock applied out of box
No significant performance gains with manual overclocking
Specs & Configurations
Graphics Processor
AMD Navi 23 XT
GPU Base Clock
1968 MHz
GPU Boost Clock
2607 MHz
Graphics Memory Type
GDDR6
Graphics Memory Amount
8 GB
HDMI Outputs
1
DisplayPort Outputs
3
Number of Fans
3
Card Width
double
Card Length
11.1 inches
Board Power or TDP
160 watts
Power Connector(s)
1 8-pin
Why We Picked It
Unlike most under-$250 graphics cards today, the Radeon RX 6600 XT stands out. Most cards below $250 were purpose-built as budget options, while the rest are relatively old and outdated. The Radeon RX 6600 XT was designed as a precisely midrange solution. It’s also relatively recent, supporting the latest graphics features, including ray tracing. Once priced at $379, these cards are now less than $250, where they persist as some of the fastest budget graphics cards.
Who It’s For
Though highly capable, Radeon RX 6600 XT graphics cards are also in a precarious position in the card market. They may be some of the fastest budget graphics cards, but also some of the more expensive ones, depending on the model you look at and the reseller on a given day. The Radeon RX 6600 XT is a fine option if you want to run games at 1080p with high graphics settings and are worried that sub-$200 options won’t quite cut it. However, you should also look closely at midrange cards like the Radeon RX 7600 and the GeForce RTX 4060, which deliver far more performance for just a little more money, in most cases. The RX 6600 XT makes more sense the closer the model you’re looking at is to $200 versus $250.
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AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT Review
Best Last-Gen Budget Nvidia Graphics Card
Nvidia GeForce RTX 3050
Pros & Cons
Compact, twin-fan design
Full array of video ports in our test sample
Good price-to-performance ratio for its segment
Strong results in ray-tracing benchmarks
High overclock ceiling
Not as far ahead of AMD’s Radeon RX 6500 XT in some tests as we would have hoped
Relatively high power consumption for its class
Specs & Configurations
Graphics Processor
Nvidia Ampere GA106
GPU Base Clock
1552 MHz
GPU Boost Clock
1777 MHz
Graphics Memory Type
GDDR6
Graphics Memory Amount
8 GB
HDMI Outputs
1
DisplayPort Outputs
3
Number of Fans
2
Card Width
double
Card Length
7.94 inches
Board Power or TDP
130 watts
Power Connector(s)
1 8-pin
Why We Picked It
Nvidia’s GeForce RTX 3050 is a relatively capable graphics solution designed for 1080p gaming. It also has impressive ray-tracing performance and supports DLSS 2.0. Most important, it’s one of the few Nvidia graphics cards below $250. Though you’ll find a few other choices, like the Nvidia GeForce GTX 1650, the RTX 3050 simply outclasses them in every way while costing slightly more, making it an unquestionably better option than any of the fading GTX crowd.
Who It’s For
If you want a budget Nvidia graphics card, this is just about the only sensible option available below the RTX 4060. It’s not well-suited for playing games at higher resolutions, but that’s true of most budget graphics cards today. What it can do, however, is deliver a fast 1080p ray-traced gaming experience without blowing out your savings. Get this option if you are partial to Nvidia and want to take advantage of DLSS 2.0 and ray tracing.
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Nvidia GeForce RTX 3050 Review
Best Ultra-Budget Graphics Card for Gaming
AMD Radeon RX 6500 XT
Pros & Cons
1080p performance on par, in most games, with cards of similar list price
Performance tier isn’t attractive to cryptocurrency miners
RT cores unnecessary due to low performance
Outrun by GTX 1650 Super on several tests
Runs hot compared with similar cards
Specs & Configurations
Graphics Processor
AMD Navi 24
GPU Base Clock
1717 MHz
GPU Boost Clock
2815 MHz
Graphics Memory Type
GDDR6
Graphics Memory Amount
4 GB
HDMI Outputs
1
DisplayPort Outputs
1
Number of Fans
2
Card Width
double
Card Length
7.56 inches
Board Power or TDP
107 watts
Power Connector(s)
1 6-PIN
Why We Picked It
AMD built the Radeon RX 6500 XT as a budget graphics card, and it shows clear signs of this. It has a limited 64-bit memory interface and a relatively small graphics core, with fewer shaders than most other competing options. These shortcomings, though, are partly countered by high clock speeds, and the RX 6500 XT was surprisingly capable in our testing. Though it is unquestionably a low-end card, it is one of the best options at its price and one of the least-expensive graphics cards that we would recommend.
Who It’s For
The Radeon RX 6500 XT will be most appealing to anyone looking for something to game with for the lowest price possible. It competes closely with Intel’s Arc A380 in terms of both price and performance, and both are worthwhile options in the bottom-dollar gaming market. If you can spare a few more bucks for a better graphics card, however, you’ll find more capable options available for just a little more cash.
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AMD Radeon RX 6500 XT Review
Best Basic Display Adapter
Intel Arc A380
Pros & Cons
Aggressive budget pricing
Quiet during use
Modest power consumption
Uninspired performance in our gaming test suite
Not stable in some games we tried
Some DirectX 11 games will present challenges to launch and run
Specs & Configurations
Graphics Processor
Intel Arc A380
GPU Base Clock
2250 MHz
Graphics Memory Type
GDDR6
Graphics Memory Amount
6 GB
HDMI Outputs
1
DisplayPort Outputs
3
Number of Fans
1
Card Width
double
Card Length
7.4 inches
Board Power or TDP
75 watts
Power Connector(s)
1 8-pin
Why We Picked It
The Intel Arc A380 is one of the lowest-priced graphics cards we’ve seen launch in recent years. This made it a natural inclusion in this list, as it remains one of the most affordable options today. The card contains a lot of video memory for its price (6GB of VRAM) and supports ray tracing. However, that’s about the extent of our reasoning behind this pick. It’s an upgrade from integrated graphics, or a card to buy if you have to have a video card, but not for gaming or GPU accelerated-programs.
Who It’s For
Though it drives performance that is a clear step above what you can expect from an integrated graphics processor (IGP), this GPU isn’t ideal for straight gaming. However, it’s an acceptable option if your PC lacks an IGP and you simply need something to connect to a display, or if you need more or different ports than your IGP solution provides. The Arc A380 is among the fastest graphics cards in its price range and can suffice for older games, but it’s better thought of as a display adapter than much of a gaming accelerator.
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Intel Arc A380 Review
Buying Guide: The Best Budget Graphics Cards for 2024
Before continuing, it’s important to define what we consider a budget graphics card for this article. What a “budget card” is likely varies for many of you, but we consider any graphics card sold for less than $300 a budget option. This price was partly picked in line with AMD’s Radeon RX 7600 and Nvidia’s GeForce RTX 4060. These represent the least-expensive options in AMD and Nvidia’s current respective lineups and, thus, are the most budget-friendly options that aren’t officially last-generation products.
(Credit: Michael Justin Allen Sexton)
Indeed, times have changed, and the old $200 price line that used to define newly released budget cards is now closer to $300. Even the $300 price point removes many cards from consideration, but it still leaves a fair number of models to consider. Most of these tend to come from the previous generation of graphics cards, but occasionally, we see newer models in the budget market, too.Key Features: What to Expect in a Budget Graphics CardNext, we should discuss some key features you should pay attention to. First, and arguably most important, is ray-tracing support. Some would argue that lower-end, budget, and mainstream cards are not powerful enough to run games with ray-traced graphics to start with. This argument is largely unfounded and shows a misunderstanding of the technology.
(Credit: Michael Justin Allen Sexton)
The use of ray tracing in games is unquestionably demanding, but like most graphics features, how demanding depends on several variables. For one, ray tracing can typically be set to low, medium, or high levels, with each step increasing the workload. The resolution at which you render games also impacts the work required to produce ray-traced graphics. It’s also important to remember that ray tracing only runs on specialized hardware.
(Credit: Michael Justin Allen Sexton)
This last point is particularly important: If you have ray tracing disabled, then the hardware inside your graphics cards that would accelerate ray-traced graphics sits idle. When it is enabled, most of the increased workload is placed on these ray accelerators, which ultimately means that enabling ray tracing could have a small or even negligible impact on performance in some scenarios. This is particularly true if you enable ray tracing only in its lowest possible setting at a low resolution such as 720p or 1080p.At the same time, enabling ray tracing, even at a low level, typically improves image quality noticeably. Given the choice, it is almost always better to buy a graphics card that supports ray tracing than one that does not so that you can take advantage of this feature when possible. Most new graphics cards have this feature built-in nowadays, but on the budget market, you still need to be careful, as several options do not.Next, you’ll likely see some amount of discussion on upscaling technologies, like AMD’s FSR, Intel’s XeSS, and Nvidia’s DLSS. These features are beneficial, but we wouldn’t suggest paying more especially to get them. A key reason for this is that AMD’s FSR is universal and can be used on virtually all modern cards today, which gives you access to the feature in many games.With modern Nvidia cards, you also get access to DLSS, which arguably delivers better image quality than FSR. However, the primary purpose of these features is to boost performance, and in that regard, they tend to perform relatively similarly in most games. Nvidia also has DLSS 3 on its Nvidia RTX 40-series and newer cards, but this feature tends to work better on high-end cards and depends heavily on how much extra power your video card has available. As a result, it tends to be less useful on budget-friendly cards and shouldn’t strongly influence your purchasing decision.Thermal Performance and Card DesignThe physical design of a graphics card sometimes gets too much attention and, at other times, too little. Undoubtedly, having an edgy aesthetic and RGB LEDs helps some graphics cards stand out, but it’s important to remember that these factors won’t help performance. It won’t hurt to pay a little more for a graphics card that you find more aesthetically pleasing, but you shouldn’t go overboard here or let it determine what actual level of GPU you buy if money is tight. If you have a choice, features and GPU power should win out over snazzy lights every time.
(Credit: Michael Justin Allen Sexton)
A more important trait of the exterior of a graphics card is its thermal hardware, which, unlike aesthetics, has a significant impact on performance. Typically, the thicker a graphics card’s thermal solution is, and the more fans it has, the better the performance potential it has (the actual GPU being the same, of course). This is not always the case, as you’ll find factors you typically can’t see, like the design of the heat pipes, the mounting pad, or the voltage regulator module (VRM) and RAM cooling. That said, more fans and a bulkier design in the same product family with the same GPU from a card maker typically means more thermal leeway.You’ll also want to make sure that any card you buy fits—physically, that is—in the system you are buying it for. Your PC case sets an inherent limit on how large a graphics card you can buy. So long as the card still fits, bigger is often better in this department.Budget Graphic Card Essentials: Power and ConnectionsGraphics cards that fall into the budget segment of the market tend to be less power-hungry than mainstream and high-end options. This means that you won’t have to worry about power consumption quite as much, but you still need to keep an eye on it to ensure that the card you buy is compatible with your PC. A low-end power supply may not be able to handle some graphics cards, and this is particularly true if you are upgrading a pre-built PC.Determining if a graphics card works with your power supply is straightforward. First, you’ll need to look at your power supply and see what peak power rating, in watts, it has written on it. All graphics-card manufacturers list a minimum recommended power-supply wattage for each card. So long as your power supply matches that minimum or tops it, you should be good to go unless your system is kitted out with an unusual loadout of extra power-consuming internal components. The number listed for graphics cards tends to be a little exaggerated to be safe, so technically, you can get by with a bit less. But for safety, we recommend sticking with what the manufacturer says. As noted, the biggest hurdle typically arises with prebuilt PCs, some of which can have weak 300-watt or lesser PSUs.
(Credit: Michael Justin Allen Sexton)
The other thing you’ll need to watch for in terms of power is the power connections. Most budget graphics cards have either six-pin or eight-pin power connectors along the card’s edge. Many budget cards have one connector, but some may require a pair, and the very lowest-end may have none, drawing all the power they need through the motherboard PCI Express socket. You’ll need to have the same free connections on your power supply, which is again easiest confirmed by simply looking at the power supply and its free power leads or strands, if any. Some Nvidia cards feature a different single proprietary power connector (dubbed 12VHPWR), but should you buy such a card, it will come with a cable adapter to make it work with the standard six-pin and eight-pin power connections.
(Credit: Michael Justin Allen Sexton)
In terms of graphics outputs, you’ll simply want to sync up what monitor or monitors you intend to power with what’s on the card’s backplane. Most mainstream monitors nowadays rely on HDMI or DisplayPort, and it’s dealer’s choice, for the most part, which one you use with a budget graphics card. (Most cards come with one HDMI and several DisplayPorts, the number sometimes dictated by the card’s thickness.) But if you want to delve into the HDMI-versus-DisplayPort matter deeper, we have an explainer.Ready to Buy the Right Budget Graphics Card for You?Ultimately, the best GPU you can buy depends on your desires and budget, as well as the monitor you’ll attach it to. The lowest-end cards that we have listed are capable gaming cards, but only if you are interested in playing older games. You’ll have a great time playing games more than five years old, and for some, that’s enough.The more capable options we’ve listed as budget cards (the ones from $250 to $300) provide significantly more gaming performance and better overall value. They’ll allow for smooth gaming at 1080p and high detail settings. (For details on that, dig into the individual reviews and see how these cards did in specific games.) We’d push most people toward these options. They can play modern games well, with a reasonable chance that they’ll still be good, viable cards three or four years down the road. For anything more robust than that, you’re in the $300-plus zone; check out our main best graphics cards of 2024 roundup.
