A buyer's guide from someone who builds PCs for customers. Six popular cards, what they do well, where they fall short, and which one I would pick for your budget.
| Card | Memory | Made for |
|---|---|---|
| Radeon RX 6500 XT | 4 GB GDDR6 | Very tight budgets, light gaming |
| GTX 1660 Super | 6 GB GDDR6 | Solid 1080p on a budget |
| RTX 2060 | 6 GB GDDR6 | 1080p with ray tracing and DLSS |
| RTX 3060 Ti | 8 GB GDDR6 | 1440p and video editing |
| Radeon RX 6600 XT | 8 GB GDDR6 | 1080p and 1440p, good value |
| Radeon RX 6650 XT | 8 GB GDDR6 | Quiet 1080p gaming builds |
A graphics card renders everything you see on screen. If you want high resolution, detailed visuals and smooth frame rates, it is the most important part of a gaming PC. But it does not work alone: the processor, RAM and storage also shape the final performance, so choose parts that are balanced and compatible. Video editing, graphic design and content creation benefit from a good GPU too.
VRAM is memory dedicated to the graphics card. It stores the data needed to draw images in real time, so more VRAM helps at higher resolutions and with heavy textures.
CUDA cores are NVIDIA's parallel processors. They speed up graphics, simulations and machine learning. AMD cards do not have CUDA cores; they use stream processors instead.
Clock frequency is how many cycles per second a chip completes, measured in Hz. Higher is usually faster, but only within the same architecture.
A budget card with 1024 shader units, 64 texture units and 32 ROPs. It supports DirectX 12 Ultimate and hardware ray tracing.
Base clock around 1530 MHz, boost up to 1785 MHz, and 336 GB/s of memory bandwidth. It has DisplayPort 1.4, HDMI 2.0b and DVI-D outputs, supports VR and several monitors, and is G-SYNC compatible.
Base clock around 1365 MHz, boost up to 1680 MHz on custom models. Handles 1080p well and 1440p at moderate settings.
Performs close to an RTX 3070 and well above the RTX 2060 Super. Outputs: HDMI 2.1 and three DisplayPort 1.4a. A power supply of at least 600 W is recommended.
My opinion: a great choice if you play a lot or edit video. The price is a little high, but it pays off if you also earn money with your PC.
Base clock around 1968 MHz. Outputs: DisplayPort 1.4 with DSC and HDMI 2.1 VRR. Supports Smart Access Memory and FidelityFX.
Released August 11, 2021 at $399. Base clock 2055 MHz, game clock 2410 MHz, boost 2635 MHz. Recommended power supply: 500 W. Supports DirectX 12_2, Vulkan 1.2 and OpenGL 4.6.
My opinion: a very good option for its performance and price. The RTX 3060 Ti is faster, but costs much more. It also pairs well with a Ryzen 5 5600G. Check current prices, which are lower than at launch.
The gaming experience matters most, but so does the budget. Do not forget the peripherals: an RTX 3060 Ti paired with a 30 Hz monitor will look like a much weaker card. That is a bottleneck, and removing it is part of a good build.
Do not overspend on a machine that will not pay for itself. If you only play, a top card is not essential. If you edit or stream on YouTube, Twitch or Kick and already earn from it, a strong PC gives your viewers a better experience.
Start with a Ryzen 5 5600G. Its integrated graphics run plenty of games, though frame rates drop. You save now and upgrade later. That is what I did, and I now use a Radeon RX 6650 XT alongside it: both AMD, and they work very well together.