When it comes to graphics cards, we go in full depth. Year after year, we test dozens of GPUs from Nvidia, AMD, and now Intel, to determine.
When it comes to GPUs and graphics cards, we go in full depth. Year after year, we test dozens of GPUs from Nvidia, AMD, and Intel, to determine which are worth your money and which are dead on arrival. To simplify the process of choosing a new graphics card, TechSpot’s guide to the best GPUs aims to answer one simple question:
Given a specific budget, which graphics card should you buy?
The current GPU generation is strong, but its cost is notably higher compared to previous years, leading to a perceived lack of value and consequently, lower levels of excitement. Regrettably, we don’t foresee a major change in this trend anytime soon, as GPU makers are prioritizing the production of higher margin data center and AI hardware.
It’s also important to note that the next generation of consumer/gaming GPUs won’t arrive until late 2024 or early 2025. That’s something to keep in mind for those deciding whether to wait for an upgrade or to purchase now. We have organized this guide from bottom to top, presenting our top GPU picks at each price point, starting from the most affordable options and working our way up to the most expensive one.
Starting with the most affordable graphics cards, you won’t find any latest generation GPUs in this segment. From AMD, you have the choice of the Radeon 6400 for $125, the Radeon 6500 XT at $140, the Radeon 6600 at $199, and the Radeon 6650 XT which exceeds our barrier slightly at $230.
From Nvidia, there’s the disappointing GTX 1630 at $135, the more appealing GTX 1650 at $165, the RTX 3050 at $180, the GTX 1660 Super at $190, and the GTX 1650 Super which is now running low on stock and priced at $240 is not very appealing, so you can ignore it.
Intel also offers two options in this price range: the Arc A580 at $180, and the Arc A750 at $200.
When looking at the lower-priced options, below $150: the RX 6400, 6500 XT, and GTX 1630, frankly they are all bad options. The Radeon 6500 XT sort of stands out as the least unsatisfactory among them. Despite being limited to PCIe 3.0, the Radeon 6500 XT is almost 70% faster than the GTX 1630 for a mere $5 extra. Both of those GPUs come with just 4GB of VRAM, making them unsuitable for high-end gaming. However, at the lowest quality settings and 1080p resolution, the Radeon 6500 XT can deliver 30+ fps in most modern games.
Generally speaking, we strongly advise to overlook these sub-$150 GPUs, as their performance is lackluster. Instead, the best choice is to add $50 more and buy the Radeon RX 6600. Compared to the 6500 XT and GTX 1630, the RX 6600 performs significantly better, offering 1.7x the performance of the 6500 XT and 3.6x that of the GTX 1630.
To put it another way, the Radeon RX 6600 is on average 78% faster than the 6500 XT and costs just 36% more. If you limit the 6500 XT to PCIe 3.0 instead of 4.0, the Radeon 6600’s performance advantage skyrockets to 127% faster.
Just as important, the 6500 XT has only 4GB of VRAM, while the Radeon RX 6600 comes with 8GB.
The Intel Arc A580 and Arc A750 GPUs are decent options. Priced similarly to the Radeon RX 6600, the Arc A750 generally performs a bit faster, while the A580 offers comparable performance at a slightly lower price.
We wouldn’t discard them as alternatives but it’s important to note that Arc GPUs require a system with Resizable BAR support to perform this well. Intel has also made significant progress on drivers, but we still tend to run into issues when benchmarking these GPUs across a wide range of games, especially new releases, and new updates to fix issues can take days or even weeks to become available.
The Radeon RX 6600 continues to be our #1 pick for budget builds, with Intel GPUs coming in as a secondary choice, with no real competition from Nvidia in this segment. The RTX 3050 is slower than the RX 6600 by a ~30% margin. The RTX 3050’s pricing also puts it in competition with the $230 Radeon 6650 XT, which is ~20% faster than the standard 6600, making the GeForce an absolute no-go.
If you want to buy a current generation GPU while spending as little as possible, your options are the Radeon RX 7600 and Intel Arc A770 for $279 or the GeForce RTX 4060 for $300.
