In this article, we’re going to take a look at some of the best graphics cards for gaming you can buy in 2022.
A graphics card is one of the important components of a gaming PC, if not the most. But just like most PC components, there’s no single GPU that works for everyone. While some users may want the absolute best GPU for the ultimate gaming experience on PC, others may want something that offers the best value, albeit less powerful. Many are even looking for the best budget graphics cards for a casual 1080p gaming experience. Well in this article, we’re going to take a look at some of the best graphics cards for gaming you can buy in 2022. We’ll try to add as many options as we possibly can in different price ranges, so there’s something for everyone. We’re totally aware of the current situation in the GPU market and just how difficult it is to buy any graphics cards — let alone the top-tier ones — without paying an absurd amount of money. We’re not out of the woods yet but it looks like the prices of both Nvidia and AMD GPU may finally be coming down. We’ve already seen some stocks pop up on retail, allowing more people to finally buy a graphics card in 2022. The situation is expected to get better over the next few months. And when that happens, we think these are the best graphics cards for gaming you should consider buying. Navigate this article: While the GeForce RTX 3080 may not be the most powerful graphics card on the market right now, it definitely is the cream of the crop. The RTX 3080 is an excellent GPU in the RTX 30-series lineup that’s perfectly capable of handling 4K gaming at 60FPS and above. The RTX 3080 has also made it to a lot of our other collection articles, including the best graphics cards and the best Nvidia graphics cards, so it’s hardly a surprise that we’ve added this as our top pick for gaming. The Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 sports the new and improved Ampere architecture. We’re looking at an overall performance improvement of over 30-percent when compared with its previous-gen counterpart, the RTX 2080 Ti. And the best thing about that? The RTX 3080 costs as much as $500 less, so you’re essentially getting more performance for less price. It even matches the general performance of the RTX 3090 without demanding as much money. Thanks to Ampere, we’re also looking at some other great Nvidia features including DLSS. DLSS 2.0 also works better thanks to the improved tensor cores on the RTX 3080. The RTX 3080 also offers impressive ray-tracing performance compared to the competition. This is mostly due to the improved DLSS performance. Nvidia has worked on DLSS a lot to improve the upscaling. The games look much better now and they offer a massive performance boost, especially when you are working with high-resolutions and RT rendering. It’s safe to say that the Nvidia RTX 3080 handily beast the Radeon RX 6800 XT when it comes to RT performance. There’s still a lot of work that needs to be done from AMD’s side when it comes to RT and upscaling, so we think Nvidia is going to continue holding the top until that happens. As for the specifications, the GeForce RTX 3080 packs 28.3 billion transistors along with 272 Tensor cores and 68 RT cores. We’re looking at a boost clock of 1,710MHz, which is slightly less than both the RTX 2080 Super FE and the RTX 2080 FE’s boost clock speeds of 1,815MHz and 1,800MHz, respectively. The Nvidia RTX 3080 also has 10GB VRAM with a 19GB/s speed. The RTX 3080 has a total bandwidth of 720GB/s, which is significantly higher than the other two GPUs mentioned above. All things considered, we think the GeForce RTX 3080 is one of the best graphics cards you can buy for gaming right now. This may be a step below the RTX 3090 but we think this is the best GPU for most users out there. It offers a great 4K gaming experience with smooth gameplay even with demanding titles like Cyberpunk 2077. Just make sure you pair with one of the best CPUs and have a good 4K gaming monitor to get the best gaming experience. You can either buy the Founders’ Edition of the RTX 3080 from Nvidia or pick up one of the cards made by one of the many partner OEMs including ASUS, MSI, and more. The Radeon RX 6800 XT is one of the most powerful AMD graphics cards to date. It’s right up there on the performance charts along with the RX 6900 XT and it competes with the Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 in the high-end space. Just like the RTX 3080, the RX 6800 XT isn’t AMD’s top-of-the-line GPU in the RX 6000 series. However, we think it offers the same general performance as the RX 6900 XT while costing significantly less money. And that’s exactly why it’s our pick for the overall graphics cards from AMD in 2022. In terms of the specifications, the Radeon RX 6800 XT enters the market with 72 CUs and as many as 4,608 GPU cores. This particular GPU has a base clock of 2,015MHz whereas it can hit a boost clock speed of 2,250MHz. The RX 6800 XT also supports Rage mode in which both its game clock and the boost clock speeds can be increased further. Rage Mode is essentially a performance preset for the RX 6800 XT that allows it to operate at higher clock speeds. Besides that, the clock speeds and the overclocking ability varies based on the overall design of the card as well. Additionally, the Radeon RX 6800 XT also comes with 16GB GDDR6 memory, which is significantly higher than what the RTX 3080 brings to the table. We’re also looking at a 256-bit bus for the memory and a bandwidth of 512GB/s. It is, however falling short in the memory bandwidth department compared to the RTX 3080’s bandwidth of 760GB/s. The RX 6800 XT is rated for 300W TGP and AMD is recommending a 750W PSU to run this GPU optimally besides other components of your PC. The Radeon RX 6800 XT, in case you are wondering, also supports ray-tracing. The RT performance of this GPU, however, isn’t as good as the RTX 3080. The RTX 3080 GPUs perform slightly better overall too thanks to DLSS. But if you ignore RT performance, we think this particular GPU comes closer to the general performance of the RTX 3080 GPU. It delivers a good 4K gaming performance while costing as much as $50 less than the RTX 3080 at retail. This GPU also has more VRAM than the RTX 3080, so that’s worth considering too. We love to see some improvements on AMD’s upscaling technology to compete with Nvidia’s DLSS tech. While FSR is now compatible with a lot of games, we think there’s still a lot more work to be done in the upscaling quality department. AMD also has the RX 6900 XT, its fastest GPU in the 6000 series. But the RX 6900 XT is a direct competitor of the RTX 3090 and we think both of them are overkill for gaming and should be only be paired with extremely powerful components for an enthusiast-grade build. We think most users will be perfectly satisfied with an RX 6800 XT for 4K gaming. In fact, there’s also the RX 6700 XT that should be plenty for most gamers out there. While the RTX 3060 Ti may not be as powerful as some other graphics card in Nvidia’s 30-series lineup, we think it offers a ton of value. It essentially offers the same features as the other GPUs in the series, but it starts at just $399. There’s also the RTX 3050 now, but that’s more of an entry-level GPU. We think most users should be buying the RTX 3060 Ti as it offers the best value in the 30-series. As such as it’s our pick for the best value GPU in this particular collection of graphics cards. The RTX 3060 Ti became extremely popular among gamers as it bridges the performance gap with the RTX 3060 and something more powerful like, say, the RTX 3070. In terms of the specifications, the RTX 3060 Ti features the GA104 graphics unit with a total of 4,864 CUDA cores. That’s a significant departure over the RTX 2060 Super graphics card, which is still one of the best value GPUs around from Nvidia. In fact, the RTX 3060 Ti has more CUDA Cores than the RTX 2080 Super GPU, which is the most powerful unit in the 20-series. The RTX 3060 Ti features a base clock speed of 1,415MHz and a boost clock speed of 1,665MHz. It also goes without saying that aftermarket cards from the likes of Zotac, ASUS, and more, also support overclocking that’ll allow you to further enhance the overall experience.
