Best Graphics Cards for Every Budget in 2018

Trying to pick a GPU can be a frustrating process if you aren’t already familiar with the array of models offered by AMD and Nvidia. While some buyers arrive knowing exactly how much performance they want and what they should spend to get it, others have to spend time in the weeds sorting through various products.

Our goal here is to simplify that process and make it easier for you to decide on the GPU that’ll best fit your needs. Guides like this one should be considered an adjunct to our general GPU buying guide, which takes you through the basics of GPU specifications and identifies which features you need to pay attention to; this one will make concrete product recommendations. Keep in mind, however, new GPUs could soon be on the way.

All GPU prices listed reflect the lowest price for a new card at Newegg on 11/19/2018. Availability and price will vary depending on your locality. We’ve revised this guide since we issued it in Summer 2018, with new pricing data and updated recommendations at each price point. The pricing on many of these GPUs has changed fairly dramatically since we published the first edition. Keep in mind, many of these sales may be impacted by the Q4 holiday season and Black Friday’s imminent arrival.

Best Budget Card ($125 and below)

Competitors: GTX 1050 ($125), RX 560 ($105 – 2GB, $119 – 4GB)

At the low end of the market, the GTX 1050 is generally faster than the RX 560, despite the fact that it’s limited to a 2GB frame buffer. The RX 560 saves you $20 if you go for the 2GB frame buffer, but its overall performance is low enough that we’d treat this option as a “only if you have to” pick. Between the 4GB RX 560 and the 2GB 1050, performance data favors the 1050. This 30-game average from TechSpot shows how the two compare — while the overall average is similar, the RX 560 loses more games than it wins and loses them by larger margins. The 4GB card option on the RX 560 isn’t a great choice — while games definitely use more RAM these days, the RX 560 probably isn’t powerful to push above a 2GB frame buffer in most titles while maintaining playable frame rates. Unless you have specific reason to think otherwise, we’d take slightly higher perf over larger RAM that mostly won’t benefit the user.

Best Mainstream Card ($126 to $280)

Competitors: RX 570 ($139) versus GTX 1050 Ti ($159), RX 580 ($189) versus GTX 1060 3GB ($209) versus GTX 1060 6GB ($219), RX 590 ($279)

This segment covers the largest chunk of where the public practically spends its money. Right now, AMD has an overwhelming lead in this segment, thanks to very aggressive pricing. This may or may not continue for the entirety of Q4, but the RX 570 is an immediate and obvious pick over the RX 570, which it generally leads even at equal pricing. The RX 580 is generally considered to match or be very slightly (less than 5 percent) ahead of the GTX 1060, which means its $30 price advantage put it in a leadership position as well when overall performance/dollar is considered.

If you’re shopping for Nvidia-only, skip the GTX 1060 3GB altogether — even at 1080p, 3GB of RAM is often not enough these days for high-detail gaming, and unlike lower-end cards like the 1050 / 1050 Ti, the 1060 has more than enough horsepower to make use of that extra memory. The RX 580 has an overall price/perf lead over the 1060 at this price, but the 1060 is a cooler-running GPU that draws less power.

The loser in all this is the RX 590, which is still priced much higher than comparable cards.

Best High-End Cards ($281 to $480)

Competitors: GTX 1070 ($329), GTX 1070 Ti ($349), RX Vega 56 ($409), GTX 1080 ($439)

Our high-end price band stretches from $280 – $480. The RX 590 isn’t really a competitor in this space — as the graph above from TR shows, it’s in a very awkward spot as far as price/performance is concerned. It’s the fastest GPU generally available for under $300, but if you can stretch just a little more, the GTX 1070 offers substantially higher performance. Note, however, that recent price drops on the 1070 Ti have brought it almost on top of the GTX 1070, while price cuts to the GTX 1080 relative to earlier this year have brought it into our “High-End” price band.

The GTX 1070 and 1070 Ti have a very strong position relative to AMD’s Vega 56 and it’ll take some substantial price movement to change that. At equal price, AMD’s Vega 56 would have an argument to make for itself, but not when the GTX 1070 has an $80 advantage. If you can afford one, the GTX 1080 makes an argument for itself at $439, mostly by virtue of not having any competitors in its own weight class.

Best Premium Cards ($481 and above)

Competitors: RTX 2070 ($500), Vega 64 ($500), RTX 2080 ($749), and RTX 2080 Ti ($1349)

wfoojjaec does not recommend purchasing a GPU in this price bracket at the present time. The specific reasons why are explored in great detail in our RTX 2080 and 2080 Ti review, as well as in our RTX 2070 pricing discussion. Nvidia’s decision to substantially raise GPU pricing with its Turing family of GPUs, combined with the enormous performance hit those GPUs take when ray tracing is enabled, make it impossible for me to recommend anyone purchase a Turing GPU.

The chances of an Nvidia 7nm refresh within the next 12-18 months are very high. The chance that the RTX 2070, which falls to just 45fps at 1080p in BFV with ray tracing enabled at anything above ‘Low’ detail will maintain playable frame rates with the feature on over the next 4-5 years isn’t very good, based on the statistical rate at which GPU performance declines over time. The GPUs above the RTX 2070 demand significantly larger investments and the RTX 2080 Ti is having defect problems that haven’t yet been fixed (in addition to a literal near-doubling of its price relative to the 1080 Ti). The 2080 Ti and 2080 are both running above MSRP as well.

If you must purchase a GPU in this price bracket, we’d choose the RTX 2080 Ti — it’s the only card to offer an actual meaningful performance improvement relative to the SKU it replaces. Buying an RTX 2070 to replace a GTX 1080 or an RTX 2080 to replace the 1080 Ti will only leave you with an 8-12 percent performance improvement and a much lighter wallet. If you can’t afford to kiss $1,400 goodbye and not think twice, we recommend waiting until 2019 – 2020, when hopefully stronger competition from AMD and more sane pricing from Nvidia will bring the cost of these features down to something approaching reasonable.

Winner: None.

Bonus Mention: FreeSync Support

AMD’s GPUs aren’t as good a buy as Nvidia’s in several markets, but a FreeSync display is one potential way to offset some of this. Unlike Nvidia’s G-Sync displays, which tend to command substantial price premiums, a wide range of FreeSync displays are available at virtually every price point. Make certain to buy a panel with a refresh rate range of at least 2.5x (i.e., 30Hz – 75Hz) if you want to take advantage of features like Low Framerate Compensation.

FreeSync is a feature that can dramatically improve gaming performance by ensuring each new frame of game data is matched to the display refresh rate without repeating frames of animation. AMD has made this argument in favor of FreeSync back when it launched Vega, and while it’s obviously only going to work if you’re in the market for a new monitor in the first place, FreeSync panels do tend to be cheaper than their G-Sync counterparts. We’ve also seen better industry support for FreeSync, with Intel, Microsoft, and various TV manufacturers all pledging support for it.

In short, depending on the GPU you are considering and the specifics of the offers in your area, there’s an argument to make for AMD as a competitive choice in the GPU + monitor match-up, even if the company’s GPU’s aren’t quite as quick as Nvidia’s in several head-to-head comparisons.

Our sister site PCMag has also published a comprehensive guide to upper-end graphics cards, if you’re looking for more information on how these models, specifically, shake out against each other.

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