Best GPUs to Buy in 2024: Graphics Cards for All Budgets

The graphics card market in 2024 is the most competitive it has been in years. NVIDIA and AMD are constantly battling to beat one another in pricing and performance by offering new GPUs or slashing existing prices down to a more affordable level. With so many new cards hitting the shelves, purchasing the right option for your PC build can be confusing. So, how do you determine which graphics cards are the best to buy out of the myriad of GPUs available?

Here at GeekaWhat, we’re well-equipped to recommend the best options for a range of budgets – which is precisely what we’ll be doing here. Harry Coleman and James Cousins from our team are experts in GPU benchmarking and testing, having benchmarked every one of the cards released by AMD, NVIDIA and Intel in the last few years.

Our testing includes some of the biggest games out there, from popular esports titles like Apex Legends and Fortnite to demanding AAA titles like Cyberpunk 2077, Starfield and Alan Wake II, which gives us 1000s of data points for comparison. You can learn more about how we test graphics cards and view detailed gaming benchmarks for all of the cards below.

Best Graphics Cards Under $200

1. Intel Arc A750

If we’re looking at pricing, then the most obvious best budget graphics card is the Intel Arc A750. Sitting at $200 or so at the time of the writing, the Arc A750 is one of the only graphics cards at this price point that we recommend for those truly restricted to a limited budget. Offering solid 1080p gaming performance, the Arc A750 can handle a range of modern titles and offers solid framerates across certain games.

Across our benchmarking, the Arc A750 has demonstrated that it can offer a minimum of 60FPS in most games. In COD Warzone, the Arc A750 maintained around 52FPS on average, which was reasonable. However, as we switched to Apex Legends, performance surged to 85FPS, which is ideal as this game is fast-paced and benefits from higher frames.

Key Specs	Intel Arc A750
Video Memory Capacity	8GB GDDR6
Memory Bus	256-Bit
Base Clock Speed	2.05GHz
Boost Clock Speed	2.4GHz
Xe Vector Engines	448
Xe Cores	28
Power Draw	225W
MSRP	$269

Unfortunately, the biggest weakness of Intel’s Arc generation of graphics cards is game performance volatility. AMD and NVIDIA have had years of experience developing drivers for the latest games, but Intel is significantly behind the competition. This means that gaming performance can be quite hit and miss, and while Intel is making attempts to constantly improve their drivers, their lack of experience results in diminished framerates across a range of games.

One of the only other graphics cards we’d recommend as an alternative option to the Arc A750 is the AMD Radeon RX 6600. While this graphics card utilises the older RDNA 2 architecture, it offers considerable stability in modern games compared to the Arc A750. For this reason, we’d recommend picking up the RX 6600 if you’re looking for a solid all-rounder.

Best Graphics Cards Under $300

2. AMD Radeon RX 7600

The best-performing budget graphics card to buy in our testing is the AMD Radeon RX 7600. This GPU has a highly competitive sub-$300 MSRP, making it one of the most affordable options for those building a 1080p-oriented gaming PC. In a market where GPU pricing has been turbulent, the RX 7600 is a highly tempting option that caters to price-conscious buyers.

The RX 7600 can hold its own when it comes to gaming performance. Throughout our testing, we’ve found this GPU to offer high framerates across Esports titles like Apex Legends and Fortnite, with the RX 7600 hitting 189FPS and 273FPS, respectively. Playing AAA titles at 1080p is more than feasible, too, with the RX 7600 providing solid performance metrics within modern games such as Starfield and Hogwarts Legacy.

Key Specs	AMD Radeon RX 7600
Video Memory Capacity	8GB GDDR6
Memory Bus	128-Bit
Base Clock Speed	1.72GHz
Boost Clock Speed	2.65GHz
Stream Processors	2048
Ray Accelerators	32
Power Draw	165W
MSRP	$269

Performance in AAA titles at 1440p is an area where the RX 7600 could improve. While the card’s power enables strong frame rates at 1440p, you are ultimately restricted by the amount of VRAM this card has.

Ideally, AMD would have equipped this card with 10GB or 12GB, which would have gone a long way in improving the performance longevity of the RX 7600. That said, more VRAM is only good if you have the bandwidth to go with it, which is why this card still earns our recommendation over the RX 7600 XT.

Alternatively, the RTX 4060 is worth considering for the solid NVIDIA features. As an RTX 4000 GPU, the RTX 4060 can use DLSS 3.5 and Frame Generation, which are superior to AMD’s FSR and Fluid Motion Frames, bolstering framerates in select titles. We don’t overtly recommend this card over the RX 7600 due to its price point, but NVIDIA’s proprietary technology makes it worth considering as an alternative.

Interestingly, AMD and NVIDIA’s inability to produce a good graphics card at this price point has resulted in an uptick in popularity from the RTX 3060 and RX 6750 XT. While both GPUs are old-gen cards, the higher VRAM capacity (12GB) makes them a better option for those playing modern games, where VRAM demands are considerably higher.

Best Graphics Cards Under $400

3. AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT

The RX 7700 XT is geared towards buyers with more cash to spend and looking to play most of their games predominantly at 1440p. Due to a range of price drops, the RX 7700 XT offers a better value proposition than it did during its initial launch, now sitting around the $400 mark. This puts about $100 of room between the RX 7700 XT and the RX 7800 XT, making the former a solid option for those sticking to a tight budget.

Performance-wise, the RX 7700 XT is a massive competitor in the 1440p space, with high framerates in most titles. In modern AAA games like Hogwarts Legacy, the RX 7700 XT can easily cope with the performance requirements, outputting an average framerate of 92FPS in our testing.

The rasterisation capability of this GPU is phenomenal across Esports titles, too, offering up 209FPS in Apex Legends at 1440p and 295FPS in Fortnite at 1080p. Overall, the RX 7700 XT is a terrific ‘bang for your buck option.

Key Specs	AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT
Video Memory Capacity	12GB GDDR6
Memory Bus	192-Bit
Base Clock Speed	1.7GHz
Boost Clock Speed	2.54GHz
Stream Processors	3456
Ray Accelerators	54
Power Draw	245W
MSRP	$449

The only weakness we’d recommend considering is the ray tracing capability of this GPU. While AMD cards have come a long way with improvements to ray traced gameplay and performance uplifts with their FSR technology, NVIDIA’s cards are plainly better regarding ray tracing. AMD thrives in rasterised games, but buyers looking to play their favourite titles with ray tracing switched on should look at some NVIDIA options.

We’ve also seen the RX 6800 XT make a bit of a comeback at this price point and serve as competition to the RX 7700 XT. With 16GB of VRAM on a 256-bit memory bus, this Radeon 6000 card offers solid 1440p performance. However, pricing and availability are the critical weaknesses of this card, with new RX 6800 XT GPUs becoming increasingly rare, making them much more challenging to pick up as stocks dwindle.

Best Graphics Cards Under $500

4. AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT

AMD’s RX 7800 XT is one of the most impressive mid-range graphics cards to release from Team Red. The RX 7800 XT is an incredibly strong 1440p capable graphics card that maximises framerates across many games.

The rasterised capability of the RX 7800 XT is effectively unrivalled at this price class, making the RX 7800 XT a very cost-effective option for 1440p gaming. For example, in Hogwarts Legacy, the RX 7800 XT was able to offer up 102FPS on average. This is one of the few graphics cards that can provide strong framerates across AAA titles while maintaining a very affordable price tag.

One of the significant benefits of this card versus the RTX 4070, in particular, is the 16GB of GDDR6 VRAM you have available to you. While the 4GB bonus versus the RTX 4070 won’t be noticeable immediately, there are more performance benefits in demanding AAA titles where VRAM usage is much higher. It is also good for the overall longevity of the card moving forward.

Key Specs	AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT
Video Memory Capacity	16GB GDDR6
Memory Bus	256-Bit
Base Clock Speed	1.29GHz
Boost Clock Speed	2.43GHz
Stream Processors	3840
Ray Accelerators	60
Power Draw	263W
MSRP	$499

Unlike the RTX 4070, the RX 7800 XT isn’t a great graphics card for ray tracing. AMD hasn’t entirely caught up to NVIDIA regarding their ray tracing technology, resulting in generally weaker performance when ray tracing is switched on. We recommend looking at some NVIDIA alternatives if you plan to push your gaming PC with ray traced games.

Best Graphics Cards Under $600

5. AMD Radeon RX 7900 GRE

A slight step up from the RX 7800 XT is the RX 7900 GRE (Golden Rabbit Edition). Initially released as a China-exclusive, AMD decided to capitalise on this card within the wider market, offering up the RX 7900 GRE to multiple territories during Q1 of 2024. This card offers pretty similar specs to its RX 7800 XT sibling with 16GB of GDDR6 VRAM on a 256-bit memory bus, but AMD has increased the number of stream processors and compute units, which improves rasterised performance.

During our benchmarking runs, the RX 7900 GRE was able to surpass the RX 7800 XT by a few frames here and there. In Hogwarts Legacy at 1440p high, the RX 7900 GRE offered up an average of 108FPS, while in Starfield, framerates sat at 92FPS or so. While this performance isn’t mind-blowing by any means, it’s still an uplift in performance compared to GPUs like the RTX 4070 Ti, which is a pricier card.

Specification	AMD Radeon RX 7900 GRE
Video Memory	16GB GDDR6
Memory Bus	256-bit
Base Clock Speed	1.28GHz
Boost Clock Speed	2.39GHz
Stream Processors	5120
Ray Accelerators	80
Power Consumption	260W
MSRP	$549

At $50 more than the RX 7800 XT, the RX 7900 GRE is worthwhile for those looking to maximise their framerates at this price point. However, because the improvements in performance compared to the RX 7800 XT are so minimal, it could be argued otherwise to save your money and buy the cheaper graphics card. The RX 7900 GRE is a solid mid-range GPU, but the price gap compared to the RX 7800 XT makes the latter an enticing option for price-conscious buyers.

When we compare the RX 7900 GRE to the RTX 4070 SUPER, the latter is worth considering as an NVIDIA alternative. A particular highlight of the RTX 4070 SUPER is its performance where, in particular titles, it wipes the floor with the RX 7900 GRE, especially when DLSS and ray tracing are thrown into the mix. However, it’s worth noting that the 16GB of VRAM and rasterised gameplay are a major upside to the RX 7900 GRE that makes AMD a solid contender.

Best Graphics Cards Under $800

6. AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT

One of the best graphics cards under the $800 mark is the AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT. Initially, we felt that the RX 7900 XT was an excellent card launched with a price class that didn’t match the performance output. However, AMD responded to this during NVIDIA’s RTX 4000 SUPER launch by slashing the price to $700, which is a much more reasonable amount of money to spend on this particular card.

Performance-wise, the RX 7900 XT is a powerful graphics card offering 115FPS in Hogwarts Legacy, with increasingly solid performance across other AAA titles. Games like Apex Legends and COD Warzone also pose no problems for the RX 7900 XT at 4K and 1440p, making it a great contender at this price point.

Key Specs	AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT
Video Memory Capacity	20GB GDDR6
Memory Bus	320-Bit
Base Clock Speed	1.5GHz
Boost Clock Speed	2.39GHz
Stream Processors	5376
Ray Accelerators	84
Power Draw	300W
MSRP	$899

Much like the RX 7900 XT’s siblings, this GPU does tend to struggle with ray tracing. Across the board, AMD’s high-end GPUs are not able to compete with NVIDIA when it comes to ray traced gameplay. However, if you’re willing to take a loss on this feature, the RX 7900 XT is one of the most competitively priced graphics cards on the market right now and worth considering for a high-end PC build.

An alternative that we recommend if you’re willing to maximise your spending in this price bracket is the RTX 4070 Ti SUPER. Offering 16GB of VRAM, outpacing the original RTX 4070 Ti by a decent margin, and providing solid performance at 4K alongside the benefits of DLSS 3.5 and ray tracing, the RTX 4070 Ti SUPER is well worth considering. The RTX 4070 Ti SUPER is also a strong competitor for those with workstation systems where NVIDIA’s suite of broadcasting features is much more versatile than AMD’s offerings.

Best Top-End Graphics Cards

7. NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER

NVIDIA’s RTX 4080 SUPER is the third of the ‘SUPER’ cards to be released as part of a mid-life refresh for a select few of the RTX 4000 range. The original RTX 4080 was already an excellent card, but it came in at a price point that most deemed too high, considering the available performance. However, the RTX 4080 SUPER improves framerates by 2-3% across most games while dropping the MSRP to a much more tolerable $999.

This puts the RTX 4080 SUPER in direct competition with the RX 7900 XTX while offering slightly less VRAM. Our testing has found that the RTX 4080 SUPER can withstand the performance demands of 1440p and 4K gaming, even with ray tracing enabled.

In Hogwarts Legacy at 1440p high settings, the RTX 4080 SUPER outputs 131FPS on average, making it one of the most capable GPUs we’ve tested. Across the board, the RTX 4080 SUPER is a highly capable graphics card that won’t disappoint on the performance front.

Key Specs	NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER
Video Memory Capacity	16GB GDDR6X
Memory Bus	256-Bit
Base Clock Speed	2.29GHz
Boost Clock Speed	2.55GHz
CUDA Cores	10240
RT Cores	80
Power Draw	320W
MSRP	$999

While the broader feature set and solid price point of the RTX 4080 SUPER is what makes it such an excellent card for a top-end system, the AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX is worth mentioning as a decent alternative. Admittedly, NVIDIA outclasses AMD in this bracket, especially regarding ray traced performance. Still, the superior VRAM configuration makes the RX 7900 XTX an excellent card for rasterised gameplay at 4K.

The RTX 4090 is also a brilliant card for a high-end system, and for the RTX 4000 generation of GPUs, it is NVIDIA’s best-performing graphics card. But at $2000 at the time of writing, the RTX 4090 is a card geared towards enthusiasts with plenty of spare cash to spend.

How We Tested the Best Graphics Cards

All graphics cards in this article have undergone rigorous testing to provide us with heaps of data. We then use this performance data to inform our recommendations, ensuring each component option caters to many buyers.

All the graphics cards we test are benchmarked within a plethora of Esports games and AAA titles at three major resolutions (1080p, 1440p, and 4K). We also record all our settings to ensure our tests are fair and repeatable. You can find a full rundown of our testing and benchmarking methodology in our article on How We Test Graphics Cards.

Gaming Performance

One of the most important metrics to assess a graphics card is to see how it performs within your favourite games. We’ve accumulated a mass of data from AMD, NVIDIA, and Intel GPUs. In this section, we’ll run you through the performance to see how these cards perform across Esports and AAA games.

Hogwarts Legacy

Settings: 1440p, Shadow Quality High, Indirect Lighting High, Reflections High, Crowd Density High, Particle Quality High, Volumetric Lighting High, Motion Blur off, GTAO Quality High, Grass Quality High, Contact Shadows High VSync Off, DLSS/FSR: On/Off, Ray Tracing: On/Off, Textures: High

In Hogwarts Legacy at 1440p high settings, we saw pretty solid performance from the RX 7600. While restricted by the 8GB of VRAM, the performance we saw from the RX 7600 was more than playable, with an average framerate of 64FPS. The RX 6750 XT offered a slight performance uplift, with an 85FPS average. The increased VRAM here definitely benefits the RX 6750 XT.

The performance results from the RX 7700 XT, RTX 4070, and RX 7800 XT were close. The RTX 4070 was able to output the same framerate as the RX 6750 XT, while the RX 7700 XT offered up 92FPS. The RX 7800 XT is the strongest performer of the mid-range bracket, with a 102FPS average.

The RX 7900 XT outputs 115FPS on average, with the RTX 4080 SUPER offering around 16 more frames up to 131FPS. Ultimately, hitting high frame rates isn’t as crucial in this single-player title. Still, those looking for more stability will want to pick up a mid-range or high-end graphics card to ensure performance doesn’t dip in intense areas of the gameplay.

Apex Legends

Settings: 1080p/1440p, Anti-aliasing TSAA, Texture Filtering 8X, Model Detail High, VSync Disabled, Effects High, Ambient Occlusion Quality High

In Apex Legends at 1080p high settings, the most standout budget graphics card is the RX 7600, offering 189FPS on average, outpacing almost every other card at a similar price point. The Intel Arc A750 sits at the bottom of the graph with an 85FPS average, and while this isn’t bad by any means, this demonstrates the volatility between games.

The RX 6600, RTX 3060 and RTX 4060 sit pretty close together in this benchmark, with only a 2FPS gain between the RTX 3060 and RTX 3060. The RX 6600, with a 147FPS average, yet again shows it’s a great alternative to the Arc A750 around the $200 mark.

In Apex Legends at 1440p, performance was consistent across all graphics cards we tested. The RX 7600 does sit at the bottom of the graph, but with an average of 145FPS, this means you’re still surpassing that 144Hz sweet spot that is effectively required in a fast-paced title like Apex Legends.

Moving further up the graph, the RX 6750 XT and RX 7700 XT were able to output 163FPS and 175FPS, respectively, which is solid at 1440p. As we start to move into the high-end, performance becomes a bit more tightly knit. The RX 7800 XT was one of the best performers within the mid-range bracket, while the RTX 4080 SUPER and RTX 4090 lead the fore with 271FPS and 287FPS. Ultimately, you won’t see a noticeable difference in performance here, but the numbers themselves are still impressive.

COD Warzone

Settings: 1440p, Upscaling/Sharpening FSR 2.1/DLSS Quality (80 Sharpness), Texture Resolution High, Texture Filter Anisotropic High, Level of Detail High

In COD Warzone, performance is a bit more diminished than in Apex Legends, but each card we tested still held up very well. The RX 7600 and RX 6750 XT in this particular benchmark offered the same performance metrics, outputting a 121FPS average. This is slightly under the 144Hz sweet spot that we love to see, but considering the performance you’re getting from both of these GPUs at their respective price points, the framerates are impressive.

Moving up to the mid-range options, the RX 7700 XT, RTX 4070, and RX 7800 XT sat close together regarding framerates. There is about a 2-3 FPS average between these cards, with the RX 7800 XT offering the best performance with 143FPS, while the RX 7700 XT sits at the bottom of the three cards with a 137FPS average.

The high-end cards unsurprisingly performed very well, with the RTX 4090 again leading the group. The RX 7900 XT was able to output 167FPS, putting us past the 144Hz sweet spot, while the RTX 4080 SUPER sat at 188FPS, and the RTX 4090 sat at 202FPS. Again, framerates this high will be negligible, but if you’ve got a high refresh rate monitor, one of these top-end cards will be a perfect option.

Fortnite

Settings: 1080p, Quality Low, Anti-aliasing & Super Resolution TSR High, Temporal Super Resolution Performance, View Distance Far, Textures Low

In Fortnite at 1080p low settings, the entire suite of cards within this buyers guide performed exceptionally well, hitting well over 200FPS across the board. The Arc A750 offered up 148FPS, while the RX 7600 was able to output 273FPS on average, with the RX 6750 XT sitting slightly above this with 280FPS. The RX 7700 XT and RTX 4070 were pretty close together performance-wise, with the former offering up 295FPS and the latter hitting 288FPS on average.

Performance differences at framerates this high will be relatively negligible, but seeing the number rise is still impressive. The RX 7800 XT, yet again, sits at the top of the mid-range bracket, with a 302FPS average. The high-end graphics cards sat well above the 300FPS mark, with the RX 7900 XT offering 319FPS.

There’s a minor difference in performance between the RX 7900 XT and the RTX 4080 SUPER, with one frame between them. Again, the RTX 4090 in Fortnite does not disappoint, offering 345FPS on average within this hit Esports title.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do You Need A 12VHPWR Cable?

AMD graphics cards do not require a 12VHPWR cable, while NVIDIA’s RTX 4000 series do. If you do not have one, you can use an adapter included in the box.

Is NVIDIA or AMD Better for Ray Tracing?

While AMD’s graphics cards have come a long way, NVIDIA is generally much better regarding ray traced performance.

Should I Worry About Case Clearance?

You should always check the length of your graphics card versus the maximum clearance in your case to ensure you don’t face any installation problems.

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