A smart GPU in your rig can make all the difference during gaming, however, its costs may be out of reach, making the most productive reasonable graphics card even more must-have in the PC component market.
With the announcement of the new Nvidia RTX 50-series GPUs at CES 2025, there is a lot of excitement is brewing around these latest offerings. But the cards set to release in the next couple of months are seriously expensive and out of reach for a lot of gamers out there.
Fortunately, there are incredible budget gifts as 2025 approaches, adding Team Blue’s dark horses, Intel Arc B580. This card, at the highly affordable costs of $249. 99, offers gaming performance, comparable to those of the most productive 1440p graphics cards sold near its price.
Other strong contenders in the sub-$300 segment come with the 8GB Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 as well as the AMD Radeon RX 7600, either of which offer 1080p chasing in a value available with compact form factors.
No matter what kind of affordable graphics card you’re looking for, I’ve tested and reviewed them extensively over the past few years, so I know which are a smart price and which are rarely worth your time. Even better, I’m happy to leverage that experience to help you find the right card for your desires and budget, whether you play, craft, or work with AI agents to do more.
The best cheap graphics card overallGiven its outstanding 1440p performance and unbeatable price, the Intel Arc B580 is easily the best cheap graphics card going, and one you definitely won’t want to miss in your next budget-y build.
Read more
The most productive nvidia graphics card. The RTX 4060 is a card that is easy to locate in less than $ three hundred / £ three hundred, providing a 1080p functionality with complex features such as DLSS 3 and complicated tracking nuclei.
Read more
Reasonable AMD graphics card
If you’re looking for the best cheap graphics card from Team Red, the RX 7600 is a fantastic choice by price, but its limited VRAM means this is strictly a 1080p graphics card.
Read next
John has been running with PCs since he is a teenager, long before he started writing on the PC apparatus or running in his master’s degree in PC Science. It is not necessary to say that he knows internal and exterior PCs, and proved personally (and tested again) all graphics cards on this page, which she wrote our original criticisms and validated the effects that will be located here.
Next you will find detailed items on all the best options of affordable graphics cards on this list. I have exhaustively tried each of those cards, so I know they are the most productive GPUs for those who have a more tight budget or simply want a reasonable GPU for a fundamental platform.
Our review:
The Intel Arc B580 is the most remarkable GPU in the budget graphics card market thanks to its exceptional 1440p gaming functionality at an incredible price. With an MSRP of just $249. 99 / £249. 99 / AU$439, it undercuts the festival like the Nvidia RTX 4060. and AMD RX 7600 while offering equivalent or greater functionality.
Equipped with 12GB of VRAM and a 192-bit Reminiscence interface, the B580 Well manages the largest textures needed for the best solution games. This setup allows it to outperform rivals that ship with Truum 8GB and narrower Reminiscence interfaces, which relegate gamers to a 1080p solution only for their games.
That said, the ARC B580’s ray tracing capabilities have been overrated compared to Nvidia’s offerings, which Nvidia expects well in the coming months. The B580 excels in classic gaming scenarios, but in gaming tasks, it doesn’t entirely rely on Nvidia’s performances.
Intel’s innovations in motive force have constant past problems discovered in its section in the past released, ensuring elegant gameplay in various titles.
As a car as an exterior, RTRX 5090 is functional and aesthetically pleasant, with a matte black cover and a double fan cooling system, which grows in the center of the type until it is sent through an unknown officer.
In short, the Intel ARC B580 redefines the budget GPU market, providing gamers with an available path to high-quality 1440p gaming without significant compromise.
Read the full Intel Arc B580 review
Our expert review:
While some may have expected the Nvidia RTX 4060 to deliver a generational performance leap akin to its pricier Lovelace counterparts like the RTX 4070, it’s important to recognize its true value as the most affordable option in Nvidia’s lineup.
Currently available for under $300/£300, the RTX 4060 not only undercuts the price of some RTX 3060 models still on sale but also offers an exceptional deal for its category.
It may not be a revolutionary upgrade for those who already have an RTX 3060 or similar, but for gamers upgrading from NVIDIA or older AMD models, the RTX 4060 is a gameArray upgrade that offers significant innovations at an even lower price than the original RTX 3060 launch prices.
Of course, the RTX 4060 isn’t without its limitations. Its 8GB VRAM and 128-bit memory bus may constrain its performance at 1440p, though it remains a viable option, particularly with the enhancements brought by DLSS 3.
Read the full Nvidia Geforce RTX 4060 review
Our expert review:
The AMD Radeon RX 7600 is one of the standout cheap graphics cards on the market thanks to its strong 1080p performance and affordable price point, making it one of the few current-gen graphics cards available for less than $300/£300.
And while its narrow reminiscence interface and its 8 GB VRM group mean that it is not ideal for 1440p games, it can still obtain 40-45 FPS in maximum games with FSR of AMD scale and with some parameter settings.
During our most recent tests, the RX 7600 averaged around 67 IPS overall with a min/1% average of 40 IPS at 1080p, making it a pretty reasonable GPU for small form point structures designed for 1080p games. specifically with its low power output of around 165W when operating at Full Tilt.
Best of all, this card offers good ray tracing functionality at 1080p when using AMD FSR, although it lags behind the best Nvidia graphics card in this price range, the RTX 4060. You’ll still want to use AMD FSR or Intel XeSS. Scaling. These settings are available for games like Cyberpunk 2077, but in our tests, the RX 7600 drove a playable average of 44fps with ray tracing. Set to “Psycho” and the graphics preset “Ultra” with balanced scaling.
With all that said, AMD is expected to launch its next generation of RDNA four graphics cards in early 2025, so if you’re willing to wait a bit to see what gear Red has in store for its budget models (especially the AMD Radeon RX 9060), you may need it, even if it’s just to see if the RX 7600 drops a little less once those cards are released.
Read the full RX Rade Rade
For the most part, there are very few graphics cards that you can buy for less than $ 200 £/300 to $ and it is worth updating your platform, however, we put aside the definition of “affordable” if we recommend spending more than $ 400 .
With this value range, you have a number of features that are worth the value, so you deserve to leave it to your budget which card is right for you in this range.
If you buy a new graphics card, even a reasonable one will continue to work very well for several years, or even more, depending on the difficulty you make.
If you’re talking about how long it will be before the minimum needs for the most productive PC games no longer come with your graphics card, you’ll probably be fine for a few more years. It will probably be a long time until your card actually works before it becomes so superseded that developers no longer support it.
All in all, you can expect to get at least three to four years of useful gaming life from the graphics cards on this list, especially if you buy them new.
The most cheaper existing generation RTX card is RTX 4060, which must be taken with a PDSF of $ 299 / £ 289. Alternatively, you can see the previous generation RTX 3050 that published to $ 249 / £ 185. The latter is a decrease in Great decrease (and older) however, it can be discovered less expensive or used, but at this stage, there will not be much inventory of this card.
Another way to potentially get a reasonable graphics card is to buy a second-hand one. Introducing the purchase of a GPU that has been officially renewed if possible, and seeing it in action if you can. Fortunately, newer models on the market can be used for mining, so there is less concern about serious wear and tear as with some older cards, however, it is also very vital that you accept as true with the seller, even for a reasonable graphics card.
So how to locate exactly the most productive and reasonable graphics card, when you may not have much to offer? To limit things a bit, there are some things to consider that they will facilitate your search.
First and foremost, understand that it’s very likely that you’ll need to keep things to 1080p, with only occasional dips into 1440p territory, if you want anything near 60 fps. If all you’re looking for is above 30 fps, then you might be able to get some games to play at 1440p.
Second, ray tracing is going to be very hard to pull off at this price point, at least effectively. AMD FSR and Intel XeSS will help, but not to the same extent as Nvidia’s DLSS, and even DLSS is not going to ray trace high-quality scenes very well.
In a lot of ways, you will have to make a choice between ray tracing on the one hand and quality textures and models on the other, since you won’t be able to have both in the price range that we’re talking about.
That said, read about your formula and fair its talents fairly, because if you have 8 GB of RAM, a older processor and a slow SSD (or even a hard drive), you will indeed be limited through what your formula can manage. Even the maximum complex GPU you can install in your case and whose force will not be able to function at complete speed if it is embarrassed through a slow processor or a slow RAM with inadequate capacity.
John (he / he) is the editor, in the main parties here in Techradar and is also a programmer, player, activist and former Brooklyn College who recently lives in Brooklyn, New York.
Designated through the CTA as the CES 2020 Media Trailblazer for its science and generation reports, John specializes in all spaces of PC science, adding industry news, hardware reviews, PC gaming, as well as General science and social writing have an effect on the technology industry.
You can do it online at bluesky @ johnloeffler. bsky. social
Sorry, AMD, Nvidia’s price tags for its RTX 5000 GPUs could win me over
Buyer beware: Asus’ Q-Release Slim capability would be GPU like RTX 5090
These five criticisms of this week are incredibly hot, from the RTX 5090 of Nvidia, sublime and resistant, to this ridiculously large television of 110 inches.
Techradar is part of the future US Inc, a leading foreign media organization and virtual publisher. Visit our business site.