Today we’ll help figure out which card to buy based on your unique scenario and budget.
The real question here is whether your new graphics card will createa bottleneck in your system.
One way to check for a bottleneck is to use abottleneck calculator.
Justin Duino / How-To Geek
Ideally, you want a bottleneck of 20% or less.
While calculators aren’t an accurate representation of real-world performance, they can give you an acceptible estimate.
How Much Does Monitor Resolution Matter?
Samsung
The resolution you play at significantly impacts graphics card performance.
But what if you don’t need to run games natively at 1440p or 4K?
Upscaling technology will only get better in the future.
Maryia_K/Shutterstock.com
If you don’t mind upscaling, monitor resolution isn’t super important.
What Games Do You Play?
Games are an important factor that people often overlook when buying a graphics card.
NVIDIA
Budget: How Much Can You Spend?
Ultimately, your budget dictates which graphics you should buy.
Graphics card prices fluctuate frequently.
The prices for the different tiers might increase over time.
If you’re lucky, they might even decrease.
Some examples are AMD’sRX 7600,RX 6600, and NVIDIA’sRTX 3060.
They usually offer the best value for the money and are suitable for 1080p gaming.
Cards like the GT 1030 are overpriced for what little performance they offer.
You’ll get much better value if you buy used here.
For instance, AMD’sRX 7700 XTis20% more powerfulthan its now discounted predecessor, the RX 6700 XT.
Also, these cards can give you a solid experience in esports titles running in 1440p or 1080p at240Hz.
Ultra High-End: $800+
Do you hate money or justreallylove gaming?
Still, you might easily get a higher-tier graphics card for your money by buying used.
So is buying a used GPU safe?
Generally speaking, used hardware is fine for the most part.
Evencards from mining rigstend to work just fine.
I have since sold the card and replaced it with a used RX 6600 XT.
Just verify to read ourguide on buying used graphics cardsbefore getting one.
