These are the best budget graphics cards you can buy in 2022

2021 was a rough year for GPUs and PC enthusiasts as a whole. While the GPU shortage situation hasn’t improved yet, things are expected to get better in a few months. That’s right, it looks like we’ll finally be able to buy budget GPUs again in 2022. Despite the lack of availability of existing GPUs, both Nvidia and AMD managed to keep the market busy with plenty of new launches. It’s safe to say that we’ll have a lot of affordable/budget GPUs to buy as soon as the stocks start flowing through the retail, which is why we wanted to highlight some of the best budget GPU options. So in this article, we’re going to take a look at some of the best budget graphics cards you can buy in 2022.

Despite the lower price tag, a lot of the new budget graphics cards don’t skimp on performance. The best budget graphics cards on the market come equipped with plenty of power to help you push through even the modern titles at 1080p with decent graphics settings. It’s true that the best graphics cards on the market get all the attention, but you don’t necessarily have to spend upwards of $1000 on GPUs for gaming or even content creation. So let’s get started with the list and check out the available options.

Navigate this article:

Best budget Nvidia graphics card: Nvidia GeForce RTX 3050

Nvidia decided to put an end to all the rumors and speculations with the launch of its new GeForce RTX 3050. Announced at CES 2022, the GeForce RTX 3050 is the company’s newest budget king starting at just $249. This undercuts Nvidia’s previous entry-level graphics card, the RTX 3060, by around $80. The RTX 3050 GPU is built on Nvidia’s Ampere architecture and it supports ray tracing. The RT performance of the RTX 3050 is obviously not going to be as good as it is in the case of high-end GPUs. However, we expect it to perform better at 1080p, especially with DLSS. All of Nvidia’s current technologies are supported on the RTX 3050.

In terms of specifications, the RTX 3050 GPU packs 2,560 CUDA cores along with second-gen RT and third-gen Tensor cores. We’re looking at an 8nm GA106-150 GPU with a base clock of 1.55GHz and a boost clock of 1.78GHz. The RTX 3050 comes with 8GB of GDDR6 memory and a 128-bit memory interface for a 224 GB/s memory bandwidth. The RTX 3050 also has an effective memory clock of 14Gbps and a maximum computing power of 9.10TFLOPS.

The RTX 3050 has a total graphics power of 130W and Nvidia recommends a 550W PSU to run one. Just like the RTX 3060 graphics card, there’s no Nvidia-built Founder’s Edition model for the RTX 3050. This means you’ll have to purchase one of the partner cards that are available on the market from the likes of ASUS, MSI, PNY, and more. As such you may end up pricing their version of the RTX 3050 slightly above the $250 recommended price.

Best budget AMD graphics card: AMD Radeon RX 6600

A couple of months before launching the new RX 6500 XT graphics card, AMD introduced us to the RX 6600 graphics card, which is a solid option for 1080p gamers. And even though it’s no longer AMD’s most affordable, it’s still worth getting over the RX 6500 XT.

The AMD Radeon RX 6600 has 28 compute units with 2,044MHz and 2,491MHz base and boost clocks, respectively. We’re looking at 8GB of GDDR6 video memory over a 128-bit memory interface. It also has 32MB of Infinity cache, which is higher than that of the RX 6500 XT. The RX 6600 has a typical board power rating of 132W, which is more in line with what we’ve seen from other GPUs in this price range.

The new RX 6600 can deliver over 100 FPS on many demanding games such as Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, Battlefield 5, and Resident Evil Village at max graphics settings. That’s quite impressive for a relatively affordable GPU. AMD touts 1.3 times more performance per watt compared to NVIDIA’s GeForce RTX 3060 in the games mentioned above.

A couple of noteworthy features of the AMD RX 6600 GPU include support for Smart Access Memory and AMD’s FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR). Smart Access memory accelerates the system access to the GPU’s memory buffer whereas FSR is essentially AMD’s competitor to Nvidia DLSS. FSR renders the games at lower resolutions and uses AI to upscale the visuals to native resolutions. There’s still work to be done when it comes to FSR, but its’ being adopted by a lot of developers and hardware vendors and is improving all the time.

Best budget Intel graphics card: Intel Arc A750

Intel’s first attempt at consumer-dedicated graphics in two decades is a play purely at the more budget-conscious area of the market. The Arc A750 isn’t cheap, but at a recommended price of $289, it’s affordable enough to give any budget system some serious horsepower. It’s better than an NVIDIA RTX 3050 or the GTX 1660 Super, and is packed with modern features that will be relevant for years to come.

Performance-wise, it isn’t too far off the flagship Arc A770, with only a handful fewer Xe and ray tracing cores. With some light performance tuning and raising the power limit from the stock 190W to a (safe) 225W, you can edge the A750 even closer to its sibling. In the wider context, the A750 performs at a similar level to the Nvidia RTX 3060 with a much more attractive price-to-performance ratio.

Besides performance and ray tracing, the A750 boasts DisplayPort 2.0, something not even the RTX 4090 has, and HDMI 2.1. Additionally, it was one of the first cards to launch with a hardware AV1 encoder, making it perfect for content creators who want to be on the bleeding edge. There are some issues with older games, particularly those relying on DX9 since there is no hardware support. But newer technologies like DX12 and Vulkan see great performance on the A750. And with 8GB of VRAM, it’s better specced than some of its alternatives.

Budget AMD graphics card worth checking out: AMD Radeon RX 6500 XT

In addition to the new Ryzen 6000 series mobile chips and the Ryzen 7000 desktop CPUs, AMD also launched a new desktop graphics card back at CES 2022. The headline grabber is that the RX 6500 XT is a budget offering that carries a $199 recommended price tag. This makes it cheaper than Nvidia’s RTX 3050 GPU which was also announced at the same event.

When it comes to the specs, the AMD Radeon RX 6500 XT packs 16 compute units along with 16 ray accelerators. We’re looking at a game frequency of 2,610MHz and a boost frequency of up to 2,815MHz. As for the memory configuration, the RX 6500 XT comes with 4GB of GDDR6 memory with 18Gbps speeds. It uses a 64-bit interface to offer memory bandwidth of up to 144GB/s. The RX 6500 XT has a total graphics power of 107W and AMD is recommending a 400W PSU for a build with this graphics card.

The Radeon RX 6500 XT packs 1,024 RDNA 2 cores and 4GB OF GDDR6 VRAM. It’s not a dealbreaker in a budget card but you’ll be hitting the cap on the VRAM fairly often. But it can serve up to 59% more gaming performance compared to the likes of GTX 1650 and the RX 570 graphics cards, which still makes it a decent upgrade over older hardware.

Best budget Nvidia graphics card for 1080p gaming: Nvidia GeForce GTX 1660 Super

Nvidia updated its budget GPU lineup with the RTX 3050 desktop card, but we think the GeForce GTX 1660 Super is still a capable 1080p card that’s worth considering. Priced at around $200, the GTX 1660 Super sits between the GTX 1660 and the GTX 1660 Ti in Nvidia’s Turing lineup and offers a significant bump in performance over the GTX 1660 GPU. In fact, it matches the general performance of the GTX 1660 Ti for around $50 less, making it a fantastic option for those looking to buy a budget graphics card.

In terms of specifications, the GTX 1660 Super comes with 1408 stream processors and 88 texture units. We’re looking at a 1,530MHz base clock and a 1,785MHz boost clock. As for the memory configuration, the GTX 1660 Super comes with 6GB of GDDR6 video memory with recorded memory speeds of up to 14Gbps. It handily beats both the GTX 1650 and the GTX 1660 graphics card to become a solid performer in the budget space. If you don’t necessarily care about ray-tracing or DLSS, then we think the GTX 1660 Super is still worth considering in 2022. It’s not the most powerful GPU out there, but it’s certainly capable of handling games at 1080p without a hitch.

The GTX 1660 Super draws as much as 130W of power and it’s recommended to use a 500W PSU for a build with this GPU. The GTX 1660 Super shows solid performance in real-world gaming tests too. We’re only looking at a marginal performance difference to the GTX 1660 Ti which makes it excellent value. Just make sure you don’t pay over the odds for one.

Best APU for entry-level gaming: AMD Ryzen 5 5600G

AMD’s Ryzen 5 5600G is one of the best APUs on the market right now, and it’s perfect for those who are looking to build an affordable entry-level gaming PC without needing a graphics card. We think the Ryzen 5 5600G is a great choice for that with the flexibility to expand your system in future. The Ryzen 5 5600G is a six-core, twelve-thread processor with Radeon Vega integrated graphics.

On the CPU side we’re looking at a base clock of 3.9GHz and a boost clock of 4.4GHz. The Ryzen 5 5600G also carries seven Vega integrated graphics cores to offer impressive gaming performance. This 65W TDP chip has a 16MB L3 cache and it drops into one of the existing AM4 CPU sockets. This 7nm APU isn’t as powerful as the IGP-less Ryzen 5 5600X, but we think it’s still capable of handling just about all the day-to-day workloads with ease.

When it comes to the gaming performance of the Ryzen 5 5600G, the integrated Vega 7 graphics is powerful enough to run even some of the modern titles at 720p or at 1080p with low settings. The Ryzen 5 5600G can deliver a solid 60FPS gameplay when it comes to games like Far Cry 5 at 720p low settings. At 1080p the frames are down to around 30FPS, but it handles the game very well. The same is the case with other AAA titles like the Rise of Tomb Raider. Esports titles like Rainbow Six Siege and Counter Strike Global Offensive run at over 150FPS even at 1080p medium settings. As a CPU it will still hold up if you decide to pair it with a dedicated GPU further down the line.

Best budget graphics cards to buy in 2022: Final Thoughts

Nvidia, AMD, and now Intel are all players in the budget graphics card arena. We think the new Nvidia RTX 3050 essentially replaces a lot of GTX 16-series and older GPUs, while AMD’s new RX 6500 XT and RX 6600 stand as great options for entry-level rigs. Intel is new to the game and still working out some kinks, but has a very compelling sub-$300 graphics card packed with the latest tech. And don’t sleep on AMD APUs as an alternative if your budget isn’t ready for a dedicated card or you’re looking for flexibility to expand in the future.

Drop by our XDA Computing Forums to talk more and get more GPU recommendations from the experts in our community.