Best Gaming Graphics Card: 1080p, 1440p and 4K [Updated April 2019]

The gaming market is headed for some exciting times. In the PC space, we’ve got the Ryzen 3000 series of CPUs about to launch and the Radeon RX Navi GPUs expected shortly afterward. Then there’s the possibility of Microsoft unveiling its next-gen Xbox consoles, codenamed project Scarlett, and lastly, Google’s Stadia game streaming service is also expected to take the industry by storm. However, before the Navi GPUs are actually announced, we’d like to put together one final list of the best graphics cards for PC gaming at all the three major resolutions. We’ve updated our earlier guide to include the newly released GTX Turing cards, and this one considers just the sheer rendering performance of the GPUs without taking into account the fancy ray tracing or DLSS techniques.

Best Gaming Graphics Cards

For 1080p-60FPS:

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660

Starting price: $219US/INR 20,495

If you looking for the best experience at 1080p gaming, then NVIDIA’s Turing based GeForce GTX 1660 is hands down the best product you can get at the moment. It consistently delivers smooth 60+ FPS in every title and has got you covered till the next lineup of GPUs from NVIDIA and AMD (Intel maybe?) arrive. You might find AMD’s Polaris based RX cards for a few dozen bucks cheaper, but I’d suggest staying away from them as their thermals and TDP are much worse. Plus the performance deltas are quite prominent.

If you are on a tight budget, then the RX 570 priced at a mere $130 isn’t a bad choice either. It beats the crap out of NVIDIA’s last GTX Turing part, the GTX 1650 while costing $20 less. It’s the ideal choice if you are looking for the bare-minimum option at 1080p gaming without breaking the bank. On the other hand, if you play Battle Royale titles, then you’ll probably want higher frame rates (100+), and the 1660 Ti is best suited for that.

For 1440p-60FPS:

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 Ti

Starting price: $279US/ INR 25,796

NVIDIA’s GeForce GTX 1660 Ti provides you with solid 50+ FPS at 1440p at the absolute max graphics settings, while costing just $279. It comes with all the core advancements of Turing such as adaptive shading, improved shader efficiency and NVENC support for streamers. The 6GB of VRAM should also keep most games satisfied for the time being. For eSports titles, it’s especially recommended as it can deliver high frame rates (75+) even at 1440p, making for a buttery smooth experience.

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AMD Radeon RX Vega 56

Starting price: $199 (US only)

The last time we checked, the Radeon RX Vega 56 was well above $300 on both Amazon on Newegg, but now it’s priced at just $299. It is roughly $20-30 more expensive than the GTX 1660 Ti but is considerably faster too, most notably in DX12 and Vulkan based titles. However, keep in mind that this card is available at a lower price only if you’re from the United States, in other countries, it is priced quite ridiculously.

For 4K-60FPS:

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080

Starting price: $680US/ INR 67,845

Although NVIDIA will try to persuade you that the $1300+ GeForce RTX 2080 Ti is the best card for 4K gaming, we’re going to pretend that that GPU doesn’t exist. Paying that much for a gaming component, flagship or not is just nuts. If the GeForce GTX 1080 Ti were still around we’d gladly recommend that, but NVIDIA has made sure that’s not the case. And for good reason, the Pascal flagship one-ups the more expensive RTX 2080 despite being older and cheaper (Hehe, who says old isn’t gold). But, unless you’re a time traveler, it’s almost impossible to find one at a decent price, so we’re compelled to recommend the Turing based RTX 2080 for 4K gaming. We were hoping AMD’s Radeon VII would give it a run for its money, but that’s not that case, and the 7nm GPU falls flat and on top of that isn’t available in the APAC region.

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Ti

Starting price: $1,114US/ INR 105,000

If you have a lot of money to burn and a craving for the unmatched details that come with gaming at 4K and don’t want to compromise on the visuals while still getting smooth 60 FPS, then we have no reason to not recommend NVIDIA’s Turing king, the RTX 2080 Ti. Equipped with cutting-edge RTCores and Tensors for ray tracing capability while maintaining playable frame rates, it’s the only GPU that can attain that magical 60 FPS mark in games with DirectX Ray Tracing support. In case, you want to get a taste of ray tracing at sub-4K resolutions check out these guides below. We’ve included all the info you need:

• Best Graphics Cards for Gaming with ray tracing
• NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060, 2070, 2080 Pricing in India: RTX ON

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Benchmark courtesy: TechSpot and TomsHardware