Best Graphics Card 2022: Top rated AMD and Nvidia GPUs

Introduction
Looking to upgrade your gaming or content creation rig with a new GPU, but struggling to decide which to get, or whether now is the right time to pull the trigger?
Both are understandable concerns. AMD and Nvidia currently have a number of great cards on the market covering a multitude of prices. But, because they’re based on different technologies and use different terms to describe their features, comparing the two families can be fairly tricky.Â
On top of that new technologies like resizable bar and infinity cache can also make certain cards perform better when paired with specific parts, so the answer to which is best can also be determined by what you plan to pair the GPU with.
With new Nvidia RTX 4000 and AMD RDNA 3 cards expected to arrive in the very near future, as well as Intel’s first wave of Intel Arc GPUs, there is also a very good argument to wait and see how they perform when we finally get them in for testing.
If you can wait, our team of experts would actually recommend doing so. But, if that’s not an option, scroll down as we’ve detailed the top performing cards for every budget and type of gamer that we’ve tested in the list below. Every card on the list has passed through our labs and been benchmarked using a series of specialist tools and AAA games to get accurate performance data, so you can trust our buying advice.
How we test
Every graphics card we review goes through a series of uniform checks designed to gauge key things including performance, features, thermals, power consumption and overclokability.
These include formal synthetic benchmarks with third-party software, plus a series of in-games tests from some of the most recent AAA PC titles, with optimised picks for both AMD and Nvidia.
We also make sure to use the GPU for everyday tasks and gaming to make sure there are no real-time performance issues.
- Excellent 1080p and 1440p performance
- Smaller design than RTX 3080
- Amazing value
- No real room for overclocking
- Uses older VRAM
- Excellent 4K performance
- Ray tracing is awesome
- Far cheaper than RTX 2080 Ti
- HDMI 2.1 support
- Very power hungry
- Not massively overclockable
- Solid 1080p Ray Tracing performance
- Lowest power consumption of all Ampere cards
- Cheapest current gen’ card on the market
- Still not massively overclockable
- Only 20% cheaper than an RTX 3070
- Strong 1080p performance
- Low power consumption
- Wealth of features for Ryzen builds
- Struggles with ray tracing without FSR activated
- Not as powerful as Nvidia RTX 3060 Ti

Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080
The best graphics card for 4K gaming
Pros
- Excellent 4K performance
- Ray tracing is awesome
- Far cheaper than RTX 2080 Ti
- HDMI 2.1 support
Cons
- Very power hungry
- Not massively overclockable
The Nvidia RTX 3080 is our top recommended graphics card for gaming in 4K. While we found the RTX 3080 isn’t the fastest card available – with the RTX 3080 Ti, RTX 3090 and RTX 3090 Ti flaunting more power – it’s still more than powerful enough to play most games in 4K with ray tracing activated.Â
The Nvidia RTX 3080 managed to play both Control and Battlefield V in 4K, during our latest checks, with a performance over 60fps with their graphics maxed. On top of that, the RTX 3080 Ti typically only renders games around 5-10 frames faster than the base RTX 3080 in 4K with ray tracing and DLSS on. While these gains aren’t to be ignored, we still recommend most buyers opt for the much more reasonably priced RTX 3080 since it represents superior value.Â
However, our tests did show that the card can run a little hot and, based on our experience, doesn’t have much room for overclocking. Smaller builds will also want to avoid it due to the card’s high thermals, which exceeded 90 degrees regularly when playing demanding titles in our test rig’s open case. This, plus its large dual-fan design, make it an awkward fit for smaller builds.
If you can’t get your hands on an RTX 3080 at the moment, we’d also suggest looking at the AMD RX 6800. The card offers excellent 4K gaming performance that was only a few frames behind the RTX 3080 during our checks with ray tracing and DLSS deactivated.
Reviewer: Alastair Stevenson
Full review: Nvidia RTX 3080 review

Nvidia GeForce RTX 3070
Best graphics card for 1440p gaming
Pros
- Excellent 1080p and 1440p performance
- Smaller design than RTX 3080
- Amazing value
Cons
- No real room for overclocking
- Uses older VRAM
If you’re not that bothered about 4K or have a 1440p monitor instead, then the Nvidia RTX 3070 is the best graphics card we’d recommend to gamers. The card shares the same Ampere architecture and high-end features as its more expensive sibling, but isn’t quite as powerful.Â
During testing, we could not reliably get demanding games (like CyberPunk 2077) running in 4K with ray tracing on and the graphics settings maxed. But with ray tracing off, the card generally performed excellently and proved fantastic value for money. Elden Ring ran smoothly in 1080p, 1440p and 4K with zero issue, as did Cyberpunk 2077 and Tiny Tina’s Wonderland.
However, we found the RTX 3070 generally played games around 15-20 fps slower than the RTX 3080. This meant games, including Cyberpunk 2077 and Control, failed to consistently hit 60fps when ray tracing was activated, averaging between 40-50fps during our tests. These frame rates are still comfortably playable, but they don’t offer the smooth experience you get on the more expensive RTX 3080.
The compromise is forgivable as the 3070 also manages to outperform its AMD rival’s performance. Putting the RTX 3070 head to head with the slightly cheaper AMD RX 6700XT, the Nvidia card was constantly 10fps ahead in our in-game benchmark tests. This adds up to make it our recommended card for a 1440p resolution, and anyone who doesn’t care about ray tracing in 4K.
Reviewer: Alastair StevensonÂ
Full review: Nvidia RTX 3070 review

Nvidia RTX 3060 Ti
Best graphics card for 1080p gaming
Pros
- Solid 1080p Ray Tracing performance
- Lowest power consumption of all Ampere cards
- Cheapest current gen’ card on the market
Cons
- Still not massively overclockable
- Only 20% cheaper than an RTX 3070
If you still use an 1080p gaming monitor, then both the RTX 3070 and RTX 3080 are overkill options based on our experience. Instead, we recommend opting for the cheaper RTX 3060 Ti. This isn’t the cheapest Nvidia card we’ve tested, with the RTX 3050 costing considerably less. But the RTX 3060 Ti is the cheapest we’ve benchmarked to offer reliable post-60fps performance with ray tracing on in 1080p.
The card shares the same perks and architecture as the RTX 3070, with the main changes being reductions to its clock speeds and general specifications. Specifically, it has less tensor cores and RT cores (the parts of the card that run ray tracing and DLSS).
But we didn’t notice any serious issues running games in 1080p. The graphic card ran every game in our tests, even with ray tracing activated and their graphics settings maxed out. Control zoomed along at 84fps and Borderlands 3 never dipped below 60fps. As a result, we’d say this is the card to get if you care about ray tracing and other cutting-edge features, but are still gaming at a 1080p resolution.
The only downside is that the Founders Edition model we tested is still fairly large, making it a poor fit for ITX builds. If that’s what you’re after, you’re better off checking a single-fan card, like the Nvidia RTX 3050, despite occasionally struggling to hit 60fps, even in 1080p, during our checks.
Reviewer: Alastair Stevenson
Full review: Nvidia RTX 3060 Ti review

AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT
Best budget graphics card
Pros
- Strong 1080p performance
- Low power consumption
- Wealth of features for Ryzen builds
Cons
- Struggles with ray tracing without FSR activated
- Not as powerful as Nvidia RTX 3060 Ti
The AMD RX 6600 XT is our current top recommended card for those on a strict budget. It’s the cheapest option in AMD’s current generation lineup and is built on the same RDNA 2 architecture as its more expensive siblings.
During our tests, we found the card can’t match the performance of Nvidia’s more expensive RTX 3060 Ti, especially when it comes to ray tracing. But for the price, it’s still a very capable card for 1080p gaming.
Modern games, including Doom Eternal, Destiny 2 and Cyberpunk 2077 all ran over 60fps in our 1080p benchmarks, while FSR compatible titles (like Godfall) can see the performance boosted even further due to some upscaling smarts.
If you don’t care about sky-high frame rates or ray tracing when playing games in 1080p, the budget-friendly price makes the AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT a solid choice.
FAQs
Ray tracing is an advanced rendering technology that can create realistic lighting and shadow effects. Only modern GPUs and select games support this technology.
DLSS is Nvidia’s temporal image upscaling technology which boosts the frame rate performance of supported games without compromising on the image quality. Only Nvidia’s RTX 20-Seires and 30-Series GPUs support the technology.
Ampere is Nvidia’s latest GPU architecture.