If you're like most people, you're probably using a graphics card that's several years old. And for PC gaming, video editing, animation and other graphics-intensive activities, that few years is forever in terms of performance. A lot has changed in the past few years, so chances are you're no longer using the best graphics card available for your needs, which may take advantage of modern technologies like smart resolution upscaling, ray-tracing acceleration and a whole lot more. Meanwhile, games and software used for tasks like 3D design and video editing have become more demanding, sometimes even to do the same old things.

Even if you simply need the basics for streaming video or surfing the web, a new graphics card can make your system feel snappier overall compared to an equivalent older model by improving video decoding acceleration, redrawing your screens faster, or any of a myriad of processing tasks that you don't think about.

But this is still a bad time to shop for a new video card. They're actually a lot easier to find than they were a year ago, but many continue to be in the phase. Prices for anything you can find remain out of control, and while they're not nearly as high as they were six months ago, they remain substantially higher than the manufacturers' fantasy launch-target prices: Some casual calculations I made showed a range of about +30% to +130% difference between the press-release prices and the cheapest recommendable card I could find for a given current-generation chip.

Still, if you're ready to throw down some cash for a new graphics card now, we hope this can offer some guidance on what to look for and which GPUs make sense for your budget and needs. While you can make some judgments based on specs like the manufacturer, graphics chip, amount of video memory, memory and gaming clock speeds, power requirements and other factors, they're imperfect predictors of how any particular model will perform in your games or creative applications.

If you've got an old desktop with integrated graphics that don't support the current versions of graphics programming interfaces such as DirectX 12 or Vulkan, or you have a game that won't run unless it detects dedicated graphics memory (these have 2GB) or if you just want to make your Windows experience feel a little more snappy or smooth, a GT 1030-based card can help. It's designed with lower power requirements than most other discrete GPUs, so it can fit in systems with small power supplies and compact designs. Unlike most gaming graphics cards, 1030-based cards can be low-profile and take up just a single slot for connectivity, and are quieter because they only require a single fan. Don't expect to game with the GeForce GT at 1080p -- 720p at best, unless a game is very lightweight. But Fortnite, CS:GO, League of Legends and other popular multiplayer games generally fall under the "can play on a potato" umbrella, so you don't need to worry as much if they're your go-tos. In some cases, games may simply go from unplayable to a little less unplayable. If you do want to play games, though, spring for versions with DDR5 memory, not DDR4; it can make a noticeable difference. That's why you'll see some offerings for less than $130. For a simple speedup, the cheapest decent one I've seen is $115.

Since much basic photo editing still isn't very GPU-intensive, a fast, high-core-count CPU still gives you a lot more performance value for the money than a higher-powered graphics card. The GPU does matter for the experience and smooth display rendering, but for smallish images and single-screen editing you shouldn't have any issues. The RX 6500 XT kind of wins here by default; it hits the basics and its price is much lower than step-up cards, which seem to run upward of $400. That's partly because the markup over its $199 manufacturer-recommended price is the least of any cards I looked at, leaving it in the sub-$300 range. You'll find it in two-fan and three-fan configurations (the latter is usually overclocked).

Source: CNET

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