The RX 9070 remains my pick for best graphics card, but in the budget market Nvidia's RTX 5050 gets the nod

Our recommended GPU right now – YouTube

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— Our recommended GPU right now

The best graphics card is, arguably, the one you can afford right now. Now, that might seem trite, but the reality is that, while prices are frustratingly high thanks to a whole host of reasons (*cough* AI), there are cards worth looking at in every segment. And though you might be swayed by the VRAM debate, our own testing shows that in the real world gaming with an 8 GB GPU is absolutely fine in most cases. It’s also interesting to note that prices have essentially stabilised at their current level. While stock might be tight, there is stock and at prices which have remained consistent for the past month, with some actually dropping.

I’ve tested and gamed on pretty much every new graphics card that’s been released in this generation, from the Intel Battlemage cards that launched late 2024, through the initial Nvidia RTX Blackwell launch at the start of 2025, and on to AMD’s RDNA 4 cards later last year. I believe that makes me well placed to talk you through what I think today’s best graphics card is, and for me it’s the AMD Radeon RX 9070.

For most PC gamers this is the graphics card which offers the highest performance for the money, delivering decent 1440p performance, and much improved ray tracing over previous AMD generations of GPU. It’s also rocking 16 GB of VRAM to be able to deliver on high graphics settings at that resolution now and into the future, too. It was priced appallingly at launch, but now it’s settling down and delivering performance close to the RX 9070 XT and therefore the RTX 5070 Ti, too. It’s also been remarkably resilient so far in the face of spiking GPU prices thanks to the ongoing RAMpocalypse.

The absolute top, from a pure performance standpoint, however, still is the Nvidia RTX 5090. That’s the best high-end graphics card with no other contenders getting near its mix of style, features, and raw computational grunt. It’s also a card where no-one gets close in terms of price, either, especially with prices the way they are right now. At the budget end, we can no longer recommend Intel’s B570, it doesn’t have the value argument anymore and the reliability and relative performance of the RTX 5050 makes that now the best budget graphics card.

GPU price tracking

🕹️ RTX 5080: $1,290 @ Best Buy
🕹️ RTX 5070 Ti: $990 @ Amazon
🕹️ RTX 5070: $599 @ Walmart
🕹️ RTX 5060 Ti 16 GB: $500 @ Walmart
🕹️ RTX 5060 Ti 8 GB: $380 @ Newegg
🕹️ RTX 5060: $330 @ Amazon
🕹️ RTX 5050: $290 @ Amazon

🕹️ RX 9070 XT: $710 @ Newegg
🕹️ RX 9070: $620 @ Amazon
🕹️ RX 9060 XT 16 GB: $440 @ Newegg
🕹️ RX 9060 XT 8 GB: $350 @ Amazon

🕹️ Arc B580: $290 @ Newegg
🕹️ Arc B570: $260 @ Amazon

Lowest price per GPU

From August 14, 2025 to April 23, 2026

Lowest pricing (Price ($))

Time (Week)

Lowest pricing Data
Timestamp (Week)	AMD RX 9060 XT 16 GB (Price ($))	AMD RX 9060 XT 8 GB (Price ($))	AMD RX 9070 (Price ($))	AMD RX 9070 XT (Price ($))	Intel Arc B570 (Price ($))	Intel Arc B580 (Price ($))	Nvidia RTX 5050 (Price ($))	Nvidia RTX 5060 (Price ($))	Nvidia RTX 5060 Ti 16 GB (Price ($))	Nvidia RTX 5060 Ti 8 GB (Price ($))	Nvidia RTX 5070 (Price ($))	Nvidia RTX 5070 Ti (Price ($))	Nvidia RTX 5080 (Price ($))
1	370	280	600	700	230	260	250	300	430	368	550	780	1100
2	370	270	600	700	230	260	250	300	430	340	550	750	1099
3	370	280	550	700	230	250	250	291	430	370	524	750	1000
4	370	280	550	695	230	250	250	296	430	345	546	750	1000
5	350	270	600	670	230	250	250	300	430	340	481	749	1000
6	350	270	600	670	230	250	240	289	379	340	499	749	929
7	350	270	550	650	230	250	240	299	430	350	520	750	999
8	350	270	550	650	200	250	250	299	430	342	500	749	980
9	350	270	560	650	220	250	250	299	430	323	500	750	999
10	360	270	550	600	210	250	250	299	430	340	480	730	989
11	340	250	550	600	200	250	230	280	400	320	489	699	990
12	350	275	530	600	200	250	220	279	400	320	500	730	989
13	350	280	530	600	200	250	220	279	420	342	527	750	1000
14	370	280	530	600	202	250	220	279	420	313	540	750	1000
15	380	288	530	600	202	240	200	279	430	350	499	749	1000
16	380	288	530	620	202	240	200	270	430	350	499	750	1100
17	390	310	580	660	200	250	235	260	430	330	549	750	1230
18	390	310	580	700	200	250	240	290	450	330	540	829	1268
19	400	310	580	720	200	260	240	299	450	330	549	899	1380
20	440	310	600	720	200	290	240	299	520	330	620	1000	1350
21	440	350	590	730	250	290	260	299	520	351	620	950	1365
22	400	346	630	730	250	300	260	299	520	360	620	950	1365
23	440	346	630	730	250	300	260	340	520	360	630	950	1290
24	440	346	620	730	250	300	260	340	520	360	625	950	1290
25	440	346	610	730	250	300	260	349	550	360	630	950	1250
26	440	340	610	730	250	300	290	349	550	360	604	950	1260
27	440	340	630	730	250	300	290	349	570	360	640	950	1290
28	440	346	620	720	250	290	290	349	515	390	630	900	1250
29	449	350	620	710	250	290	290	349	500	390	636	990	1290
30	440	350	620	710	260	290	290	330	500	390	630	990	1290
31	440	350	620	710	260	290	290	330	500	380	599	990	1290

Quick list

Curated by…

Dave James

Dave first started as a PC hardware journalist, after years of freelance games journalism, way back in 2005 when he started with PC Format magazine. In that role, and many others since, he’s tested pretty much every single graphics card generation and architecture released in the intervening years. He’s the person best placed around PC Gamer to tell you which graphics card is the best right now, because he’s used them all.

April 23, 2026: I’ve updated the page with the latest GPU pricing from our regular graphics card price checks. It’s interesting that we have seen pretty stable pricing for the past few months now. But the RTX 5070 Ti has now priced itself out of the running, with the RX 9070 XT now the mid-range GPU pick that makes the most sense.

February 10, 2026: I’ve updated our pick for the best budget graphics card recommendation to the Nvidia RTX 5050. The previous recommendation was the Arc B570, but its value proposition has evaporated and its performance isn’t as reliably good as the GeForce option. And when money’s tight, you want the card you can be confident is going to work in your games.

November 4, 2025: I’ve updated the presentation of video within the guide, to highlight some of the benefits of the different GPUs in motion, and updated the full GPU hierarchy rank at the bottom of the page.

1. Best overall graphics card: AMD Radeon RX 9070

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XFX Swift Radeon RX 9070 OC graphics card on a grey background with a gradient — (Image credit: Future)

The best graphics card of 2026

Specifications

Shaders: 3584

Boost clock: 2520 MHz

TFLOPs: 36.12

Memory: 16 GB GDDR6

Memory clock: 20 GT/s

Memory bandwidth: 640 GB/s

TGP: 220 W

Reasons to buy

Not far off the performance of the XT version

Comfortably beats RTX 5070

Especially when overclocked

Healthy VRAM capacity

Reasons to avoid

–

The $100 price bump is an issue

–

The XT version will become available again at MSRP

1440p gaming performance

Black Myth Wukong (1440p High) Data
Product	Value
RX 9070	73 Avg FPS, 64 1% Low FPS
RTX 5070	68 Avg FPS, 60 1% Low FPS
RX 9070 XT	82 Avg FPS, 73 1% Low FPS
RTX 5070 Ti	84 Avg FPS, 74 1% Low FPS

Cyberpunk 2077 (1440p RT Ultra) Data
Product	Value
RX 9070	43 Avg FPS, 36 1% Low FPS
RTX 5070	45 Avg FPS, 36 1% Low FPS
RX 9070 XT	52 Avg FPS, 43 1% Low FPS
RTX 5070 Ti	61 Avg FPS, 48 1% Low FPS

F1 24 (1440p Ultra High) Data
Product	Value
RX 9070	90 Avg FPS, 67 1% Low FPS
RTX 5070	78 Avg FPS, 60 1% Low FPS
RX 9070 XT	105 Avg FPS, 66 1% Low FPS
RTX 5070 Ti	108 Avg FPS, 84 1% Low FPS

Homeworld 3 (1440p Epic) Data
Product	Value
RX 9070	104 Avg FPS, 62 1% Low FPS
RTX 5070	112 Avg FPS, 64 1% Low FPS
RX 9070 XT	111 Avg FPS, 62 1% Low FPS
RTX 5070 Ti	119 Avg FPS, 59 1% Low FPS

Metro Exodus Enhanced Edition (1440p Ultra) Data
Product	Value
RX 9070	107 Avg FPS, 74 1% Low FPS
RTX 5070	100 Avg FPS, 68 1% Low FPS
RX 9070 XT	120 Avg FPS, 54 1% Low FPS
RTX 5070 Ti	129 Avg FPS, 89 1% Low FPS

The Talos Principle 2 (1440p Ultra) Data
Product	Value
RX 9070	74 Avg FPS, 53 1% Low FPS
RTX 5070	64 Avg FPS, 42 1% Low FPS
RX 9070 XT	84 Avg FPS, 44 1% Low FPS
RTX 5070 Ti	81 Avg FPS, 35 1% Low FPS

Total War: Warhammer 3 (1440p Ultra) Data
Product	Value
RX 9070	96 Avg FPS, 43 1% Low FPS
RTX 5070	81 Avg FPS, 53 1% Low FPS
RX 9070 XT	102 Avg FPS, 49 1% Low FPS
RTX 5070 Ti	90 Avg FPS, 44 1% Low FPS

Buy if…

✅ You want a good 1440p GPU, and a great 1080p one: With the ray tracing updates baked into RDNA 4, the RX 9070 is now a fantastic all-round graphics card. It can nail 1440p and 1080p resolutions at top settings, and can call on FSR and AMD’s frame generation feature to give you a boost if you need it.

✅ You’re happy to undervolt/overclock: With some easy tweaks in the AMD drivers you can boost the performance of the GPU to within a couple of percentage points of the RX 9070 and RTX 5070 Ti. And the best part is that it doesn’t demand a ton more power or cooling to get there, so shouldn’t stress you or your fancy new card.

Don’t buy if…

❌ You can find an RX 9070 XT for anything close to the same price: While you can overclock the non-XT card to get within 2% of the performance, prices being equal the XT card is a no-brainer.

The bottom line

🪛 The Radeon RX 9070 is an excellent graphics card if you’re looking for high 1440p performance without the almost $1,000 price points of the competing Nvidia cards. With the market as it is, the AMD card is the best GPU for most PC gamers.

The RX 9070 is a rather agonising pick as the best graphics card around right now. There are inevitable caveats around my decision, because quite obviously this second-tier RDNA 4 GPU is not the most powerful GPU you can buy. The AMD Radeon RX 9070, however, is the graphics card I think makes the most sense to the most PC gamers.

And, realistically, it’s going to be the one that I would suggest to my PC gaming friends if they come looking for a recommendation. Luckily, I don’t actually have friends.

The RX 9070 offers close to the performance of AMD’s most powerful RDNA 4 GPU, still packs in 16 GB of GDDR6 video memory, can be easily overclocked without demanding much more cooling or power, and handily outperforms Nvidia’s similarly priced, lower-spec RTX 5070.

I was relatively cool on the card in my initial review of the GPU, mainly because our first taste of it was a card that XFX hiked the price of out the gate, which made it more than a reference RX 9070 XT. As things have evened out, there are reliably cheaper RX 9070 cards around and when you look at the graphics card market as a whole, the Radeon stands out as a great pick.

Yet I still haven’t come to that conclusion lightly. My first thought was going to be recommending the $350 RX 9060 XT, because it is great value, performs well, and pretty much offers performance parity with the more expensive Nvidia option. But it doesn’t feel like a great recommendation for the best graphics card, given that it is a third-tier Radeon that isn’t particularly exciting.

The Radeon RX 9070 XT, though, is a fantastic card and were it not for the ludicrous over-pricing of AMD’s finest it would absolutely be my top pick. With an MSRP of $599 it would be an easy choice for its impressive performance out of the box, stunning under-volting frame rate bumps, and the excellent filip of the new FSR4 upscaler. But the cheapest you can get it for these days is still over $700, with the RX 9070 generally under $600 with very similar gaming performance, especially with some judicious undervolting.

In the end, the extra raster performance of the Radeon RX 9070 over the RTX 5070—and how close it can get to the more expensive RTX 5070 Ti and RX 9070 XT GPUs—makes it the best graphics card to buy right now for most PC gamers.

Read our full AMD Radeon RX 9070 review.

2. Best value graphics card: AMD Radeon RX 9060 XT 16 GB

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The XFX AMD Radeon RX 9060 XT on a set of bookshelves — (Image credit: Future)

The best value graphics card of this generation