Best graphics card for gaming cheap: Best cheap graphics cards 2022

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

2021 has been 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 GPU
  • Best budget AMD graphics card: AMD Radeon RX 6600
  • Budget AMD graphics card worth checking out: AMD Radeon RX 6500 XT
  • Best budget Nvidia graphics card for 1080p gaming: Nvidia GeForce GTX 1660 Super
  • Best APU for entry-level gaming: AMD Ryzen 5 5600G

Best budget Nvidia graphics card: Nvidia GeForce RTX 3050 GPU

Nvidia decided to put an end to all the rumors and speculations with the launch of its new GeForce RTX 3050 GPU. Announced at CES 2022, the GeForce RTX 3050 GPU is the company’s new budget king starting at just $249. The RTX 3050, in case you’re wondering, undercuts Nvidia’s previous entry-level graphics card, the RTX 3060. That particular GPU was priced at $329, which means the new budget GPU is $80 cheaper.

The RTX 3050 GPU is built on Nvidia’s Ampere architecture and yes, it supports ray-tracing. In fact, the RTX 3050 GPU promises to be Nvidia’s most affordable entry into the world of 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. Yes, the RTX 3050 GPU also has Tensor cores to enable things like its AI-based DLSS upscaling. This makes it a really good offering despite the affordable price tag.

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 is still not as powerful as the RTX 3060, but we think it comes close. According to Nvidia, the RTX 3050 is powerful enough to allow gamers to experience ray-tracing at 1080p with 60FPS across different titles. That’s impressive, but we’re yet to put this particular GPU to the test.

The new RTX 3050 is said to have a total graphics power of 130W and Nvidia is recommending a 550W PSU to run this particular GPU. In terms of the general performance, Nvidia is comparing the RTX 3050 with its older GPUs like the GTX 1650, GTX 1050 Ti, etc. Well, that makes perfect sense because the RTX 3050 is essentially an upgrade to the outgoing GTX 1650 graphics card. It’s definitely worth upgrading to the new RTX 3050 if you’re using one of the older 16-series graphics cards.

Just like the RTX 3060 graphics card, there’s no Nvidia-built Founder’s Edition model for the new 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. It goes without saying that these OEMs may end up pricing their version of the RTX 3050 slightly above the $250 launch price. This particular graphics card, just like a lot of other options on the market, isn’t readily available on the market right now. However, you can hit the link below to keep an eye on the availability. We’ll update this space with updated purchase links if/when it goes on sale, so stay tuned. In the meantime, you can check out our collection of the best Nvidia graphics cards to find your other available options on the market.

    MSI GeForce RTX 3050 GPU
    The MSI GeForce RTX 3050 graphics card offers reliable performance and is a great option for gamers looking to experience 1080p gaming.
    Buy from Newegg