The Best Video Cards of 2019: From Low-End to Top
For the last years we have gotten used to the permanent arms race on video cards arena. Although AMD is quite behind NVIDIA even in the middle and low-cost segments, the lack of competition did not really result in any kind of stability. On the contrary, NVIDIA keeps users on their toes from the very announcement of the GeForce RTX series at last gamescom. Moreover, Intel is going to join the battle of Team Red and Team Green … So, it’s time to carefully check the market of video card to make sure we make the best choice (however, you can practically avoid spending money on updating hardware at all — see below). Rock Paper Shotgun just published a list of the best graphics cards for 1080p (1920x1080), 1440p (2560x1440) and 4K (3840x2160) resolutions — we added our thoughts and shared it with you.
1080p Graphics Cards
GeForce GTX 1660 Ti seems like the best choice for playing at Full HD/60 fps on ultra settings. It is the “younger sister” of the RTX line and has no RT cores. You can build a good gaming computer based on it for $900. (sure we are talking only about PC without suitable monitor, keyboard and other components). It will be enough for a year or two, but not more. The weak point of GTX 1660 Ti is only 6 GB of video memory. It’s far ahead of GTX 1060 6 GB and Radeon RX 580 8 GB. Although RX 580 is way cheaper, you will have to switch between the normal and high settings in different games.
There is also RX 570 8 GB, comparable to the GTX 1050 Ti 4 GB. It is unlikely that the you will enjoy the gameplay on these cards but it’s a nice way to save some money. In general, the RX 580, RX 570 and even the RX 590 with GTX 1060 (6 GB) are gradually moving from the middle to the low segment. By the way, GTX 1060 is now the most popular graphics card among Steam users.
GTX 1660 Ti is an entrance ticket to the world of actual games. There is no doubt that this “intermediate version” will become really popular. GTX 1660 (non Ti) is also a good option as it is faster than GTX 970 and 6-gigabyte version of GTX 1060.
It is worth adding that RX 570 8 GB is the best choice for a low-end PC (up to $600). Alas, there is a problem: you won’t really be able to play Metro: Exodus for example (one of the best games of 2019), the card just has no “safety factor”.
1440p Graphics Cards
GeForce RTX 2060 looks much more convincing as the best card for 2560x1440 than the other options on the market. NVIDIA sells it with Anthem or Battlefield 5 for good reason, the graphics looks just great. Battlefield 5 also supports Ray Tracing.
Abovementioned GTX 1660 Ti can serve as an alternative to RTX 2060 to some extent. It is cheaper and does not lag far behind RTX 2060.
As for the support of raytracing… At GDC 2019, taking place in San Francisco, NVIDIA made an unexpected announcement — the Pascal line will get Ray Tracing support (from GTX 1060 6 GB to Titan Xp), Volta (Titan V) and junior Turing (GTX 1660 Ti and 1660). Of course, there will be a huge difference between hardware support and Ray Tracing emulation, but still it’s better than nothing. Green Team will release the new driver update in April. And another thing: we mentioned Quake 2 RTX version in our article about Ray Tracing and DLSS — so, NVIDIA decided to take the project under its wing.
4K Graphics Cards
RTX 2080 Ti is the ultimate 4K champion for sure. But how many gamers are ready to pay more than $1300 just for one video card? After all, with such budget it is easier to build a PC based on GTX 1070 or Vega 56 and enjoy the games in 1080p and 1440p on ultra settings. The most significant advantages of RTX 2080 Ti are the uncompromising 60 fps in 4K and the possibility not to think about updating the hardware for several years.
RTX 2070 and Vega 64 are kind of alternatives to RTX 2080 Ti but not really. RTX 2070 outperforms the GTX 1070 and works flawlessly at 1080p and 1440p, but keep in mind that such a PC would cost more than $1500. However, playing on 4K with RTX 2070 is only possible on medium and high settings at 45–50 fps.
Having RTX 2080 Ti, you can forget about the fluctuations of the graphics card market. The same applies to the 1440p segment, because manufacturers do not fight hard for it. However, owners of Full HD cards should be really careful.
And as we said at the beginning, manufacturers keep gamers on their toes. The RTX series sales aren’t great, but NVIDIA figured out how to get out of the situation — it released GTX 1660 Ti. Surely the we will hear more interesting announcements at the end of May at Computex in Taiwan and in August at gamescom in Germany. Both NVIDIA and AMD are ready to show something bigger. Ray Tracing did not find its audience, but the GTX 1070 Ti and 1070 began to disappear from the stock. The same goes for the Radeon VII — an attractive card with 16 GB of memory without hardware acceleration of Ray Tracing.
If you want to avoid unnerving experience with choosing a video card and suitable components (the market does not stand still, and the cards are not going to get cheaper), try cloud gaming. A subscription on Playkey.net is not as expensive as the prices of graphic cards, for the price of a gaming computer you can play for several years using our cloud platform.
