Nvidia current “30”-generation cards include the RTX 3050, RTX 3060, 3070, 3080, and 3090.įor AMD’s Radeon cards, the first number indicates the generation, and the second specifies the card’s power. These cards are broken into different standardized performance tiers.įor Nvidia, the first two numbers indicate the card generation, and the third number specifies the caliber of the card.
They license out their graphics processors to third-party manufacturers, such as EVGA and Sapphire, who create their own versions of each card with specs. Two companies design different types of graphics cards: Nvidia and AMD.
If you’re going to spend extra money on a feature, it’s worth your while to get a PC with a more capable graphic card. The graphics card, or GPU, is responsible for rendering 3D graphics and is the most influential factor in how many FPS you’ll see in different games. The most important element to any gaming PC is its graphics card. Here’s what to keep an eye on when shopping around. You also need to keep in mind its capacity to take on upgrades and other factors. When buying a prebuilt gaming PC, the core components are just part of the picture. It’s important to know what matters most so you can cut through the hype and find a PC that will perform the way you expect it to. Shopping for a gaming PC on a budget can be a confusing mix of big promises and perplexing specs. Things to consider before buying a cheap gaming PC After finding the best bang for the buck in each product category, I took a close look at user reviews to identify any red flags, such as poor packaging or carelessness in the build process. So, for this round-up, I’ve scoured retail sites with an eye toward the hardware inside each machine. A high price doesn’t always mean the best performance, and a low price doesn’t necessarily mean good value. In that time, I’ve become intimately familiar with the components that make gaming PCs tick. I’ve been a PC builder for more than 15 years and a tech critic for IGN, Tom’s Hardware, PC Perspective, and for over half a decade. How we selected the best cheap gaming PCs
Diving into the world of PC gaming can seem daunting and expensive at first, but it doesn’t need to be. Over the last few years, we’ve seen an explosion of new technologies like ray tracing and intelligent upscaling, which make games look and play better than ever before.