Top 5 Best Graphics Cards of 2025
These are all the best graphics cards available now
It can be difficult to choose the finest graphics card for 2025, especially with so many alternatives available.
I’ve devoted hundreds of hours to evaluating a variety of GPUs in order to assess their gaming capabilities, creative capabilities, and overall value—chalking up over 36 comprehensive graphics card assessments in the past three years alone.
I can sort through all of the best options available for gamers and content producers based on both raw performance and practical usefulness thanks to my practical experience.
The AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT is now my top choice for the perfect balance of power and value, especially for gamers who are fed up with the excessive price increases for high-end cards. Although this GPU isn’t inexpensive, even after accounting for inflation, its 4K performance makes it the one I would suggest to almost anybody searching for their next upgrade.
To identify the real standouts among the cards on this list, I thoroughly examine aspects including energy consumption, performance benchmark outcomes, form factor and design, and cost.
Table of Contents
BEST OVERALL
1. AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT
BEST BUDGET
2. Intel Arc B580
BEST NVIDIA
3. Nvidia RTX 5070 Ti
BEST GAMING
4. Nvidia RTX 5080
BEST CREATIVE
5. Nvidia RTX 5090
1. AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT
For my evaluation of AMD’s newest flagship GPU, I used the AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT for almost two weeks, and it’s unquestionably one of the greatest gaming GPUs I’ve ever played.
At half the launch price, it offers performance that almost rivals the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4080, making it an amazing bargain. I anticipate that the RX 9070 XT will continue to be available at approximately its $599 MSRP, which should be a major relief for anyone tired of expensive, understocked cards. AMD has historically had fewer supply concerns and less scalping than Nvidia.
Power draws of up to 309W were observed throughout my testing, which is high, but considering this card’s performance level, I won’t claim it’s beyond reasonable limits. For tiny form factor builds, your case might not be the best option because you’ll need to make sure it can fit a triple-fan card and provide it with enough power. If my test results are any guide, it won’t impress you with creative or AI jobs either, but it’s great for gaming alone.
The RX 9070 XT outperformed all previous AMD cards in my testing, coming within 7% of the RTX 4080 and offering a fluid gaming experience overall, even at 4K in many situations. It also delivered high frame rates in some extremely demanding titles. This is not only a huge breath of fresh air for the market, but it’s also a new GPU product that any PC gaming enthusiast should be excited about because of its outstanding value, especially in a graphics card generation that is mostly lacking in excellent price-for-performance deals.
2. Intel Arc B580
With its incredible 1440p gaming performance in my tests for less than $250/£250/AU$450 at MSRP—something AMD and Nvidia have failed to do for two generations—the Intel Arc B580 was the biggest GPU surprise of 2024 when it was released last December.
Furthermore, I gave this most recent edition a rare 5-star evaluation because it seems to have fixed any problems with Intel’s earlier Arc Alchemist GPUs.
Although the card has some shortcomings (for instance, it’s not the best creative GPU available for the money and its ray tracing performance lags behind Nvidia’s), it is primarily a gaming GPU, and given how long it has been since PC gamers have had a compelling graphics card at this price range, it is simply unmatched.
However, there are stronger graphics cards, such as the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 Ti, if you want the highest performance at 1440p or 1080p. The Arc B580 is right there, providing almost identical performance on average and costing 10%–40% less than its competitors. However, those other cards are far more expensive, and they simply don’t provide a compelling enough reason to purchase them.
For those seeking the greatest low-cost graphics card without compromising on performance, this card is the ideal choice.
3. Nvidia GeForce RTX 5070 Ti
During the last two generations of Nvidia GPUs, I have found that the Nvidia GeForce RTX 5070 Ti offers the best price and performance balance across all categories, and in most situations, it’s not even close.
According to the results of my tests, it provides clear, fluid 4K gameplay in almost all games with minimal compromise in settings. Content producers and AI aficionados, on the other hand, are searching for an Nvidia GPU that can provide excellent performance without requiring the kind of large investment often needed for a workstation GPU.
There is, of course, a huge catch to all of this: this card is available at MSRP. There’s no assurance that you’ll ever be able to find this card at the price Nvidia set for it because pricing is ultimately up to third-party partners if you don’t have a Founders Edition card straight from Nvidia. Therefore, your value proposition may alter based on the price you discover for this card, and other cards on this list may be better choices.
However, objectively speaking, the RTX 5070 Ti is subject to the same cost pressures as practically every other card on our list. As a result, regardless of your intended application, this card is most likely to provide you with the best value for your money.
You can game at nearly 90 frames per second on average at 4K with an fps floor of 65 if you want it for your gaming setup. This is about as excellent as you could hope for from a high-end GPU, especially considering its pricing.
This card is particularly appealing to creative professionals who require a dedicated GPU for 3D modeling or video editing tasks, as it nearly matches some of the top graphics cards for creatives from the previous generation. Additionally, anyone upgrading from an RTX 3090 will notice a significant improvement in performance over their current setup.
The RTX 5070 Ti is the ideal card if you want enthusiast-grade performance but find the price of Nvidia’s RTX 5080 and RTX 5090 to be too exorbitant.
4. Nvidia GeForce RTX 5080
Even if the type of card you purchase can have a significant impact on your ability to pay for it, the Nvidia GeForce RTX 5080 is the third most powerful GPU available at a price that won’t require you to take out a small bank loan.
Being one of the most sought-after cards available, its value proposition is a changing target for each given customer due to continuous stock difficulties and price inflation.
If you can find the RTX 4080 and RTX 4080 Super for less than an RTX 5080, those cards might be a better value depending on their price. This is especially true when you consider that the gen-on-gen uplift of this card over the RTX 4080 and RTX 4080 Super is only about 8–13% based on my testing.
Additionally, it should go without saying that anyone owning an RTX 4080 or RTX 4080 Super should not purchase this card because it will only offer Multi-Frame Generation with DLSS 4, which is not worth the high price.
But if you can locate it in stock, the RTX 5080 will blow you away, especially if you’re coming from the RTX 30 series or pretty much any AMD card other than the RX 7900 XTX.
5. Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090
If you want your creative work to be performed as well as possible—and who isn’t? Since time is ultimately money, this is the ultimate goal for creatives, including AI specialists.
Nvidia’s GPUs have long been the industry standard for both commercial and academic use, whether you’re a professional working with 3D modeling and rendering, a video production specialist, or an AI researcher. However, the RTX 5090 is a whole other level.
The industry-standard CUDA and Tensor cores are among the impressive 33% increase in multiprocessors, and the 32GB VRAM is quicker than the best of the previous generation, the RTX 4090, which ‘only’ had 24GB VRAM.
In every game I tested it with, this card was nothing short of overkill, which is good news for gamers and enthusiasts who are determined to show off to their buddies. Thanks to its huge memory interface and VRAM pool, it’s the only graphics card that can handle native 8K gaming. However, it’s also the only graphics card I’ve tested that allows you to play native 4K games with ray tracing at its highest level.
Naturally, all of this performance is not inexpensive; for the same amount as the MSRP of this card, you could purchase a used automobile with a year or two of life left in it, and you will never find it at MSRP. Additionally, this already extremely expensive GPU has a shockingly high power consumption of up to 575W, so expect a high power bill.
It is crucial that I evaluate each GPU I review on an equal basis when it comes to the top graphics cards. In order to test graphics cards, I use a comprehensive set of benchmark tests that include creative performance, synthetic testing, and a battery of seven to ten games that are tested at various resolutions and settings using the most recent drivers.
In order to have the most recent information as drivers are updated, I also continuously retetest graphics cards that I have previously examined. I ensure that every card is tested using identical hardware, which includes identical motherboards, SSDs, processors, and RAM operating at identical speeds.
In this manner, I can be certain that I’m gauging the graphics card’s performance in comparison to other GPUs.