For years now, it's felt like graphics card manufacturers have essentially forgotten about the budget graphics card. Nvidia, for instance, still hasn't released a follow-up to the GTX 1660 Ti, instead telling anyone on a budget to settle for last-year's GPUs. Luckily, Intel has stepped into the fray and its second generation of graphics cards are providing an excellent entry point to PC gaming. The Intel Arc B580 is by far the best budget graphics card we've had in years.

This graphics card starts at $249 and is strapped with 12GB of VRAM, which is significantly more than the 8GB that the comparable RTX 4060 and Radeon RX 7600 offer. While having more than 8GB is nice to have at 1080p, it's essential at higher resolutions, as that frame buffer can fill up quickly at 1440p or 4K. When I reviewed the Intel Arc B580, I found that it delivered way better performance at 1440p than any other comparable graphics card, thanks in large part to that frame buffer.

In fact, throughout the eight games I benchmarked with the Intel Arc B580, I found that it offered by far the lowest cost per frame out of the lineup. Averaged out across the test suite, the Arc B580 only costs $3.72 per frame in a 1440p game, compared to $4.39 from the RTX 4060 and $4.89 from the AMD Radeon RX 7600 (based on MSRP). For its price, then, the B580 easily provides the best value for gamers watching their wallets.

What's most suprising though, is how good the B580 is at handling ray tracing. Even games that traditionally favor Nvidia's hardware, like Cyberpunk 2077, lean towards the Intel B580. In Cyberpunk, at 1440p with the Ray Tracing Ultra preset and XeSS set to 'Balanced', you can expect a healthy 60fps average. Compared to the more-expensive RTX 4060 with 49fps, and the choice is clear.

Keep in mind, though, that because this is only the second generation of Intel's graphics cards, there are still some bugs to sort through. When I was testing Call of Duty: Black Ops 6, I noticed that the benchmark would run without rendering the gun in the player's hand. Annoying, but it is something that could be fixed. It should also be noted that this bug persisted throughout all of the Intel GPUs I tested, including the last-gen Arc A770 and A750, so it's not a problem with the B580 alone.

If you're setting out to play your PC games at 1080p, or even 1440p, the RTX 4060 Ti is a no-brainer if you're trying to build a solid rig at a decent price. When I reviewed the RTX 4060 Ti, I found that even at 1440p, the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 Ti is easily able to max out Cyberpunk 2077, hitting an average of 62fps. That's not bad considering that even four years after it came out, Cyberpunk is still one of the hardest PC games to run at higher resolutions, especially with all the eye candy enabled.

The GPU does even better in non-ray traced games, too. The graphics card hits an average of 68fps in Total War: Warhammer 3 at 1440p, and does even better, hitting 102fps at 1080p. For a budget GPU in 2024, you can't really ask for better performance without risking the price tag creeping up even higher.

Now, the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 Ti is kind of on the high-end of "budget," with this Asus TUF variant costing $439 at the time of writing. That amount of cash used to get you a high-end graphics cards, but in the current market, it's definitely on the lower end, without having to rely on the second-hand market.

What makes the Asus TUF model special is that, even though this is a 159W card, it's still rocking a triple-fan setup, which means temperatures are going to be kept in control no matter how hard you push it. However, with the size that a triple-fan cooler brings with it, you might have a bit of trouble getting this graphics card to fit into smaller PC cases. If you have the room for it in your rig, though, this is an excellent entry-level graphics card, especially if you want to start messing with ray tracing features in newer PC games.

Buying a more affordable graphics card is an exercise in compromise. Because while the AMD Radeon RX 7600 is not a card I'd recommend for anyone that wants to use ray tracing, it's still awesome at traditional 1080p gaming. Let's be real: Who needs fancy ray tracing tech when you just want to play Phasmophobia with your friends?

In my review for the AMD Radeon RX 7600, I found that while there are certainly some games where it struggles – looking at you, Cyberpunk 2077 – there are plenty of games where you can get more than 60fps at 1080p. In Total War: Warhammer 3, the RX 7600 is capable of up to 83fps at that resolution. That's not as fast as a graphics card that costs twice as much, sure, but at around $250, I can't be mad at it.

Plus, this AMD graphics card has 8GB of VRAM, which is more than you'll need for 1080p gaming most of the time. Where the 7600 really shines is just powering popular games without any fuss. You'd be hard pressed to find a modern game that can't run smoothly on this GPU, even if you have to turn down the ray tracing from time to time. I can live with that.

If you have a keen eye, you've probably realized the GTX 3050 is an old graphics card at this point, being part of the last-generation 3000-series cards. However, Nvidia hasn't really launched a follow-up yet, and we're two years into the Ada Lovelace generation, so who knows when we're getting a new cheap card from Team Green? Luckily, the RTX 3050 is still a great value, easily delivering solid 1080p gaming performance in almost anything you can throw at it.

Unlike some of the other cards on this list, you will probably have to compromise on quality settings on some games, especially harder-to-run ones like Cyberpunk 2077 or Horizon: Forbidden West. At the time of writing, this EVGA RTX 3050 is only $179 on Amazon, making it the most affordable way to get into PC gaming right now, short of digging through Craigslist for a used card.

Plus, because it is using Nvidia's third-generation Tensor cores, the RTX 3050 still has access to DLSS 2.0, which stretches the value a bit, and makes up for a bit of the lost performance in games that support it. That being said, this isn't a card I'd recommend enabling ray tracing on, even if it has the 'RTX' in its name. It'll run, but it won't be a good experience.

Instead, this GPU is best in traditional gaming workloads, and is perfect for esports or indie games.

While the AMD Radeon RX 9070 isn't what I would typically call a "budget graphics card" it's the best value you can get out of a GPU for under $600 right now – or at least it will be once stock normalizes in a couple months. This AMD graphics card is basically the entry point to the mid-range, providing excellent 1440p performance, while backing it up with more VRAM than you would typically see in a graphics card of this caliber.

When I reviewed the Radeon RX 9070, it outperformed the Nvidia GeForce RTX 5070 at the same price point, even in some games with heavy ray tracing effects, thanks to improvements made to AMD's ray tracing pipeline. For instance, in Cyberpunk 2077, the Radeon RX 9070 gets 93fps at 1440p with the ray tracing ultra preset and with FSR set to balanced. Compared to the RTX 5070, which gets 90fps with similar settings, AMD really has closed the gap in a game that has traditionally favored Team Green.

And unlike the RTX 5070, the AMD Radeon RX 9070 has 16GB of GDDR6, which may not be as fast as the GDDR7 on the Nvidia card, but the 5070 is limited to 12GB of VRAM. That's going to become an issue as games get more demanding on memory, especially at higher resolutions. Really the only thing that holds the AMD Radeon RX 9070 back from greatness is how close its priced to the 9070 XT, which can easily handle 4K gaming for just $50 more. It's obviously not nothing, but it's a small price to pay if you have a 4K TV or monitor.