The Best Video Card Buyer’s Guide – Fall 2025
Get Your Game On!
If you’re a PC gamer or HTPC enthusiast looking for the best graphics cards on the market at every price point, you’ve come to the right place! Our list profiles the best video cards on the market, starting at $100 and going up well over $1000!
The GPU Market Has Reached Equilibrium, and Consumers Win!
For Fall 2025, we have a number of strong recommendations, which is quite a change from most of the past year. That’s because the market has stabilized, with prices coming down and availability going up.
Under $400, we go with three great options from AMD: the legacy 6600 at the entry-level, and then two versions of the 9060 XT, which simply make Nvidia’s offerings impossible to justify for gamers. Once you get above $400, we had hoped that AMD would be a knight in shining armor, but its 9070 series ended up well above MSRP and never came back down, while Nvidia has actually hit MSRP on nearly all of its GPUs this generation, and with Nvidia’s better overall ecosystem and features, Nvidia gets the win at this point. That means the 5070, 5070 Ti, 5080, and 5090 sweep the high-end and ultra-high-end!
Parting Thoughts
Products shown in this guide will link to Amazon in the US, and our Amazon links will auto-convert for our readers in Canada, the UK, and parts of the EU. If you decide to purchase one of the cards we profile, please use the links we provide, which helps support continued development of this guide.
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Video Card –Asrock Radeon RX 6600 8GB
$220The Guru’s TipJump into serious PC gaming today with the Radeon RX 6600 8GB. It has plenty of power to tackle any modern game, easily beating any Nvidia GeForce GPU anywhere near its pricepoint. And this model offers a compact yet effective cooler at a great price.This is the best card you can for under $250, but if you're willing to stretch your budget, the next card on this list will net you about 50% better performance.
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Video Card –XFX Radeon RX 9060 XT Swift 8GB
$300The Guru’s TipGet into serious PC gaming today with the Radeon RX 9060 XT 8GB. It has plenty of power to tackle any modern game, and has no competition from Nvidia GPUs at its pricepoint – it’s a far better pick than the RTX 5060 8GB!This card is a serious step up from the RX 6600, and far less expensive than competing Nvidia cards.
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Video Card –PowerColor Radeon RX 9060 XT 16GB Reaper
$370The Guru’s TipThe Radeon RX 9060 XT 16GB has impressive gaming power, beating the similarly-priced GeForce RTX 5060 Ti 8GB by a small margin, and will game for many years after the 5060 Ti 8GB is obsolete thanks to its 16GB of VRAM!With double the VRAM of the 9060 XT 8GB, this card is a better long-term investment, but will perform similarly in older games.
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Video Card –MSI GeForce RTX 5070 12GB 3X Shadow
$550The Guru’s TipThe RTX 5070 offers amazing performance and amazing efficiency, surpassing the 4070 by over 20% at the same launch price. This model’s triple-fan cooler will keep temperatures in check and noise levels down, without going overboard on size.It's great to have Nvidia back in the price-performance race! This is also our pick for a fantastic app accelerator for video production and other professional uses, offering a tremendous boost without going overboard on price.
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Video Card –GIGABYTE GeForce RTX 5070 Ti Windforce
$750The Guru’s TipThe RTX 5070 Ti improves upon the 4070 Ti Super, nearly equaling the last-gen 4080 in the process. It has 16GB of VRAM and a robust 256-bit memory bus, plus ultra-fast GDDR7 VRAM. And this model from Gigabyte uses three oversized fans for excellent performance and low noise.AMD tried to compete with the 5070 Ti but failed. The RX 9070 XT was supposed to be a little slower but a lot less expensive. Instead, it's a little slower and around the same price, making the 5070 Ti a better all around package.
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Video Card –PNY GeForce RTX 5080 16GB Triple Fan
$1000The Guru’s TipThe RTX 5080 is the ultimate GPU ever sold for around $1000. It has advanced Ray Tracing and DLSS technology, and this model from PNY has a powerful triple-fan cooler to keep it cool!The RTX 5080 is a lot more compelling now that it's at its MSRP!
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Video Card –MSI GeForce RTX 5090 32G Gaming Trio OC
$2400The Guru’s TipHail to the king! The absolutely mind-blowing RTX 5090 32GB goes beyond extreme, beating the legendary RTX 4090 by 30%, an incredible gen-on-gen leap in performance. while also offering a whopping 32GB of VRAM (which will never be maxed out!). And this model from MSI offers great cooling thanks to the massive yet attractive triple-slot, triple-fan cooler and flow-through fin-stack!The 5090 may come at a huge premium versus the 5080 above, but in all honesty, the 90 series has been about a generation ahead in terms of performance the past few generations, so the 5090 is basically like buying next year's best card!
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Video Card –MSI GeForce RTX 5090 32G SUPRIM Liquid SOC
$3000The Guru’s TipHail to the king! The absolutely mind-blowing RTX 5090 32GB goes beyond extreme, beating the legendary RTX 4090 by 30%, an incredible gen-on-gen leap in performance. And this model from MSI absolutely blows the competition away, thanks to the pre-mounted liquid cooler, complete with an absolutely-massive 360mm radiator!If you have the space for this GPU's massive 360mm cooler, you'll reap the rewards of absolutely insane cooling!
Video Cards
- Video Card – Asrock Radeon RX 6600 8GB ($220)
- Video Card – XFX Radeon RX 9060 XT Swift 8GB ($300)
- Video Card – PowerColor Radeon RX 9060 XT 16GB Reaper ($370)
- Video Card – MSI GeForce RTX 5070 12GB 3X Shadow ($550)
- Video Card – GIGABYTE GeForce RTX 5070 Ti Windforce ($750)
- Video Card – PNY GeForce RTX 5080 16GB Triple Fan ($1000)
- Video Card – MSI GeForce RTX 5090 32G Gaming Trio OC ($2400)
- Video Card – MSI GeForce RTX 5090 32G SUPRIM Liquid SOC ($3000)
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The Monitor Buyer's Guide
What's the use of a new video card if you don't have an awesome monitor to use with it?!?
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The Keyboard & Mouse Buyer's Guide
A fast GPU won't get you anywhere without the right gaming keyboard and mouse!