3060 GRAPHICS CARD 1080P
3060 GRAPHICS CARD UPGRADE

One other point in the RTX 3050's favour? It's in stock far more often than most GeForce RTX cards, which should give you more freedom to shop around for the best prices. Especially thanks to DLSS, which is essentially free FPS, and is missing from both AMD’s cheaper cards and the RTX 3050’s own predecessors, like the GTX 1650 Super.

3060 GRAPHICS CARD 1080P

But if you find a cheaper model, which are plentiful, you’d get a far better deal for this highly capable 1080p GPU (which also has some limited 1440p capability).

3060 GRAPHICS CARD UPGRADE

Granted, the MSI-built RTX 3050 I tested costs £380 / $339, and for that UK price in particular, you may as well upgrade to an RTX 3060. Even last-gen cards like the RTX 2060 can set you back more, and while the competing Radeon RX 6500 XT is even more affordable, I found AMD's GPU performs really quite poorly in comparison to the RTX 3050. “Cheap” is kind of a nebulous term in these dark days of graphics card stock shortages and inflation, but here’s what we do know: the Nvidia GeForce RTX 3050 is the cheapest GPU on the market to offer Nvidia’s RTX features, namely ray tracing and DLSS support. The best cheap 1080p graphics card Nvidia GeForce RTX 3050 specs: Hopefully less of it than a few weeks ago, too. But the graphics card is also the single most impactful component for gaming power, so whether you’re budgeting for a whole new build or are looking to make just one key upgrade, this is where to put your money.

Having a capable GPU is (literally) only one part of a high-performing PC we also recommend one of the best CPUs for gaming, as well as one of the best gaming monitors to show off the results. Such as with any of the ones on this list, which represent the finest dedicated graphics hardware for smooth running at a choice of resolutions. I’ve even seen an AMD Radeon RX 6500 XT going without any price gouging at all, though you can do a lot better than this underpowered card. Indeed, RPS deals hound Will has recently found un-awful prices on GPUs like the Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 and the RTX 3060. Looking for more RPS recommended hardware? It’s not yet a return to proper, pre-2020 normalcy, but after nearly two years of graphics cards being so audaciously overpriced (and difficult to even find in stock), more and more are dropping back down towards their RRP.

Something strange has been going on lately: gaming GPUs, even some of the best graphics cards of the current generation, have been getting.

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