Best Budget GPUs 2021

Buying a budget computer in 2021 is hard as prices are particularly high. Unfortunately for those looking for a budget GPU, it’s the graphics cards that have been driving this price increase due to the popularity of cryptocurrency mining, a serious and drawn-out supply restriction, and scalpers.

This year top-tier graphics cards basically sell out as soon as stock comes in, while mid-tier GPUs are generally possible to find, but come at a hefty price premium. Budget tier graphics cards are also affected by the price increase although the strength of that effect depends on your budget.

Your best bet is generally to look for something from at least one if not two generations ago: that’s the RTX20 and GTX10 series for Nvidia, and the Navi and Vega series from AMD. It may well be difficult to find anything reasonably priced, so it’s a good idea to set a target budget and then try to find the best performance you can get for that price at the time.

To help you to hopefully find a good deal, we’ve drawn up a list of the best budget GPUs in 2021.

Note: While we may highlight a specific version of a GPU, most cooler variants offer similar performance.

Tip: Some super low power GPUs are available with passive cooling, such as the Nvidia GT 1010. These are generally intended purely to offer expanded connectivity and are typically outgunned by even integrated graphics. These are not worth getting unless you happen to fit the exact niche they’re aimed at.

The AMD RX 5500XT is a low-mid tier entry in the 5000 series, that comes with 1408 stream processors that can boost up to 1845MHz. The 8GB of VRAM has a 224GBps bandwidth while the card connects with 8 PCIe 4.0 lanes.

H264 and H265 encode and decode options mean modern encoding standards are supported while Display Port 1.4 with DSC support allows for high-speed connections to monitors. Given that this is a budget card, 1440p gaming will generally require a fair amount of settings compromises. At 1080p however, you should be able to get reasonably high frame rates in all but the most intensive games.

The AMD RX 580 is a high-tier entry from three generations ago, normally you’d expect it to have a very reasonable discount at this point, however, the price has very much been affected by the current shortage. Still, if you can find one at a decent price, it can be a good budget GPU. It’s got good connectivity and encoding support.

With 2304 streaming processors and a clock speed of 1340MHz and 8GB of VRAM with 256GBps of bandwidth, the RX 580 can be pretty powerful for 1080p and 1440p gaming. It is pretty power-hungry and runs hot, however, so good cooling and a decent PSU are required.

The AMD RX 550 is a low-tier entry from three generations ago meaning it is cheap and actually available. It has 512 streaming processors, that run at a boost clock of 1183 MHz. The 4GB of VRAM has a total bandwidth of 112GBps.

The RX 550 is intended for 720p and generally struggles with 1080p, however, if you want a budget GPU to game with and are struggling to find one at the moment, 720p is better than nothing. With a requirement for just 8 PCIe 3 lanes, it doesn’t require much from your computer.

The Nvidia GTX 1650 Super is a mid-budget tier entry from one generation ago. It has 1280 CUDA cores and a boost clock of 1725 MHz, it also comes with 4GB of VRAM with a bandwidth of 192GBps. The Nvidia drivers that it will obviously use are generally better and more stable than the AMD ones.

The 1650 super is generally aimed at 1080p gaming but can manage some 1440p gaming if you’re willing to reduce the settings. NVENC encoding is great if you want to stream but don’t have a strong enough CPU.

The Nvidia GTX 1050 Ti is placed at the top of the budget tier from two generations ago. It has 768 CUDA cores and a boost clock of 1392MHz, it also has 4GB of GDDR5 VRAM for a memory bandwidth of 112GBps. It uses a full 16 PCIe 3.0 lanes to run.

Performance-wise it is noticeably weaker than the 1650 Super, but can handle 1080p gaming pretty well, although some compromises may be necessary for more intensive games. 1440p is much more of a struggle but certainly possible in older titles.

Those were our recommendations for the best budget GPUs in 2021. Have you bought a budget GPU recently? Were you able to get a good deal or did the current market issues raise the asking price for you too?