The three most common resolutions at which today's gamers play are 1080p (1,920 by 1,080 pixels), 1440p (2,560 by 1,440 pixels), and 2160p or 4K (3,840 by 2,160 pixels). Generally speaking, you'll want to choose a card suited for your monitor's native resolution. (The "native" resolution is the highest supported by the panel, and the one at which the display looks the best.)
You'll also see ultra-wide-screen monitors with in-between resolutions (3,440 by 1,440 pixels is a common one); you can gauge these versus 1080p, 1440p, and 2160p by calculating the raw number of pixels for each (multiply the vertical number by the horizontal one) and seeing where that screen resolution fits in relative to the common ones. (See our targeted roundups of the best graphics cards for 1080p play and the best graphics cards for 4K gaming.)
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Now, of course, you can always dial down the detail levels for a game to make it run acceptably at a higher-than-recommended resolution, or dial back the resolution itself. But to an extent, that defeats the purpose of a graphics card purchase. The highest-end cards are meant for 4K play or for playing at very high refresh rates at 1080p or 1440p; you don't have to spend $1,000 or even half that to play more than acceptably at 1080p.
Powered by esports success stories (like 16-year-old Fortnite prodigy Bugha(Opens in a new window) turning into a multi-millionaire overnight), the demand has surged in recent years for high-refresh monitors that can keep esports hopefuls playing at their peak. And while 1080p is still overwhelmingly the preferred resolution for competitive players across all game genres, many are following the trends that monitors are setting first.
Most casual gamers won't care about extreme refresh rates, but the difference is marked if you play fast-action titles, and competitive esports hounds find the fluidity of a high refresh rate a competitive advantage. (See our picks for the best gaming monitors, including high-refresh models.) In short: Buying a powerful video card that pushes high frame rates can be a boon nowadays even for play at a "pedestrian" resolution like 1080p, if paired with a high-refresh monitor.
Indeed, the 1080p and especially the 1440p AMD cards have seen a shakeup. The company released the first of its new, long-awaited line of 7nm-based "Navi" midrange graphics cards in July of 2019 based on a whole new architecture, Radeon DNA (RDNA). The first three cards were the Radeon RX 5700, the Radeon RX 5700 XT, and the limited-run Radeon RX 5700 XT Anniversary Edition. All these cards have their sights pinned on the 1440p gaming market. Each, indeed, powers demanding AAA titles at above 60fps in that resolution bracket.
Now, if you're looking for a video card for all-out 1080p gameplay, a card with at least 4GB of memory really shouldn't be negotiable. Both AMD and Nvidia now outfit their $200-MSRP-plus GPUs with more VRAM than this. (AMD has stepped up to 8GB on its RX-series cards, with 16GB on its top-end ones, while Nvidia is using 6GB or 8GB on most, with 24GB on its elite GeForce RTX 3090 and RTX 4090 cards.) Either way, sub-4GB cards should only be used for secondary systems, gaming at low resolutions, or simple or older games that don't need much in the way of hardware resources. 2ff7e9595c
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