If you love playing games, then the best graphics cards on this list will ensure you can run any modern game at 1080p, or even 4K.However, even if you don't play games, and are a digital creative, then installing a powerful graphics card in your PC will allow you to quickly open, render and edit high resolution photos and videos, creative complex digital artwork, and build 3D environments and models.
These can range in price from budget GPUs that cost less than £100, to cutting-edge monsters that cost over £1,000.The second type are professional graphics cards.
These are extremely powerful GPUs that, as the name would suggest, are aimed at creative and AI pros, and often come with incredibly high price tags.In the past, if you were a creative, you would be better off investing in a professional GPU.
While they don't have quite the weight of professional GPUs, they can often be a more affordable alternative – and ultimately, you don't want to spend money on something that is additional to your needs.Best of all, both Nvidia and AMD, the two major GPU players, released brand new graphics cards towards the end of last year, and these offer even better performance, while actually being more affordable as well.So, in our guide to the best graphics cards for creatives, we've got a mix of consumer and professional cards from AMD and Nvidia, with top GPU choices for everyone, no matter your budget.
For more in-depth buying advice, jump to what to consider when buying a graphics card section.The best graphics cards available now1.
Best Overall: ZOTAC NVIDIA GeForce GT 710The ZOTAC GeForce GT 710 is a lightweight graphics card with huge capabilities all for a small, affordable price.This card offers 2GB of DDR3 RAM, comes with pre-installed PCI-Express x8 hardware, has a 1,600 MHz memory clock and a 64 bit memory bus width.All of this for under $50 is amazing value!This card does not need an external cable to plug into it for power.Simply choose which form factor (size) you want your card to be (dependent on your computer), plug it straight into the white/black PCI slot and your good to go!We think this graphics card is not only good value for money but is likely to sustain its technology for years to come.