Best GPUs under $400 – our top picks

If you are looking for the best graphics card for under $400 for your PC build, then we have you covered right here.

Now, with a $400 budget, you’re looking at options from the latest GPU generations by Nvidia, AMD, and Intel. As you can guess, these are entry-level to mid-range picks that you can get with a $400 budget and build a mid-range PC with it.

With any of these picks, you should be able to game at 1080p and good refresh rates. Some newer cards, like the RTX 4060 Ti, also allow you to play 1440p games at decent framerates. And with some options like the RX 7700 XT, you can also play well-optimized 4K titles – provided you have a strong PC. With that being said, we have researched, reviewed, and picked what we think are the best GPUs for about 400 dollars. For more, we also recommend checking out the best graphics cards overall.

Products at a glance

How we selected the best GPUs within the budget

For this guide, our team of experts researched, compared, and shortlisted the graphics cards we think provide the best performance with a $400 budget. Further, we will review the GPUs we recommend so you get a better idea of IRL performance. Plus, we are always keeping our eyes peeled for new products and adding those to our list, so check back here for new recommendations. We want you to be informed that graphics cards are an investment, and we strongly recommend reading the full reviews linked below, too. You can find out how we test GPUs for a thorough rundown.

01

ASUS Dual GeForce RTX 4060 Ti OC Edition

Specifications

• GPU: AD106
• CUDA Cores: 4,352
• VRAM: 8GB
• Bandwidth: 288.0 GB/s
• Memory bus bandwidth: 128-bit
• Base clock speed: 2310 MHz
• Boost clock speed: 2550 MHz

What We Think

The Nvidia RTX 4060 Ti 8GB is an excellent graphics card for gaming at the $399 (or below) mark, which features powerful performance in 1080p and 1440p even when using ray tracing.

Reasons to Buy

• You want strong ray tracing
• You want to max out 1080p and 1440p
• You want to use Frame Generation

Reasons to Avoid

• You primarily want to game in 4K
• You want more VRAM overhead

• Shop on Amazon

To start with, the RTX 4060 Ti comes with 4,352 CUDA cores, which is a big jump from the 3072 CUDA cores in the RTX 4060 card. Now, CUDA cores are the units responsible for graphical processing. And while graphics performance depends on various factors, a higher core count typically means better performance.

Further, the card comes with a base clock speed of 2.31 GHz and a boost clock speed of 2.54 GHz, which is good for 1080p and 1440p gaming.

As far as memory is concerned, the RTX 4060 Ti comes in two variants – 8GB VRAM and 16GB VRAM, both with a 128-bit memory bus. With a $400 budget, you can get the 8GB VRAM, which is enough for 1080p or 1440p gaming. If you want to future-proof your system and have some extra dollars to spend, you can consider getting the 16GB variant.

In our testing, we found that the RTX 4060 Ti lived up to its promise of providing 60fps or above in 1080p and 1440p in games with a couple of minor exceptions. Some titles, such as Doom Eternal, The Finals, and CS2, were even capable of outputting over 100fps in 1440p, which is incredibly impressive for an entry-level GPU.

The one thing you won’t be able to achieve with this card is 4K as it’s just not powerful enough to do it, nor are any other video cards in this price range. Our full RTX 4060 Ti review goes over all the details.

What users say

On Amazon, the ASUS Dual GeForce RTX 4060 Ti OC has a rating of 4.7 stars, and more than 400 people have reviewed the card. Most customers wrote positively about the GPU and mentioned that they were satisfied with the performance, quality, and price of the product. “I’d recommend it as a great power and cost effective option over most graphics cards,” one of the reviewers said. However, a few users reported that their screens go blank when the card heats up too much.

If you want your build to have an AMD GPU, then we think that the Radeon RX 7600 XT is a good pick.

Now, the GPU comes with 2,048 stream processors, which is AMD’s version of CUDA cores. These cores do all the visual heavy lifting, so more cores mean smoother performance. Further, you get a base clock speed of 2029 MHz and a boost clock speed of 2539 MHz, which should be enough to run most 1080p and 1440p games at decent framerates.

As far as memory goes, the GPU comes with a massive 16GB VRAM, which provides enough overhead for the future, even though few games have taken advantage of it yet. You shouldn’t run into any bottlenecking issues for a long time to come.

In our AMD Radeon RX 7600 XT review, we found out that the GPU excels in 1080p gaming and delivers decent performance for 1440p. For instance, we played Assassin’s Creed Mirage and got an average of 91fps in 1080p and 67fps in 1440p. However, for Cyberpunk, we managed to get 53fps in 1440p. And when you enable ray tracing, the card struggles a bit in 1440p.

Overall, when it comes to a $400 budget, none come quite as close as the AMD RX 7600 XT with its 16GB GDDR6 VRAM, lightning-fast clock speeds, and strong performance in both 1080p and 1440p with decent results. It’s far from a powerhouse component, but for most people, it will offer an aggressive price-to-performance ratio that flagship RDNA 3 models can’t quite match up to.

What users say

The GIGABYTE Radeon RX 7600 XT has a rating of 4.7 stars on Amazon, and over 30 people have reviewed it. Most customers said that the GPU performed well, offered good value, and had great quality. “Overall the 7600XT is working pretty will. And the Gigabyte logo make a fine touch to my PC,” one of the customer reviews said. Another reviewer wrote, “Easy to install, great value for your buck.”

While AMD and Nvidia have led the charge in the mainstream market for many years, Intel has come in to disrupt with its flagship offering from the Alchemist lineup, the Arc A770.

Now, the GPU comes with 4,096 GPU cores (similar to AMD’s stream processors or NVIDIA’s CUDA cores), which are the units responsible for carrying out visual tasks. A higher number of cores means better performance overall,

Further, the graphics card features a massive 16GB GDDR6 VRAM, which means your GPU has more RAM for readily accessing assets. Plus, you get a large 256-bit memory bus width and a 512GB/sec bandwidth, which is more than what we typically see from budget GPUs.

In terms of performance, it’s just about on par with its competition above when running natively but is bolstered by Intel XeSS AI upscaling for far greater performance, too. And speaking of advanced features, the Intel GPU also features 32 RT cores for ray tracing, which should enhance visual quality.

In our testing, we noted strong performance in games such as Cyberpunk 2077 and synthetic performance in 3DMark. For newer games, you shouldn’t encounter any driver issues, but older titles may have some level of compatibility to work through. Things have greatly improved over the last year, so your mileage is going to vary. We didn’t run into issues ourselves, but that’s why we’ve positioned Intel’s option below AMD and Nvidia in this instance.

What users say

On Amazon, the ACER Predator BiFrost Intel Arc A770 Overclocking GPU has a rating of 4.1 stars, and more than 150 people have left reviews for this. A lot of customers said that it’s a good card for this price. “Overall, for the price it is a good card and happy with it. Aesthetics could be better but its not too bad,” one of the customer reviews said. Customers were satisfied with the performance and quality, although a few mentioned that it starts a little laggy and noisy when pressured.

The Nvidia RTX 3070 may be creeping up on four years old, but time hasn’t slowed the Ampere mid-range offering down at all.

The RTX 3070 is built on the Ampere architecture and comes with 5,888 CUDA cores, which is a respectable amount of cores. Further, you get a base clock speed of 1,500 MHz and a boost clock of up to 1,750 MHz, which is a significant jump over the RTX 2070 built on Turing architecture.

As far as memory is concerned, the GPU comes with 8GB GDDR6 VRAM on a 256-bit memory bus. Now, if you look at other budget and mid-range NVIDIA cards, they have VRAM between 8GB and 12GB, so the RTX 3070 falls within this range.

Unlike the other models on this list, the RTX 3070 is capable of 4K gaming at 60fps, provided you utilize DLSS. Speaking of which, this older model has no support for DLSS 3’s Frame Generation so you’re more beholden to the older tech and its higher native performance.

In our Nvidia RTX 3070 review, we found that the mid-range Ampere GPU was able to do just shy of 100fps in Cyberpunk 2077 in 1080p and just above 60fps in 1440p, which hovered around the 30fps mark in native 4K. While more than playable, you’re going to want to utilize AI upscaling when gaming in 2160p. Synthetic performance through 3DMark is comparable to the newer RTX 4070, albeit at a much cheaper price point.

While this GPU originally debuted at $499, it’s now available through retailers such as Amazon and Newegg available at the $399 mark and below which offers some serious value for money considering the performance on display. If you can live without the more modern implementations, then this older model holds up.

What users say

The GIGABYTE GeForce RTX 3060 Gaming OC has a rating of 4.7 stars on Amazon, and more than 2,300 people have left reviews. Customers who wrote positive reviews said that the card performed well for new games, has a good price-to-performance ratio and that it’s super quiet. “This works like a absolute dream. did not and do not have any problems with it. it makes no noise and is beautiful,” one of the customers wrote in a review. However, a few customers said that the GPU was large in size, so you keep that in mind if you have a compact build.

How to pick the best GPU under $400

When considering the best graphics card within a specific price range, here are a few things you might want to consider:

Compatibility

Before you get a new GPU, you should ensure that the graphics card is compatible with the rest of your system. You should check if the card fits in with your motherboard and has a PSU that would supply enough power. Further, you should check if the graphics card you are considering buying is compatible with your CPU. If the CPU doesn’t have enough power, it will cause bottlenecks.

Memory configuration

Now, for gaming, you’d need at least 8GB of VRAM, so keep that in mind while looking for graphic cards. And, of course, the more VRAM, the better the performance will be – especially if you play or run resource-intensive games and apps. Along with this, you’d also want your new GPU to have a wide memory bus to ensure faster transmission of data.

Additional features

Apart from the specs, you might also want to look at the additional features that NVIDIA and AMD GPUs have. For instance, NVIDIA offers DLSS, advanced ray tracing, NVIDIA Ansel, Studio, and many more features for gamers and creators. AMD also offers similar features like FSR, Fidelity, and more.

Architecture

Whether you’re considering an Nvidia GeForce RTX, Intel Arc, or AMD Radeon GPU for your gaming PC you’ll need to be aware of the architecture behind the GPUs. For the former, that’s either going to be Ada or Ampere, with AMD running on RDNA 3, and the latter running on Xe-HPG. We’ve decided to move away from GeForce GTX options as the Maxwell and Turing architecture just isn’t powerful enough for the demands of today’s games.