If you’re into PC gaming, equipping your rig with an external graphics card is vital for good gaming performance. Integrated graphics cards from CPU companies like Intel might be good enough to run some light games, but when it comes to the latest triple-A games, they can’t hold a candle to even the cheapest offerings from Nvidia and AMD. Graphics cards, however, have been known to be expensive and the recent discovery of the CUDA cores of graph­ics cards as efficient BitCoin mining hardware only added to the demand, making them pricier. Graphics cards have become considerably cheaper now. High-end gaming cards still cost you an arm and a leg but there are some pretty good budget ones that’ll satiate your gaming needs.

 

 AMD Radeon RX 560 

Price Rs 23, 125

Built with AMD’s new Polaris architecture, the AMD Radeon RX 560 is the company’s attempt to find a market in the entry-level gaming segment. The RX 560 comes really close to the performance of the GTX 1050 and although the 1050 performs marginally better than the RX 560, it also costs Rs 10,000+ more. Considering the price to performance ratio, the RX 560 definitely comes out on top. It is a recent card, so comes with an ample 4 GB of VRAM, which means you will be able to load high-resolution textures directly onto the card and performance-intensive games like The Witcher 3, GTA V and the new Assas­sin’s Creed: Odyssey work well on the card. This card might not be able to give you 4k output at Ultra set­tings on these games but will go up to 1080p gaming.

 

 

 MSI GeForce GTX 1060

Price  Rs 53,800 (6GB + dual fan version)

 

When it comes to graphics cards, Nvidia has always been on the top of their game. The GTX 1060 is a very capable card and while it does cost quite a bit more, you’ll be compromising little when it comes to performance. A full-sized card, the 1060 comes with 3x Display, 1x HDMI and 1x DVI ports, giving you the ability to hook up multiple monitors to it at once. It is also SLI capable so if you have another Nvidia card, you can pair them for enhanced performance. The 6GB VRAM and the 1280 CUDA cores also provides silky smooth performance for almost all recent triple-A titles at a reasonable 1080p resolution. The card is also capable of gaming at 4k but settings do need to come down to medium or high at this resolution.

 

 Asus ROG GTX 750TI

Price  Rs 17,500 (2 GB)

 Typically, I would not recommend a graphics card so old in architecture but considering the price of this thing, it’s almost impossible not to. First, however, keep your hopes low. The GTX 750 is a very old card and it’s not going to be nearly as effective as any of the other cards mentioned here. But if you just want a card able to run games at the bare minimum cost, the GTX 750 TI holds up quite well, even in 2018. The minimum 2GB of VRAM will be a problem but it will still run new games like GTA V and Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey at 1080p medium.