You don’t have to be rich to buy a graphics card in 2023, there are very many different models to choose from. But are they worth it and which one is the best bang for your buck? To make choosing easier for you, we have gathered this information that helps you make the right choice. The performance difference between some of these cards is over 10 times. You can easily play newer games with the better ones, albeit not at high resolutions and settings. The worse models sometimes cost as much or even more, but only can run older games or very light e-sports games. If you are building a brand new PC from scratch then you should get something else than a $50 video card, modern CPUs often have better graphics built in. With the introduction of Ryzen processors with integrated Vega graphics, there is little point installing a low budget video card in a new computer. This list is for people who want to upgrade their older desktop for better gaming performance or want to build a very cheap gaming PC.
Best graphics cards for under 100 dollars
Before buying, there are few things you need to consider. First, you need to check if your PC even has a free PCI-E x16 slot. Secondly, confirm that you have enough space in your case. If you have a slim case, then you need a low-profile graphics card. For those, check our list here. Thirdly, make sure that rest of your system is good enough for your video card, it’s not wise to upgrade a 15 year old PC. Also check if you have a sufficient PSU, sometimes it is not possible to upgrade it.
The absolute minimum: AMD Radeon RX 550 2GB GDDR5
AMD Radeon RX 550 is great for lighter e-sports games, plus it has quite low power consumption. Downside is that it has no VGA support, like other modern GPUs. It is not faster than latest integrated GPUs, but it’s much better than other cards you can get for similar price. It’s good for 50-70 dollars.
Best new graphics card under $100: AMD Radeon RX 560 4GB GDDR5
AMD Radeon RX 560 is currently the best brand new video card for under $100. There is currently an ASRock card available on Newegg for $99.99. This is also the better 1024 core version.
Most powerful graphics card for under $100: AMD Radeon RX 580 2048SP 8GB
If you look around, then you can find RX 580 cards from unknown manufacturers for very cheap, but these are most likely not brand new. Although this isn’t the full RX 580 because it has as much cores as RX 570, but it’s still over 2 times faster than RX 560.
Video cards under $100 that you should avoid:
4GB GDDR3 variants of NVIDIA GeForce GT 730
NVIDIA GeForce GT 730 is not a good card to buy in 2023, especially if it is a GDDR3 version. It is based on GPUs from 2010/2013(Fermi/Kepler), so you have no luck running modern games. Don’t be fooled by 4GB versions of the card, ignore the positive reviews that praise the card. It is actually a terrible value for money, because it costs as much (or even more) as GeForce GT 1030 GDDR5 or RX 550, but it only has fraction of the performance of the newer cards. Many uninformed people mistakenly say this is the best graphics card for $100. But loading an underpowered GPU with 4GB of slow GDDR3 memory doesn’t make it suitable for gaming. Besides that, GT 730 has been been discontinued by NVIDIA, because of that last driver upgrades came out in 2021 for Kepler variant and 2018 for Fermi.
DDR4 version of NVIDIA GeForce GT 1030
Many people don’t know that GeForce GT 1030 DDR4 has similar or worse performance than GT 730 GDDR5, so this card should be avoided if you want to play new games. For practically the same price you can get almost 2x the performance with GeForce GT 1030 GDDR5 or Radeon RX 550. Only people that need some specific playback feature that older cards don’t support and never play games should think about getting this one. Of course if you can get it for much cheaper price.
Ultra cheap old low-end video cards
There are multiple best selling graphics cards that should not be purchased for gaming purposes. These cards are: AMD Radeon R5 230 (aka HD 6450), Radeon HD 5450, and NVIDIA GeForce 210. Some are over 10 years old and even slower than integrated graphics from recent years.