9 Best Graphics Card Under $200 for 2023

ZOTAC GTX 1650 is the best gaming GPU under 200 for hardcore gamers on a budget. It features a 12nm chip, 4GB GDDR6 VRAM, and a large 90mm cooling fan. And as you’re about to see, it's equally great for multitasking and running GPU-hungry apps. 

The processor uses Nvidia’s Turing architecture powered by 4.7 billion transistors. In addition, it has 896 CUDA cores, perfect for playing most of the current PC games. You can also use it to accelerate graphics on video editing and computer-aided design software.

This unit’s GDDR6 memory is an upgrade of its identical sibling with a GDDR5 module. It also boasts a higher memory speed of 12Gbps and a boost clock frequency of 1620MHz. This ensures the card processes tasks much faster and smoother.

This sub-200-dollar GPU has an HDMI 2.0, DisplayPort 1.4, and DVI-D ports on the back. It supports simultaneous usage of up to three monitors at 4K resolution. Moreover, you can use different apps on the displays to enhance your productivity. 

You’ll have a 90mm fan for cooling when things get hot. It spins on top of a heatsink with a sunflower design to help clear heat faster. Furthermore, Icestorm 2.0 controls airflow and reduces the overall noise generated by this gadget. 

ZOTAC GeForce GTX 1650 has a power draw of 75 watts. Apart from the XFX QICK210, its consumption is way higher than most devices in this review. Still, it requires a 350-watt power supply that you’ll find in most PCs.

Sadly, this budget graphics card has no provision for water cooling. The Turing GPU architecture is slightly outdated compared to the current Ampere design. But make no mistake, it’s a solid and capable all-around GPU for gaming and office work. 

It can be yours today for a pocket-friendly price of about $199.

XFX Speedster QICK210 is another budget graphics card for gaming that’s built to thrill users. It has a Radeon RX 6500XT GPU chip capable of beaming out images at 1080p. Furthermore, there are two connectors that comprise HDMI and DisplayPort for dual screen functionality.

Its other features that standout includes: 

XFX uses a GPU processor based on RDNA 2 architecture that’s 25% faster than the previous generation. It’s built on a 7nm process that delivers a performance boost of 50% per watt. Additionally, the 1024 stream processors ensure a faster response time and smoother graphics rendering.

The onboard 4GB GDDR6 VRAM is on the same level as the ZOTAC GTX 1650. But it pumps almost double the juice of its rival even at peak performance. It includes a base clock of 2450MHz, a 2685MHz gaming mode, and a turbo boost of 2825MHz.  

The 18Gbps memory speed and 144GB/s bandwidth output of this graphics card under 200 deserve your attention. It promises higher frame rates even when playing demanding gaming titles. Even so, the 1080p resolution isn’t near the ASUS GeForce 1050 Ti’s 8K quality.

Dual fans work simultaneously on top of a large heatsink to cool the XFX QUICK210. Vents are also below the card to increase the airflow and improve performance. Thermal tests gave us temperatures of around 149°F (65°C) under heavy load. Sounds good, right?

How about the power draw?

This GPU has a high energy consumption of about 107 watts. The manufacturer recommends using a power supply of 500 watts. Most PCs have a 300 watts unit, so you may have to upgrade yours to use it. 

You also need a large computer case to enjoy this twin-cooling fan beast. As for performance, the ZOTAC GTX 1650 slightly edges it out by about 17%. Still, it’s one of the best budget video cards money can buy.

MSI is not only cheap but a good graphics card for your computer. It's powered by Nvidia's GT 730 chip with 96 CUDA cores. The GPU's microarchitecture is based on Fermi which replaced the Tesla 2.0 framework.

The huge fansink is the first thing you'll notice about this unit. It stays super-silent even when under heavy load. While at it, you get three slots with dual display support. 

This affordable graphics card has three outputs for connecting monitors. You'll get the vintage VGA port for older displays. Right beside it is the HDMI that has a maximum resolution of 1080p.

If you want crisper images, you'll have to go with the DVI. It supports QHD with an output of 2560 x 1600 pixels at 60fps. Unfortunately, fewer screens on the market support such a slot.

The GPU has a 128bit 4GB of VRAM. The clock speed of 1,000MHz is low for a GDDR3 chip, though. On the bright side, you won't face any issues running two monitors simultaneously. Not unless you want to use resource-hungry applications.

The power consumption for this unit is decent. Unlike the VisionTek 7750, it only draws 49 watts from the PCIe slot. Still, MSI recommends a power supply unit (PSU) of 300 watts. It will ensure the device runs well alongside other components on your PC.

But beware:

Don't expect to use this cheap graphics card for gaming. When in action, the frame rate drops to as low as 15fps. We couldn't get better results even with older titles such as NFS Most Wanted. 

Another drawback is that Nvidia ended support for this card in 2018. The current drivers work okay on Windows 7/8/10. So, you better go with other alternatives if you're planning to get Windows 11.

The MSI GT 730 is an excellent replacement for your PC's integrated GPU. The $155.00 price tag, however, is a bit high for a GDDR3 device.

The Asus GeForce is a budget graphics card that seeks to dominate the low-end GPU market. It has an Nvidia GeForce 1050 Ti chip and 4GB of GDDR5 memory. In addition, you get a connector for HDMI, DisplayPort, and DVI-D for multiscreen usage.

Here’s what you get for the asking price of around $190.

It has an Nvidia chip based on Pascal architecture that dominates GTX 10 series graphics cards. This 14nm node provides excellent graphics at an acceptable power draw of 75 watts. Apart from that, it can fit on any sizable desktop computer with a spare PCIe slot.

The beauty of this beast is support for crisp images at 8K quality. But when it comes to gaming, you’ll experience great graphics at 1080p. Moreover, you can use up to three displays simultaneously. 

Unlike the ZOTAC and XFX QICK210, it has a 4GB GDDR5 module. This chip has a high memory clock of 7Gbps at a bandwidth of 112GB/s. Altogether, it ensures the card cranks up detailed textures and high-resolution frames on visuals. 

A dual-ball bearing fan helps cool this affordable graphics card when it gets hot. This design boosts the quality of airflow while enabling it to work silently. Moreover, it doubles its lifespan by reducing the spinning friction. 

 The drawbacks: 

This card’s peak operating temperatures of 206°F (97°C) are pretty high. Besides, the GPU boost of 1392MHz is not substantial from the base clock of 1290MHz. And as we said earlier, gaming works best at 1080p despite having 768 CUDA cores. 

Besides that, it consumes a maximum of 75 watts even under heavy usage. It also has an average PSU requirement of 300 watts. So it should work well on most desktop computers.  

That said, it's a good budget video card for home, office use, and occasional gaming. It offers an acceptable performance without breaking the bank.

If you're into light gaming, get the Gigabyte GeForce GT 1030. It's one of the best video cards that you can find for under 200. You will enjoy GPU overclocking, low power consumption, and 4K support.  

The graphics card's main chip is based on Nvidia's GP108 Pascal architecture. It's built using 14nm technology for creating tiny but high-performance processors. At only 74mm squared, it packs 384 CUDA cores alongside 1.8 billion transistors.

It has a base clock of 1,227 MHz for handling simple tasks with precision. This can go up to 1,468 MHz under heavy load. Moreover, the budget GPU supports one-click overclocking via the AORUS desktop application. It helps boost performance by up to 1506 MHz for efficient processing of graphics. 

The card features a 64-bit memory bus with 2GB DDR5 video RAM (VRAM). This enables it to have a peak bandwidth capacity of 48GB/s. You'll enjoy watching 4K videos via HDMI with such an output. The DVI port, however, supports a maximum resolution of 1080p.

It’s okay for gaming, but the experience is nothing out of the ordinary. We managed to obtain smooth performance at 60Hz full HD. Anything higher than this causes the frame rate to drop sharply. 

But it’s not all good:

This budget graphics card only has two display outputs. Also, it doesn’t support dual monitors. Its price tag of $173.00 is quite high for a sub 4GB VRAM GPU. 

But, at least, it fits perfectly in most CPUs thanks to the low-profile design. 

Additionally, the Gigabyte GT 1030 has a maximum power rating of 30 watts. Such a low consumption makes this unit generate less heat. Still, you get a 50mm fan to cool the GPU under intense usage.

To sum up, this entry-level graphics card is great for entertainment. You can use it for web browsing, movie streaming, and moderate gaming. 

VisionTek 7750 is the best video card under 200 dollars for entertainment freaks. The GPU comes with two HDMI ports alongside a traditional DisplayPort. These are powered by AMD's app acceleration for delivering crystal clear images.

But that's just the tip of the iceberg. 

Under the hood is a Radeon chip that's loaded with 512 stream processors. The unit is built on the GCN architecture using the 28nm manufacturing process. As for performance, you'll only get a clock speed of 800MHz. 

Unlike the Gigabyte 1030, there's no boost to crank up the cores. But you get a beefy 128bit 2GB GDDR5 VRAM.  It compensates for the GPU's low power with a massive bandwidth capacity of 72GB/s. 

This budget sub $200 GPU stood out during tests. 4K streaming works perfectly at 60 frames per second (fps). And it retains the same quality even when you use two monitors simultaneously. 

AMD's app acceleration helps sharpen the images using a 10-bit color profile. In layman's language, that's over a billion colors. Graphic-intense work is an area where such tech would be helpful. Unfortunately, the card struggles when rendering animations and during video editing. 

Things get a little messy when you try to use it for gaming. This $133.00 GPU uses tech that dates back to 2010. But it works okay when playing older titles from almost a decade ago. 

The excessive fansink noise is something that we dislike about this graphics card. It takes the crown in this review of cheap video cards. That's because the fan's rotations per minute (RPM) are abnormally high. 

VisionTek's 65-watt power rating is also excessive. As a result, it causes the GPU to overheat faster under heavy load. The good thing is AMD's PowerPlay tech keeps energy consumption low during normal usage. 

In short, this is the best GPU for the price on the market. It's a must-have budget option.

The PNY 510 is the best budget GPU for multiple display installations. You can use it for CCTV monitoring, digital signage, and entertainment hubs. Work from home workaholics can make good use of it as well.  

Here's why:

This sub 200 dollar graphics card comes ready to boost your productivity. It supports a quad display configuration out of the box. Furthermore, you can add up to 16 monitors thanks to stream cloning technology. 

The feature helps duplicate the output of each port on four screens. Unfortunately, it only has mini- ports that are hard to find on most displays. To cover up for that, you'll get four displayport dongles for free. 

This budget video card also beams images at 4K quality. The only thing that's missing to make it better is an HDMI slot. That shouldn't worry you, as you can get an adapter for $9.00. 

There's no overclocking on this 192-CUDA core, 850MHz GPU. But it can boost its 900MHz memory by 100%. The outcome of it is pixel-perfect frames on all of your displays. 

But that's not all: 

PNY 510 is among the best cheap video cards with silent fans. It's not as large as MSI 730's heatsink, but it still works fine. And the GPU pulls 35 watts only from the motherboard. 

Installation is a problem because it ships with an incompatible driver. We had to download the right one, as was the case with VisionTek 5450. Funnily enough, it requires no software installations on Linux systems. 

As earlier said, Nvidia will stop supporting its Kepler-based budget GPUs. That shouldn't stop you from buying this $200.00 graphics card, however. Finding a cheap alternative with such visual capabilities will be challenging.

Asus GT 710 may not be the best video card under 200 dollars, but it can still impress you, thanks to its multi-display functionality. 

You can hook up three monitors to multitask at ease. It offers an HDMI port that beams images with 4K quality. The rest include VGA and DVI slots that offer 2K resolution. Sadly, the GPU can squeeze out a max refresh rate of 30Hz. 

Hooking up a 60Hz screen works well, but only at 1080p. Any attempt to go higher causes this cheap gaming graphics card to lag. You will experience freezing when doing graphic-intensive tasks.

The GPU has innovative technology for enhancing performance. Unlike the R7240, it uses software to turn off unwanted windows processes. In doing so, it takes advantage of the available resources to boost gaming. 

The cooling on this graphics card is exceptionally silent. That's because it depends on a passive mechanism. So there are no rotating fans to generate crazy white noise. 

A few areas of this $70.00 budget GPU are underpowered. For example, the 2GB GDDR5 memory chip has a 14.4GB/s bandwidth. You'll find it challenging to play video games above 1080p.

The graphics hardware also uses an older Kepler architecture. Just like the Fermi, Nvidia plans to stop supporting it from October 2021. You'll still be able to use it on Windows 7, 8, and 8.1. 

Overall, GT 710 is the best graphics card under 200 with the lowest power rating. It consumes 19 watts at most. The card also fits in tight spaces due to its impressively small size.

Supercharge your old computer using this VisionTek 5450 GPU! This budget video card is compatible with Windows from XP to version 10. And it comes with a super-silent heatsink. 

The backbone of this unit is a 650MHz Radeon 5450 chip. It's based on quite an old 40nm architecture. You get around 80 stream processors with that. Despite the low count, it handles everyday day-to-day tasks well.

We're sure you're eager to know how it performs in gaming. Well, you shouldn't have high expectations for a GPU that costs under 200. It only managed to render the graphics perfectly at 640 x 480 pixels. 

That's awful for a card with a maximum resolution of 1080p. You can still use a QHD display at a 30Hz refresh rate. Of course, not to play games but for office work and entertainment. 

Speaking of which, you can use two screens at once. The outputs include a DVI, VGA, and HDMI. It will support the duo set-up while consuming 19 watts of power. 

It's among the best graphics cards under 200 with the lowest PSU requirements. At 250 watts, you won't have to worry about high electricity bills. 

The VisionTek 5450 has a DDR3 memory chip. The module only manages a tiny 6.4GB/s of bandwidth. But it probably outshines the integrated GPU of your aging CPU. 

Installation is another issue that we didn't like about this unit. The driver that comes with the package fails to install. As usual, connecting to the internet helps Windows to download the right software.

This sub 200 dollar graphics card also has a slim profile. It can fit in small form factor (SFF) tower CPUs without problems. 

Unlike Nvidia, AMD is good at providing long-term support to its GPUs. We are anxiously awaiting the driver update for Windows 11.