The Best Graphics Cards for 1080p 144hz Gaming

As PC gamers, video editors, and graphic designers, we know that graphics cards are the lifeline of our PC. A gaming PC is nothing without a graphics card to boost a 144+fps. Don’t worry; we have a solution for all your gaming needs with a technical justification for not needing the most expensive graphics card. All you need is the best graphics card for 1080p 144Hz, which will do the job. As per the gaming platform Steam, the most used gaming resolution is 1080p. An item known to be the best graphics card for gaming should have adaptive sync technology; it could be either a Radeon or GeForce. Just pushing high frames per second from your GPU is not enough; you need to have an equal amount of screen refresh rate on your display. Commercial gaming monitors have reached 240Hz means anything above 240fps is not viable.

Whether you have a lot of budgets or not, buying the best budget graphics card can never go wrong. Finding value for money can help you sustain your hardware and bear the maintenance cost if it comes in between you and gaming. Running a competitive game on the best cheap graphics card is easily achievable, but when you want to find the right balance where AAA titles like The Witcher 3, Resident Evil Village, and Deathloop can also run at 144+fps, it’s not an easy task. Some people might own a PC with a small form factor, so we added the best low profile graphics card to run AAA games. Our job is to research and provide you with the graphics cards that one can use for either situation. Our list has GPUs priced humbly and provide the minimum frame rates for a powerful gaming experience. We suggest reviewing our tips to understand why high-end GPUs are unnecessary for everyone.

Our top picks

Quick Shopping Tips:

We have mentioned some of the most critical factors you need to consider before opting for a graphics card. Let’s have a look at these crucial shopping tips!

Significance of 1080p: There are multiple reasons why you should go for the 1080p resolution. The first reason is the pixels per inch (PPI); it’s very important to know that the pixel density starts to decrease when increasing screen size. Most gaming is done on 32 monitors; anything beyond this goes out of viewing angle if we sit ergonomically close to the screen. A human eye cannot differentiate the pixels of a 1080p 32monitor at a safe distance.

Refresh Rate: We picked 144Hz as the best refresh rate for gaming. It has been tested by some of the top professional gamers like Shroud, Grimmmz, and Corey by different PC configurations. We tried it, giving different scenarios of low fps, high fps, high Hz, low Hz, adaptive sync ON, and adaptive sync OFF to pro players. As per the result, the 60Hz display got the least score, and all players scored highest and identical in 144Hz or 240Hz scenarios.

Adaptive Sync: It is essential to know that the frames being sent from the GPU do not always match with the refreshing of the screen. Such instances can cause screen tearing, resulting in missing hits in a competitive shooting game. This effect is also noticeable for casual gamers on AAA titles. It is important that your framerates and screen refresh rate match, so owning a monitor with a 144Hz refresh rate is an economical and strategic decision.

Ray Tracing: It is the most advanced technology for light processing. It is being used in photo editing software, 3D animation, and now in-game engines can also support ray-tracing. You need to have a ray-tracing capable graphics card and a game that supports lighting conditions. It can drastically make a difference in your gaming experience, making the in-game reflective surfaces more realistic.

The Best Graphics Cards for 1080p 144hz Gaming: First look

The Best Graphics Cards for 1080p 144hz Gaming: In-depth Review

We will start our list with the Zotac GTX 1660, an economical graphics card for all gaming needs. It is a GPU known to be the best graphics card for 1080p 144Hz, and It comes with 6GB of video RAM that allows long-range graphics to load once, thus enhancing the processing rate. This graphics card has been tested at stock settings in different games and on a rig that ensures that there is no bottleneck by other hardware. Forza Horizon 4 reaches 60+fps on ultra-graphic settings at 1080p, but it easily exceeds 100+fps for fluid gaming at medium settings if you want to utilize your hardware fully.

As a competitive gamer, you cannot miss out on Fortnite, and at 1080p EPIC settings, the game reaches 60+fps on this GPU. This item is meant to be the best 1080p graphics card, and it lives up to its reputation by reaching 100+fps at medium or high settings. We picked Zotac as the graphics card manufacturer due to its built quality. This graphics card utilizes two fans that take heat from the vast array of the aluminum heat sink with 3x6mm copper heat pipes. The Firestorm app can overclock the GPU, and these heatsinks support the removal of heat for high-end gaming.

Gigabyte Windforce Gaming 1660 Ti is a master-class item by Gigabyte, a brand with diverse hardware experience, which helps them form an ecosystem. It is the best value graphics card for 1080p 144Hz because, at similar power consumption, this GPU provides better output. As a buyer, you might be confused with the addition of the word Ti at the end. Ti means Titanium and doesn’t mean that this material is used in manufacturing the graphics card. It represents that the number of CUDA cores for the same Turing architecture of 1660 has been improved, and it has a faster GDDR6 RAM instead of GDDR5, which is a plus point for gamers and video editors.

Extra CPU cores allow Forza Horizon to run at 100+fps even at 1080p resolution. It is a big graphics card with a tri-fan setup, and each fan rotates in an alternate direction for improved airflow. It has a 3D active fan feature that turns the fan to zero RPM at no load. This item is the best GPU for 1080p 144Hz as it easily achieves 100+fps on games like the Witcher 3. The heat pipes have been shaped to directly come in contact with the GPU, thus reducing any potential heat transfer resistance between the source and sink. The VRM is a 4+2 power phase design that allows better overclocking potential. Its Sync-enabled RGB fusion 2.0 lightning is a cherry on top.

Since its release date of the Radeon RX 550, this GPU has remained in the gaming community due to its excellent price/performance ratio. MSI Gaming Radeon RX 550 comes with the AMD FreeSync technology, which ensures that the frames being sent from the GPU match with the screen refresh rate. With just 50watts of power consumption, this is the best ultra-value graphics card for 1080p 144Hz. It runs top competitive games like CS: GO at 100+fps with 1080p resolution, making it ideal for 144Hz AMD FreeSync monitors. It comes with two fan setups which allow it to have overclocking capabilities and lower height for any small chassis.

GPU intensive games like PUBG also run at 60+fps with ease. However, 100+fps on top AAA titles was impossible without setting the details to low or medium. Consider this GPU as an entry-level graphics card for gaming. MSI has made this model into a low-profile design. It is the best GPU for 1080p 144Hz on competitive games thus is the first and foremost choice of many PC enthusiasts. It’s a VR-enabled graphics card so that you can enter into the MetaVerse experience at a low price. The highly efficient capacitors have a ten years long lifetime under full load.

Gigabyte RTX 2060 Windforce Gaming features the first generation of ray-tracing technology. It is the best mid-range graphics card for 1080p 144Hz as it features a bit of every quality a gamer could demand. Due to the best price/performance ratio in first-generation ray tracing, we picked this GPU. It comes in a tri-fan setup. With Nvidia Turing architecture, one can easily achieve lifelike lighting conditions in top AAA games. one can play games like CyberPunk 2077 at 60+fps with ray tracing enabled; this item excels in this area. Ray Tracing takes a toll on the graphics card, and this overclocked capable graphics card can boost the extra 5 frames with its overclocked frequency.

It comes with 6GB of RAM, sufficient for all high-end games. The support for 8K resolution at 60Hz makes it an excellent entry-level 8K GPU for video editing and extremely large displays. It is the best 1080p graphics card as it comes with 1920 GPU cores cooled by 4 composite copper heat pipes. The heat pipes carry load from the GPU to the fans via densely packed fins made from aluminum. Each fan moves in the opposite direction, thus lowering the noise level and providing better heat transfer properties. It has RGB Fusion-enabled lighting and uses an efficient 6+2 power phase design for powerful overclocking.

SAPPHIRE PULSE RX 580 is the most desirable product that we could ever pick out, with the capability to run competitive games like Rainbow Siege and CS: GO at 200+fps. Its 8GB RAM provides more than sufficient space for graphic textures loading in open-world games like GTA V with a high field of view. It is the best 1080p graphics card that features the Radeon FreeSync 2.0 to avoid any screen tearing that could lead to missing shots in your race to win the top spot. Even though the GPU was released a few years ago, it remains relevant and performs efficiently for mid-range gaming PCs.

Sapphire used a dual 92mm fan set up with a dual ball bearing for long-term operations. Being the best budget-friendly graphics card for 1080p 144Hz, it has a solid backplate for added support, ensuring no creep-based phenomenon that might cause the graphics card to go dead early. They also use top-of-the-line components so that the performance remains strong and the coil whining phenomenon is drastically reduced. 200000 hrs of operation on full load capability of capacitors improve the lifetime of the graphics card. They have also included DVI-D output for this graphics card which can be useful for people with older monitors.

Next up on our list is the splendid MSI RTX 2060 Super Ventus has similar lithography to the regular but carries 256 extra CUDA cores. That has a significant impact on the performance of the GPU. Nvidia noticed that by increasing the number of cores the TDP didn’t increase proportionally, thus leading to this best overall graphics card for 1080p 144Hz. Benchmark results clearly show that RTX 2060 regularly underperforms the super by a noticeable margin. On AAA titles like Borderlands 3, RTX 2060 Super adds 15 more frames than the regular RTX 2060 version, thus leading the way.

When it comes to price to performance ratio, this graphics card takes charge due to its high frame rates across multiple games. This efficient and the best graphics card for 1080p 144Hz only requires one external power cable and 550W PSU to become operational at its full capacity. Besides being an excellent GPU, the graphics card comes in the latest TORX Fan 2.0 design. That allows the graphics card to fit in any modern case, which is an excellent advantage of this product. The direct contact heat pipes and added copper thickness of the PCB maintain the least signal interference with maximum performance.

If you are looking for the best performer in the arena, then Sapphire RX 5700 XT Pulse should be your top choice. The performance of this best performance graphics card for 1080p 144Hz is beyond expectation for its price. If you are not worried about ray-tracing technology, this GPU will efficiently make your games run at 100+fps. Graphic intensive games like Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, GTA 5, Far Cry Primal, and Gear of War running at ULTRA graphic settings can easily reach above 144 frames per second, perfect for a 144Hz screen. It also supports the latest FreeSync technology of AMD. It’s based on a 7 nm-based GPU lithography that keeps the temperature under control.

If we take the GPU aside and focus on this graphics card’s built quality and features, we can easily conclude that this best 1080p graphics card provides most features within this price range. It is the latest protocol PCIe 4.0 graphics card that provides the highest possible bandwidth, thus eliminating any potential bottleneck between hardware. An ample overclocking headspace of 255MHz makes this product an excellent graphics card for enthusiast overclockers or crypto miners. The top feature of this graphics card is its dual BIOS capability. With a simple physical switch on the graphics card, you can switch between performance and silent modes.

While everybody is chasing the best of the best, some savvy gamers opt for economical options like Gigabyte GeForce RTX 2080 Ti Turbo OC graphics card. This GPU can run any AAA games, including Horizon Zero Dawn and Red Dead Redemption 2, at 100+fps with ray-tracing enabled. There is no need to buy the 3000 series GPU with extraordinarily high prices to run games at 1080p with a 32 screen. This product is the best GPU for 1080p 144Hz triple-a gaming. Without any DLSS, it can perform exceptionally, and high-resolution 60+fps gaming on this graphics card is also possible by enabling the DLSS for upscaling. The graphics card is a turbo fan-based design with a vapor chamber that comes directly in contact with the GPU.

Gigabyte uses a 2oz copper PCB and a 13 + 3 power phase design for a powerful overclocking experience. It comes with a Tier 1 memory which is reliable and can withstand the heat from overclocker frequencies. This item is the best GPU for 1080p 144Hz that comes with SLI or NVLink support for connecting dual GPUs in parallel. There are no RGBs on the graphics card, which could be a pro for some people. However, there are LED indicators that are used for power supply representation. If a stable supply is available, the indicator will turn OFF; otherwise light will remain ON for no power and blink for abnormal power.

Final Words

Graphics cards are the core of gaming, and buying a well-balanced card can be overwhelming. As per our recommendation of buying the best graphics card for 1080p 144Hz, start by choosing the category between competitive gaming and casual gaming. If you are a competitive gamer, all the GPUs on our list are suitable for competitive games like Fortnite, CS: GO, and Rainbow Siege. If you are a casual gamer who likes playing AAA games, but 60fps is not for you, then go for a high-end GPU from the last three. A balanced GPU that can play AAA titles at 60fps and competitive gaming at 144+fps would be an RTX 2060 or 1660 Ti. The GPUs in our list are all made from high-quality material that has been tried and tested by users. You don’t have to worry about the longevity of your hardware if you decide to buy something from our list.

We did not include graphics cards from the 2nd generation ray-tracing as framerates are no significant difference. Neither does the next-gen 3000 series Nvidia graphics card offer an extraordinary price/performance ratio. Currently, the RTX 2000 series takes the lead in price, features, and value. All the graphics cards on our list have adaptive sync, so to properly utilize the ability of these cards, you would need a FreeSync or G-Sync enabled monitor that supports a 144Hz refresh rate. When it comes to features, some of the GFX cards provide high-end overclocking capabilities with a tri-fan setup, while others have a bare minimum of base frequencies. Graphics cards run better when they are at stock frequencies, and their cooling system keeps the temperature within the operating limits. Unless you are an overclocking enthusiast, you won’t feel much difference with overclocking your hardware. We hope you find the right product for you from our list.

Frequently Asked Questions