Unfortunately for the Radeon, being cheap and being good value aren’t always the same thing, something that becomes apparent though its gaming performance. Nvidia GeForce RTX 3050 vs AMD Radeon RX 6500 XT: 1080p benchmarks Mathematically, the RX 6500 XT is just the next closest thing. Like it or not, a return to the days of dirt-cheap but decently capable cards like the GTX 1050 Ti and Radeon RX 570 isn’t coming any time soon.

Is there wiggle room because of the economic nightmare that’s been engulfing PC hardware since 2020? Also yes. Is anything over £150 stretching the definition of a “budget” graphics card? Yes. The RX 6500 XT, by contrast, can potentially be bought without getting gouged at all.

The RX 6500 XT has more expensive partner cards too, but generally the RTX 3050 has been shunted much further from its original, £230 RRP. Indeed, the RTX 3050 starts from £270 / $325, with my test model – the MSI GeForce RTX 3050 Gaming X 8G – more like £380 / $339.

That’s not just cheaper than the thriftiest RTX 3050 variant, it’s the least you have to pay for any current-generation GPU on the market. The Sapphire Pulse Radeon RX 6500 XT, the partner model I used for testing, also happens to be the lowest-priced model at £199 / $230 (a whole pound cheaper than it was yesterday!). If the RX 6500 XT has one thing going for it, it’s a much clearer dedication to being a budget GPU – at least by the deeply out-of-whack standards of 2022 prices. Nvidia GeForce RTX 3050 vs AMD Radeon RX 6500 XT: Price If you haven’t read the full reviews then I won’t spoil which one it is, but here’s a clue: it’s an anagram of “RTX 3005”. Only one, of course, can be deserving of a spot on our best graphics cards list. Which, though, is the better buy? Both are 1080p-focused cards on sale for £300 or less, both sit at the bottom of their respective GPU hierarchies (the RTX 30 series and Radeon RX 6000 series), and both support ray tracing, so let’s break out the bar chart app and do some comparisons. The Nvidia GeForce RTX 3050 and AMD Radeon RX 6500 XT both launched in recent weeks with the aim of reasserting some sanity, and to an extent, they have: while they’re not immune to bonkers inflation, they’re still relatively affordable, with unusually plentiful stock available. Even with some graphics cards dropping in price, the overall GPU availability situation remains pretty dire.

Amd vs nvidia graphics cards comparison