Last Updated on November 1, 2023 by Nahush Gowda
Despite the new generation of Nvidia RTX 40 series and AMD Radeon RX 7000 series cards, there hasn’t been a new GPU that costs less than ₹25,000 (US equivalent $250) except RX 7600, which is close.
Graphics cards at this price are meant for 1080p gaming at high to max settings depending on the titles. This is the best price point if you are looking for a budget build for 1080p gaming. Here are some of the best graphics cards to buy under ₹25,000.
AMD Radeon RX 6600
- Best price-to-performance ratio
- H265/HEVC encode, decode
- Low power compared to others in this price range
- Below-average ray tracing performance
- PCIe 4.0 x8 might affect performance in older motherboards with PCIe 3.0
This is probably the best card for 1080p gaming, and it has aged really well since its release almost 2 years back. For just about INR 20000, it is the best value graphics card for 1080p gaming. From the perspective of rasterization performance, it is the best value, although it is not the fastest in the price category.
To understand its performance, here are some gaming benchmarks for RX 6600.
Its ray tracing performance isn’t very impressive although, at this price, ray tracing is barely a consideration for buying decisions. Nevertheless, AMD has always lagged behind in ray tracing performance compared to Nvidia. You can still use AMD FSR2.0 to improve performance.
It has a fairly decent productivity performance and stays a little behind its big brother RX 6600XT and competitor RTX 3060. For a card that costs this less, it is probably the best value graphics card under ₹25,000 for 1080p gaming.
Also read: Best PC build for 1080p gaming (Under ₹50,000)
AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT
- Best price-to-performance ratio
- H265/HEVC encode, decode
- Low power compared to others in this price range
- Below-average ray tracing performance
- PCIe 4.0 x8 might affect performance in older motherboards with PCIe 3.0
Right now, it is selling at the same price as RX 6600 and there will be a lot of fluctuations as the stock clears. If you have around INR 20,000 to spare for a GPU, this is the best GPU you can buy now!
It is 15% faster than the RX 6600 and even RTX 3060. Although compared to RTX 3060, you get less memory which is of prime importance in 2023 as performance in many modern titles tends to bottleneck with less memory.
Having said that, 8GB VRAM is still okay for most titles in 2023 and RX 6600XT delivers the best performance in this price range.
Note: There will be a lot of fluctuations in the price as AMD clears out RX 6000 series stocks to make way for the newer 7000 series.
Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060
- 12GB VRAM
- Good productivity performance
- Scales well with 1440p gaming
- Slightly worse “price-to-performance” ratio compared to RX 6600
A few months back, RTX 3060 wouldn’t have entered this list because it always hovered between ₹25,000 to ₹30,000. Now, it has finally dropped below ₹25,000 following the price drops of many of the Nvidia cards.
RTX 3060 is another very popular card according to Steam Hardware Survey. It is a default choice for many at this price. RTX 3060 is a capable 1080p card and also does well in 1440p in most titles.
Here are some gaming benchmarks at 1080p and 1440p for RTX 3060.
The best things about RTX 3060 are its 12GB VRAM capacity and relatively higher CUDA cores that make it apt for production workloads as well. It does well in Blender, Adobe applications, and other productivity applications compared to any of the AMD cards at this price.
If you are looking for a graphics card that can do it all from gaming to decent productivity, RTX 3060 is the best choice for you. However, for the performance it offers, it is still expensive but makes it up with better ray tracing performance, productivity performance, and memory specs.
RX 6650XT
- Fastest graphics card in this price range
- Good for high refresh rate 1080p gaming and even 1440p gaming.
- Decent mid-range productivity performance
- Only 8GB of VRAM compared to 12GB in RTX 3060
- PCIe 4.0 x8 might affect performance in older motherboards with PCIe 3.0
RX 6650XT is a great GPU to buy at this price point. It costs the same as RTX 3060 but on average, it is 15 to 17% faster in 1080p and 1440p gaming performance. It is weird that RX 6650XT is cheaper than RX 6600XT but it is mostly because RX 6650XT didn’t gain much attention in the Indian market.
Here are some gaming performances of RX 6650XT in 1080p and 1440p.
For ₹25,000, it has the best ray tracing performance and the fastest GPU you can buy at this price range. Even for productivity performance, it is fairly decent and comparable to RTX 3060 and better in some tests.
If you want the fastest card strictly below ₹25,000, RX 6650XT is the one you must get.
Intel Arc A750
- Low price
- Good productivity performance
- A lot of room for improvement as drivers improve
- Software and optimization issues
- Gaming performance is inconsistent across titles
This is an interesting graphic card in this price range. Intel Arc has made improvements in its software which still has a lot of potential for improvement. At the time of writing in July 2023, Intel Arc A750 has become a serious contender to RX 6600 and RTX 3060 with its performance improvement.
However, the performance of Arc A750 depends on the title you play. It has issues with older titles with DirectX 9 where the performance falls drastically. However, with newer titles in DirectX 12 or Vulkan, it performs on par with RTX 3060 and even beats it in some titles like Red Dead Redemption 2, Atomic Heart, Witcher 3 (New gen update), and a few more.
With further improvements in software, it can become perform better and you don’t have to be too worried about it crashing as such critical issues have mostly been solved.
Bonus Graphics Cards that are slightly above ₹25,000
AMD Radeon RX 7600
- A new generation of GPU with features like AV1 encode
- Good productivity performance
- Decent ray-tracing performance
- 8GB VRAM in 2023 may not be enough for modern AAA titles with bad optimisations being so common
RX 7600 is the latest offering by AMD from the Radeon RX 7000 series. RX 7600 has mixed feelings from reviewers, critics, and general users but depending on the price, the RX 7600 is either a good deal or not. Currently, you can get one for nearly ₹26,000 and it is about 2-3% faster in average 1080p gaming.
Of course, at this price, RX 6650XT seems like a better value option but RX 7600 does come with its advantages like AV1 encoding which can be helpful for streamers and video editors, and slightly better ray tracing performance.
If you can grab a RX 7600 from any retail store or a PC market for less than ₹25,000 it is a worthy graphics card to buy.
Do you have more budget? Check out the best graphics card under 30000
RTX 4060
- DLSS 3 Frame Generation
- High power efficiency
- Doesn’t offer too much better performance compared to RX 3060 in games.
- Only 8GB VRAM
Also read: Nvidia RTX 4060 Review Roundup
RTX 4060 received a lot of hate when it was released. While the performance was good enough, it was still priced very high which made people hate it. Compared to RTX 3060, it has lower memory specifications which was another reason why this was hated.
Now that, it has been a few months, the price has come down and it might be a good option to consider. It is around 15% faster than the RTX 3060 at 1080p. At 1440p, the gap decreases because RTX 4060 can’t scale well with higher resolutions.
However, RTX 4060 offers DLSS3 (frame generation) which is not available with RTX 30 series. While this is not “the” recommended option, it can still be considered for someone who wants the latest-generation hardware. The price of RTX 4060 can still fall further.
What not to buy
RTX 3050
Absolutely avoid RTX 3050 as it is very expensive for the performance it delivers. It is significantly sower than RX 6600 but goes for the same price. RTX 3050 has no real advantage over RX 6600 while costing the same.
RTX 2060
RTX 2060 is going for far costlier in the Indian market and it is not worth it as it is superseded by RTX 3060 and RX 6600. Completely avoid RTX 2060 if it is anywhere above ₹20,000.
Wrapping up
There aren’t a lot of choices in this price category but the ones we have are some of the best. If you are looking for an inexpensive but capable graphics card under ₹25000, AMD RX 6600 is the best value but if you want something that is much more balanced, Nvidia RTX 3060 is a great option now that it has a reduced price.
Always keep an eye on the RX 6600 series in the Indian market as it often is sold for less than INR 25,000. If you are thinking of jumping to the next generation, you can also opt for RX 7600 but it is slightly more expensive. You can wait for it to drop below ₹2500 before purchasing it.
In any case, all the listed graphics cards are a great choice but it depends on what you are looking for other than pure gaming performance. Avoid buying RTX 3050 and RTX 2060 no matter what anyone says.
Consider these cards only if they are available for less than ₹18,000. If you are upgrading from an older platform with a motherboard that has PCIe 3.0, avoid the cards with PCIe 4.0 x8 lines like RX 6600 and RX 6650XT.
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