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As of September 2025, the fastest GPUs under $500 from Nvidia and AMD are:
- Nvidia GeForce RTX 5060 Ti 16GB
- AMD Radeon RX 9060 XT 16GB
The RTX 5060 Ti 16GB was released on April 16th 2025 and is now back in stock at most retailers at prices starting from around $450. AMD’s closest competitor is the Radeon RX 9060 XT 16GB, which is a bit slower on average but also more affordable.
AMD Vs. Nvidia (Vs. Intel) GPUs Under $500
Nvidia’s mid-range RTX 5060 Ti is about 14% faster than the RTX 4060 Ti. Needless to say, this is not a remarkable gen-over-gen improvement, but DLSS 4 frame generation will boost performance in supported titles. It’s easily the best GPU under $500 for now.
This is not to say that the RDNA 4-based Radeon RX 9600 XT 16GB, released in June 2025, is a poor choice. In fact, it’s a better choice from a price/performance standpoint (depending on the AIB model).
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Some GeForce RTX 5060 Ti 16 GB AIB (board partner) cards are now back at the $429 launch MSRP, which is a reasonable price for this GPU. Although it’s not a major performance leap over the previous generation, Nvidia’s DLSS 4 enhancements sweeten the deal.
On the AMD side, the Radeon RX 9060 XT 16GB had an official launch MSRP of just $349 starting price, but most AIB models start at $379. That’s still not too bad considering that it only performs slightly worse than its Nvidia competitor.
However, it’s important to note that any Radeon RX 9700 is 40-50% faster than either of these cards and currently starts at $600 .
Relative Performance of Mid-Range Graphics Cards in 2025
Here’s how the currently best graphics cards under $500 perform in UL’s 3DMark Time Spy benchmark compared to a range of other GPUs.
Time Spy scores has been fairly good at predicting average gaming performance (without ray tracing) over the years. It’s still quite accurate, but the RTX 5060 Ti 16GB has an edge in actual games.
Historically, Nvidia has always been ahead of AMD once you switch on ray tracing, but this gap is now starting to close. The new RDNA 4 cards (including RX 9060) are far better at ray tracing than their predecessors.
Buy Now or Wait?
A graphics card upgrade is practically always the most cost-effective way to improve your PC’s gaming performance. But you probably want to consider release cycle timing.
This is not currently a factor, as Nvidia’s RTX 5060 Ti and AMD’s RX 9060 XT were both released in 2025. Any successors are likely more than a year away.
If you are willing to compromise on performance and get a much more affordable card, you may also want to look into the Intel Arc B580 (Battlemage generation), which was released in late 2024 and is quite a bargain at current prices.
Best GPU under $500: GeForce RTX 5060 Ti 16 GB
Nvidia’s GeForce RTX 5060 Ti is not a massive improvement over the RTX 4060 Ti. Rasterization performance is ahead by less than 15% on average, and it’s only around 30% faster than the old RTX 3060 Ti.
However, this is still enough to make it the best video card under $500. DLSS 4 with multi frame generation is not a massive advantage over AMD’s FSR 4. Nvidia nevertheless maintains a lead here, making the RTX 5060 Ti 16GB a better card overall.
Shopping links:
Fastest AMD GPU Under $500 (MSRP): Radeon RX 9060 XT
AMD’s RX 9070 lineup (Navi 48) was widely praised by the tech media for the substantial gains in efficiency and ray-tracing performance. The Radeon RX 9060 XT 16GB is based on the same RDNA 4 architecture, but its Navi 44 chip is unfortunately cut down quite substantially compared to it’s larger sibling. As a result, the RX 9070 (non-XT) is around 50% faster than the RX 9060 XT 16GB, which is something to be aware of in any price/performance calculations.
That said, the 9060 XT isn’t far behind the 5060 Ti and offers better value in terms of cost/FPS.
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Flexible Budget? What You Get for Less Or Slightly More
It’s useful to be aware of GPUs in the neighboring price brackets. Not least because some of these cards may offer better value.
More Expensive Alternative #1: Radeon RX 9070
The Radeon RX 7000 series didn’t impress anyone in terms of generational improvement, as it was practically non-existent. It came with one advantage, namely that the cards were cheaper than their predecessors while offering roughly the same performance.
This is not the case with the Radeon RX 9070 XT and RX 9070. Both GPUs offer significant performance improvements in both rasterization and ray tracing.
The RX 9070 is slightly ahead of the RTX 5070 and RTX 4070 Ti, making it a great buy at the $549 MSRP. Unfortunately, it has been very hard to find one at that price (or anything close to it).
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More Affordable Alternative: Intel Arc B580
Intel’s new Arc Battlemage GPU lineup has fared far better than the original Arc 700-series models in tech media.
Intel has worked hard on improving the drivers and have been quite successful. As opposed the A770, the B580 lives up to the performance promises and the card offers great value at the current price point.
It will not be able to compete with the previously mentioned Nvidia and AMD cards, but offers 12 GB of VRAM and a level of performance largely on par with the RTX 3060 Ti.
Shopping links:
Used Graphics Cards Under $500
Buying a used GPU is always a viable option if you are willing to take the risk of having no long-term warranty versus getting more gaming performance for the money. It’s often possible to save 10-20% or more over current-gen models when buying used. Some graphics cards under $500 to consider include:
- AMD Radeon RX 6800 ā The non-XT Radeon RX 6800 is similar to the RX 6800 XT but comes with fewer shading units or stream processors. Its gaming performance is right in the middle between the RX 6750 XT and the RX 6800 XT, with the former being about 15% slower and the latter 15% faster.
- Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 10GB ā The original RTX 3080 GPU with 10 GB of GDDR6X can sometimes be found for less than $500 on the used market. It is a bit faster than the AMD RX 6800 XT on average and also offers better ray-tracing performance.
- Nvidia GeForce RTX 3070 Ti ā A slightly larger variant of the RTX 3070 with a minor increase in shading units and faster GDDR6X VRAM. It is 5-10% faster than the original RTX 3070 but still around 20% slower than the RTX 3080.
Wrapping Up
For now, the brand-new GeForce RTX 5060 Ti 16 GB is the best GPU under $500 by a rather large margin. The main challenge is finding one.
This might change later in 2025, when AMD launches the mainstream GPUs in the Radeon 9000 series. There are no reliable performance estimates for the likely Radeon RX 9060 XT GPU yet, but might be promising if you go by the performance uplift with the 9070 cards
Any news on when / if there will be a 4060 Ti Super? At any rate the original 4060 Ti should get a prioce cut to match its performance in the new RTX lineup…
No news on any RTX 4060S or 4060 Ti Super yet that I know of. But something of that nature is likely to arrive eventually. The Ti is a slightly cut version of the AD106 GPU so there’s room for improvement.