In many important ways, 1440p is the best possible resolution to game at. The relatively high pixel count vis a vis 1080p means that 1440p looks great on 27 in monitors and is even acceptable on larger 32-inchers. At the same time, it doesn’t put quite as much strain on your GPU hardware as 4K does, giving you the headroom to crank settings up as high as you’d like. In this piece, we’ll be taking a look at the best graphics cards for 1440p gameplay across different price points and performance targets
Best Budget 1440p graphics card: ASRock Challenger D Radeon RX 5600 XT
Price: $269 (Link)
| AMD Radeon RX 5600 XT | |
|---|---|
| Cores | 2,304 |
| Boost Clock | 1,620MHz |
| Memory | 6GB GDDR6 |
| Memory Speed | 12 Gbps |
| Bus Width | 192-bit |
| TDP | 150W |
After AMD’s last-minute spec revision to the RX 5600 XT, the midrange “premium 1080p” part suddenly became a viable 1440p contender. While the 6 GB framebuffer means that you might run into trouble with ultra textures in some games, the RX 5600 XT features an identical shader and backend configuration to the more expensive RX 5700, albeit with memory running over a 192-bit bus. Relative to the competition, it means you get a card that wrecks the RTX 2060 and holds its own against the RTX 2060 Super, something that our benchmarks speak to. You lose out on RTX ray-tracing and the 6 GB framebuffer might be an issue further down the line. But in the here and now, the RX 5600 XT is a fantastic way to get into 1440p gaming without breaking your wallet.
At $279.99, the ASRock RX 5600 XT Challenger D is a good $50 cheaper than the cheapest RX 5700 models on the market, and nearly $80 less than the Radeon RX 5700’s sticker price. ASRock says that this is a 12 Gbps model. However, as with most RX 5600 XTs, you should be able to overclock the memory to 13-14 Gbps. Together with a power limit increase and a moderate bump to core clocks, you’ll get RX 5700-level performance out of this part.
Best Graphics Card for 1440p 144Hz Gaming: ASRock Radeon RX 5700 XT Challenger D
Price: $359 (Link)
| AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT | |
|---|---|
| Cores | 2,560 |
| Boost Clock | 1,905MHz |
| Memory | 8GB GDDR6 |
| Memory Speed | 14 Gbps |
| Bus Width | 256-bit |
| TDP | 225W |
When the RX 5700 XT launched, AMD described its last-minute decision to drop the suggested retail price by $50 to be a “double-jebait.” Whatever that means. However, maintaining a bit of price gap between the 5700 XT and the RTX 2070 Super is very important. The latter card supports hardware-accelerated ray-tracing and offers 5-10 percent better performance in rasterized workloads. Thankfully, RX 5700 XT prices have been coming down, even as the RTX 2070 Super continues to sell in the $500-plus price bracket.
The ASRock Radeon RX 5700 XT Challenger D offers perhaps the best value in the segment, period. At just $359, it’s a mere $10 above the sticker price for the RX 5700. You get a remarkable amount of value for money with this card. At $359–a full $150 less than the RTX 2070 Super, you get performance that’s near-identical–and actually better in a handful of games. While you’ll miss out on RTX effects, you get an 8GB framebuffer and a decent double-fan OEM cooling solution that’ll keep temperatures at reasonable levels, at least compared to the reference RX 5700 XT.
Best 1440p Graphics Card Overall: AMD Radeon RX 5700
Price: $329
Traditionally, we’d keep the top-end spot for the GeForce RTX 2070 Super and the budget and midrange options for the Navi 10 GPU. However, recently the prices of the Super card have soared up to $550+ which honestly is just too much for a modest 5-10% performance gain (and ray-tracing support in a handful of AAA games). You’re basically looking at a $200 premium for a mere handful of frames. That’s just insane!
As long as the prices come down to $500, we recommend you stay away from the 2070 Super, no matter how well it might perform.
