AMD Radeon RX 570
AMD’s current refreshed all-rounder.
TThe current cryptocurrency mining craze has driven up demand for GPUs around this price, which, in turn, has bumped a lot of prices up 10–15% from what they were 6 months ago. As such, the closest card to $300 that we’re willing to recommend is AMD’s Radeon RX 570, which starts at around $340. As with the RX 560, the 570 is a tweaked version of its 2016 predecessor, the RX 470, and in many games, it’s only about 5% faster.
The 470 was essentially a slightly cut-down version of the RX 480, and it’s the same formula with the 570 and 580 — that makes this a comfortable 1080p/Ultra card — it’s able to clear most modern games at 60fps with those settings, and it can even stretch to 1440p in many titles at Medium details. While some 470s could get away with a 6-pin power connector, the slightly higher clocks used on the 570s means they almost universally require an 8-pin connection — you’ll need a 550W PSU to support one comfortably. On a frames-per-dollar metric, the RX 570 stacks up very well — it’s third from the top on our overall list.
That said, eagle-eyed readers will note that the GTX 1060 3GB is about 1% better in the FPS-value stakes, and it’s around $10 cheaper to buy. So why are we recommending the RX 570 over it? Well, 1% is a ‘margin of error’ kind of difference and, moreover, the RX 570 has an extra gigabyte of RAM, which should theoretically allow it to stay competitive at 1080p/ Ultra settings for a little bit longer, so it’s slightly more futureproof.
Verdict
In a tough cryptocurrency-mining inflated price climate, this card gets the begrudging nudge from us.