With modern games becoming more and more demanding, you may quickly find that your old graphics card just doesn’t cut it anymore.
If drops in performance levels or in graphics quality when playing your new favourite games such as the new free to play Call of Duty: Warzone sounds familiar, then it’s definitely time for an upgrade.
The world of graphics cards can be difficult to navigate, so thankfully for you, we’ve listed the best graphics cards for Warzone and other demanding games to make choosing the best one easier for you.
We narrowed down what we thought is the best-valued graphics card, ranging from budget-friendly gfx cards to high-end powerful gfx cards.
While 240 Hz monitors can offer incredible frames per second counts to generate the kind of silky smooth gameplay that you need for an FPS battle royale game such as Call of Duty: Warzone, it can often be difficult to find a graphics card that can both keep up with this high refresh rate while also fitting within your budget.
The Nvidia RTX 2070 Super, however, offers just the right amount of performance for such a set up while not being overly expensive, leaving your wallet some wriggle room for other PC components or peripherals, too.
The RTX 2070 Super is actually the graphics card that Activision themselves recommends in their competitive specifications for playing Call of Duty: Warzone at high settings.
This graphics card will allow you to run the game on high settings at around 186 FPS, frames per second count which leaps to almost 240 at low settings.
This makes the Nvidia RTX 2070 Super a great graphics card for 240 Hz gaming, and a more than sufficient GPU for playing the game on monitors of 144 Hz.
Not only does it offer great performance, but you may find that the RTX 2070 Super offers incredible value for money, making it a top choice if you’re looking for power at a reasonable cost.
Overall, this graphics card is great for running Call of Duty: Warzone at high settings, especially on 240 Hz or 144 Hz displays.
I’m sure that everyone who plays or wants to play a battle royale game such as Call of Duty: Warzone wants the best graphics card on the market, and for good reason; the better the graphics card, the more frames per second you can squeeze out of your monitor, and the better performance you can get out of your PC set up.
After all, no one wants to find that their build doesn’t even meet the system requirements.
The Nvidia RTX 2080 Ti may help you dispel these worries - providing you have the budget for it.
Being one of the current strongest graphics cards on the market, the RTX 2080 Ti features an impressive 11GB of memory that can pump out 235-271 FPS in Call of Duty: Warzone, making it more than ideal to keep you performing at your peak.
The frames per second output of the RTX 2080 Ti means that it is perfect for that gaming on 240 Hz monitors and will prove to be significantly more than enough for 144 Hz displays.
Not only that, but it can perform incredibly at 4K resolutions, making the RTX 2080 Ti an ideal GPU for those who game on the most powerful of PC setups.
This kind of performance will give you the competitive edge you need for games such as Warzone that require smooth-as-can-be gameplay.
144 Hz monitors are slowly and slowly becoming more popular over their 60 Hz counterparts, and for good reason, as gamers start to crave FPS counts of over the standard 60 FPS.
If you’ve jumped on the bandwagon and own a display with a refresh rate of 144 Hz, then you’ll definitely need a graphics card to match, especially if you want to play fast-paced shooters such as Call of Duty: Warzone where you need all the performance boosts you can get.
The Nvidia RTX 2060 Super is an excellent pick for this regard - it offers frames per second counts of over 144 FPS even on high settings (ranging from 150-200 FPS depending on the settings level), making this an ideal GPU for those with more powerful setups that need a graphics card that can keep up.
Not only is it ideal for 144 Hz gaming on high settings, but you may find that the Nvidia RTX 2060 Super is more affordable than its AMD counterparts with comparable specs – for instance, it features a price tag that is lower than that of the similar AMD Radeon RX Vega 56.
Once again, you might find that Nvidia tops AMD when it comes to graphics cards.
All in all, the Nvidia RTX 2060 Super is a good middle ground of affordability and good performance and is a great choice for many Warzone players out there.
If you’re looking for a graphics card to suit your 144 Hz monitor without breaking the bank too much, then the Nvidia GTX 1660 Super has you covered.
Offering around 140 FPS at higher settings, this graphics card may not quite push your 144 Hz display to its maximum potential if you want to play Call of Duty: Warzone on higher game settings.
However, the GTX 1660 Super begins to shine on lower settings, reaching frames per second counts of around 170 on average.
This makes this GPU great for those who don’t mind lowering their video settings just a smidge for good performance.
Wondering why you would want to lower your video settings for this graphics card?
The answer is simple – it is a wonderfully affordable GPU that will be able to match and even be more than powerful for your 144 Hz monitor and give you the good overall performance to boot.
Despite its lower price, it can tackle 1080p gaming, meaning you can still play Warzone and have it look beautiful while you do so.
We understand the way graphics cards can put a huge dent in your wallet, especially if you’re looking to build a whole PC and need to consider the price of other parts, too.
However, there are some budget graphics cards that can get the job done, and the Nvidia GTX 1650 Super is exactly that.
Able to run Call of Duty: Warzone at around 108 FPS on high settings and 133 FPS on low settings, this gaming graphics card is great if you own a 144 Hz setup (though it may not quite hit the 144 FPS mark), and can also be used on 60 Hz monitors to give you well over the limit of 60 FPS.
Its base of 4GB memory will give you good performance, making its affordable price tag well worth the while.
However, if you’re looking for a graphics card that will run Warzone on higher resolution monitors with beefier refresh rates of 240 Hz, then this GPU may not quite make the cut and use your setup’s full potential.
In general, though, the Nvidia GTX 1650 Super is a good graphics card for running Call of Duty that won’t take a huge bite out of your wallet but doesn’t compromise much on power, either.
When it comes to choosing the best graphics card for FPS games such as Call of Duty, there are many factors you need to consider.
To help get an idea of the tier of graphics card you should be looking for, one of the first things you can do is check out the minimum and recommended specifications that Call of Duty: Warzone asks for.
This will tell you the very minimum graphics card power you need to play the game without significant performance or quality losses and will help give you a baseline of what you need to look out for.
Once you have an idea of what you need, the next thing you need to choose is which brand to go with.
At the moment, Nvidia and AMD are the industry giants, producing the best graphics cards for gaming, so your choice will be between these two.
In general, Nvidia has the most powerful graphics cards around, though AMD offers GPUs that are greater value for money while still being powerful. At the end of the day, this decision will be based on what you prioritise more – affordability or raw power.
The next thing to look out for is the amount of memory the graphics card has.
High-performance games such as Warzone will require a GPU to match, especially if you’re looking to run it on 4K monitors.
Though it will depend on your setup, in general, the higher the graphics card memory, the better.
At least 4GB is needed for most modern games nowadays, with 6GB or more being ideal.
Another aspect that can affect your game’s performance is the number of cores the graphics card has – this will equate to how many “calculations” the GPU can run simultaneously.
The general rule of thumb once again is that the more cores, the better.
The next thing to consider is your monitor’s refresh rate, which is how many times per second your display shows a new image.
A high refresh rate will demand more from your graphics card, so you need one that will be able to keep up with your monitor.
However, if you have a monitor with a lower refresh rate, you can get away with purchasing a less-powerful GPU.
A good graphics card is important if you want to play shooter games like Warzone, as more frames per second mean smoother gameplay, which you'll need if you want to play at your peak performance.
In general, 60 FPS may be sufficient for most gamers, but if you're a pro player looking for incredible performance then you may want to look into graphics cards that can offer 144-240+ FPS.
In order to get the best performance out of your game, you need to adjust a couple of video settings, most of which you will make lower than the default or recommended settings.
For instance, tweaking settings such as shadow map resolution and texture anisotropic filtering in Warzone can result in slight performance boosts, as can keeping your game in fullscreen mode as you play.
If you want a full rundown of the best graphics settings to use, check out this video by Webzy:
The best graphics card for raw FPS performance is the Nvidia RTX 2080 Ti, which can offer you 235 FPS at high settings and 271 FPS at lower settings, making it one of the most powerful graphics cards to boost your frames per second.
Your PC specs will greatly determine your performance in Call of Duty: Warzone, which includes the type of graphics card you have - choosing a powerful graphics card for your build is important in having good performance in Warzone.
Other PC components such as your CPU, RAM and SSD/HDD Storage all play factors into how smooth of performance your computer will put up, with Call of Duty being a very resource-intensive game, we would recommend the following minimums:
If we're talking about actual gameplay performance, then there's 1 thing you need to do:
Practice.
More importantly, practice your aim consistently.
Using an aim trainer such as Kovaaks v2.0 or Aim Hero will drastically improve your overall aim in any FPS game.
I have personally used Kovaaks v2.0 to train for Overwatch and CS:GO and my aim has increased tenfold.
Ensure that you set up your aim trainers to reflect the same FOV and Mouse Settings as you would in-game, you want to mimic the in-game environment as close to it as you can.
If you're serious about improving your aim, you can check out our ultimate guide to aim training here.
All in all, our winner for the best graphics card for Call of Duty: Warzone will have to be the NVIDIA RTX 2070 Super.
Though the Nvidia RTX 2080 Ti offers outstanding performance, its hefty price tag sets it back.
Able to deliver FPS counts that allow it to reach the threshold necessary for 240 Hz monitors, the Nvidia RTX 2070 Super is a versatile graphics card that can be used with almost any set up while also being easy on your wallet, which puts it ahead of the RTX 2080 Ti with ease.
It out-performs most of the other graphics cards on this list while still being affordable, though the Nvidia GTX 1650 Super wins out in being budget-friendly.
However, the 1650 Super doesn't offer anywhere near the raw power of the 2070 Super, which makes it less value-for-money.
As such, if you're looking for smooth gameplay and great performance in an FPS battle royale game such as Call of Duty: Warzone at a reasonable cost, then the Nvidia RTX 2070 Super may be just what you need.