The GT 1030
Three lower-end graphics cards have released recently, but you may not have heard anything about them. AMD and NVIDIA generally do not throw major parties when they release ~$70 products, so do not worry about it if these launches slipped under your radar!
The three new-ish cards are:
The GT 1030 and RX 550 have similar performance, and only a $10 price difference. We are now recommending the GT 1030, but not the RX 550. Why? Because the RX 460 is a better card for the same price. We’ll recommend the RX 550 if the price drops to $70 to match the GT 1030.
The RX 560 is a nice alternative to the GTX 1050 for $100. Performance is quite close, with NVIDIA winning in older DX11 titles, and AMD winning in DX12 and Vulkan.
In other news, some of you may be having trouble finding RX 470/480/570/580 cards for sale. Blame cryptocurrency for that. There is a new currency that there is no ASIC for (yet), and it is causing a severe GPU drought. This has happened before, and it will pass.
To summarize, here are our updates:
- GT 1030 added to Entry tier, replacing R7 250 and R7 250X
- RX 560 added to Fair tier as an alternative to the GTX 1050
- RX 550 under consideration, pending price reduction to match GT 1030
The US list has been updated, and you can expect similar changes to occur in other countries in the coming weeks.