Best Graphics Card For Ryzen 5 5600X

Atif Liaqat | Last Updated On July 19th, 2022

AMD Ryzen 5 5600X is one of the most promising processors these days and seems to be great for both budget gamers and high-end gamers. It is a hexa-core processor with twelve threads, and the single-core performance of this processor exceeds any Intel counterpart, significantly highlighting it in front of enthusiasts. The processor is overclockable as long as you use a motherboard with good power delivery, especially an X570/470 chipset motherboard.

A graphics card is equally crucial to a processor when it comes to gaming. Using a low-end graphics card can result in a bottleneck situation, where the graphics card cannot keep up with the processor, ultimately resulting in low FPS. NVIDIA has released the RTX 3000-series graphics card, while AMD has released the RX 6000-series graphics card in competition. Both the series seem to be offering a vast improvement compared to older generation graphics cards, which is why most enthusiasts have switched to graphics cards from these two series. In this article, we will look at some of the best graphics cards that can be coupled with a Ryzen 5 5600X (we also have here graphics card for Ryzen 5 2600 & 2600X) for optimum system performance. We also have an article here about GPU for 1440p 144hz gaming.

Quick Graphics Card Recommendations for Ryzen 5 5600X

Award Model Price
Best 1440p Graphics Card for Ryzen 5 5600X EVGA RTX 3070 XC3 Gaming Check Price Read Customer Reviews
Best Budget 1440p Graphics Card for Ryzen 5 5600X Sapphire RX 6800 Nitro+ Check Price Read Customer Reviews
Best Budget 4K Graphics Card for Ryzen 5 5600X Sapphire RX 6800 XT Nitro+ Check Price Read Customer Reviews
Best 4K Graphics Card for Ryzen 5 5600X ASUS RTX 3080 TUF Gaming Check Price Read Customer Reviews
Best Mid-Range Graphics Card for Ryzen 5 5600X XFX RX 5700 XT Triple Dissipation Check Price Read Customer Reviews
Best Budget RTX Graphics Card for Ryzen 5 5600X ZOTAC Gaming RTX 2060 Check Price Read Customer Reviews
Best Budget Graphics Card for Ryzen 5 5600X XFX RX 5600 XT THICC II PRO Check Price Read Customer Reviews
Best Entry-Level Graphics Card for Ryzen 5 5600X GIGABYTE GeForce GTX 1660 Ti OC Check Price Read Customer Reviews

Quick Buying Tips!

There are lots of series of graphics cards in both AMD and NVIDIA, not to mention that dozens of variants exist of each model as well, creating a difficult situation for a buyer. That is why we have created this buying guide to help you with your purchase.

Model: When buying a graphics card, the most important thing is its chip, aka model. Among NVIDIA graphics cards, RTX 3090 is the flagship model, followed by RTX 3080/Ti, RTX 3070/Ti, and RTX 3060/Ti/. Meanwhile, AMD RX 6900 XT is the flagship model from the company, followed by RX 6800/XT and RX 6700. The higher-end models cost substantially more and offer a larger number of cores and other components. The RX 5000-series and RTX 2000 or GTX 1600-series graphics cards are slower than their successors.

Variant: The variant of a graphics card affects a lot of things. First of all, it affects the core clocks of a graphics card, where some variants offer higher clock rates, resulting in better performance, while others use stock clock rates. The power delivery of graphics card variants also differs, so some variants are better at overclocking than others. The same can be said about the cooling performance of the variants, where some use a tri-fan cooling solution while others use a dual-fan cooling solution. The design of almost every variant is different, and some of them come with beautiful RGB lighting while there is no lighting at all in others.

Power Requirements: The power requirement of a graphics card is an important thing to consider when buying one because if you buy a graphics card that your power supply cannot power, it will lead to crashes, system shutdowns, or even a dead PSU. The high-end graphics cards usually require more power, going as much as 350 to 400 watts for the GPU, while mid-range graphics cards typically require around 150 to 200 watts. For a high-end graphics card, a PSU of at least 800 watts is recommended, while a 600 watts PSU should be enough for mid-range graphics cards.

If you have the NVIDIA RTX 3080 and you don’t know which PSU to get, check this article here.

Best Graphics Card For Ryzen 5 5600X Reviews

Even though graphics cards are available like RTX 3080 or RX 6800 XT, they are pretty expensive for mainstream users, and they look for a budget-friendly option that doesn’t compromise a lot. In that case, you can consider going with the RTX 3070, the only affordable graphics card that can run 4K games without compromising settings. The performance of this graphics card is much similar to the RTX 2080 Ti that was the flagship card of the past generation, but it comes at half the cost. You might know about the GTX 970, which brought 1080p gaming to mainstream users, RTX 3070 doing the same but bringing 4K gaming.

When it comes to the aftermarket RTX 3070, the only option I would suggest you get is the EVGA XC3 Gaming because of its cooling solution and clocks. This graphics card’s size is much smaller compared to RTX 3080 and 3090, which take up to three PCI slots on the motherboard. There are 5,888 Cuda Cores on this graphics card spread across 46 SMs which is more than the RTX 2080 Ti offering only 4,325. So this card’s 4K gaming performance would be much better, and you can even enjoy Real-Time Ray Tracing with it.

RTX 3000 series of graphics cards don’t offer USB Type-C & VR support like the previous generation do with their Super series of graphics cards. There is alternative spinning technology in these graphics cards, making one fan spin opposite to the other two so air can go in and out, making excellent airflow in the heat sink vents. For Display output, RTX 3070 offers three DisplayPorts and one HDMI port, and you can connect up to four displays running 4K res on all of them. This graphics card offers 8 GB of VRAM compared to AMD counterparts which offer 16 GB. Overall it’s an excellent consideration for your Ryzen 5 5600X, but also look at its price and power requirements which are relatively higher than before.

What if compromises on real-time ray tracing and DLSS can save you some money, and you still can do 4K gaming without any problem? This could be possible with AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT that offers performance similar to the RTX 3979 at $k resolution. However, this graphics card is slightly inexpensive than its Intel counterpart and offers doubled VRAM and somewhat better performance. The RTX 3070 offers only 8 GB of GDDR6 memory while RX 6800 XT offers 16 GB of VRAM, which will be excellent for the future as modern games are demanding more VRAM.

Missing RTX doesn’t mean they are entirely unavailable on AMD graphics cards as RDNA 2 is bringing Real-Time Ray Tracing to them. However, their availability is too short, but we expect more developers to adopt this as it’s already available in Cyberpunk and RDR2. Also, these RTX features are not too good on these graphics cards as they are on Nvidia counterparts, but with time, no doubt it will be much better. When comparing AMD and Nvidia graphics cards, there is no single option that can beat the RTX 3090 or give better value than RTX 3080 for a 4K gaming machine.

The two vendors that I would suggest to you for this graphics card are XFX and Sapphire. However, the most recommended one is Sapphire because of its better clocks and great thermal solution. It comes with three fans that spin alternate and make an excellent airflow in the heatsink vents. The rear side of this motherboard has three DisplayPorts and one HDMI port, and it allows you to connect up to four monitors at once. The game clock of Sapphire RX 6800 Nitro+ is 1980 MHz, while its boost clock is 2190 MHz making it the best budget 4K graphics card for Ryzen 5 5600X.

In the last few years, AMD hasn’t released graphics cards that directly compete with Nvidia, but the RX 6800 XT is doing well compared to the competition. Although the performance of RX 6800 XT is similar to the RTX 3080 at 1440p resolution, Nvidia leads the game at 4K resolution, especially in DX 12 games. Due to the shortage of graphics cards and silicon chips, the prices of both of these graphics cards skyrocketed, but before that, RX 6800 XT was considered a cheaper alternative to RX 3080 since it did not support real-time ray tracing. Several recent titles support RTX features on these graphics cards, and in the future, the list is expected to expand.

The RX 6800 XT comes with 16 GB of memory, while the RTX 3080 has only 10 GB of video memory, making it future-proof for the next two to three years. In addition, the NVIDIA RTX 3080 has about 8000 CUDA cores, while the RX 6800 has 4608 cores and 288 texture mapping units. The performance gap between these two graphics cards isn’t more than 3% at 1440p resolution, so it’s a great alternative to consider.

In addition to being one of the top aftermarket cards in the Sapphire series, the Sapphire RX 6800 XT Nitro+ boasts an extremely spacious cooling solution with three fans. The user can connect up to three monitors at once with this card as it has two DisplayPorts and one HDMI port. It is also VR-ready and has a USB Type-C port. The design of this graphics card is simple, but the backplate and the RGB lights make it look more appealing. This GPU has a game clock of 2110 MHz and a boost clock of 2306 MHz, which is very impressive for a graphics card of this type. Overall, it’s a great budget graphics card for Ryzen 5 5600X, and the only downside is you won’t get RTX features.

Ryzen 5 5600X can run most of the latest games at 4K resolution, but you need a powerful graphics card to do so. In this new generation of graphics cards, the only options we have to max out the latest titles at 4K resolutions are the RTX 3080 & 3090 cards, as they are 50% faster than the previous generation RTX 2080 Ti. We chose the RTX 3080 because the other card is too expensive for a mid-range processor. Even though we have a dedicated guide on the best RTX 3080 graphics cards, I recommend that you get the ASUS RTX 3080 TUF Gaming for this build since it is reasonably priced and of excellent value.

Even though the price has not increased over the previous RTX 2080, this graphics card seems to be too expensive given the shortage. As for memory, AMD graphics cards have an advantage over the RTX 30 series because they come with 16 GB of VRAM, whereas this one has only 10 GB of GDDR6 memory with speeds up to 19 Gbps not be enough in the future. This graphics card runs quietly and cools due to alternative spinning fans with a base clock of 1440 MHz and a boost clock of 1710 MHz.

Nvidia has optimized this new generation of graphics cards over the previous one, as the RTX 3080 comes with 8704 CUDA Cores compared to the RTX 3080 Ti’s 10240. In 1440p gaming, the RX 6800 XT performs better than the RTX 3080, but when it comes to 4K gaming, Nvidia always comes out on top. Even the RTX 3080 founder edition and some aftermarket cards lack the USB Type-C port, which might disappoint some users. On the one hand, these graphics cards perform well in games, but they also perform well in non-gaming applications, and they also have some features for them. Overall, it’s the best 4K graphics card to consider for Ryzen 5 5600X in 2021.

Budget-friendly options for Ryzen 5 5600X include a 1440p graphics card that is a cheap alternative to RTX 2070 Super but does not have RTX features. This is one of the best graphics cards for Ryzen 5 5600X without spending a lot of money if you can compromise on these features. In addition to providing two-digit frame rates and 1440p resolution, this graphics card also smoothly runs all of the latest titles. Further, it supports high refresh rates making it an excellent budget pick for gaming builds with 1440p. The RTX 2070 Super might not be a direct competitor since it offers the same performance but is extremely expensive.

Given the considerable price difference between these two graphics cards, this one seems more appealing as it offers excellent value for the price. A couple of aftermarket graphics cards can be considered, but the one I would recommend is XFX RX 5700 XT Triple Dissipation, which, as its name suggests, has three fans for great cooling power to overclock the graphics card.  With a slight overclock, you can get higher frame rates in the latest games with this graphics card.

Base and boost clocks of this graphics card are significantly higher than those of the reference card at 1605 MHz and 1755 MHz, respectively. The graphics card includes 8 GB of GDDR6 memory, which is sufficient for modern titles, with a memory speed increase from 12 Gbps to 14 Gbps. A user can connect up to four monitors to this graphics card at the same time since it features three DisplayPort ports and one HDMI port. However, it does not come with a DVI or USB Type-C port. Overall, it is an excellent budget graphics card to consider for Ryzen 5 5600X, but only if your budget is very tight.

RTX 2060 is a little more expensive than Turing-based non-RTX graphics cards, but its power makes it more than worth the cost. With these graphics cards, you can enjoy ray tracing features at 1080p, and it will fulfill your gaming dreams without breaking the bank. The good thing is that it’s ready for 4K gaming, but you’ll need to compromise on frame rates since they won’t be faster than 30 FPS or something like that. RTX 2060 offers 1920 stream processors, which is slightly less than RTX 2070 FE and similar to the GTX 1070 founder edition.

The overall specifications of this graphics card are similar to the GTX 1070 FE, but the RTX features and faster memory chips make it much better. It is equipped with 6GB of GDDR6 memory with a transfer rate of 14 Gbps. This graphics card has a boost clock of 1680 MHz and requires an 8-Pin power connector. With 50% more CUDA cores and high-speed GDDR6 memory, the RTX 2060 is an improvement over its predecessors.

Our graphics card is a Zotac Gaming RTX 2060, which is slightly better than the founder edition in terms of temperature and performance. If you are building a compact build, you will benefit from having it because of its small size. It has a black-colored shroud with two fans installed on it and a slightly larger heatsink than the PCB, which is responsible for cooling. On the backside of this card is a back plate that maintains both aesthetics and cooling. Overall, it’s an excellent option for Ryzen 5 5600X users in 2021.

The RX 5600 XT comes at a price identical to the GTX 1660 Ti (which is under 300 dollars) mentioned above, but this graphics card’s performance equals the RTX 2060 in modern AAA titles. This card can run titles at 1080p resolution at ultra settings, while if you can compromise on settings, you can take the resolution up to 1440p. We’ve seen some aftermarket cards in the market that come factory overclocked and beat the RTX 2060 at low cost and surprisingly low power consumption. At the price of USD 300, there might be no other graphics card that can beat its performance and value. The flagship cards from RX 5000 series are also an excellent choice to consider, and we’ve listed them below, but the main problem with all of these cards is no RTX or DLSS support.

Though with the RX 6000 series, a few developers add support for Ray Tracing with AMD graphics cards, that’s very limited. The aftermarket model of RX 5600 XT I would suggest you is XFX RX 5600 XT Thicc II Pro, which is unquestionably the best in its class where it offers the best clocks and has a solid cooling solution installed. Another option available is Sapphire RX 5600 XT OC, which is much better than the founder edition, while you can also check out our list of best RX 5600 XT graphics cards.

Currently, almost every next-generation graphics card is out of stock in the market, and this is because of the shortage of wafers and low production of cards by manufacturers. If you are waiting for these graphics cards to be stable in the market and waiting to get them at their MSRP or even lower prices right now, you can get the GTX 1660 Ti for your Ryzen 5 5600X. This graphics card is undoubtedly an excellent option for 1080p gaming, and if you can make some compromise on in-game settings, you can even go with 1440p. This graphics card is very budget-friendly, and you will be able to sell it at reasonable rates when you get the current generation graphics card at a regular price.

There are also some similar choices to this graphics card, like the GTX 1070, which you can get in the used market, and that card is also good for mid-range gaming even these days. Gigabyte has the best offering in GTX 1660 Ti, which is better than the founder edition and comes at almost the same price. This graphics card also comes factory unlocked means you can expect better clock rates and performance with it. Long story short, this graphics card is good as far as you have plans to play Esport or multiplayer titles only or can be used for AAA titles until you get some high-end GPU for your Ryzen 5 5600X build.

Frequently Asked Questions

What if we couple a weak GPU with Ryzen 5 5600X?

Using a weak graphics card with Ryzen 5 5600X will result in the processor sitting idle most of the time while there will be maximum stress on the graphics card. This will lead to lower frame rates than what the processor is capable of, and this scenario is called a GPU bottleneck.

Can Ryzen 5 5600X handle the flagship GPUs?

AMD Ryzen 5 5600X is a hexa-core processor, and even though most enthusiasts use octa-core processors with flagship GPUs, this processor is perfectly capable of handling the flagship graphics cards like RTX 3090 and RX 6900 XT. However, if you want to stream as well, we recommend you upgrade the processor to Ryzen 7 5800X or, at least, overclock the Ryzen 5600X.

How to know if the PSU is capable of providing enough power to the GPU?

There is no way to check the capability of a PSU except theoretically calculating the power requirements of all the major components. In such a case, the power requirement of the motherboard, graphics card, processor, RAM, and fans is calculated and compared to the power supply.

Conclusion

Best 1440p Graphics Card for Ryzen 5 5600X
Best Budget 1440p Graphics Card for Ryzen 5 5600X
Best Budget 4K Graphics Card for Ryzen 5 5600X

A graphics card should be paid equal attention compared to the processor, or the system will not have optimal performance. As Ryzen 5 5600X is a high-end processor, it can handle whatever graphics card is thrown at it and causes no CPU bottleneck.

If you want a graphics card for 4K gaming or 240-Hz gaming, you should consider buying RTX 3080 (along with these best 3080 CPUs) or RX 6800 XT. For 1440P gaming, RTX 3070 or RX 6800 seem to be more than enough and should provide 100+ FPS in most modern AAA games. For high-end 1080P gaming, we recommend buying at least RTX 2060 or RX 5700 XT, while for mid-end 1080P gaming, GTX 1660 or RX 5600 XT should suffice.

For graphics card recommendations for Ryzen 7 2700x, we have this article.

When you purchase through our links, we may earn an affiliate commission at no additional cost to you.