Best GPU For i5 3470 in 2021

SAPPHIRE Radeon RX 580 Nitro+

The SAPPHIRE Radeon RX 580 NITRO+ seems to be the perfect graphics card for the Intel Core i5-3470 and both these components are highly compatible with each other, leaving no bottlenecks in the system for the most part, especially at 1440P resolution.

The Radeon RX 580 is based on the Polaris architecture with a process size of 14nm. This architecture proved to be a big improvement from the RX 300-series graphics cards, it was almost the same as the architecture of the RX 400-series graphics cards in terms of efficiency and overall performance. In fact, the only noticeable difference between RX 580 and the RX 480 is the clock rate.

The graphics card has a base clock of 1257 MHz while the boost clock of the graphics card is 1411 MHz. As for the shader processing units, the graphics card provides a total of 2304 shader processing units, the same as that of the RX 480. There are 144 Texture Mapping Units in this graphics card while the number of Render Output Units is 32.

The memory performance of this graphics card is really impressive. In fact, this is one of the best budget graphics cards when you want high memory performance. The reason is that this graphics card has a high memory buffer of 8 GB while the memory bandwidth is impressive as well, at 256 GB/s, due to 256-bit memory bus width and GDDR5 memory technology.

The graphics card comes with 3 x DP ports, an HDMI port, and a DVI port. The power requirements of the graphics cards are higher than most of the competitors, as it draws around 150 to 180 watts. This is easily compensated by the low price of the graphics card, which is why it is a highly attractive graphics card even in 2021.

The Radeon RX 580 has a limited room for overclocking but this variant tries to push the limits and some of the users have been able to push this graphics card beyond 1500 MHz, although you would be able to overclock this to at least 1480 MHz. The memory of the graphics card, on the other hand, seems pretty good and the clock rate can be increased from 2000 MHz to 2250 MHz, leading to a total of 12.5% improvement in the memory performance.

MSI GeForce GTX 1060 GAMING X

First of all, the looks of the MSI graphics cards are always attractive. The GAMING X variant, specifically, tries to lure the customers with its amazing RGB lighting and uniquely designed fan shroud. The color theme of the fan shroud is also very good and holds a high attraction for gamers since most of the gamers want a black and red-colored theme.

The graphics card uses the quietest fans in the market that are MSI TORX II fans and the cooling performance of these fans is still comparable to the noisier fans. That is the very reason that a lot of people opt for the GAMING X variant due to its great acoustic performance. The back-plate of the graphics card is black in color and there are tons of triangular vents on the back-plate which help in cooling the graphics card. The build quality of this graphics card is not as good as the ZOTAC graphics cards which is why the fan shroud feels flimsy at the touch.

Technically, GeForce GTX 1060 6G is a very sound graphics card. It does not consume as much power as the Radeon RX 580 and yet provides very similar performance. Moreover, the GeForce-series graphics cards do not suffer from any kind of driver issues.

The GeForce GTX 1060 comes with 1280 CUDA cores in combination with 80 Texture Mapping Units and 48 Render Output Units. The higher number of Render Output Units in this graphics card against the RX 580 is considered to be one of the reasons for the tackling performance of this graphics card despite having fewer shader processing units.

The graphics card has a base clock of 1569 MHz, which is a 4% improvement from the reference clocks while the boost clock is rated at 1784 MHz, which is also a 4% improvement. Overall, you are most likely to see the real-time clocks of the graphics card above 1800 MHz most of the time, especially when the graphics card is under 70 degrees.

ZOTAC GeForce GTX 1070 AMP EXTREME

ZOTAC has raised its gaming highly in the past few years and it improved everything about its graphics cards. First of all, the color theme of the graphics card by ZOTAC was greatly despised by the company, which is why ZOTAC changed it with the GTX 900-series graphics cards, which received great appreciation from enthusiasts. Moreover, the build quality of the graphics card was hugely improved and, to be honest, we don’t think that there is any other graphics card company that can compete with ZOTAC in terms of build quality.

ZOTAC GeForce GTX 1070 AMP EXTREME is one of the best variants of the GeForce GTX 1070 and is the biggest graphics card on the list. By that, we don’t mean that it is the fastest, we mean that the size of the graphics card is a lot bigger than most of the graphics cards you would have ever seen. The design of the graphics card feels overwhelming and the whole fan-shroud is covered in “Exo Armor”. Moreover, the wrapped-back-plate feels really strong and it covers the graphics card from the top and the right side.

The graphics card comes with the sharp RGB lighting that is present at the front and the top. The lighting can be fully customized and gives it a very premium vibe. The graphics card uses three fans in the cooling solution in combination with a huge heat-sink with a copper base. Apart from having a length of more than 12 inches, the graphics card consumes almost three slots as well, which is why you have to make sure that it fits in your PC case before you consider buying it. The graphics card weighs a lot as well, which is why it sags from the right side if you don’t use any support.

The GeForce GTX 1070 used to be the second-best graphics card when it was released, as it was slower than the GTX 1080. The graphics card provides 1920 CUDA cores along with 120 Texture Mapping Units and 64 Render Output Units. It has a base clock of 1632 MHz, an 8% improvement over the reference clock rate while the boost clock is rated at 1835 MHz, which sums up to an improvement of around 9% over reference clocks.

GIGABYTE GTX 1660 Super GAMING OC

GIGABYTE shares a similar fate to the ZOTAC and its graphics cards were not as famous in the community as the likes of ASUS or MSI. However, with the GTX 1000-series graphics cards, the company released a lot of new variants that provided unique designs and proved to be very successful. The improvement got even better with the RTX 2000-series graphics cards and it reached the point that the GIGABYTE AORUS variant was considered the most beautiful variant among all the graphics card variants.

GIGABYTE GTX 1660 Super GAMING OC is a well-balanced graphics card and it comes with a tri-fan design and utilizes two slots. The length of this graphics card is although similar to the GTX 1070 AMP EXTREME, it is a lot less wide. The black and silver-colored fan-shroud feels fancy and the graphics card has a black-colored back-plate as well. The GIGABYTE logo at the top of the graphics card is RGB-lit and there is no other RGB lighting on the graphics card.

The technical specifications of this graphics card make it a better graphics card than the GTX 1070. It comes with 1408 CUDA cores, which is a lower number than that of the GTX 1070, however, the Turing architecture cores are considerably faster than the Pascal architecture cores. Apart from that, there are 88 Texture Mapping Units and 48 Render Output Units in the graphics card. The graphics card comes factory overclocked and has a base clock of 1530 MHz while the boost clock is 1860 MHz.

As for the memory, it is important to note that, unlike the previous three graphics cards, this graphics card uses GDDR6 memory, which is why it has a memory bandwidth of 336 GB/s, which is much higher than even the GTX 1070. The memory buffer of this graphics card is, although, smaller, at 6 GB, since this graphics card is a successor of GTX 1060.

The gaming performance of this graphics card is better than the GTX 1070 and is quite close to the GTX 1080. You can enjoy the latest AAA games at high settings using 1440P resolution, although, with the Core i5-3470, we will not advise you to do high-refresh-rate gaming.

The thermal performance of this graphics card is also pretty impressive since it is an efficient graphics card and utilizes around 125 watts. The tri-fan cooling solution is more than capable of handling this heat and that is why it stays under 65 degrees.