A video timeline doesn't care how fast your CPU is if the graphics card can't keep up. Real-time colour grading, GPU-accelerated effects, multi-stream 4K and 8K playback, AI-powered tools like Topaz's upscaling and denoising: all of it leans on the GPU far more than most editors realise, and a weak or ageing card is usually the first thing to grind a project to a halt.
The good news is that you no longer need to spend flagship money to remove that bottleneck. We've tested graphics cards across the price spectrum to find out which ones actually earn their keep in video editing software.
Whatever your budget, case size, or workflow, there's a card here built to keep your timeline moving. If you're still building your setup, check out our guides to the best computer for video editing and the best monitor for video editing.
As Deputy Editor at TechRadar Gaming, I've spent years using and testing the latest computer hardware, including graphics cards. I built up the hardware team at GamesRadar+, which involved plenty of time spent reviewing GPUs, and the options on this list are my personal recommendations for video editing, based on my experience and that of my colleagues.
Best graphics card for video editing overall
🔎 Nvidia GeForce RTX 5080 FE is a little sibling to the flagship 5090, but for video editors specifically, it might be the smarter buy of the two. ★★★★★
You wait years for a new flagship generation, then two turn up at once. The RTX 5080 FE sits directly below the 5090 in Nvidia's line-up, but in testing it closed that gap far more than expected. PugetBench for Photoshop returned near-identical scores to the 5090, and in a concurrent render of nine 4:2:2 video streams, the 5080 delivered around an 8.5x speed increase over a previous-generation 4070 Ti Super. H.264 encoding showed no meaningful drop-off from the 5090 either, churning through 128.98fps against the 5090's 129.04fps.
Where the gap does open up is in the most demanding 3D and AI-generation workloads: DaVinci Resolve and Topaz Video AI both showed around a 15% reduction compared with the 5090, and Procyon Flux image generation took more than twice as long. For most video editors, though, that's a difference you're unlikely to feel day to day. At $999 / £979 against the 5090's $1,999 / £1,939, you're getting the vast majority of the performance for roughly half the outlay, which makes this the card I'd point most serious video editors towards.
"I'd actually recommend the 5080 over the 5090 for video editors, price aside. You get nearly all the performance for nearly half the cost."
Best budget graphics card for video editing
🔎 PNY's GeForce RTX 5060 OC is a compact, sensibly priced way to get real GPU power into a budget or small-form-factor build. ★★★★
Here's my top pick if you're on a tight budget. This board uses Nvidia's RTX 5060 chip, one step up from the bottom of the current line-up, paired with 8GB of dedicated memory.
Despite the affordable price, this is a genuinely compact card at just 28cm long, needs only a single eight-pin PCIe power connector, and will run comfortably from a 550W PSU, making it an easy drop-in for a budget build or an external GPU dock. Four video outputs, three DisplayPort and one HDMI, can drive an 8K monitor in HDR at 60Hz, or a 4K display with plenty of headroom for multiple video streams.
The performance gap to Nvidia's higher-end cards is real, but not as dramatic as the price gap suggests. Against a 5080, the 5060 posted an 82% lower score in Cinebench's demanding rendering test, but in PugetBench for Photoshop the difference was just 11.2%, a reminder that creative software often scales more gently than gaming benchmarks.
"For creative work, spending £300 on a 5060 like this can give a big boost without emptying the bank account."
Best premium graphics card for video editing
🔎 NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 FE is the new hotness in graphics card, for video editors who need 8K-capable performance. ★★★★½
If you're looking for a GPU for anything, let alone video editing, and have the budget for it, the RTX 5090 FE is basically the best mainstream graphics card that money can buy today. Offering massive performance increases over the previous 4090 – Nvidia claims up to 70% improvement levels – this is a serious card for those who need everything it's offering. Going to be editing 8K footage? The RTX 5090 FE can handle that, just as it can handle basically any creative task you could name.
Under the hood, 32GB of video memory, 2.4GHz boost clock speed, and more than 21,000 CUDA cores drive that stunning performance, and it will chew through any high-demanding video edit you can throw at it as a result. In our review, its DaVinci Resolve overall score was 30% higher than anything our Tech Reviews Editor Erlingur had seen from a 4090 card, setting new benchmarks across the board.
It's an absolutely wince-inducing expense – you could get two or three spare RTX 5070 Ti cards for the same price, and probably have some change. However, if you pick this as your next video-editing card you'll also future-proof yourself for some time given its 8K capabilities and the sheer power it offers, so there's a solid argument to say that it's a wise, long-term investment.
"Video editors with truly professional needs should put the 5090 at the top of a very short list - if the needs justify the near-$2,000 cost."
Best AMD graphics card for video editing
🔎 AMD Radeon RX 6900XT may not quite be in Nvidia's level in terms of editing performance, but it's a solid mid-range all-rounder. ★★★★
I've featured all Nvidia cards in my top three spots, but AMD has plenty to offer discerning video editors as well. There may be a temptation to chase the latest on the Team Red side of things when looking for the best AMD graphics card for video editing, but I think the previous-gen RX 6900XT is still a very worthy contender, especially as time has passed and its price tag has dropped. The value-to-performance AMD offering available with the RX 6900XT is excellent now in 2024.
Using broad brush strokes, in recent years, AMD has closed in on – and in some cases exceeded – Nvidia in its primary goal of gaming benchmarks. Where that leaves the RX cards for video editors is still up for debate. However, AMD is bringing some exciting new technologies to market, especially when the RX series of cards are paired with the latest AMD Ryzen CPUs. Namely 'Smart Access Memory', which allows the CPU and GPU to maximise the bandwidth between them, resulting in a potentially substantial performance gain.
Also, importantly for video editors, AMD cards can work with Intel Macs via an external GPU box, which makes a card like the RX 6900XT a potentially great investment for multi-OS workplaces. As a once-flagship card for a reasonable price, the AMD RX 6900XT could still be a future-proofing bargain. If this is still a bit dear for you, consider its slightly smaller sibling, the RX 6800XT.
"I think Team Red's previous-gen RX 6900XT is still a very worthy contender for video editing, especially as its price tag has dropped."
Best slim graphics card for video editing
🔎 The PNY GeForce RTX 5080 OC Slim packs near-flagship editing power into a slimmer, more case-friendly board than Nvidia's own FE model. ★★★★½
If your case or eGPU enclosure can't accommodate a full three-slot card, the PNY GeForce RTX 5080 OC Slim solves that problem without giving up meaningful performance. It shares the same 10,752 CUDA cores and 16GB of GDDR7 memory as Nvidia's own RTX 5080 FE, but with a higher boost clock (2,730MHz against the FE's 2,620MHz) and a slimmer, two-slot footprint that opens up smaller PC builds and a wider range of external GPU docks.
In testing, the PNY traded blows with the FE card almost exactly: Geekbench 6 GPU scores came out within two points of each other, and Cinebench 2026 showed the PNY around 1% ahead, differences small enough to call a draw in practical terms. Where it genuinely impressed was in AI-accelerated workloads: in Topaz Video AI testing, the RTX 5080 chipset scored around 11% higher than an equivalent card tested in a separate gaming PC, underlining just how capable this generation is for video enhancement and slow-motion generation work.
The trade-off is price. At around $1,377.99 / £1,279.99, it costs more than Nvidia's own FE card at RRP, though FE stock is notoriously hard to find at that price in practice, and it still undercuts pricier board partner cards like the ASUS ROG Astral 5080. For anyone who needs the RTX 5080's power but doesn't have room for a bulkier board, it's a strong, if pricey, solution.
Read more: PNY GeForce RTX 5080 OC Slim review
"This kind of GPU card is usually destined for a gaming PC, but if your tastes run to high-res video editing, 3D rendering or AI apps, slapping the PNY GeForce RTX 5080 OC Slim in your desktop computer, or in an external dock, will provide a massive improvement over just about any other graphics processing solution."
Best tiny pro graphics card for video editing
🔎 Nvidia RTX A1000 is a deliciously tiny, low-power pro card, but its age is starting to show against cheaper consumer alternatives. ★★★
Built on Nvidia's now-ageing Ampere architecture, the RTX A1000 is roughly comparable to a GeForce RTX 3050 in raw specification, though with 8GB of VRAM against the 6GB you'd typically find on that gaming card. It's the sort of board that's more likely to end up driving four monitors in a design studio than rendering polygons, and its size is the real selling point: small enough to drop into a mini PC like a Minisforum MS-01, and it draws all the power it needs straight from the PCIe slot, with no separate PSU connection required.
Performance-wise, it's a mixed picture. In Geekbench 6's GPU test the A1000 scored 57,148, well ahead of typical integrated graphics but still less than half of what an RTX 5060 manages, and the story is similar in Cinebench and gaming benchmarks. Curiously, though, it matched or even slightly exceeded the RTX 5060 in the PugetBench for Photoshop test, which suggests it's a genuinely capable choice for photo-editing-heavy workflows specifically, even if Premiere Pro and other GPU-hungry tasks favour the newer card. At around £400 in the UK, against roughly £300 for a base RTX 5060, it's hard to recommend unless the compact form factor is a major requirement.
"It uses surprisingly little power, and is capable of driving more monitors than a single video output would ever be able to."
How to choose the best graphics card for video editing
There are a few key factors to consider when choosing a graphics card for video editing. The first is the amount of VRAM, aka video memory, which determines how much memory your graphics card has access to. The more VRAM you have, the more complex videos you can edit. For basic 1080p video editing, 6GB of VRAM is a good starting point. For 4K video editing, you'll want at least 8GB of VRAM. And for 8K video editing, you'll need at least 16GB of VRAM.
Another thing to think about is the GPU core clock speed; the speed at which your graphics card's processor operates. A higher core clock speed will generally mean faster performance. Then there's GPU architecture: the design of your graphics card's processor. Different architectures have different strengths and weaknesses. For example, NVIDIA GeForce RTX graphics cards are good at ray tracing and AI-powered effects, while AMD Radeon RX graphics cards are often more affordable.
Also consider cooling: graphics cards can generate a lot of heat, so it's important to choose a card with adequate cooling. And of course, you need to check your video editing software to make sure it's compatible with the specific card. Other factors to consider are the physical size of the graphic card, especially if you have a lean setup, and the specs of the rest of your computer (there's no point in buying a top-of-the-range graphics card for video editing if you don't have a powerful enough CPU to get the most out of it).
How we test graphics cards for video editing
We test graphics cards for video editing by going beyond just the headline specs and looking at how different cards actually perform in real-world use. We run benchmark tests, but we also draw on the real world reviews conducted by our team of writers and editors, who do a lot of video editing, both as part of their work for Creative Bloq and our sister sites like TechRadar and also in freelance work and recreationally. We look at their experiences with different cards when making our picks.
While baseline specs can give you a rough idea of how well you can expect a GPU to perform, there's no substitute for real-world testing to get a feel for how quickly a card handles different editing tasks, as well as other factors e.g. how noisy its cooling systems are, or how much power it tends to consume. You can read more about how we test and review.
FAQs
What kind of graphics card is good for video editing?
Why you can trust Creative Bloq Our expert reviewers spend hours testing and comparing products and services so you can choose the best for you. Find out more about how we test.
In general, Nvidia cards are slightly superior to AMD, though there isn't a lot in it. Ultimately, look at price, performance levels, software compatibility and size. Thinking about each of these will help you refine your search and whittle your choices down until you get to the best graphics card for video editing for you.
Does a graphics card make a difference for video editing?
Yes! If you want to do the best video editing job possible, you'll want a dedicated contender for the best graphics card for video editing. That means getting something like those off our list right here that are dedicated GPUs that can take all the strain of video editing work.
Higher resolution and framerate video content is more popular and commonplace than ever. Even most cameraphones can shoot 4K 60fps content, for example, while professional cameras shooting high-quality stuff and using RAW codecs will demand some beef from the machine processing and working on it. Therefore getting the right graphics card for editing videos is as important as ever.
Is it easy to install a new graphics card for video editing?
Installing your own graphics card – and indeed, PC building in general – is not as intimidating as it sounds, and can be fairly straightforward as long as you do some research first. YouTube tutorials are a great resource for help with installing PC components.
Be sure that the card you're buying will physically fit inside your PC tower – graphics cards tend to be quite long. Check the measurements before buying. You'll also need room for the cooling apparatus – heatsink, fan assembly – and your computer's power supply unit needs to be able to cope with the increased power demands of the new card.
How much VRAM do I need for video editing?
For 1080p video editing, 6GB of VRAM is a good starting point. For 4K video editing, you'll want at least 8GB of VRAM. However, if you are planning on doing more complex edits, such as using color correction, motion graphics, and visual effects, you will want at least 12GB of VRAM. If you are working with RAW 4K footage or editing multiple 4K streams at the same time, you may want to consider a graphics card with 16GB or more of VRAM.
For 8K video editing, you will need at least 16GB of VRAM. If you plan on doing any colour correction, motion graphics, or visual effects work, you may want to consider a graphics card with 24GB or even 32GB of VRAM.
