Best Graphics Cards for Apex Legends: 14 GPUs Tested

The mega-hit battle royale Apex Legends topped 50 million players at the time of this writing. It will have picked up thousands more before you get to the end of this story.

This so-called "Fortnite killer" isn't slowing down anytime soon. Ironically, though, it's a lot more resource-demanding on a PC than Fortnite. Fortnite plays well on almost anything. Apex Legends? Not so much.

Indeed, dedicated graphics is a near-must if you want to play Apex Legends at a competitive level (Nvidia certainly agrees, according to this research, though there just might be a vested interest there!), without dialing down settings far enough to be a nuisance. Here at PC Labs, I have access to a library of all the late-model video cards from AMD and Nvidia. So, I figured: Hey, Apex party! I put the game through its paces to see the rough frame rates that gamers can expect from samples of the top graphics cards on store shelves today.

Now, if you're a casual player, you might not care much, and just run the game on what you have, turning down settings until choppiness disappears. But Apex Legends is all about quick reaction times that require buttery-smooth onscreen action, and the only way to keep yourself ahead of today's competition (which is fierce, mind you) is to make sure you're getting the best possible frame rates from your machine—while leveraging what your display panel can handle.

Whether you're planning to upgrade your system just for Apex Legends, or you just want to gauge and tune the rig you've already got, here's PC Labs' take on the best GPUs for Apex Legends in early 2019. (Also, once you've got the performance situation smoothed out, see our guide of Apex Legends survival tips.)

Do I Need a Graphics Card for Apex Legends?

In short: If you're even semi-serious about the game, absolutely.

Though Apex Legends is the best-optimized of the battle royale games out there right now, save for Fortnite, it's a heavy lift for integrated graphics solutions, like those in budget desktops or most mainstream laptops. Using the Medium setting I'll discuss in a moment, the game barely managed to post 20 frames per second (fps) when I tested it on the integrated Intel UHD Graphics 630 silicon that's part of the high-end Core i7-8700K processor. (That's the CPU at the heart of PC Labs' graphics-card testbed, and representative of mainstream integrated graphics from Intel.) In other words, that's as good as integrated graphics gets in most mainstream PCs, unless you happen to have an AMD CPU with integrated Vega graphics. (And even that won't double performance.)

For a mobile reality check, I also tested out an Acer Swift 5 laptop—a brand-new ultraportable with Intel's UHD Graphics 620, very common among late-model notebooks—and saw frame rates no better. Indeed, even at 720p it was struggling to hit playable, never mind presentable, Apex frame rates at low settings.

The cards in this roundup were each chosen to represent one key family of AMD and Nvidia discrete cards on the market. Executive decision: I stopped testing once I got down to the Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050 and AMD Radeon RX 570 families, and not go lower-end. Both were struggling to stay above the holy grail of 60fps in 1080p, even at the lowest settings.

What Are the Best Settings for Apex Legends?

Many of PC Labs' tests for regular graphics-card benching aim to see what a card can do under peak detail settings in a game, to maximize fidelity. But titles like Apex Legends are better served by striking a balance among detail settings, resolution, and frame rate.

In general, it's smart to turn down less-important settings, such as model detail and effects quality, while keeping your draw distance and anti-aliasing as high as possible. Compromises like these are important in battle-royale titles, where, say, you spot an enemy hundreds of meters away on an opposing hill and need to see the edges of their model clearly against the background to nail a long-range sniper shot.

With all this in mind, I debated where to lay down the settings plumb line. In the end, after some experiments, I decided to turn down the graphics settings for the tests from the game's standard Ultra preset, more toward the middle of the road. I used Apex Legends' Medium settings on most of the cards we tested, and the Low settings for the two least-powerful ones, the GeForce GTX 1050 and GTX 1050 Ti, given their struggles at Medium. Here's a summary of the settings below for each, if you'd like to reproduce.

Medium Settings Low Settings

I didn't go back beyond current-generation video cards, limiting the scope to cards that you can still buy today. The first reason: practicality (you can run this benchmark only so many times before you go bananas). The second? Apex Legends is a free game, and if you have an older video card or integrated graphics, you can run this trial yourself, and see how your current GPU shapes up before deciding whether you need a new one.

Just as Important: Matching Up Your Monitor

All the frame-rate gains in the world won't mean much if your monitor can't keep up, though. In games like Apex Legends, you need to weigh frame rate against the refresh rate of your monitor.

Why? Let's say you're using a 60Hz-capable monitor, which is the typical refresh-rate ceiling for mainstream panels. (If you don't know the refresh rate of your monitor, it's probably 60Hz.) The maximum stable frame rate you need to shoot for on any game setting at a given resolution is 60fps.

This is because the screen can only redraw 60 times every second. Any frame gains over that ceiling will be lost to the ether. So you should only buy a card that achieves frame rates commensurate with the refresh rate and resolution target of your monitor.

Here's a real-world representation, supplemented by test results. Let's say you have a deluxe GeForce RTX 2080 Founders Edition video card (lucky you!) paired with a spiffy Asus ROG Strix XG32VQ 1440p gaming monitor (ditto!). The display is capable of a peak 144Hz refresh rate. Running Apex Legends at 1440p and Medium settings, the GeForce RTX 2080, as we'll get into below, just barely scratched the high end of the 144Hz refresh rate, delivering an average of 141 frames per second. Tweak one or two graphics settings down, and you'll hit that mark, no problem. Now, that's an extreme example, but an illustration of a perfect match between pieces of elite hardware.

Now, let's say you already own a standard 1080p 60Hz monitor, with no plans to upgrade it. Any card that can crank out much above 60fps at 1080p is overkill; your screen's refresh rate can't keep up with that GPU's output. So, in this case (as in any game): Always plan your graphics card purchase around the monitor you intend to play on. It's easy to overbuy. Going a little over the refresh-rate ceiling at your target resolution is fine, perhaps ideal. Just don't buy double what you need, unless you think you'll upgrade your monitor within the card's lifetime.

What About FreeSync and G-Sync?

In this same vein, Nvidia's G-Sync and AMD's FreeSync should definitely be taken into account when planning a card upgrade. A game like Apex Legends is just the kind of game that these technologies will benefit, because when you're running around at 144Hz, split seconds count. A blip of screen tearing at the wrong time can make the difference between first place, second place, or dead.

If you already own one of the FreeSync-enabled monitors certified to work well with G-Sync (see a list here from sister site ExtremeTech), you likely won't need to purchase a whole new GPU/monitor combo to see the same benefits. However, if your monitor's not on that list, consider pairing an AMD GPU with a FreeSync monitor, or an Nvidia GPU with a G-Sync monitor. And if you own a FreeSync-supporting panel already, you can also try an Nvidia GPU and see how well it works; Nvidia has opened up that option in its latest drivers, with a "no guarantees!" proviso.

On to the Benchmarks! Testing Apex Legends

Now, with those primers out of the way, let's get into the results of the tests. To find which GPUs were best suited to handle the demands of Apex Legends, I tested 14 representative graphics cards you'll find on the market and in new desktops today. That includes the most recently released high-end GPUs, to see how high the bar goes under ideal testing conditions and with an elite-level gaming monitor.

All cards were tested on the Game Ready 419.17 driver for Nvidia cards, or Adrenaline Edition 2019 19.2.3 for AMD cards. Also, because Apex Legends doesn't have a standard benchmarking routine, we devised our own.

For repeatability, we tested all of our cards using the "training ground" runthrough included in the game, paired with the FRAPS frame-rate recording software running in the background. In the course of testing, I ran through the first two training checkpoints more than 60 times. Doing that demands executing all the required movement tricks to complete the checkpoints, as well as equipping weapons, throwing grenades, and shooting six targets in succession. (In other words, typical game actions.)

You have to do the same thing every time you run the training ground, and the in-game backgrounds don't vary. With that sequence in place (and without dozens of players shooting and scooting all over the map), it's Apex Legends' most repeatable sequence for testing purposes.

As an aside: Keep moving in Apex Legends. If you're standing as still in-game as those training targets were, watch out if I enter the arena! I've had a lot of practice against nonmoving targets.

1080p: The Mainstream Option

First up, 1,920 by 1,080 (1080p) testing. This will apply to most of the panels people have...

As you can see here, at 1080p Medium settings (save for the two instances where I used Low settings, with the GTX 1050 and 1050 Ti, notated by the asterisk), most of the cards were able to maintain a frame rate well above the ideal 60fps mark.

Starting around the GeForce GTX 1660 Ti and AMD Radeon RX Vega 64, the cards at and above that mark began posting results of 120fps and higher, which is where high-refresh-capable monitors really start to show their benefits.

Also evident here? If you want to power your 144Hz-capable gaming monitor with enough frames for maximum smoothness at 1080p, you'll need at least a GeForce RTX 2070 or an AMD Radeon VII when tuned into Medium settings. I suspect these numbers would jump considerably if you turned everything to Low settings, however, and it's not impossible that a GTX 1070 Founders Edition would top 144fps easily if your graphics configuration is tweaked down to compensate for the gap.

1440p: So, You've Got a Good Gaming Monitor?

And now, on to 2,560 by 1,440 (1440p). This is an increasingly popular native resolution for the good high-refresh gaming monitors that have debuted over the last year or so...

At 1440p, Apex turned up the heat in a big way, and lesser graphics cards began dropping into the under-60fps zone like first-timers looking around the arena, standing still and drawing fire.

Only the top cards on the market, including the GeForce RTX 2070, GeForce RTX 2080, GeForce RTX 2080 Ti, and AMD Radeon VII were able to push above 100fps, and only the GTX 2080 Ti topped the 144Hz mark at 1440p. (That elite card would also be the best choice if you have one of the top-end 1440p monitors with a 165Hz refresh rate.)

4K: High-Refresh Apex? Congrats on the Powerball Win

Given the above refresh-rate slaughter, anyone still game for playing at 4K?

Now, any gamer in his or her right mind likely won't be playing Apex Legends online at 4K, because as pretty as Apex is, few folks are in the arena to ogle the high-fidelity textures. They're there to win, plain and simple.

Apex at 4K will also prove quite expensive, judging by the cards you need above. None of the results in our 4K tests came all that close to posting 100fps at our Medium settings (barring the GTX 2080 Ti), so a 4K 60Hz monitor will be fine if you insist on going the 4K route (and own a GeForce GTX 2080, GTX 2080 Ti, or AMD Radeon VII). But again: Those with the relevant high-end monitor and card budget are the lucky ones. These numbers are not going to affect 99 percent of the people who play this game.

TLDR: The Best Card for Apex Legends Is...

Based off the Source 2.0 engine, it's no surprise that Apex Legends is so adept at running above 60fps in 1080p for most cards out there today. In a world where lightning-fast reaction times meet lightning-fast refresh rates and frame rates, sometimes the only thing that might save you in a firefight is the hardware backing you up. (And no, we don't mean that fully-kitted golden Wingman pistol you just scavenged off your last victim.) It's clear from testing: For most folks with mainstream-attainable hardware, 1080p play is where this game is at.

With that in mind, let's parse the data above in a different way. Here are my picks for the minimum cards you should pick up based on the class of monitor you're playing on, assuming you want to max out the frame rate of your panel at Medium settings. (More details on the individual cards, and full reviews, at the list below that.)

You have a 60Hz-capable 1080p monitor. Get an AMD Radeon RX 570 or Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050 (and keep the game to Low settings only), or a Radeon RX 580 or GeForce GTX 1660 Ti (to maximize frame rates at Medium settings).

You have a 144Hz-capable 1080p monitor. Get an AMD Radeon VII or an Nvidia GeForce RTX 2070.

You have a 60Hz-capable 1440p monitor. Get an AMD Radeon RX 580 or an Nvidia GeForce GTX 1660 Ti.

You have a 144Hz-capable 1440p monitor. Get an Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080.

You have a 60Hz-capable 4K monitor. Get an AMD Radeon VII, an Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080, or a GeForce RTX 2080 Ti (and carry bag lunches for a while).

And that's the bottom line! You'll want to adjust upward, of course, if you want to run at higher detail settings than Medium. But that's 60 training test runs for another day.

Pros: Solid-metal fan shroud and backplate. Bests the pricier Nvidia GTX 1060 in some DirectX 12 titles.

Cons: Positively massive for a card in this performance class. Priced close to some baseline RX 580s.

Bottom Line: PowerColor's demonic, triple-fan RX 570 apes a high-end graphics card, and holds its ground against the pricier GTX 1060 in some titles. But for the price, you should invest in a step-up Radeon RX 580.

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Pros: Edged out Nvidia's competing GTX 1060 in most of our DirectX 12 tests. VR-ready.

Cons: Not much faster than Radeon RX 480, despite being larger, power-hungrier. XFX model we tested is big for a card in this class. XFX card had tricky, recessed eight-pin power connector.

Bottom Line: AMD's "refined" Polaris card trades blows with Nvidia's competing GTX 1060. It's a solid pick for 1080p gaming at high settings, or 1440p play if 60fps isn't your aim.

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Pros: Comparable to GeForce RTX 2080 in 4K gaming performance. 16GB of video memory adds future-proofing. True two-slot case fitment.

Cons: Generally, falls behind GeForce RTX 2080 for 1080p and 1440p gaming. Priced higher than its predecessor. Loud cooling fans. High board power consumption. No VirtualLink port.

Bottom Line: AMD's new Radeon flagship graphics card, the Radeon VII is a worthwhile if power-hungrier alternative to the GeForce RTX 2080 for 4K gaming, but it generally isn't as fast at 1080p or 1440p resolutions.

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Pros: Great all-around performance for the money. Cool, quiet runner. No PCI Express power connector required.

Cons: Modest out-of-the-box overclock. No special software or features.

Bottom Line: The MSI GeForce GTX 1050 2G OC is a winner at $109, and it mostly delivers on the promise of 60fps at 1080p. It's a very good card for budget desktop upgrades and space-strapped PCs.

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Pros: Great price-to-performance ratio for 1080p gaming. Beats previous-generation GTX cards on both sides of its price. Exceptional cooling. Solid overclocking potential.

Cons: Not great for 4K gaming. MSI's upclocked card closer in pricing to RTX 2060 Founders Edition than most GTX 1660 Ti cards.

Bottom Line: MSI's GeForce GTX 1660 Ti Gaming X 6G is exceptional at doing what it's designed to do: deliver a moderate-cost GPU option to gamers in search of high refresh rates in 1080p.

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Pros: Quiet, effective cooling. Ample overclocking headroom. Excellent 1080p and 1440p gaming performance.

Cons: Priced higher than GTX 1070 it replaces. Not powerful enough for maxed-out 4K gaming in every game.

Bottom Line: MSI's GeForce RTX 2070 Armor graphics card has great cooling, plus overclocking headroom to spare. It's solid for 1440p play, but it performs much like the outgoing GTX 1080, so step up to an RTX 2080 if you want a generational performance gain.

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Pros: Offers roughly one-third better gaming performance than the GeForce GTX 1080 Founders Edition it replaces. Runs cool and quiet. Headroom for overclocking. Includes ray tracing and DLSS support for future games.

Cons: Hiked-up price, versus GTX 1080 Founders Edition. Hard to judge value of ray tracing and DLSS until games come to market. Cooling design exhausts most air into case, not out.

Bottom Line: An exceptionally powerful graphics card, the GeForce RTX 2080 Founders Edition is a home run for gaming at 4K or high refresh rates. Only its pricing and the lack of games supporting ray tracing and DLSS keep it from being a grand slam right from launch.

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Pros: Sets a new bar for single-GPU performance. Quiet, cool-running design. Supports ray tracing and DLSS for future games. Easy to attain at least modest overclocks.

Cons: Founders Edition commands a $200 premium over an already expensive base/reference card. Games will take time to adopt ray tracing and DLSS.

Bottom Line: A Ferrari among gaming GPUs, Nvidia's GeForce RTX 2080 Ti Founders Edition represents the fastest class of cards that money can buy. Just be ready to pay a supercar price to enjoy its luxury ride for 4K and high-refresh gaming.

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