The best graphics cards for video editing

The best graphics cards for video editing can make a big difference to the speed of your workflow and reduce the frustration caused by a setup struggling under the weight of demanding software. Editing and rendering video is one of the tasks that puts most strain on a computer, and it requires significant processing and graphical horsepower even if you’re not working with 8K footage or 3D video. A discrete, powerful graphics card will often speed the process up.

Our team includes writers and editors who regularly work with the latest video editing software and know the technical requirements for editing video inside and out. Along with our sister sites, we’ve reviewed and tested a wide range of graphics cards, and we’ve used that experience to select the best GPUs for video editing. In the guide below, I’ve included options for different needs, from the best budget graphics card for video editing to more premium options. 

Remember to check that a graphics card is compatible with your system and software before you buy (see the questions section at the bottom for more things to look for). For more options, we also have a general guide to the best graphics cards overall and the best graphics cards for gaming.

The quick list

I’ll start with a quick overview of my top three picks as the best graphics cards for video editing. Click ‘Read more’ or scroll down for more details and the full list.

The best graphics cards for video editing in full

Best graphics card for video editing overall

This is the graphics card for video editing that I recommend for most people. It’s a new card, released in January 2024 to replace the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 Ti, and it offers a winning balance of power with mid-range value. It sits in the middle of Nvidia’s latest lineup, offering the benefits of a modern Nvidia card, with their dedicated hardware encoders and decoders to speed up video export and import,  without the staggering cost of the 4080 and 4090 models.

As well as being great for gaming, its 16GB of GDDR6X memory, punchy clock speed, and 8,000+ CUDA core make enable it to chew through video editing, production, and 3D rendering, and this release offers a notable improvement in 4K performance over its predecessor. You’ll get the most out of the card if your PC also has newer components in other key areas (CPU, RAM, et al) but the good news is that the 4070 Ti Super’s power consumption is well under the 300w mark at 285w, which is important considering the price of energy.

If you’ve already got a mid-to-high GPU from Nvidia’s previous 30-series, or the equivalent from AMD, then this might not be quite worth the upgrade for you, but if you’re coming from something older, or from no graphics card at all, this is our top pick for improving performance for video editing.

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Best budget graphics card for video editing

Yes, this is from Nvidia’s previous generation of cards, but if you’re looking for the best graphics card for video editing on budget, I think the Nvidia GeForce RTX 3050 remains a brilliant candidate. It was one of the last in the 30-series lineup and has yet to be replaced by a 4050 or similar, yet this could well happen soon, which would be likely to affect availability.

Despite the lean price tag, we found that the card can crunch through most low-to-mid video editing demands thanks to a reasonable 8GB GDDR6 VRAM, 224GB/s bandwidth and 2,560 CUDA cores. Throw in a boosted clock speed of 1,780MHz and a power total of 130W, and you have a solid budget video editing GPU, at least for 1080p FHD video.

While we were tempted to go for something even more budget, like the GTX 1650 cards (or 1660 if you can find them), the reality is that the RTX 3050 doesn’t come in that much more expensive than the 16s, and I think it offers far more in terms of up-to-date features and Nvidia-specific bonuses.

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Best premium graphics card for video editing

If you’re looking for a GPU for anything, let alone video editing, and have the budget fr it, the RTX 4090 is basically the best mainstream graphics card that money can buy today. The RTX 4090 is the best graphics card for demanding work like 8K video editing or 3D video thanks to the power provided, as long as the rest of your setup is up to it.

Under the hood, 24GB of video memory, 2.5GHz boost clock speed, and more than 16,000 CUDA cores drive that stunning performance, and it will chew through any high-demanding video edit you can throw at it as a result. Yes, it will demand a PC that has enough space (literally) to accommodate it and sufficient specs to keep it quiet, cool and sufficiently powered, but there’s nothing better on the consumer market for video editors.

Opting for the 4090 as your next video-editing card you’ll also future-proof yourself for some time given its capabilities in 4K and 8K and the sheer power it offers, so there’s a solid argument to say that it’s a wise, long-term investment.

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Best AMD graphics card for video editing

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. 

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Best value pro graphics card for video editing

I’m recommending the A4000 as the best professional graphics card for video editing with an eye firmly on value. We found the higher-spec A5000 to be wonderful, but it’s comparably-massive price tag makes it an option for a select few. I think the A4000 is the better buy. It’s a compact, powerful card designed with creative professionals in mind, as opposed to Nvidia’s GeForce RTX cards, which are primarily aimed at gaming.

The A4000 is a refreshing compact card from Nvidia, which makes it suitable for those with a matching, lean rig. It’s not as powerful as Nvidia’s top of the range consumer card, the RTX 4090 above, but its shorter length means it’ll fit into a wider range of small and medium PC cases. It also boasts relatively low power consumption of 70W.

We found the graphics card provides excellent performance in design applications from 3D rendering to photo and video editing, with its 16GB of memory, and 6,144 CUDA cores. A great bonus with the A4000 is that OpenCL and CUDA applications in particular run like treats with the card’s Ampere architecture. This can often set the RTX A4000 apart when focusing on video editing at higher resolutions and when working with plug-ins and filters. Just note that if you want a card that will also serve for gaming, you’re better sticking with one of the GeForce options.

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Best value AMD graphics card for video editing

A relatively recent arrival to the AMD stable, released in September 2023, the AMD RX 7800 XT is clearly set up to rival Nvidia’s popular RTX 4070 Ti Super, which sits at the top of our list. It falls in the mid-range of AMD’s lineup, which for a while was something of a blind spot for the manufacturer, who seemed only interested in putting out very cheap or very expensive cards. That’s a problem I’m happy to now see corrected.

The AMD RX 7800 XT features a fresh chiplet design and new microarchitecture. I found that the 16GB of memory and 3,840 stream processors are more than capable of handling most video editing tasks at a price that neatly undercuts the RTX 4070 and RTX 4070 Ti. Pound for pound, we’ve found that Nvidia’s cards do provide more speed and a slight edge when it comes to performance (and that speed is money if you’re a professional video editor). However, the difference is slight enough that this AMD card can be considered a real contender if you’re on a budget.

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Best AMD graphics card for video editing pros

If you want to something AMD-shaped but in the professional range, the W6800 is my pick. It’s a direct ‘Team Red alternative’ to the RTX A4000 above. All in all, we found this to be a powerhouse for video editing and for other professional work. The massive 32GB GDDR6 means that many video projects can be held all in the GPU memory, which can hugely reduce render times.

In terms of caveats, the card is quite power-thirsty, and there are only Mini DisplayPorts present. That may irk some users, although the main audience for this card will likely expect that from such a pro-grade card. If you’re looking for something of this range that has the ‘normal’ Display Port inputs, you could consider the W6600 variant which sits in the middle of the range.

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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).

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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.

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FAQs

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