Best GPU for Ryzen 5 2600 Reviewed In 2020

Blair Lee October 1, 2020

0 84 9 minutes read

The Ryzen 5 2600 is a low budget processor but don’t let that fool you. It is one of the best processors out there that have such a low price, the value for money is naturally very good. To get the most out of the Ryzen 5 2600 you will need to pair it up with a GPU that pairs well with it.

Now, choosing an optimal GPU to go with your processor can be quite tricky. You have to also keep in mind that the setup needs to be able to handle your GPU as well. Once you are clear on that you can look for the appropriate GPU. Largely appreciated and very sparingly criticized, the Ryzen 5 2600 processor is able to work wonders with almost any GPU you can find. We have brought for you the best 5 GPU for Ryzen 5 2600. Continue reading and pick your desired option!

1. Zotac GTX 1070 Ti AMP Edition 8 GB

Best Overall Pick

Impressive performance
FireStorm software
VR capable
Outperforms competitors

Pricey

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Zotac is one of the world’s leading manufacturers when it comes to graphic cards. Although Zotac had already made the 1070 and the 1080 GPU’s, these did not quite match some of AMD’s cards. As such, Zotac found it necessary to release a card that could match those AMD products and keep the market for themselves. This is where the 1070 Ti comes in.

The AMD RX Mega 56 and a couple of other cards were the main competitors of the 1070 Ti and Zotac made a point to beat these cards in performance as well as match them at price.

It is a dual fan GPU. As far as design goes, you will notice that the 1070 Ti is leaning towards the 1080 design line more than the 1070 design. This card is another product in the Pascal architecture design for Zotac. It has 3 display ports, an HDMI port, and one DVI-D port on the back.

On one side of the card, you can see the Zotac name with Spectra LED lighting. This card is a little larger in size than the other cards in this list. The engine clock of the Zotac 1070 Ti is around the 1607 MHz mark and its maximum memory is 8 GB. This makes it ideal for gaming purposes.

The 1070 Ti reaches a very high standard in performance. This card will run games on high settings easily. The FireStorm software is a very efficient way to get the most out of your graphic card. With the right settings, you can even overclock it to get the 1080 level of performance out of this card. Zotac has set up limitations on it so it does not overshine the 1080 but there is still room for tweaking and overclocking in the 1070 Ti that does not leave much to be desired.

IceStorm cooling is a very efficient cooling system. You will face a lower risk of overheating thanks to the addition of IceStorm by Zotac. The reason we included the 1070ti in this list even though there are newer and fresher models is that this was the most loved high end pairing with a Ryzen 5 2600.

The Zotac 1070 Ti is also VR compatible. You can play games and watch VR videos with this card. As far as the competition between the 1070 Ti and its competitors go, the 1070 Ti is able to outperform most of them in nearly all aspects. In performance and overclocking, and even in price it either matches or beats the competitors. That being said, the price is still not something you can ignore.

2. MSI RTX 2070 Ventus

Most premium pick

High quality gaming
Effective cooling
Not too loud

Expensive
Not too big of a difference from the 1080

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MSI is one of the most famous manufacturers of computer-related products, especially products that are made for the gaming community. MSI makes some of the best gaming motherboards and laptops in the world. Graphic cards are also one of MSI’s best products. The MSI RTX 2070 Ventus is the most premium, a high-end graphics card that you can pair up with a Ryzen 5 2600. This is an expensive GPU, but you cannot really get this level of performance from a cheap graphic card.

The MSI Ventus has two fans. Both of these are the MSI parented TORX fans 2.0 and will give dependable and effective cooling. These fans are also very low on noise. At idle the Ventus is almost noiseless. When you are overclocking, the fans will make noise but it will still be quite low. Both the fans have the MSI name on their center.

On the back panel, there are 3 display ports along with an HDMI port. There are 6 mm thick direct contact heat pipes as well as a thermal compound employed in the Ventus to make sure the temperature stays under control. It has about 1620 MHz worth of clock speed which is similar to what the 1070 Ti offers. It also comes with the same amount of memory at 8 GB. This card excels at gaming and will even do work in software with professional demands.

There are a couple of software of MSI that you can use to get the maximum out of this GPU. The famous MSI Afterburner is one such software, there is also the MSI Dragon Center and the MSI App Player. The App Player gives you wireless control via your mobile phone and the Dragon Center is basically the future of all MSI gaming. The MSI Dragon Center will eventually help you customize and personalize all your MSI hardware through a single app. It will also automatically detect any MSI hardware you install.

It will allow you to play all games at 1440p quality with relatively high and consistent fps. Although 4K gaming is still not as smooth as we would like, this card is one of the most high-end cards in the market right now. That does make it one of the most expensive as well. There is the downside of this card when being compared to 1080, however, since it does not give that much of an upgrade in performance from 1080 that will induce you to upgrade. It is also a little more expensive than 1080.

3. Gigabyte GTX 1660 Ti 6 GB

Great mid to high range option

Cooling is good
Excellent for mid-range gamers
Solid 1080p gaming

Performance very close to 1070
AMD cards give a very close competition

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The 1660 Ti 6 GB was made for gamers who wanted to upgrade on their 1060 or 1070 graphic cards without having to go all the way to 2070. The 1660 Ti is a middle point graphic card that will get you high settings at a reasonable price. Gigabyte has been in the computer game for a long time. Gigabyte makes motherboards, graphic cards, and other computer-related products, especially for gaming enthusiasts. The Gigabyte GTX 1660 Ti 6 GB GPU features a return of the GTX series of Nvidia graphic cards.

The Gigabyte 1660 GPU is a dual fan GPU. This GPU is also available in a triple fan design or even a single fan design. The 6 GB memory is lower than the previous cards we have mentioned in this list as they came in with 8 GB memory. As you know, the higher the memory of a GPU the better details you will get in your games, pictures, videos or any other thing that is being displayed on your screen.

On the back panel there are 3 display ports and an HDMI port. There is no DVI-D port. As far as the size goes, it is on the smaller side. The 192-bit interface, like the 6 GB ram is lower than what we have in the above-mentioned cards. As such it will give a lesser texture and detail quality than those cards. The card features a higher clock speed at 1800 Mhz but lesser specs in other areas.

In performance, the difference in memory and memory bandwidth does not cause much of a difference. The 1660 Ti will give you smoothness and consistency when running games at 1080p quality. Going above that to 1440p, you will be able to run games on this quality, but not with the same smoothness or the same FPS.

As you can see, the 1660 Ti has an impressive clock speed of about 1800 MHz. Cooling wise Gigabyte has done an admirable job. The direct contact heat pipe along with the counter spinning dual-fan mechanism does a very effective job at keeping the temperature low.

The only downside in performance was that the 1660 Ti did not beat 1070 effectively. It went even with 1070 in nearly all situations. It did beat 1060 quite easily, however. Then there is the issue that this card is in a similar price range as the AMD RX 580 and with some of the AMD VEGA series cards.

It does not beat these cards appreciatively enough for you to make a clear difference between the two. Although this card does have a lower power consumption compared to the AMD cards, this is strictly for people who have just enough extra to go spend on something about even or marginally better than 1070.

4. AMD Radeon RX580 8 GB

Best value pick

Affordable
Great performance for the money
Good design

Power hungry
Not much better than the RX 480

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AMD is a company that has been making inroads in the computer world for quite some time now. Starting off with making processors that rivaled Intel’s long time hold on the market with AMD’s Ryzen processors. AMD also makes their own GPU chipset which they use in their graphic cards.

As such, it was only a matter of time before we found an AMD graphic processing unit to match well with the Ryzen 5 2600 processor. The AMD Radeon RX 580 is the AMD GPU which we think pairs best with this specific processor.

It is primarily the closest rival to Nvidia’s GeForce GTX 1060 graphic cards. It is a dual fan GPU with 2x HDMI ports and 2x display ports as well as a DVI-D port on the back panel. It has a sleek and compact design. The all-black color scheme definitely makes it look more appealing as well. The black color also makes it able to fit into all sorts of gaming setups.

A setup with booming with RGB or a quiet, under the radar workstation both will benefit from the subtle aesthetics of the RX 580. As you can see, the RX 580 has a relatively low clock speed of 1340 MHz.

When it comes to performance, AMD is able to match and top its rival, the Nvidia 1060 in some cases. What it cannot match, however, is Nvidia’s power-efficient performance. The RX 580 is quite a power-hungry card. It is clearly more power-hungry than its previous version, the RX 480.

It is also known to sometimes be quick to heat up as it requires more power to function optimally, but this can be seen as a sort of normal with more demanding games. Some people even argue that their AMD cards actually don’t heat up beyond an expected amount.

Although, the 580 is better than the 480 there is not too much of a difference. The RX 580 has a 256-bit memory interface, while 1060 has a 192-bit memory interface. For games that require more texture quality, the higher the bandwidth the better it is.

For most new games, the RX 580 will run smoothly at medium to high settings. It will probably not be as good at all high settings for all games these days. The biggest plus point is its very affordable price. It is significantly less expensive than 1070 which puts it in the same category as 1060.

In terms of performance, the RX 580 is not all that different from 1060. Cooling and power wise, Nvidia has the better gig, performance-wise the two cards are neck and neck. The AMD cards can be found at better prices as compared to the Nvidia cards in most of the world.

5. EVGA GeForce GTX 1060 6 GB (Single Fan)

Good Pairing for Mini Setups

Great value for money
Decent performance
Compact size

No SLI support
Does not out and out beat the RX 580

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The GPU with the Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 that works best with the Ryzen 5 2600 goes to EVGA’s GeForce GTX 1060 6GB graphic card. EVGA is a popular and well-known company that makes computer and gaming related products such as motherboards and graphic cards among others.

We wanted to include a Single fan GPU in our list and the EVGA 1060 6GB was the right choice for that. Due to it having a single fan instead of the customary dual-fan we see usually, the cooling will obviously be a little less effective.

1060 has a very good GPU clock speed at 1506 MHz base engine clock without overclocking. 1060 has 3 display ports, an HDMI port, and a DVI-D port. As you can see from the dimensions as well as the single fan form factor, this is a very compact graphic card.

It is easily the smallest graphic card in this list which is to be expected since it is the only single fan GPU. The recommended power supply or PSU for this card is 400 watts at the minimum. Due to the low space requirement of this card, you can fit it into any casing easily, without any fear of overcrowding or having space issues. This was one of the reasons we chose to have a small card, so one can set up a Mini PC with one.

There is no SLI support for this card. Scalable Link Interface or SLI support gives you the ability to combine the abilities of two or more graphics cards to get the maximum quality out of your setup. This is a somewhat common feature nowadays with enthusiasts and gamers using more than one GPU in their computers.

However, this is a low budget oriented graphic card and as such, it is doubtful that the customer looking to buy this will have more than one GPU in their setup. The memory interface of 1060 is less than what AMD offers in the RX 580. Generally speaking, more demanding games should run better for the AMD card. The AMD 580 and the 1060 6Gb cards were the main rivals in the budget level market for years upon years, they had similar performances and similar prices in most cases.

As far as performance goes, 1060 gives a very solid performance, especially for its price range. This is perhaps the most solid graphic card with a reasonable price tag along with the AMD RX 580. 1060 does not flat out beat the RX 580 in performance. Both of these cards will have trouble running more demanding or newer games on high settings. The EVGA 1060 will be less power hogging though. Still, 1060 is the most common GPU to pair with a Ryzen 5 2600 processor and it is mainly because of its reliable performance at an affordable price.