If you, like many around the world, have fallen into the Fortnite Battle Royale hype, then it's no secret why you're here right now, reading a list to find the best graphics card for Fortnite. But if you happened to stumble upon this guide, with no recollection of why you were here, then I'll take a minute to talk about the Battle Royale game that took the World by storm, Fortnite.
What is Fortnite?
Fortnite is a game where you jump off a bus, land in a whacky land where physics doesn't matter, equipping you with powerful weapons you pick up as you go, and try to beat every other player to win that sweet, sweet Victory Royale! That's pretty much it. I'm sure all of you reading this will be accustomed to the grind.
One reason the game is so popular, even now as the gamers across the globe shift away from the Battle Royale genre is the consistent updates and great seasonal content Epic Games drops. That plus the massive amounts of collectible skins for your character, guns, glider, and a whole lot more keeps gamers coming back. They've even got crazy concerts in Fortnite these days, making the game that much more flexible in terms of what you can do in game. There's a reason Fortnite is still popular to this day, even though it released three years ago in 2017. In gaming terms, that's a long time to be relevant.
And since Fortnite has managed to retain relevancy in the ever evolving gaming industry, we're here to highlight some good graphics card for Fortnite to get you well equipped to take on the game. But why do you need the best graphics card for Fortnite, you may ask? Well the biggest indicator of graphics card performance is undoubtedly the frames per second (FPS) you experience in game. And luckily for you, I'm going to tell you exactly why you're going to need a high FPS in Fortnite to get yourself that well deserved Victory Royale.
Why You Need High FPS In Fortnite
Frames per second, or more commonly referred to FPS is quite literally how fast your graphics card displays images on screen. This could relate to a wealth of frame rates per second, but most commonly you're going to want to at least hit 60 FPS to get the smoothest experience without compromising on performance. Any less than 60 FPS, and playing Fortnite is going to feel choppy which isn't great due to the high intensity gameplay, where every second counts. Literally, even one second where your FPS drops is enough for someone to snipe you, jump over you and gun you down, and many more painful situations to be in. We all have experienced the pain of losing a firefight and yelling out "LAG!".
Yeah, so to ensure that doesn't happen to you, it's best you find the best graphics card for Fortnite to mitigate this dreaded situation. The beauty of graphics cards is that most of them are guaranteed to hit the pretty low Fortnite PC requirements, ensuring the best FPS performance at even higher resolutions. If you were keen on trying the game out in 4K, you may have to fork over a bit more for your Fortnite graphics card. But if not, there are a myriad of affordable, powerful graphics cards out there capable of running the game at its best.
Before we get to that though, let's take a minute to go through what you should look for in the best graphics cards for Fortnite. We'll go through the base PC requirements to play Fortnite to better understand what the best graphics card for Fortnite will look like.
What To Look For In A Graphics Card For Fortnite
Minimum Graphics Card Spec
As you can see here, the minimum system requirements to play Fortnite isn't intrinsically much to ask for. These are the official system specs from Fortnite themselves, so rest assured on the validity of these specs. Since you can get away with playing Fortnite on an integrated, outdated Intel HD 4000 graphics card, our search for the best graphics card for Fortnite is that much easier. Mainly as integrated graphics cards are those that are soldered on directly on a processor or CPU. This lets the graphics card share the CPU's resources, resulting in whatever graphical performance you can get onscreen.
Today, we're going to be searching through something called 'dedicated' graphics cards. These are much more powerful than the integrated graphics cards you see on most productivity focused laptops and processors. Since our standard here is fairly low, and buying a graphics card is such a commitment, lets take a look at the recommended system specs to get you play Fortnite to properly understand what to look for.
Recommended Graphics Card Spec
Now that we've gotten to the recommended system specs to get you playing Fortnite optimally, we can fully advise what your look for in a graphics card.
Let's go through the specs to get a better picture of how intensive the game can actually get. Fortnite mentions your PC at least come with an Intel Core i5-7300U and 8GB of RAM. Fairly simple specs that I believe most gamers will overpower fairly easily. Since we are talking about PC components and graphics cards, it's important to understand how these components work. If you were a first timer, the task might seem daunting, but we're going to try and simplify it as much as possible
The processor and RAM requirements are fairly low, which means that even budget laptops and PC setups can take on the battle royale at a crisp 60 FPS or more. Fortnite also recommends you find a graphics card that is the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660 or AMD Radeon HD 7870 or equivalent. For reference, the GTX 660 is 9 years old at this point and plenty other graphics cards have surpassed the GTX 660 with newer features, better support, more RAM, and the latest tech. Safe to say, the best graphics card for Fortnite will be adequately powered to take on the simplistic Fortnite graphics, as well as even more power hungry games with the latest tech. Things like ray-tracing, complex shading tech, and more are exclusive to the flagship graphics cards like the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Ti and equivalent.
It's not necessary to get you playing Fortnite, but it sure is nice for more graphically intense titles and newer games. Otherwise, I'd recommend a base graphics card of at least the 2016 GeForce GTX 1050. Even the GeForce GTX 1050, a pretty dated graphics card at this point, can achieve up to 71 FPS in Fortnite consistently on high graphic settings. Considering the GTX 1050 comes with only 2GB VRAM GDDR5, it's the base of what you should look for.
A few other things you're going to need to keep in mind include the thermal design, size, and connection options. But we'll get through that as we go through our search for the best graphics cards for Fortnite. All that being said, let's start our search to find the right graphics card for you to get you performing your level best in Fortnite.
Best Graphics Card For Fortnite
1. NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Ti
A popular choice or many "serious" gamers is the GeForce RTX 2080 Ti which will not only get your unbelievable performance in Fortnite, but other newer, modern games. For this graphics card, we're featuring the GeForce RTX 2080 Ti Founders Edition, which is the one straight from NVIDIA themselves. You could opt for the other manufacture packages, but this one's the OG. The GeForce RTX 2080 Ti is based on the new Turing GPU architecture which comes with both Tensor cores and RT cores.
This allows gamers to take advantage of a smarter AI to manage GPU usage and workloads, while the RT cores allows for ray-tracing capabilities. While there is a shortage of games to use ray-tracing, sooner or later the industry will catch up and you're going to need something like the GeForce RTX 2080 Ti to take advantage. The RTX 2080 Ti also comes with 11GB dedicated GDDR6 VRAM, 4352 CUDA cores and a memory bandwidth 616GB/s.
With this graphics card, you can expect the absolute best performance from Fortnite. But in terms of a graphics card, it might seem a bit overkill for most gamers. Depending on your preferences, budget and what you're looking for, the NVIDIA GeForce 2080 Ti may not be the best option for you. But in terms of raw performance, the GeForce RTX 2080 Ti still towers as one of the most powerful graphics cards available. The only downside? The exorbitant price tag.
2. EVGA GeForce GTX 1060
Taking things down a notch in terms of the budget, the next graphics card we're featuring is going to be the EVGA GeForce GTX 1060. The GeForce GTX 1060 comes chock full with a pretty great setup, with the biggest selling point the compact form factor. Really, this thing is tiny but is a great performer for the price. The graphics processor the GeForce GTX 1060 uses is based on the Pascal architecture, the GP106. There are two variants but I've chosen the more cost effective, 3GB VRAM option with a 192.2GB/s memory bandwidth.
The GeForce GTX 1060 also features 1152 shading cores, DX 12 OSD support, and EVGA ACX cooling technology to keep things cool as you're in game. With the GeForce GTX 1060, you can expect solid performance in 1080p, but once you try to scale up to 1440 or above and you'll start to notice the flaws of the gaming card. Not a deal breaker, especially since for Fortnite, this is going to be a very capable performer on high settings, averaging 79 FPS in the shooter.
Considering the price tag, and the performance capabilities of the GTX 1060, rest assured that you're on your way to a few Victory Royales. It's not the best, but if you were looking for a more budget conscious graphic card, this is one of the best options for you.
3. GigaByte GeForce GTX 1070 Ti
Next up is going to be a upper mid-range graphics card, the GeForce GTX 1070 Ti from GigaByte. Another capable performer with a solid spec sheet to get Fortnite performing its level best. This graphic card is based on NVIDIA's Pascal architecture and the GP104. The GeForce GTX 1070 also comes with RGB Fusion for customizable color lighting and WINDFORCE 3X Blade Fan design to help with cooling as you're in intense firefights.
The GTX 1070 also features a solid sized 8GB GDDR5 VRAM, 2432 shading cores, 152 texture mapping units and a 256.3GB/s bandwidth. As you can tell in comparison to both the GTX 1060 and the RTX 2080 Ti, this graphics card lands somewhere in the middle in terms of raw performance. The GTX 1070 is able to compete with the best gaming card around and still netting you phenomenal performance in 1080p and netting 129FPS in Fortnite.
All in all, the GTX 1070 is a very attractive graphic card which has a lot to offer while remaining pretty reasonable in price. For those looking to splurge, but not too much, I'd advise getting this capable card.
4. XFX Radeon RX 580
Taking a step away from the dominant NVIDIA graphics card lineup, we're featuring an AMD based card, the XFX Radeon RX 580. The RX 580 is based on the Polaris 20 processor and GCN 4.0 architecture and supports Direct X 12. This means you shouldn't have much problems running modern games at higher resolutions without sacrificing FPS performance. This graphics card also outshines Fortnite's base graphic card fairly easily making it a solid companion for the shooter. With this much power, you should be able to handle more graphically intensive games at least at 1080p resolution.
The Radeon RX 580 also comes with a sizable 8GB GDDR5 VRAM, 2304 shading cores, 144 texture mapping units, and 256.0GB/s bandwidth. With XFX, users also get enhanced VRM and RAM cooling and XFX True Clock Technology to control clock speeds, optimizing your performance as you use the graphic card.
Overall, the Radeon RX 580 is a formidable gaming card with a complete package to take on some of the best games around. Undoubtedly, the card also outperforms Fortnite's recommended specs, getting you well equipped to ensure no lag in performance in the most intense matches. Oh, and did I mention this one's pretty affordable too? Just a bonus for ya'.
5. MSI GeForce GTX 1080 Ti
Last up on our list is going to be another flagship GPU, the MSI GeForce GTX 1080 Ti with impressive performance and specs on-board. The GTX 1080 Ti is based on the GP102 processor and NVIDIA's Pascal architecture with support for Direct X 12. For most casual gamers, again, similar to the other flagship graphics card, this may be a bit overkill solely for use in Fortnite. But if you wanted something that's going to reliably work for the next couple of years, getting a GTX 1080 Ti GPU is a great way to future proof your system.
The GTX 1080 Ti also features a stellar 11GB GDDR5x VRAM, 2584 shading cores, 224 texturing mapping units, and 484.4GB/s bandwidth. With this GPU, you can expect superb performance within Fortnite with an average FPS of 148. Not only will you be able to scale up to Epic resolutions formidably with the GTX 1080 Ti, it's good to go for a number of other games like GTA V, The Witcher 3, Cyberpunk 2077 and more.
Similarly to the other premium graphics card on the list, I'd only really advise the GTX 1080 Ti to hardcore gamers looking to max out their performance. There are a number of capable, affordable GPUs for Fortnite available like some of the others on our list. Unless you're thinking of gaming super heavily, rather than just a round or two on the weekend, you should look for something cheaper.
Conclusion
We've gone through some of the very best of the best GPUs to help you take on other gamers in the ever evolving world of Fornite.
We're going to have to pick just one as the best graphics card for Fortnite, and this time around it's going to be the GigaByte GeForce 1070!
For both veteran gamers and noobs looking to get into PC gaming, the GTX 1070 is a formidable companion for any setup. You get the best of both worlds, netting reliable performance for gaming, but keeping things at a reasonable price point to make it more widely adopted. Not too much power, and not too little. Perfect for all kinds of gamers.