Best Graphics Card for 1080p Gaming in "Black Desert Online Remastered"

Black Desert Online is a Korean MMORPG game which has been pretty popular since 2015. Knowing that it’s a game that was released 5 years ago, any modern PC should be able to run the game at decent graphics settings. However, they have recently made a huge upgrade to the game’s graphics through their release of the game’s remastered version. With the release of Black Desert Online’s revamped version, Black Desert Online Remastered, modern personal computers definitely find it a challenge to run the game at the best graphics settings. Don’t you worry though; we will be checking out the best GPU or video card that can run this game at the best settings smoothly.

Before we go over our requirements in finding the best video card that can run Black Desert Online Remastered at 60 FPS with the highest graphics settings, let’s first checkout the game’s system requirements. Here is Black Desert Online Remastered’s System Requirements based on their website:

• Minimum GPU Requirement: GTS 250, GeForce 9800 GTX, Radeon HD 3870 X2
• Recommended GPU Requirement: NVIDIA GTX 970, AMD RX 480

I speculate that these requirements are for the original version of the game rather than the remastered version of the game. I don’t think playing the remastered version with the GPU’s suggested in their list of minimum GPU requirement can hardly play the game. Well, the NVIDIA GTX 970 and AMD RX 480; on the other hand, can certainly run the game. It might not be able to reach 60 FPS at the highest graphics settings but we can still get playable framerates with these recommended graphic cards.

Now that we know Black Desert Online Remastered’s system requirements, let’s go over our requirements for choosing the best video card for the game. Here are our requirements:

• Price: Of course, price will always be a factor in choosing the best video card. With GPU prices skyrocketing lately, it’s definitely great to pick up a video card with the best price to performance ration. Let’s make each single penny count by choosing a video card with the best price to performance ratio.
• 60 FPS @ Highest Graphics Settings: Since we are looking for the best videocard, then it should be capable of running the game at a framerate of 60 FPS while turning the graphics lever to the highest settings. There’s no point in playing the remastered version while keeping the graphics settings to a lower setting. So we must experience the immersive gaming experience of the Remastered version of Black Desert Online to the full extent by playing the game with a capable video card that can run the game at the highest graphics settings.

What about our memory requirement? Clock speed requirement? Well, let’s not indulge too much to the technicalities. The GPU market is pretty competitive so there’s a lot of video cards to review in our list. Let’s keep our requirements simple and it should help us choose the best video card for Black Desert Online Remastered easier.

Even with the release of video cards supporting 4K gaming resolution, 1080p is still the most common resolution used in gaming. Thus, for this Black Desert Online Remastered GPU guide, we will be choosing the best video card for 1080p resolution. So far, of all the video cards we’ve reviewed, the best video card capable of running the game at 60 FPS with the highest graphics settings is 1080p resolution is NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 1660 Ti.

The GeForce GTX 1660 Ti is one of Nvidia’s GeForce GTX 16 video card series. It features the latest game changing GPU architecture, the Turing architecture. Comparing it through the table below, we can clearly see the specification difference between the GeForce GTX 1660 Ti and the GeForce GTX 970.

Having manufactured the GeForce GTX 1660 Ti five years later than the GeForce GTX 970, it is definitely easy to identify that the former is more powerful than the latter. Although the GTX 970 has more memory speed and memory bus compared to the GTX 1660 Ti, the GTX 1660 Ti’s GDDR6 Memory will still significantly overpower the GTX 970’s increased GDDR5 memory speed and memory bus. This means the GTX 1660 Ti can definitely run Black Desert Online Remastered game at decent graphics settings.

The question now is “will the GTX 1660 Ti run the game at 60 FPS with the highest graphics settings”? Well, it does. We were able to test the game while setting it to the maximum graphics setting in 1080p resolution. And we were able to get an average framerate of up to 65+ FPS. Sometimes, the minimum FPS can dip to as low as 37 FPS but it is barely noticeable. It’s something you really need to worry about. Overall, you’ll definitely be able to enjoy the game at the highest graphics settings without any stutters or freezes.

As I’ve mentioned earlier, price matters. Clearly, the GTX 1660 Ti significantly outperforms the recommended GPU for the game. However, getting such video card won’t be that ideal if the price is too much. It won’t really be that satisfying to play the game at the highest graphics settings if you need to pay big time on it. Going back to the table, the GTX 1660 Ti’s release price is cheaper than the GTX 970. Does that mean we’re paying it with a better price? Not yet, let’s compare it to the other modern video cards for 1080p gaming.

Out of the list above, the Nvidia GeForce GTX 1660 Ti is the cheapest video card that is capable of meeting our requirement in running Black Desert Online Remastered. By far, its the cheapest video card that can run the game in an average playable framerate of 60 FPS.

Not only is the GeForce GTX 1660 Ti capable of running the game in the highest graphics settings at 1080p resolution and at an average playable framerate of 60 FPS but it is also the best performing video card considering its price.