Hardware Guide

The Best Graphics Cards To Run Football Manager

Football manager with its in game graphics is hardly a graphical intensive game, therefore most PCs and laptops can run it relatively well with a few leagues loaded.

However, if you are planning on building a new PC, buying a new laptop or only upgrading the graphics card, I have come up with this guide to help you out pick a graphics card that best suits your need, while being kind to your wallet.

This article has recommended graphics card for football manager according to price point, i.e. budget GPU, the best value for money and the best performing GPU.

Best Budget Graphics Card For Football Manager

It is possible to have a good football manager experience without shelling a lot of money for a graphics card. This is especially true if you rarely play other AAA games that are more graphical intensive than FM.

The GTX 1650 from Nvidia is an excellent choice for a budget graphics card to run football manager. If you are more of an AMD fan, the Radeon RX 570 offers similar performance, however it also consumes more power. Check out the price of the GTX 1650 on Amazon below.

To pair the GTX 1650 with a budget CPU, the Core i3-10100F, which also earned a spot in our list covering the best processors to run football manager, is a solid choice.

This combination of the Core i3-10100F with the GTX 1650 or the RX570 should you choose AMD is also capable of running other games at 1080p while getting more than 60fps on most titles.

However, there are some games, especially newer ones, where you will have to deal with lowering graphical settings from high to a balance of medium and low settings to get 60+ fps.

8 GB of RAM is also a must here. More RAM ensures FM stores more data where it can quickly access it, speeding up your game considerably and also making it feel snappy.

If you never play other games other than FM, then you won’t go wrong with either one of these two graphics cards.

However, should you want a graphics card that will also be useful in productivity like photoshop, video editing and the like, then the best value GPU below will be a more viable choice.

The Best Value Graphics Card For Football Manager

If you have a little more wiggle room in your budget, while searching for a graphics card that will handle both football manager and other AAA games at high settings, while still being viable for productivity work, then the Radeon 6700 XT from AMD is the graphics card you are looking for.

The 6700 XT will offer significantly more performance than the GTX 1650 in the budget category above. However, it still managers to be priced reasonably on Amazon for the performance it offers. Check its price below.

If you also play other AAA games, the 6700 XT will handle 1440p resolution, getting more than 100 fps at the highest settings.

On the other hand, if you only play football manager, then buying this graphics card only makes sense if you want future proofing for the next 6 years or so.

Should you want to try streaming football manager videos on Twitch or YouTube, the 6700 XT will handle it no problem, however you will also need a fast processor like the AMD Ryzen 7 5800X to pair it with.

If you are not interested in streaming, a more affordable processor like the Core i5-10400 is all you need to pair with the 6700 XT.

At this price point, 8 GB of RAM will hold your system back, therefore aim for at least 16 GB of DDR4 memory, preferably 32 GB if you have the budget for it. 

As already mentioned, the 6700 XT offers the best value for football manager and productivity. However, should you want the highest performance possible without caring for price, then the graphics card below might be right up your alley.

Highest Performance Graphics Card For Football Manager

For enthusiasts who are not limited by budget, the Nvidia RTX 3080 is as good as it gets. You can go higher to the Nvidia RTX 3090, however the performance gain over the RTX 3080 does not justify its price in my eyes. Check the RTX 3080’s price on Amazon below. 

The RTX 3080 will handle anything you can throw at it, from streaming, productivity work and even FM experiments that might take quite a while to complete in less powerful graphics cards. 

AAA games that are graphical intensive will be rendered easily at 4k with more than 60 fps, while choosing which leagues to load will be considerably easier as you can just load all of them if you wish.

To take full advantage of the raw power the RTX 3080 offers, 32 GB of DDR4 RAM is necessary, while a fast processor like the AMD Ryzen 7 5800X is also a must-have.

Final Thoughts On The Best Graphics For Football Manager

Football manager is more CPU intensive, meaning pairing a weaker GPU with a more powerful CPU is always better than having a powerful graphics card with a weaker processor.

A more powerful processor makes the calculations of results from all the leagues loaded much faster, while also reducing the time taken to progress to the next day.

However, it is still important to ensure you have a balanced build, especially if you also play other games, or carry out productivity work like video editing or photoshop.

You can also check out our guide for the best processors to run football manager at various price points here. If you would rather get a laptop for its portability, I also have a guide here to make it easier for you to pick one that suits your needs.