The best graphics cards are the beating heart of any gaming PC, and everything else comes second. Without a powerful GPU pushing pixels, even the fastest CPU won't manage much. While no one graphics card will be right for everyone, we'll provide options for every budget and mindset below. Whether you're after the fastest graphics card, the best value, or the best card at a given price, we've got you covered.
Where our GPU benchmarks hierarchy ranks all of the cards based purely on performance, our list of the best graphics cards looks at the whole package. Current GPU pricing, performance, features, efficiency, and availability are all important, though the weighting becomes more subjective. Factoring in all of those aspects, these are the best graphics cards that are currently available.
With the increasing RTX 4090 prices, it's hard to justify buying the fastest GPU that's currently available. Prices on all GPUs have trended up in the post-Black Friday slump, so if you missed out on those deals, you might want to wait and see what January brings.
AMD and Nvidia have basically wrapped up their latest generation GPU lineups, unless there are still plans for an RTX 4050 at the bottom of the stack. It's not clear what such a chip might entail at this point, possibly 8GB of memory on a 128-bit interface (again), or could Nvidia try foisting a 96-bit 6GB card on the market? Hopefully the former rather than the latter.There are rumblings of various RTX 40-series Super cards, which will probably appear in January. These may replace the existing non-Super models. What's not clear is whether anything will happen at the top of the stack with the RTX 4090.
Nvidia's RTX 4090 is now banned from export to China, though that has merely encouraged scalpers to hoard RTX 4090 cards. A faster RTX 4090 Ti / Super would likewise be banned, and would need to be assembled outside of China, but it could still happen.On the AMD side of things, there are credible rumblings of an incoming RX 7600 XT. Specs remain a bit of a mystery, though we can't help but hope for a 12GB Navi 32-based variant.
The existing RX 7600 already uses a maxed out Navi 33 configuration, so higher clocks would be the only option if AMD goes that route. Again, we anticipate cards arriving in January, around the CES timeframe. Intel's Arc Alchemist GPUs rate more as previous generation hardware, as they're manufactured on TSMC N6 and compete more directly against the RTX 3060 and RX 6700 10GB instead of newer parts. However, Arc A750 priced at under $200 (we've seen it sell for as little as $179) remains a very competitive option, if you don't mind the occasional driver snafus and higher power use.
Graphics Card | 1080p FPS | 1440p FPS | 4K FPS | Price (MSRP) | Power |
179.7 | 133.2 | 84.8 | $1,999 ($1,600) | 316W | |
159.3 | 108.3 | 62.7 | $1,119 ($1,200) | 245W | |
144.4 | 96.6 | 56.3 | $949 ($1,000) | 338W | |
134.1 | 86.2 | 47.8 | $769 ($900) | 301W | |
125.5 | 73.7 | 39.5 | $539 ($600) | 184W | |
115.3 | 69.7 | 37.7 | $499 ($500) | 245W | |
100.4 | 55.5 | 27.4 | $399 ($400) | 142W | |
80.4 | 44.3 | 22.8 | $319 ($480) | 210W | |
82.6 | 44.3 | 22.0 | $299 ($300) | 127W | |
68.6 | 34.3 | — | $269 ($270) | 153W | |
66.4 | 38.7 | — | $179 ($250) | 199W | |
25.0 | — | — | $119 ($140) | 71W |
Note: We're showing current online prices alongside the official launch MSRPs in the above table, with the GPUs sorted by performance. Retail prices have fluctuated quite a bit over the course of a month; the table lists the best we could find at the time of writing.Our list now consists mostly of current generation cards, with only a single previous generation part still hanging around (RX 6700 XT) — unless you want to classify Arc as previous gen. Those older parts are near the bottom of the performance list, though they can still offer a good value if you're not after maximum performance or efficiency.The performance ranking (above) incorporates 15 games from our updated test suite, with both rasterization and ray tracing performance included.
While we previously had DXR (DirectX Raytracing) as a separate column, we feel there are enough RT-enabled games now to aggregate the scores. Note that we are not including upscaling results in the table, which would generally skew things more in favor of Nvidia GPUs, depending on the selection of games, but the DXR games at least partially account for that.The above table is sorted by performance, which is why the RTX 4090 sits at the top, and why the RTX 4070 edges past the 7800 XT. Our subjective rankings below factor in price, power, and features colored by our own opinions. Others may offer a slightly different take, but all of the cards on this list are worthy of your consideration.
Specifications
GPU: Ada AD102
GPU Cores: 16384
Boost Clock: 2,520 MHz
Video RAM: 24GB GDDR6X 21 Gbps
TGP: 450 watts
Reasons to buy
+The fastest GPU, period
+Excellent 4K and maybe even 8K gaming
+Powerful ray tracing hardware
+DLSS and now DLSS 3
+24GB is great for content creation workloads
Reasons to avoid
-Extreme price and power requirements
-Needs a fast CPU and large PSU
-Frame Generation is a bit gimmicky
For some, the best graphics card is the fastest card, pricing be damned. Nvidia's GeForce RTX 4090 caters to precisely this category of user. It was also the debut of Nvidia's Ada Lovelace architecture, and will represent the most potent card Nvidia has to offer, possibly until 2025 when the next generation GPUs are rumored to arrive.Note also that pricing of the RTX 4090 has become quite extreme, with most cards now selling above $2,000 thanks to the China RTX 4090 export restrictions. If you don't already have a 4090, you're probably best off giving it a pass now.The RTX 4090 offers a larger gap between itself and the next closest Nvidia GPU. Across our suite of gaming benchmarks, it's 35% faster overall than the RTX 4080. It's also 51% faster than AMD's top performing RX 7900 XTX — though it also costs about 60% more.Let's be clear about something: You really need a high refresh rate 4K monitor to get the most out of the RTX 4090. At 1440p its advantage over a 4080 shrinks to 23%, and it's only 13% at 1080p — and that includes some demanding DXR games. The lead over the RX 7900 XTX also falls to only 24% at 1080p. Not only do you need a high resolution, high refresh rate monitor, but you'll also want the fastest CPU possible to get the most out of the 4090.It's not just gaming performance, either.
In professional content creation workloads like Blender, Octane, and V-Ray, the RTX 4090 is up to 45% faster than the RTX 4080. And with Blender, it's over three times faster than the RX 7900 XTX. Don't even get us started on artificial intelligence tasks. In Stable Diffusion testing, the RTX 4090 is around four times faster than the 7900 XTX for 512x512 images, and nearly seven times faster for 768x768 images.There are numerous other AI workloads that currently only run on Nvidia GPUs. In short, Nvidia knows a thing or two about content creation applications.
The only potential problem is that it uses drivers to lock improved performance in some apps (like some of those in SPEC viewperf) to its true professional cards, i.e. the RTX 6000 48GB.AMD's RDNA 3 response to Ada Lovelace might be a better value, at least if you're only looking at rasterization games, but for raw performance the RTX 4090 reigns as the current champion. Just keep in mind that you may also need a CPU and power supply upgrade to get the most out of the 4090. We'd also suggest waiting until next month to see if we get a new halo part, or if the rumored RTX 4080 Super might be a more cost effective solution.
AMD's Fastest GPU, Great for Rasterization
Specifications
GPU: Navi 31
GPU Cores: 6144
Boost Clock: 2500 MHz
Video RAM: 24GB GDDR6 20 Gbps
TBP: 355 watts
Reasons to buy
+Great overall performance
+Lots of VRAM and cache
+Great for non-RT workloads
+Good SPECviewperf results
Reasons to avoid
$1,000 starting price
Much slower RT performance
Weaker in AI / deep learning workloads
The Red Team King is dead; long live the Red Team King! AMD's Radeon RX 7900 XTX rates as the fastest graphics card from AMD, and lands near the top of the charts — with a generational price bump to match. Officially priced at $999, the least expensive models now start at around $950, and supply has basically caught up to demand. There's good reason for the demand, as the 7900 XTX comes packing AMD's latest RDNA 3 architecture.That gives the 7900 XTX a lot more potential compute, and you get 33% more memory and bandwidth as well. Compared to the RX 6950 XT, on average the new GPU is 40% faster at 4K, though that shrinks to 30% at 1440p and just 24% at 1080p. It also delivers that performance boost without dramatically increasing power use or graphics card size.AMD remains a potent solution for anyone that doesn't care as much about ray tracing — and when you see the massive hit to performance for often relatively mild gains in image fidelity, we can understand why many feel that way. Still, the number of games with RT support continues to grow, and most of those also support Nvidia's DLSS technology, something AMD hasn't fully countered even if FSR2 can at times come close. If you want the best DXR/RT experience right now, Nvidia still wins hands down.AMD's GPUs can also be used for professional and content creation tasks, but here things get a bit hit and miss. Certain apps in the SPECviewperf suite run great on AMD hardware, others come up short. However, if you want to do AI or deep learning research, there's no question Nvidia's cards are a far better pick. For this generation, the RX 7900 XTX is AMD's fastest option, and it definitely packs a punch. If you're willing to step down to the 7900 XT, that's also worth considering (see below), as it tends to be priced better now.
A Balanced High-End Nvidia GPU
Specifications
GPU: AD104
GPU Cores: 5888
Boost Clock: 2,475 MHz
Video RAM: 12GB GDDR6X 21 Gbps
TGP: 200 watts
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Reasons to buy
Excellent efficiency and good performance
Good for 1440p gaming
DLSS, DLSS 3, and DXR features
Reasons to avoid
Generational price hike
Frame Generation marketing
12GB is the minimum we'd want with a $400+ GPU
Nvidia's RTX 4070 didn't blow us away with extreme performance or value... but it's generally equal to the previous generation RTX 3080, comes with the latest Ada Lovelace architecture and features, and costs $100 less (though note that the RTX 3070 and above are effectively discontinued now). Also, the RTX 4070 costs $200 less than the next step up, the RTX 4070 Ti: 85% of the performance for 75% of the price.Nvidia's not going to win any awards for offering a great value, as it charges the absolute maximum it feels it can get away with. At the same time, it looks better than a lot of other possibilities. In our overall performance rankings, it's basically tied with AMD's new RX 7800 XT — slightly slower in rasterization, faster in ray tracing, plus it has DLSS support — but the real advantage is in power requirements. With a 200W TGP, it uses about 60W less power than the reference RX 7800 XT.Nvidia is always keen to point out how much faster the RTX 40-series is, once you enable DLSS 3 Frame Generation. As we've said before, these generated frames aren't the same as "real" frames and increase input latency. It's not that DLSS 3 is bad, but we prefer to compare non-enhanced performance, and in terms of feel we'd say DLSS 3 improves the experience over the baseline by 10–20 percent, not the 50–100 percent you'll see in Nvidia's performance charts.The RTX 4070 has been pretty much available at MSRP since it launched, which again speaks to the lack of demand for "upper mainstream" parts that carry high-end pricing. Factory overclocked cards with extra RGB cost the usual $20–$50 extra. We still can't help but feel the cards are a bit overpriced, but there's no question the RTX 4070 easily beats the previous generation RTX 3070 Ti in performance at the same $599 price point — it's about 23% faster overall.
4. GeForce RTX 4060
The Best Budget Nvidia Option
Specifications
GPU: Ada AD107
GPU Cores: 3072
Boost Clock: 2,460 MHz
Video RAM: 8GB GDDR6 17 Gbps
TGP: 115 watts
Reasons to buy
+Great 1080p performance
+Very efficient and quiet
+Faster and cheaper than RTX 3060
Reasons to avoid
-Only 8GB of VRAM
-128-bit memory interface
It seems more like an RTX 4050
With the launch of the RTX 4060, Nvidia has just about wrapped up this generation of desktop graphics cards based on the Ada Lovelace architecture. There's still potentially a desktop 4050 in the works, as well as refresh parts if needed (i.e. we could see a new variant of the RTX 20-series 'Super' models), but for now this is as low as Nvidia goes with the RTX 40-series.There are certainly drawbacks. Nvidia opted to cut down the memory interface to just 128 bits, which in turn limits the memory capacity options. Nvidia could do a 16GB card if it really wanted, but 8GB is the standard configuration and we don't expect anything else — only the 4060 Ti 16GB has the doubled VRAM option, and we weren't particularly impressed by that card. The 4060-class cards also have an x8 PCIe interface, though in practice that shouldn't matter.The good news is that, as promised, performance is faster than the previous generation RTX 3060, by about 20% at 1080p and 1440p. There are edge cases in some games (meaning, 4K at max settings) where the 12GB on the 3060 can pull ahead, but performance is already well below the acceptable level at that point. As an example, Borderlands 3 ran at 26.5 fps on the 4060 versus 28.9 fps on the 3060 at 4K Badass settings; neither is a great experience, even though the 3060 is technically faster.There are other benefits, of course: You get all the latest Ada features, including DLSS 3 support. Also, the power draw is just 115W for the reference model, and typically won't exceed 125W on overclocked cards (like the Asus Dual OC that we used for testing). Oh, and most RTX 4060 cards won't bother with the questionable 16-pin power connector and adapter shenanigans.AMD's closest alternative is the previous generation RX 6700 XT. You get the usual results: higher rasterization performance from AMD, worse ray tracing performance, and higher power requirements — about 100W more in this case. The new RX 7700 XT meanwhile kicks pricing into a different category, so it's not really competing with the 4060 either. Depending on the games you play, the extra VRAM can put AMD ahead by up to 40% (Borderlands 3), though overall it's only 15% faster at 1440p ultra in rasterization games, and the 4060 is 25% faster in our ray tracing test suite.An alternative view is that this is an upgraded RTX 3050, with the same 115W TGP and 60% better performance. Too bad it costs $50 extra, though the 3050 was mostly priced at $300 and above until the past few months.
AMD's Latest 'Upper Mainstream' Offering
Specifications
GPU: RDNA 3 Navi 32
GPU Cores: 3840
Boost Clock: 2,430 MHz
Video RAM: 16GB GDDR6 19.5 Gbps
TBP: 263 watts
Reasons to buy
Plenty of VRAM and 256-bit interface
Great for 1440p and 1080p
Strong in rasterization testing
More efficient than RDNA 2, plus AV1 and DP2.1
Reasons to avoid
Only slightly faster than RX 6800 XT
Still lacking in DXR and AI performance
Somewhat noisy reference design
AMD has mostly completed it's new RDNA 3 GPU lineup with the release of Navi 32 and the RX 7800 XT and RX 7700 XT. Of the two cards, the 7800 XT is the clearly superior option: It's up to 20% faster and 'only' costs 11% more. Which isn't to say it's a win in every possible way, as it's also only 5% faster than the existing RX 6800 XT and inherits the same $500 going rate of that card. Still, it does have a few advantages.Performance in general may only be slightly improved, but the 7800 XT uses about 45W less power than the 6800 XT in our testing. Alternatively, it provides basically the same performance as the 6900 XT, while using less power and at a lower online price. It also adds the AV1 encoding support and DP2.1 video output, plus improved compute and AI capabilities — it's about 45% faster than the 6800 XT in Stable Diffusion, for example.Given Navi 22 powered the RX 6700-class GPUs, it would have made more sense to have Navi 32 likewise power the RX 7700-class GPUs. In that case, the generational upgrade from the 6700 XT would have been excellent, as the RX 7800 XT is about 60% faster. But then we'd also be talking about a new $499 MSRP device replacing a former $479 MSRP card, which is now selling for around $320. The remaining inventory and bang for the buck remains a sticking point for AMD GPUs, in other words.Compared to the Nvidia competition, the RX 7800 XT greatly outperforms the RTX 4060 Ti, leading by 26% overall at 1440p, and 40% when confining the testing to rasterization games. However, the RTX 4060 Ti costs $100 less (and the 16GB model doesn't really help in a meaningful way). The RTX 4070 meanwhile offers 6% more performance at 1440p, and 27% higher ray tracing performance (rasterization performance is basically tied), while costing $100 extra. So there's no truly direct competition, and AMD carves out a niche at the $500 mark.Ultimately, it's the usual story from AMD: Better rasterization performance, worse ray tracing, AI, and upscaling results, at a generally competitive price. If the price drops another $50, though, this becomes a far more interesting option.
AMD's Latest 'Upper Mainstream' Offering
Specifications
GPU: RDNA 3 Navi 32
GPU Cores: 3840
Boost Clock: 2,430 MHz
Video RAM: 16GB GDDR6 19.5 Gbps
TBP: 263 watts
Reasons to buy
Plenty of VRAM and 256-bit interface
Great for 1440p and 1080p
Strong in rasterization testing
More efficient than RDNA 2, plus AV1 and DP2.1
Reasons to avoid
Only slightly faster than RX 6800 XT
Still lacking in DXR and AI performance
Somewhat noisy reference design
AMD has mostly completed it's new RDNA 3 GPU lineup with the release of Navi 32 and the RX 7800 XT and RX 7700 XT. Of the two cards, the 7800 XT is the clearly superior option: It's up to 20% faster and 'only' costs 11% more. Which isn't to say it's a win in every possible way, as it's also only 5% faster than the existing RX 6800 XT and inherits the same $500 going rate of that card. Still, it does have a few advantages.Performance in general may only be slightly improved, but the 7800 XT uses about 45W less power than the 6800 XT in our testing. Alternatively, it provides basically the same performance as the 6900 XT, while using less power and at a lower online price. It also adds the AV1 encoding support and DP2.1 video output, plus improved compute and AI capabilities — it's about 45% faster than the 6800 XT in Stable Diffusion, for example.Given Navi 22 powered the RX 6700-class GPUs, it would have made more sense to have Navi 32 likewise power the RX 7700-class GPUs. In that case, the generational upgrade from the 6700 XT would have been excellent, as the RX 7800 XT is about 60% faster. But then we'd also be talking about a new $499 MSRP device replacing a former $479 MSRP card, which is now selling for around $320. The remaining inventory and bang for the buck remains a sticking point for AMD GPUs, in other words.Compared to the Nvidia competition, the RX 7800 XT greatly outperforms the RTX 4060 Ti, leading by 26% overall at 1440p, and 40% when confining the testing to rasterization games. However, the RTX 4060 Ti costs $100 less (and the 16GB model doesn't really help in a meaningful way). The RTX 4070 meanwhile offers 6% more performance at 1440p, and 27% higher ray tracing performance (rasterization performance is basically tied), while costing $100 extra. So there's no truly direct competition, and AMD carves out a niche at the $500 mark.Ultimately, it's the usual story from AMD: Better rasterization performance, worse ray tracing, AI, and upscaling results, at a generally competitive price. If the price drops another $50, though, this becomes a far more interesting option.
Great Performance at a Good Price
Specifications
GPU: Navi 22
GPU Cores: 2560
Boost Clock: 2581 MHz
Video RAM: 12GB GDDR6 16 Gbps
TBP: 230 watts
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Reasons to buy
Great 1080p and 1440p performance
Plenty of VRAM
Good price to performance ratio
Reasons to avoid
Weaker RT performance
FSR2 can't defeat DLSS
Future RDNA 3 models
AMD's previous generation midrange/high-end offering follows the usual path, trimming down the top model Navi 21 GPU to create a smaller die that can sell at lower prices. That's AMD's Navi 22 and the RX 6700 XT. The RX 6750 XT is the same GPU, with slightly higher clock speeds, memory speeds, and power consumption — about 5% faster overall. Give some thought to the RX 6700 10GB as well, which offers less performance but also costs less (assuming you can still find one in stock).In terms of pricing and performance, the RX 6700 XT still fills the pricing gap between the new RX 7600 and the RX 7700 XT. It's about $70 more than the former and $120 less than the latter, and it doesn't look like AMD has any plans for a replacement (i.e. an RX 7700 non-XT). The RX 6700 XT trades blows with the new RTX 4060, with the usual better rasterization but worse ray tracing performance. Whether that matters is up to the individual, but AMD also provides 12GB VRAM while Nvidia's new card consumes about 90W less power.This is the lone remaining holdout for the previous generation, and it's tough to imaging it going away any time soon. Perhaps the RX 7700 XT will come down in price, but while inventory of the 6700-class remains, those would simply drop in response. The 6700 XT still offers a relatively potent upgrade over the RX 7600, outperforming the new chip by 28% at 1440p. Maybe we eventually get an RX 7700 non-XT, but that seems unlikely given AMD's current product stack.
Team Blue's Budget-Friendly Option
Specifications
GPU: ACM-G10
GPU Cores: 3584
Boost Clock: 2,400 MHz
Video RAM: 8GB GDDR6 16 Gbps
TDP: 225 watts
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Reasons to buy
Great value at current prices
Excellent video codec support
Good overall performance
Reasons to avoid
Needs modern PC with ReBAR support
Not particularly efficient
Driver issues still occur
Testing the Intel Arc A750 was a bit like dealing with Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. At times, performance looked excellent, sometimes surpassing the GeForce RTX 3060. Other times, Arc came up far short of expectations, trailing the RTX 3050. The drivers continued to improve, however, and with prices now starting at less than $200, this represents an excellent value — just note that some of the cost savings will ultimately show up in your electrical bill, as it's not as efficient as the competition.There are some compromises, like the 8GB of VRAM — the A770 Limited Edition doubles that to 16GB, but also costs around $100 extra. Intel's A750 also has to go up against AMD's RX 7600, which is the primary competition at this price (even if AMD's prices have recently increased).
Depending on the game, performance may end up favoring one or the other, though Intel now holds the overall edge by a scant 2% at 1080p ultra.
Like Nvidia GPUs, ray tracing games tend to favor Intel, while rasterization games are more in the AMD camp.Intel was the first company to deliver hardware accelerated AV1 encoding and decoding support, and QuickSync continues to deliver an excellent blend of encoding performance and quality. There's also XeSS, basically a direct competitor to Nvidia's DLSS, except it uses Arc's Matrix cores when present, and can even fall back into DP4a mode for non-Arc GPUs. But DLSS 2 still comes out on top, and it's in far more games.
The Arc A750 isn't a knockout blow, by any stretch, but it's also nice to have a third player in the GPU arena. The A750 competes with the RTX 3060 and leaves us looking forward to Intel's future Arc Battlemage GPUs, even if they're probably a year out. You should also check out the Arc A770 16GB, if you're willing to give Intel a chance, though it's a steep upsell these days.
The Second Fastest GPU, Still Very Expensive
Specifications
GPU: AD103
GPU Cores: 9728
Boost Clock: 2,505 MHz
Video RAM: 16GB GDDR6 22.4 Gbps
TGP: 320 watts
Reasons to buy
Good efficiency and architecture
Second fastest GPU overall
Handles 4K ultra, with DLSS 3
Reasons to avoid
Largish step down from RTX 4090
Way more expensive than RTX 3080
Only a 256-bit memory interface
The RTX 4080 represents everything people dislike about Nvidia's 40-series lineup. It's faster than every previous generation RTX 30-series part, sure, outperforming the RTX 3090 Ti by up to 20%. But the name suggests it's the replacement for the RTX 3080, a card that launched at $699. Nvidia went from $699 for an xx80-class GPU to $1,199 in one generation! Up to 50% higher performance, but also for 71% more money.Still, the RTX 4080 warrants a look for some people, as it costs nearly $1,000 less than the top RTX 4090 and still offers all the same features.
Just with a bit less performance and VRAM. Overall, it's up to 25% slower than the 4090, for a bit more than half the price, though looking at MSRPs it's only supposed to be 31% less money. That's not the usual case of diminishing returns we see at the top of the GPU hierarchy, where the previous RTX 3090 was only 20% faster than the 3080 but cost over twice as much. People would give the 4080 a lot more love if it was priced under $1,000.AMD's competition is also a factor to consider.
The RX 7900 XTX matches the RTX 4080 in rasterization performance, for about $150 less. But the 7900 XT doesn't give you DLSS 2, 3, or 3.5 with Ray Reconstruction. And the 4080 is already over 30% faster than the 7900 XTX in ray tracing without those features. And for AI, even in Stable Diffusion where there's good support for both AMD and Nvidia hardware, the 4080 is about triple the performance of the 7900 XTX.
The biggest problem is that graphics cards costing over $1,000 have a very limited audience. Basically, they're for gamers with very deep pockets. If you're building an extreme gaming PC, you might be looking at $3,000 or more for all of the parts, including an RTX 4080. At that point, why not just fork over the extra $500 to upgrade to an RTX 4090 instead? The cynics among us would point out that this is probably precisely what Nvidia would like you to do. After all, being second fastest isn't really worth major bragging rights.
Best Graphics Cards for Gaming in 2024
Mainstream Nvidia Ada for $400
Specifications
GPU: AD106
GPU Cores: 4352
Boost Clock: 2,535 MHz
Video RAM: 8GB GDDR6 18 Gbps
TGP: 160 watts
Reasons to buy
Great efficiency
Latest Nvidia architecture
Generally faster than 3060 Ti
Reasons to avoid
8GB and 128-bit bus for $399?
Less VRAM than RTX 3060
DLSS 3 is no magic bullet
What is this, 2016? A brand-new, $399 graphics card launching with only 8GB of memory? We thought we had left that era in the past after the RTX 3060 gave us 12GB, but Nvidia seems more intent on cost-cutting and market segmentation these days. But the RTX 4060 Ti does technically beat the previous generation RTX 3060 Ti, by 10–15 percent overall in our testing.
There are plenty of reasons to waffle on this one. The larger L2 cache does mostly overcome the limited bandwidth from the 128-bit interface, but cache hit rates go down as resolution increases, meaning 1440p and especially 4K can be problematic. At least the price is the same as the outgoing RTX 3060 Ti, and you do get some new features. Also, we wouldn't bother with the 4060 Ti 16GB variant, unless you really just need more VRAM capacity — it doesn't really help except at 4K ultra, at which point the performance still tends to be poor. The 16GB card now only has a $50 premium, however, so there are niche use cases like AI LLMs where it may be useful.
If you were previously looking at the RTX 3060 Ti, and you don't want to consider an AMD or Intel alternative, this was the least expensive Ada Lovelace / RTX 40-series GPU — but the RTX 4060 above has now taken over that title. The RTX 4060 also has fewer GPU cores and less L2 cache size, so it very much ends up as a GPU that warrants its $299 price tag.Looking at performance, the 4060 Ti generally manages 1440p ultra at 60 fps in rasterization games, but for ray tracing you'll want to stick with 1080p — or use DLSS. Frame Generation is heavily used in Nvidia's marketing materials, and it can provide a significant bump to your fps. However, it's more of a frame smoothing technique as it interpolates between two frames and doesn't apply any new user input to the generated frame.Besides that, you get better ray tracing hardware and AV1 encoding support.
Nvidia's new mainstream GPU is also about 35% faster than AMD's new RX 7600 in our rasterization tests, for about 50% more money. Factor in ray tracing and it's more like a 50% increase in performance for 50% more money. That's okay, but then the RX 7600 isn't an awesome new offering either. There's a reason this ranks down near the bottom of our list: It's definitely serviceable, but a price cut would go a long way toward sweetening the deal.
Nerdcore Graphics Cards Performance Results
Our updated test suite of games consists of 15 titles. The data in the following charts is from testing conducted during the past several months. Only the fastest cards are tested at 1440p and 4K, but we do our best to test everything at 1080p medium and ultra.For each resolution, the first chart shows the geometric mean (i.e. equal weighting) for all 15 games.
The second chart shows performance in the nine rasterization games, and the third chart focuses in on ray tracing performance in six games. Then we'll have the 15 individual game charts, for those who like to see all the data.AMD's FSR has now been out for about two years now, with FSR 2.0 now having surpassed the year mark. Nvidia's DLSS 2 has been around since mid-2019, while Intel's XeSS formally launched in October 2023. Twelve of the games in our test suite support DLSS 2, five more support DLSS 3, five now support FSR2, and four support XeSS. However, we're running all of the benchmarks at native resolution for these tests.
We have a separate article looking at FSR and DLSS, and the bottom line is that DLSS and XeSS improve performance with less compromise to image quality, but FSR2 works on any GPU.
The charts below contain nearly all of the current RTX 40/30-series, RX 7000/6000-series, and Intel's Arc A-series graphics cards. Our GPU benchmarks hierarchy contains additional results for those who are interested, along with performance testing from our 2020-2021 suite running on a Core i9-9900K.
The charts are color coded with AMD in red, Nvidia in blue, and Intel in gray to make it easier to see what's going on.The following charts are up to date as of January 10, 2024. Nearly all current generation and previous generation GPUs are included in nerdcore graphics cards reviews.
Power, Clocks, and Temperatures
Author Nerdcore Computers
We have sourced out information from NVIDIA an GEFORCE MSI to conclude our own review on what we think the best video cards will be in 2024..
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