These days, the GPUs have legitimately become a luxury good. With graphics cards such as the NVIDIA GEFORCE RTX 5090 that cost more than $ 1,999, you can expect to pay the most productive dollar for higher yield. The costs are even much higher than they were when GTX 970 fled in 2014, even when it was adjusted for inflation. However, if you temperate your hopes, you can delight a game forged by a fraction of this price, especially if you agree with the game at 1440p or 1080p.
I’ve reviewed graphics cards over the last 4 generations, and I’ve personally compared, built, and played games every GPU on this list. However, if something doesn’t move you, feel free to comment on the type of game you’re looking for, and I’d be happy to help you locate the best card for your build.
While it would be easy to just tell you to get the most powerful graphics card on the market for the best gaming experience, the truth is that picking a GPU is something you need to put a bit more thought into. not all graphics cards are created equal, you see, and everyone is going to need something a little different out of their PCI-E brick.
The solution in which you play will be the first thing you should understand. Whether you have a game instructor that you like or check to build a complete game battle, first make a decision your solution. In fact, a graphics card that is wonderful in 4K will not result in precisely through an incredible 1080p graphics card. Visit the NVIDIA RTX 5090. Although the new lighthouse flies in 4K, it can really be a much less expensive graphics cards at 1080p, due to the strangulation of the processor. On the other hand, if you play 1080p, anything like Intel Arc B580 will be much more wonderful. You will get a forged game performance, but at a decrease price of what you can use, well, buy more games. Similarly, 1440p players are probably wonderful to buy something like the AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT or the NVIDIA GEFORCE RTX 4070 Super.
The budget is also a great fear and graphics cards only charge dear than those days. It would be wonderful if everyone can only a Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090, but it is not the global in which we live. Today, the floor costs about $ two hundred to $ 250. For this price, you can get a 1080p forged graphics card, without having to return to a past generation. If you have a little more money, something like NVIDIA RTX 4060 will unlock all exclusive Nvidia bells and whistles, although they are much less vital in a low gas GPU.
If you really need to pass right next door, you can get an amazing graphics card for around $1,000. The AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX and Nvidia GeForce RTX 5080 will deliver an impressive 4K gaming experience, and which one decides in the FINAL COUNTS ON CUU your part matters about ray tracing. For other people who need raw gaming performance, the Radeon RX 7900 XTX is probably a more wonderful option, but you need to wait a minute for AMD’s next-gen offering. I’m not sure how much the Radeon RX 9070 XT is going through until I compare it, but it deserves to be wonderful for 4K gaming, especially with the upcoming FSR 4.
With more beloved graphics cards, however, food will be a wonderful concern. You will want to ensure the strength you have and verify it on the needs of the graphics card source you look. Something such as Intel Arc B580 can get out with a 450W PSU, however, you will want to make sure you have something much more difficult for RADEON RX 7800 XT, for example. You do not want to pass over the table and get rid of the cash for an electric source that gives the force twice, just make sure you have enough juices for your GPU continues.
Although it hurts to call a GPU that the prices of $ 599 are affordable is what the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 supervision for an average range price, you get an incredibly forged graphics card that can pump in a position game functionality for 1440p, And it can even be larger in 4K in some games. This is not the maximum hard graphics card at this time, but it would be the selection of gold ricitos.
When I checked the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 Super, I discovered that it was an incredibly strong competitor, and probably the most productive of the medium generation refrigeration cards that Nvidia introduced to those 2024. Although it has the same 12 GB of vram that the detainee had The detainee the original RTX 4070, the RTX 4070 Super is full of 7,168 CUDA cores, opposed to 5,888 in the original model. It is a jump of 21% of the shadow nuclei, and this difference is reflected in the functionality of the game.
Looking at a game like Cyberpunk 2077, which surely likes Cuda, you can see a 12% leap of the functionality compared to RTX 4070 to 1440p. And, at 4K, the RTX 4070 Super is 13% faster than its predecessor in the RPG not easy for CD Projekt Red. Similarly, the execution of a game like Forza Horizon Five at 4K, the RTX 4070 Super handles an impressive 123 IPS, compared to the 94 IP of the original RTX 4070. This is 30% functionality at the same release price. .
No matter what game you’re playing at 1440p, you’ll get smart functionality from the RTX 4070 Super, and that will translate to 4K gaming more often. And with 1440p gaming in popularity, there’s never been a greater time to upgrade to a card that can skyrocket at this resolution.
There’s no getting around this, the Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090 is the ultimate hardcore graphics card on the market right now. While it doesn’t mark the same kind of generational expansion as the RTX 4090 or even the RTX 3090, there’s no relief to the fact that it provides the maximum productive gaming functionality you can get right now, especially when you take DLSS Multi-Frame Generation into account.
Not only is the RTX 5090 larger than the 4090, now with 21,760 CUDA cores and 32GB of GDDR7 memory, but it also has a superior strength budget. When I reviewed the RTX 5090, I discovered the next-gen graphics vessel to peak on a staggering 578W, a massive building atop the RTX 4090’s 448W. With all this extra strength, Nvidia needed to locate a more important way to burn heat, and brought in a new cooler for its Discovereders edition. Instead of doubling down on the triple-channel design of the last two generations, Team Green has figured out a way to revive the design to a dual-slot cooler, anything it hasn’t noticed on a flagship NVIDIA graphics card since the RTX 2080 TI.
The company able to do this by reducing the published circuit where the GPU is located, hitting it in the middle of the map. Every aspect of this PCB is reserved through pass-through warmth heatsinks, where enthusiasts draw fresh air on the back of the board and pull it straight out of their PC case. The thermal engineering of it all is a little more confusing than that, but even with all this extra power, I only saw the RTX 5090 reaching up to 87°C. It’s a higher temperature, but it’s still low enough to play full. Explosion.
On average, I found that the RTX 5090 was about 26% faster than the RTX 4090, watching 4K games and artificial 3dmark benchmarks. This number decreases in declining resolutions, of course, and you deserve not to earn $1,999 (or more!) For this GPU if you don’t play in 4K. Even in 4K, there were some games that didn’t have much functionality due to CPU limits, and I used the Ryzen 7 9800x3d. For greater or worse, the Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090 shines in the precise type of workload it’s designed for. Without restriction, everything has reached a maximum of 4K and with a minimum of scale. During the days when DLSS in “functionality” mode is mandatory in 4K, at least for this beastly GPU.
Although AMD doesn’t have a GPU that can be impressive with the RTX 4090, it does have one that’s incredibly competitive with the RTX 4080 Super card, the upcoming NVIDIA card: NVIDIA’s AMD Radeon RX 7900 card: the AMD Radeon RX 7900 XXTX card. Our hands-on tests of the Radeon RX 7900 XTX obviously indicated that this GPU is an absolute beast in 4K that can stick to Nvidia, even beating the green team in safe matches.
Even in games that are historically AMD graphics cards, the Radeon RX 7900 XTX can take care in 4K. Take a look at Cyberpunk 2077: it’s capable of handling an average of 58fps at 4K with the Ray Tracer Ultra Preset, with FSR enabled Obviously, it’s not as smart as the RTX 4080 in the same test, but frankly, it never would.
For example, in Forza Horizon Five with everything that is mounted, the Radeon RX 7900 XTX manages an impressive 1five8 photography consisting of the moment in 4K, necessarily corresponding to the RTX 4080 sucking with the photographs of 1five9 consisting of the moment. Similarly, in Far Cry 6, the Radeon RX 7900 XTX can offer an average of 1Five4 photographs consisting of the moment, surpassing the Succonsistant RTX 4080, which can make 1Five1 photographs consisting of the moment.
Like with any graphics card, it’s important to know what kind of games you want to play. But if you’re playing a lot of games with little to no ray tracing, the AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX is an extremely potent 4K graphics card. Plus with DisplayPort 2.1, it’s better equipped for higher resolution ultrawide monitors.
When you think about the best solution for gaming, it’s simple to upgrade to 4K and say “more pixels is better. “However, 1440p is the sweet spot for PC gaming, and the Radeon RX 7700 XT is the star of the series, thanks to the functionality you get for the money. It targets opposition to the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 Ti, and it’s not a combat that looks smart for Nvidia.
Although the RTX 4060 Ti beats the 7700 XT in Cyberpunk 2077, that’s not much. The RTX 4060 Ti gets 62fps at 1440p, and the Radeon RX 7700 XT gets 49 frames consistent with SECOND. However, Nvidia’s advantage disappears in other games.
For instance, in Forza Horizon 5, maxed out at 1440p, the RX 7700 XT manages 118fps, compared to 107 from the RTX 4060 Ti. Likewise, in Total War: Warhammer 3, which doesn’t have any fancy ray tracing tech, the RTX 4060 Ti gets smoked, with it scoring 68 fps to AMD’s 85. That’s a 20% lead at about the same price.
There is a catch, though. While the Radeon RX 7700 XT is more powerful than the RTX 4060 Ti, it’s also more power-hungry, drawing up to 312W from the wall in my testing. Compared to the 159W that the RTX 4060 Ti eats up, that’s a pretty huge gap. However, if you have a power supply that can handle it – AMD recommends 550W – you get a much more powerful card at the same price. Whether or not it affects your power bill down the line is a future issue.
According to the Steam Hardware Survey, 1080p game monitors remain the popular maximum monitors, and is not close. Therefore, despite how excited they are 4K presentations, if Cushty is with 1080p, you do not want an incredibly hard graphics card to play even the maximum non -easy games. This is where the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 shines.
The RTX 4060 can force any 1080P game, even with all the elegant ray tracking configurations that come out those days. And thanks to DLSS, it can even expand to higher resolutions in some games. And for a current GEN graphics card that you can be located for less than $ 300, that is not a bad business.
When I reviewed the RTX 4060, I found that it was able to run most games extremely well at 1080p with all the settings cranked at more than 60fps, even if it just barely got there in some games. For instance, in Cyberpunk 2077 on the ray tracing ultra preset, the RTX 4060 scored just 62fps at 1080p. That is the golden frame rate, but you’re not going to be doing much high-refresh gaming on this card.
However, the RTX 4060 does look weak, and that’s how it compares to the RTX 3060 Ti that came out here before. You can still locate the RTX 3060 Ti at max retailers, and at a comparable cost, but it manages to beat the RTX 4060, at the peak of my tests. There are some features that you would give up through a state-of-the-art card, DLSS 3. 0 through being a leader among them, but it would possibly cost you the merit of the slight functionality you can get. However, in this cost range, a feature like DLSS 3. 0 that can stretch the functionality in supported games is cost and can stretch the cost of the card.
The Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 isn’t FECT-consistent, however, if you need an existing generation graphics card for less than $300 that manages any PC game above 60 frames consistent with the second, you’d have trouble locating an option, not the Radeon RX 7600.
Now that the most recent generation of NVIDIA graphics cards has been released, starting with the RTX 5090 and RTX 5080, 2025 turns out to be a full year for graphics cards. The green is expected to hold onto its two high-end Blackwell graphics cards with the RTX 5070 and RTX 5070 TI coming in February, which will be smart news for anyone to upgrade for under a thousand dollars.
Nvidia isn’t alone in new graphics cards though. AMD’s Radeon RX 9070 and RX 9070 XT are right around the corner, launching in March 2025. I got a chance to sneak in a benchmark of the 9070 at AMD’s CES 2025 booth, and while those are preliminary results you should take with a heaping of salt, it looks like it’s going to give the Radeon RX 7900 XT and RTX 4080 a run for their money.
When it comes to which brand of graphics card you should get, it ultimately comes down to your personal preference – even if each brand has its own unique advantages. Intel graphics cards are the most affordable option on the market right now, but its graphics cards aren’t exactly the fastest in the land. On the other hand, Nvidia makes the most powerful GPUs around, but you’re going to have to pay out the nose for that performance.
AMD graphics cards strike a pretty good balance between the two, but while the company loves to use open-source graphics APIs, it means you don’t get access to some of the exclusive features that Nvidia owners enjoy – features like DLSS. AMD has alternatives for literally every Nvidia software feature, but some of them simply aren’t as good. See our guide to AMD vs. Nvidia GPUs for more info.
Graphics cards, especially high-end ones, are sucking up more electricity with every passing year. If you’re looking to build a new gaming PC, or even upgrade from an older graphics card, you should really consider upgrading to one of the best power supplies.
Some of the graphics cards out there right now can take upwards of 450W of power by themselves, so you may want to consider a 1,000W power supply – especially if you’re going for the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090.
Nvidia has both an RTX, or Ray Tracing Texel eXtreme, and GTX, Giga Texel Shader eXtreme graphics cards series, with the RTX offerings being newer, more powerful, and more expensive.
That boosted performance is thanks to the architecture of RTX cards, which offer both Tensor and RT cores alongside CUDA cores for better graphics and rendering. Tensor cores enable AI and high-performance computing tasks bringing support for DLSS tech to help with upscaling and sharpening. RT cores are dedicated to ray tracing, allowing for more realistic lighting and shadows in scenes. Nvidia’s GTX graphics cards have a much simpler architecture and don’t offer Tensor or RT cores. Though they still work for budget builds, GTX cards will soon be obsolete.
There aren’t too many differences when it comes to the graphics cards you can pick up in the UK, but the main takeaway is where you can purchase them. All of the following links have been updated with UK vendors, saving you some time and money if you’re interested in picking up any of the graphics cards we’ve mentioned.
Jacqueline Thomas is the Hardware and Buying Guides Editor at IGN. When she’s not helping her friends and family buy computers, you can usually find her tinkering with her own PC.
Going off what you guys said I am putting the 7900xt as the best graphics card. Right now you can get it cheaper than the 4070ti at $799.99, it out performs the 4070ti, and finally it has way more vram and a wider bus which allows it to transfer data faster. Only 12 gigs of vram on an $800+ card isn’t enough at least that’s my opinion.
i am curious as to what intel Arc 2nd Gen will be like what improvements and changes will be made and performance also interested to see if maby intel would release a Higher tier version past the A770 like a in between card before Arc 2.0 cards i am all in once i can save the money to buy intel Arc A770 or if the 2.0 comes out by the time i can get one as currently on a 1060/6gb currently running Ryzen 2700x . to me arc feels like the whole Voodoo 3DFX Era back when GPUs were more exciting all the players in the game back then ( ATI-Nvidia-3DFX-Matrox-) Many many more
Just get the RTX 3000 series or RX 6000 series off of eBay.
Those cards are like $250 to $400. And can run games at 4K 60FPS.
This updated list is bad and IGN should feel bad. Do not come to IGN for PC hardware tech. Go to Gamer Nexus, LTT, or Hardware Unboxed.
The 3050 is at the value of such a terrible place. The 4070 non ti is a bad card.
The fact that the 3070 is rarely heavily included on this list is somewhat confusing given that it’s still the most productive candy spot between strength and budget, comes in a multitude of colors and two sizes, and you have to buy new ones. It’s just bad advice. Or you can simply replace the element call to graphics cards where we get a cut by mentioning “lol (jab unfounded, but come on).
Most of those cards are too nicknamed for the ununusual Playerray. On RTX XX90 or Radeon X900 specific, it exists basically for the workstation and not for gaming.
Don’t get a GPU/CPU that meets your desires. If you play 1080, you don’t even want a 4090, even a 4080 is probably overkill. I would feature anything in the 40 series in component because DLSS4 actually makes a difference.
As a reference . . . they gave me a 4090/5950x that made 2077 to 2K, Max Everything, hitting 140fp. It is for work).
I will launch my two hundred and presented an Intel Arc A770 or A750. It is not the disaster he is at launch.
Drivers are constantly updated and most games play at 1440p better than an RTX 4060 does. XeSS is also making scary good enhancements and might overtake DLSS soon at this rate.