The best graphics cards: GPUs that I recommend for each and every budget in 2025

The best graphics card is objectively Nvidia’s RTX 4090. Subjectively, however, you’re going to want to weigh up the pros and cons of spending $1,600 or more on a single GPU. It’s not for everyone. That’s why we’ve tested every GPU in this generation made by AMD, Intel, and Nvidia to find the best card across multiple price points.

For the high-end gamer, the most productive $600-$800 graphics card is the RTX 4070 Ti Super and just below that price, the most productive $500-$600 graphics card is the RTX 4070 Super. They’re fast and feature-rich, with higher ray tracing, scaling, and symbol generation performance than the competition, but they’re quite expensive.

While AMD’s best graphics card is the top-end RX 7900 XTX, its lower-spec models are great value for money. The best $350 to $500 graphics card is the RX 7800 XT and in the $250 to $350 range, the RTX 4060 is where it’s at now that older AMD 6000-series GPUs are hard to come by. When it comes to saving as much as you can but still getting good performance, the best budget graphics card is AMD’s Radeon RX 7600.

It’s worth noting that the start of the next generation of GPUs has already begun, with Intel launching its Battlemage-powered B-series of Arc graphics cards. Plus, Nvidia’s now-announced RTX 50-series GPUs and AMD’s RDNA 4 GPUs are just around the corner, too, with the former set to retail at the end of January and through February 2025. That being said, everything in the top spots in this guide remains a great pick for your next graphics card purchase both now and in the future. Below, I’ve listed the most relevant GPUs you can buy today, all in order of gaming performance, so you can make the most informed choice.

Jacob has loads of experience with the latest and greatest graphics cards, reviewing many generations of Nvidia and AMD GPU over the years. He’s au fait with the latest architectures, and makes sure to rotate through the latest cards from all three major manufacturers to get first-hand experience of what they’re like to game with. Not just of their performance, but also which offer the most useful features and have the most reliable drivers.

The best overall GPU

The RTX 4090 is where it’s at. This is the graphics card that truly represents a genuinely next-generation experience, but it’s also very expensive. However, if you’re looking for the best graphics card in terms of performance right now, look no further.

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Our opinion:

✅ You want the best: The RTX 4090 is simply the most powerful GPU you can buy for your gaming PC today. The silicon inside it is monstrously powerful, and along with DLSS 3 and Frame Generation, it provides a truly next-gen experience.✅ You want to nail 4K gaming: This is the card that makes 4K gaming buttery smooth. That 24 GB frame buffer means you’re not going to run out of VRAM any time soon.✅ You’re a creator as well as a gamer: Time is money if you do any sort of professional GPU work, and the RTX 4090 could start to pay for itself right away given its incredible rendering and compute power.

❌ You have to ask about the price: it’s fair to say that it’s one of the cheapest Ada GPUs given its relative price, but it’s still at $1,600 at best. That’s a lot less expensive than the RTX. 3090 Ti and RTX 3090 if you’re worried about inflation. ❌ You’ve been given a compact rig – this thing is BIG, comically cool. In some cases, you’ll find it difficult to adapt it, so make sure you know first.

? The RTX 4090 is the true next-gen delight that we’ve never noticed in any of the other AMD or Nvidia cards of this new generation. And it’s almost worth that exorbitant price.

The most productive graphics card right now is Nvidia’s GeForce RTX 4090 and there’s nothing fancy about this monster of ultimate gaming functionality. This is a great pixel pusher, and while a few extra curves are added to what might otherwise look like a new twist on the RTX 3090 cover, it still has that novel graphics card aesthetic.

It looks like some semi-satirical plastic model made up to skewer GPU makers for the ever-increasing size of their cards. But it’s no model, and it’s no moon, this is the vanguard for the entire RTX 40-series GPU generation, a complete beast of a gaming component that leaves all others in the dust.

On the one hand, it served as a hell of an introduction to the sort of extreme performance Ada can deliver when given a long leash, and on the other, made for a slightly tone-deaf release in light of a global economic crisis that made launching a graphics card for a small, very loaded minority of gamers feel a bit off.

But we cannot forget this for this consultant of the most productive GPUs just because, as it stands today, no option for the RTX 4090 can come close to its performance. It is unstoppable and will remain at the forefront given that AMD’s highest performing graphics card, the RX 7900 XTX, is more of a competitor to the RTX 4080.

It’s worth noting that there seems to be a replacement on the way, something we’re following here. That said, the RTX 4090 is rugged enough that it’s probably way above the maximum of next-gen cards.

This is a massive GPU that packs 170% more transistors than the incredibly giant GA102 chip that powers the RTX 3090 Ti. And, for the most part, it gives the flagship card of the latest generation Ampere a look behind the scenes. And that’s before we even get into the equivalent combination of majesty and black magic that is DLSS 3 and all its scaling and frame generation tricks, further elevating its functionality into the stratosphere.

Look, it’s quick, okay. With everything turned on, and especially with DLSS 3 and Frame Generation joining the party, the RTX 4090 is monumentally faster than the RTX 3090 that came before it. The straight 3DMark Time Spy Extreme score is twice that of the biggest Ampere core, and before even ray tracing or DLSS come into it, the raw silicon offers twice the 4K frame rate in Cyberpunk 2077, too.

There’s no denying that this is an ultra-niche, ultra-enthusiast card, and at its best it makes the RTX 4090 little more than a benchmark for most of us PC gamers. Then we’re left to count the days until Ada descends into the realm of pricing for us mere mortals, which is unlikely until we see what the next generation of cards brings.

However, on its own, the RTX 4090 is a wonderful graphics card and will satisfy the functionality cravings of anyone who can one day justify spending $1,600 on a new GPU. And no wonder it will sell to those who can buy it, like no other. The GPU can get close to that right now.

Read our full review of the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090.

Our expert review:

✅ You can find a card with an MSRP (or less) – price relief is the real highlight of the Super variant, so you really need to find one with its MSRP of $999 or less to get the best price/functionality ratio. ✅ You want smart gaming functionality in 4K ray tracing: Ada is effective and very smart at handling the rigors of ray tracing. Add DLSS 3 and Frame Generation to the mix and the RTX 4080 Super excels at delivering solid 4K frame rates.

❌ Ray Tracing means nothing to you: In terms of natural raster gaming, AMD’s RX 7900 Nvidia.

? The RTX 4080 Super is a much more tempting prospect given its $200 value relief over the popular RTX 4080. This brings it down to the same value as the AMD 7900 XTX and the balance of ray tracing features and functionalities brings us back to Nvidia’s side. . Now that the RTX 4090 is ridiculously expensive, it has temporarily become the most productive GPU you can buy at a moderate price today.

Less is more, right? I mean, technically, the RTX 4080 Super is really more is less when you get a full AD103 GPU for less money. But the real issue is the replacement value, because that’s the only tangible difference between this and the original RTX 4080.

While it’s not like you’ll ever have to compare the differences between the RTX 4080 and the RTX 4080 Super; the previous edition has been removed. The RTX 4080 Super sits atop the high-end (but not ultra-high-end) throne and remains as desirable a card today as it was when it was first released.

Therefore, it is a matter of assessing the difference that this price drop has made in the positioning of the RTX 4080 Super. Let’s be honest, with an MSRP of $999, it’s still not a reasonable idea for anyone, and it’s arguably still going to be cheaper. than what we have left here.

But we can’t get too bent out of shape over what might have been; this is about the product I have in front of me, and the RTX 4080 Super is the same super-powerful graphics card it was when its predecessor launched. It’s a card which makes the once top GPU of the Ampere age look utterly laggardly—and incredibly inefficient—by comparison. At $999, it looks even better when put up against the $1,500 RTX 3090 of the previous gen.

The drop in value and the slight increase in functionality now also make it more complicated for AMD’s most productive RDNA 3 card in comparison, even if it’s still very tight. Our two original reference RX 7900 XTX cards suffered from thermal issues and performed very poorly. However, third-party cards and subsequent motive power innovations resulted in a Radeon GPU that was generally worth less than the RTX 4080 at $1200, but in terms of natural plot, outclassed it.

With a much more competitive $999 MSRP, the RTX 4080 Super doesn’t change the game in terms of comparative performance—on average 2% slower at 4K settings—but it does make it generally cheaper than the speedy third-party OC RX 7900 XTX cards. Combine that with the weight of DLSS 3 and Frame Generation support, and that just about swings it for the RTX 4080 Super.

But it’s still a close call, and in fact I wouldn’t blame myself for opting for the RX 7900 XTX over the newer GeForce GPU if you could find it for less.

However, after reportedly poor RTX 4080 sales—and worse press around its launch and pricing—the RTX 4080 Super does feel like a pretty successful relaunch. It’s got a prettier shroud, and the same great performance but for a lower price.

The RTX 4080 Super is a serious bit of gaming hardware, and if you’ve got serious cash for a majorly fast GPU and want to take advantage of Nvidia’s extra goodies, all without stretching to RTX 4090 prices, here’s where you probably want to be.

Read our full review of the Nvidia RTX 4080 Super.

Our opinion:

✅ You’ll get a big discount: At $1,200 or more, it’s a bad deal, but if you can find the RTX 4080 for under $999, it could be worth it for the serious gaming functionality the RTX 4080 offers. The super variant deserves to be. also oscillating around this value level.

❌ You can find an RTX 4080 Super for less: The RTX 4080 Super is often the cheaper card, and given the incredibly similar performance makes for a much better buy due to the price difference.

? The RTX 4080 is almost unlikely to reach its $1,200+ price tag. At $999 or less, it becomes much more tempting due to its impressive functionality and DLSS 3 support, although you really deserve to be able to find the RTX 4080 Super for the same price. Oh, and it’s not even in production anymore, so it’s probably only found on pre-built PCs those days.

The Nvidia RTX 4080 is a fast graphics card, and when you think of DLSS 3, you get twice the functionality of the last-gen RTX 3080 Ti, for the price.

But reviewing the RTX 4080 is tougher than being Jen-Hsun’s spatula wrangler. For a start, it’s been pretty much entirely superseded by the RTX 4080 Super, a card that basically cuts the retail price of the original model while also delivering blink-and-you’ll-miss-it performance gains.

Seriously, we found the Super version to be just 1% faster than the OG at 1440p, and around 2% faster at 4K. That’s practically margin-of-error differences, but the fact that the RTX 4080 Super has a $200 cheaper MSRP means you shouldn’t really pick up the RTX 4080 standard unless you can find one cheaper than the Super variant.

However, if you manage to find a smart deal, also note that the RTX 4080 comfortably outperforms the previous-generation’s similarly priced cards, adding in the $1,200 RTX 3080 Ti and thus really outperforming this generation over generation. the functionality enhancement we were looking for when the card was launched. But honestly, none of those GeForce cards deserve to have had a $1,200 GPU.

Nvidia cut down a lot on the silicon to create the AD103 GPU compared to the AD102 chip in the RTX 4090. Overall, it’s 60% the size, has 60% of the transistors, and 60% of the CUDA cores, and still had 75%. of the value of the RTX 4090. If you wanted to do some hard math, the RTX 4080 deserves to cost around $960, and if you can find one at this price compared to the Super, you’ll have seen a lot.

So, how does the inventory card compare to the Radeon RX 7900 XTX?We are hunting out at a very close case. The AMD card runs at a more or less similar point to the RTX 3090, and for a $999 card, that would have made it tempting in comparison to the quicker $1,200 RTX 4080, especially with its stepped forward ray tracing capabilities.

Now, the RTX 4080 Super offers practically the same functionality as the previous card for a value of $999, I prefer this specific style to the AMD, basically thanks to DLSS 3 and Frame GenerationArray.

The original is still in this consultant for reference, again, just look here if you can find a lot of them, which will only be available in pre-built versions, in those days, now that the RTX 4080 is no longer in production. Otherwise, the RTX 4080 Super makes a lot more sense with its less expensive MSRP.

Read our full Nvidia GeForce RTX 4080 review.

Our opinion:

✅ You want the most productive AMD has to offer: Ultimately, this is the pinnacle of AMD’s RDNA 3 technology, and the fact that the red team has a GPU chiplet performing so well in its first generation is impressive indeed . a lot of video. Memory: With 24GB of GDDR6 at your disposal, for much less than the RTX 4090, RX 7900, the raster functionality of the Navi 31 GPU is excellent. It has improved its RT capabilities compared to AMD’s last generation, but it is still behind Nvidia at this point.

❌ AMD reference card is the only option – We are normally big fans of AMD and Nvidia reference cards, however the RX 7900 XTX had a warmth factor and the reference cooler was not found in third party versions. We delighted in the factor on any of the evaluation cards AMD provided for testing. ❌ Looking for consistent functionality from the RTX 4080 Super: We expected a more consistently competitive gaming experience from the RX 7900 XTX, but it’s rarely by far the second from Nvidia. level card.

? As the most productive Radeon ever, the AMD RX 7900 XTX has a lot to offer. If it came closer to the RTX 4080 in terms of gaming, we wouldn’t hesitate to feature this high-end GPU from Team Rojo.

The most productive AMD graphics card at the moment is the Radeon RX 7900 XTX. We’re used to seeing generations of GPUs reach smaller compute nodes, redesigned architectures, larger caches, redesigned shaders, more memory, the list goes on. But all this, all at once? That’s what the RX 7900 XTX with RDNA 3 technology offers: all in one go.

At its original $999 price tag, the RX 7900 XTX was a superb 4K graphics card, but now it can often be found around the $850 mark. The highest-tier AMD card from the previous generation, the RX 6950 XT, is nowhere near its full price today ($1099) and is usually on sale at $800 or less. The newer RDNA 3 card has enough pace to justify its higher price by comparison, as it generally outperforms the older RDNA 2 card by 20% and in some games, a whole lot more.

This is because the RX 7900 RX 6950 XT. The increase in memory capacity from 16GB to 24GB with the RX 7900

Yet as an RTX 4080 or RTX 4080 Super competitor, the RX 7900 XTX is less convincing. It’s rarely able to match either card. The RTX 4080 is up to 28% faster in my testing, though it’s more like 15% on average. For an RTX card that asks at least 20% more cash than the RX 7900 XTX, that stat is not a dealbreaker, but it does make the XTX’s gains more moderate by comparison.

What contributes to the XTX’s price proposition is that it has more memory and, on rare occasions, outperforms the RTX 4080, Super or not. If you’re only playing Far Cry 6, you’re laughing with an XTX, but let’s be honest, that’s not the case.

Our RX 7900 XTX pattern was also affected by a factor where GPU access point temperatures exceeded the overall diversity expected under load. We reached out to AMD and got a replacement, but the same challenge happened again. Funny, huh?

You can check out our reviews of the Asus TUF Gaming Radeon RX 7900 XTX OC Edition and Sapphire Nitro RX 7900 specs of this card. Matrix The reference numbers above for the most productive AMD card come from the Sapphire Nitro version.

All this makes Nvidia the leader in the ultra-high-end segment. Make no mistake, the RX 7900 makes it a tough sell, no doubt, but it’s still the most productive AMD GPU you can buy.

Combined with a high-end CPU and a 4K (or ultrawide) monitor, you get very good frame rates with the RX 7900 XTX in your build, and if you’re looking for the most productive AMD GPU performance, this is the card you need. . For.

Read our full AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX review.

Our opinion:

✅ Price helps keep dropping: At launch, its $899 sticker value was very close to the impressive RX 7900 .

❌ Appreciate Nvidia’s DLSS 3 and Frame Generation technology: At around the same value as the RTX 4070 Ti and swapping shots at popular raster frame rates, the truly tangible benefits of the full DLSS 3 package can make a real difference.

? The AMD RX 7900 XT makes things a little more awkward for the RTX 4070 Ti and RX 7900 XTX, as it’s now the same price as the former and significantly less expensive than the latter.

AMD’s Radeon RX 7900 XT is a slightly slimmed-back version of the Navi 31 GPU and the company’s top graphics card, the RX 7900 XTX. Starting at $899, and now occasionally available for around $700, it’s therefore offering a significantly cheaper way into the RDNA 3 generation, and you could also be forgiven for thinking it’s not that much cheaper than the best.

So why would you choose the less expensive RX 7900 XT? That’s a smart question and I’m not sure I have a smart answer, other than price.

Overall, I’d say the RX 7900 XT does a few things right. For starters, it’s a smart upgrade, even on the RX 6950 XT, and considering the price difference between the two at launch, it’s a smart sign. of AMD’s progress with the RDNA 3 architecture. The reference cooler also performs well for its price, with relatively cold temperatures considering its performance.

Sometimes, the difference between the XT and the XTX is minimal and the functionality delta is almost non-existent. The XT is also the more effective and cool style of the two. Overall, though, you get what you pay for with the high-end XTX card, or even a little more.

Is it bigger than an RX 6950 XT? Yes. Cheaper than an RX 6950 XT at launch?Yes. A competitor RTX 4080 Super? No. Is it worth saving money on this model than on the XTX?Probably not.

It’s a smart 4K graphics card if you look at frame rates in isolation, but with a sometimes much larger card on hand, I better be going to need to find the extra $100-200 somewhere in my build and get the XTX or RTX 4080 Super instead.

Read our full AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT.

Our opinion:

✅ You’re upgrading from an RTX-20 series card or an older card: upgrading from one of the wonderful xx70 cards of yesteryear will give you spectacular Spice UpArray functionality, not to mention the “free” upgrade that DLSS 3 and Frame Generation will bring. bring. delivering. You ✅need the security of having a card with 16 GB of VRAM: Forget about the 16 GB RTX 4060 Ti. This is the Nvidia card you should get now if you need a little more life. With the arrival of Grand Theft Auto 6, it would arguably be better to have too much VRAM in the coming years than not to have enough at all.

❌You already own a non-Super RTX 40-series card – the super upgrades, while welcome, are enough of an upgrade from their non-Super counterparts to justify going out and spending some other wad of money on one. ❌ The RTX 4070 The Super price drops even further: the RTX 4070 Super costs $200 less than the RTX 4070 Ti Super. If it were to fall to $549 or lower, it would be hard to ignore.

? I would have expected a greater difference in functionality with the RTX 4070 Ti Super given that it uses the larger GPU, but although it is only 10-15% faster than the RTX 4070 Ti, it is still the card I prefer. It would need an increase in memory and a larger GPU overall.

The mid-life RTX 4070 Ti Super refresh addresses the concerns we had when the initial line-up went on sale and right now, it’s the best $600-$800 graphics card. With the RTX 4070 Ti Super, any worries over weak memory specifications are put to rest. It’s the RTX 4070 Ti we really wanted, and it would have most likely ended up as our pick of the initial generation assuming it had still launched at $799.

At just over half the price of the formerly mighty RTX 3090, while handily beating it, the RTX 4070 Ti Super is the perfect advertisement for an intergenerational performance improvement. If it beats out the RTX 3090, just imagine the kind of upgrade it will deliver for owners of popular cards like the GTX 1070 and RTX 2070. Add to that the benefits of DLSS 3 and Frame Generation and gamers looking for an upgrade that’s a big step above the likes of the RTX 4060 Ti will be very happy.

The AMD RX 7900 XT remains a good competitor, especially after its recent price drop. However, AMD’s challenger still lags on ray tracing performance, and it’s now lost its VRAM advantage.

The day before our review was published, Nvidia informed us of a BIOS factor with the MSI Ventus card we tested. This factor would possibly cause a loss of up to 5% of functionality. An updated BIOS was provided, but even this BIOS suffered a 3% loss of functionality. MSI has released a vBIOS patch that supposedly increases “the overall functionality of the graphics card to meet our expectations. “

But with stock sitting in warehouses, it’s a struggle to recommend the MSI RTX 4070 TI Super Ventus right now when users are likely going to have to be very wary of what vBIOS version is on their board and deal with the sometimes scary (though honestly super straightforward) trial of updating the BIOS of their new GPU.

However, there’s a whole range of RTX 4070 Ti Super cards—including factory overclocked models—from various manufacturers to choose from, so this little blip shouldn’t put you off buying what makes for a very performant card. BIOS issues are a rarity for many GPUs, not the norm, and it’s now been long enough that any early quirks with other manufacturers’ cards should have been well and truly fixed.

Graphics card brands take great delight when it comes to taming cards with much higher thermal and power requirements, so in fact any of the base RTX 4070 Ti Supers will offer almost identical functionality. Dual fan models may require a little more fan speed and therefore noise levels to bring the watches to life, but ultimately aesthetics and logo loyalty (if applicable) will be the main differentiators .

All that aside, gaming at maximum 1080p and 1440p refresh rates is a breeze with the compatible RTX 4070 Ti Su. Add to that the benefits of seamless functionality consistent with watts, 16GB of cutting-edge VRAM, Nvidia’s AI and artistic tools, and the ability to game with a gorgeous view with DLSS 3 and Frame Generation in 4K and $799 suddenly turns out to be a moderate price. Get it for $749 or a little less and we’ll be really happy.

Read our full Nvidia RTX 4070 Ti Super review.

Our expert review:

✅ You can find one significantly cheaper than the RTX 4070 Ti Super: Yep, much like the RTX 4080 above, this card only really makes sense if you can find it significantly cheaper than the new variant, especially as the Super version has a little bit more performance. It’s still a brilliant GPU though, so worth keeping an eye out for a great price.

❌ $800 is too rich for your blood: If you’re considering selling a kidney, hold that thought. The RTX 4070 is considerably less expensive and is only around 25% slower. And remember 25% slower still means really high 1440p and even 4K frame rates.

? It’s a smart card, but like almost all Ada GPUs, the RTX 4070 Ti is still too high a value to feel like a true generational elevation. The RX 7900 XT is also almost the same now and often faster, and the RTX 4070 is rarely much slower for less. It is also very likely that it will only be available for sale on pre-made PCs, as it is no longer in production.

Releasing and then renaming and repricing the RTX 4080 12GB was the best thing to happen to this third-tier Ada GPU. Known today as the RTX 4070 Ti, this is the card that made AMD’s RX 7900 XT impossible to recommend.

However, just like the previous debate about RTX 4080 compared to RTX 4080, the RTX 4070 Ti Super is here for the same MSRP. Not only that, but it also offers a moderate improvement in functionality, meaning you only deserve to consider the non-Super edition if you can find a good deal. Which will be increasingly unlikely given that the RTX 4070 Ti is out of production and will become less and less frequent.

Perhaps the most impressive thing that can be said about the RTX 4070 Ti is that it is consistently on par or faster than an RTX 3090. When you think that this is the $1,500 GPU of the last generation, it seems like a great generation evolution. to generation. performance, especially when using the higher 4K resolution.

What’s less exciting is that, when we’re talking simply in terms of direct-to-plot gaming, it’s not much faster than the older 10GB RTX 3080 and less expensive in 4K. It’s faster, especially when you bring the third-gen RT cores into the equation, but it’s clear that the higher clocks and heavier L2 cache have to work hard to give it the edge in terms of raw frame rate compared to the former. Amp card.

Where this is much more positive is in AMD’s RDNA 3 cards, the RX 7900 XTX and RX 7900 XT. It’s slower than the high-end Radeon GPU, but unlike the even more expensive RX 7900 XT, the RTX 4070 Ti consistently shows superior 4K performance.

Without any DLSS 3/Frame Gen, the RTX 4070 Ti performs very strongly, once again, the strength of Nvidia’s upgraded generation is ridiculously good. I’m still looking to see where the Frame Generation fails, but I can’t. Every time I say to myself, “Aha, there’s the AI fake image revealing artifact!”Then I check the local render and it’s exactly the same. If it is worse.

With the added original functionality of enhanced photos and the interpolated smoothness of AI generated photos, the improvement in functionality is dramatic where DLSS 3 is available. This is expected to become more common as Nvidia’s Streamline SDK gives developers the option to enable this and scale generation from other vendors.

In terms of gaming, the 4K functionality of the RTX 4070 Ti is impressive, even without upscaling, and it’s amazing.

Still, since the RTX 4070 Ti Super beats it by a wide margin and can often be found at the same price, it’s all pretty basic. It’s a great card, but only if you can find it particularly less expensive than the newer one. most striking brother. And most likely these are just pre-built PCs, since the non-Super RTX 4070 Ti is no longer in production.

Read our full Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 Ti review.

Our opinion:

✅ You need great mid-range functionality: The RTX 4070 Super has brilliant 1440p performance and, thanks to DLSS 3, is a wonderful card for building a mid-range gaming PC. ✅ You can’t have everything justified with an RTX 4070 Ti. Great: While it’s a big jump in functionality to move up the ladder, the value also increases significantly. The RTX 4070 Super, however, is still very attractively priced given the current state of the GPU market.

❌ RTX 4070 falls below $499: With a functionality delta of 18% at most, the RTX 4070 becomes a very attractive option if its value continues to fall beyond the $549 MSRP that Nvidia has tentatively set.

? The RTX 4070 Super is the Ada refresh that has had the biggest improvement in terms of its core specs, even though it’s on the same GPU. But the fact the original RTX 4070 is still around, and the RX 7800 XT is so competitive, does make it more of a battle.

The RTX 4070 Super is a reputable graphics card and we wouldn’t hesitate to present it as the most productive $500-$600 card available today.

This card is closer to the RTX 4070 Ti in terms of GPU specs and functionality than the RTX 4070, which is honestly the solution we would prefer. So, while the original was an RTX 3080 with advantages, it is more like a replacement for the RTX 3080 Ti and, in real terms, significantly surpasses it, although it uses only part of the power.

This makes it an excellent card for 1440p gaming and can even get into 4K territory with the help of DLSS 3. We liked the RTX 4070 for its perfect mid-range performance, but the Super variant has about 10% brains. in the benchmarks, and that’s a pretty healthy margin for a little more money, with an MSRP of $599.

Still, while the RTX 4070 Ti and RTX 4080 have been essentially played out of the game by their Super replacements, the original RTX 4070 remains, and at a $549 cut-down MSRP, still makes for a compelling offer.

So why is the old map preserved? This is most likely because the RX 7800 XT offers similar functionality for $499 or less, which means Nvidia has to remain a convenient card in terms of value and the new RTX 4070 Super puts a bit of transparent air between them in terms of gaming frame rate. .

That said, the RTX 4070 Super is very well positioned for the functionality it offers and ranks well ahead of the festival in this segment. That 10% increase in functionality is big enough to justify its position here, and while the RTX 4070 is still a wonderful buy, the Super variant does enough for us to propose picking up the newer style.

Read our full review of the Nvidia RTX 4070 Super.

Our expert review:

✅ You don’t care as much about the ray tracing functionality – RT is here to stay, but enabling it is still a big hit in functionality. Rasterization is vital and the RX 7900 GRE does it very well. ✅ You need a quiet card: The Sapphire Nitro+ edition is an exceptionally quiet card. It can’t actually be heard in most typical operating scenarios.

❌ You care a lot about ray tracing and DLSS: There is more and more ray tracing in trending games. While the RDNA 3 generation is a big step forward in this regard, the DLSS and ray tracing functionality of the RTX 4070 Super are still a step ahead.

? The RX 7900 GRE took a while to hit the global market, but now that it’s here, AMD has a formidable competitor on its hands. For $550, it’s not a reasonable card, but it’s arguably one of the most productive RDNA 3 cards for what it offers.

AMD’s Radeon RX 7900 GRE started out as a China-only release. GRE is short for Golden Rabbit Edition and refers to the Year of the Rabbit in Chinese culture. Originally released in mid-2023, it will be available in broader market OEM systems for a few months before being released to the DIY market as a standalone graphics card in late February 2024.

The RX 7900 GRE is necessarily a lightened RX 7900 XT, which in turn is a lightened RX 7900 XTX. It uses the same Navi 31 chiplet GPU as those two cards, but with fewer memory controllers enabled, fewer shaders, and a lower TGP. 260W, the maximum clock speeds are also a little lower.

The result is a total of 16 GB of 18 GT/s GDDR6 memory connected via a 256-bit bus, which puts the RX 7900 GRE in good stead compared to the RTX 4070 Super with its 12 GB of memory and 192-bit bus.

1440p is where the RX 7900 GRE shines. It’s easily capable of 90 fps and more in demanding titles, though it does slip below that when demanding ray tracing effects are turned up. That can be offset if you enable AMD’s maturing technologies including FSR 3 and Fluid Motion Frames. If you do, it becomes a perfectly reasonable 4K option, at which point its 16 GB frame buffer starts to become relevant.

Despite coming to market well over a year after its RX 7900 big brothers, the RX 7900 GRE was initially one of the most appealing cards of the entire RX 7000-series lineup. But as the RX 7900 XT’s price seems to be dropping all the time, it’s found itself in a strange position, pinched between that card and the RX 7800 XT.

The RTX 4070 Super may just have its nose ahead as the overall more appealing option of the two, but the RX 7900 GRE with its 16 GB of VRAM and excellent rasterization performance means it stands up very well. The $500-$600 graphics card marketplace is still a very competitive place to be, and the RX 7900 GRE makes a good case for itself—if you can find it at the right price compared to its siblings.

Read our full AMD Radeon RX 7900 GRE review.

Our opinion:

✅ You’d like to save a little compared to the Super variant: While the RTX 4070 Super is 10% faster than the original card, if your budget is tight, then the OG edition here is cheaper. ✅ You’re building a small gaming rig: The RTX 4070 is cool, quiet and extremely efficient. It’s also much smaller than any other card of similar performance.

❌ You already own a decent RTX 30 or RX 6800 series GPU – with about 20% more functionality than the RTX 3070 Ti and similar functionality to the RX 6800 XT, spending an extra $550 on this starting price isn’t worth it only by Frame. Generation.

? The RTX 4070 may be more expensive than the previous RTX 3070, but it can keep up with and even surpass the RTX 3080 when using DLSS 3.

The Nvidia RTX 4070 is a less expensive $100 RTX 3080. This is the simplest, but probably also the simplest, way to describe the Green Team graphics card. This is the fourth access in the Ada generation of GPUs, and in terms of popular metrics, it performs just as well as the fourth-tier card in the Ampere lineup. At first glance, it’s simply a less expensive chip.

But it’s not just that. The RTX 4070 is like an RTX 3080 with advantages.

This was the first of the Ada graphics cards to utilise the same GPU as the previous release, just with a little of the good stuff cut back to create a more affordable offering. And that also means Nvidia was able to do something useful with any chip that fails to make the grade as an RTX 4070 Ti, which otherwise uses the full AD104 die, or a mobile RTX 4080.

The RTX 4070 is not some monstrous hulk of PCIe socket-rending GPU, it’s a modest card the size of its RTX 3070 forebear. That makes it a rather cute-looking thing. Well, in terms of scale anyway; that brushed aluminium Nvidia Founders Edition frame still looks pleasingly serious.

And it also goes beyond aesthetics. The length of the card hints at the power of the 4nm Ada GPU that vibrates silently inside. If you need a rugged but energy-efficient card, the RTX 4070 is the solution.

This is definitely one of the benefits I mentioned earlier in the RTX 4070 vs RTX 3080 debate, but more important is the fact that the Ada card has access to DLSS 3 and frame-raising. And when that comes into play, it’s a game-changer, especially for titles that would otherwise struggle with ray-traced 4K settings.

This is a huge problem, though, and it comes in the form of the RTX 4070 Super, which is now positioned as our most sensible tip for cards in the $500 to $600 range. It costs $50 more but also offers 10% more looks, putting it ahead of the original RTX 4070 in our tips. The RTX 4070 is still a brilliant card, make no mistake, but the Super puts it ahead of the curve in our estimates.

Read our full Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 review.

Our expert review:

✅ You’re on a $500 budget: This is currently the card in this price range, providing the popular gaming functionality of two of the latest generation GPUs. ✅ You need the 16GB VRAM security policy: With a grand total of memory capacity and 256-bit memory bus, the RX 7800 XT has a memory subsystem that will be sufficient for 1440p gaming for the foreseeable future.

❌ You need excellent ray tracing performance: AMD’s RT acceleration is still a generation behind Nvidia, and with more games supporting it, that can be a valid fear if you’re willing to use cutting-edge lighting effects. ❌ Were you hoping to upgrade your RX 6800 series card: Despite chiplet technology, the game has not technologically evolved to the same GPU point as the previous generation of Radeon.

? While AMD has yet to catch up in terms of ray-tracing performance, in many other tactics, the RX 7800 XT is the better choice for your dollar card than anything Nvidia has to offer in the mid-range today. Although many will opt for an RTX 4070 or RTX 4070 Super for a little more money.

There was a time when we would have been hesitant to call a $499 graphics card “mid-range,” but that’s what the global PC gaming market looks like today. If you’re willing to spend this kind of money on a graphics upgrade for your PC, you can at least buy the RX 7800 XT knowing that it will give you the right performance, making it our most sensible tip for most sensible people: between $350 and $500. . graphics card.

How much value do you put on Ray Tracing as a PC gamer? This will have to be the question that comes to mind if you’re making plans to spend $500 on an AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT. Because if you’re one hundred percent sold on ray tracing, you probably have to ask yourself if you’re really willing to pay a little extra for the privilege of additional RT functionality and shell out the cash for the RTX 4070 Super.

If, however, you’re convinced rasterised performance is the only GPU metric worth a damn in this topsy-turvy world of PC gaming, then the RX 7800 XT is probably the best upper mid-range graphics card you can buy today.

As you’d expect, and probably hope from a $500 graphics card, the RX 7800 XT makes an outstanding 1080p GPU. It’s only in the uber-ray traced environs of Cyberpunk 2077 that it fails to top 60 fps at the tippiest of top graphics settings. Throughout the rest of our benchmark gauntlet, the card is able to top 100 fps and actually mostly on towards the 144 fps you’d want for a high refresh rate monitor.

What AMD needs you to know, however, is that this is a 1440p graphics card, designed to most sensible out at 60fps in the newest titles at the settings. And, honestly, it is going far beyond that outside, again, of that brutal outlier of Cyberpunk 2077.

The RX 7800 XT has some 4K gaming chops, as you would expect from a card that’s offering performance right up there with the high-end of AMD’s previous generation of GPUs. At this level, you are going to need some upscaling to deal with any ray-traced lighting effects, however, as once away from pure rasterised rendering, you can see the RX 7800 XT start to chug with this many pixels on screen.

It may be an upper mid-range card, but it’s punching at a level with arguably the two best GPUs of the last generation, the RX 6800 XT and the RTX 3080. That also means it’s roughly equivalent to the RTX 4070 in standard gaming terms—often quicker—with only games that specialise in the latest ray tracing effects giving a solid win to Nvidia.

It all comes down to pricing for this card, which is where the RX 7800 XT wins. It’s not a cheap card by any means, as $500 is a lot to spend on any component, but it is bringing down the price of this level of raster performance, and makes for a relatively inexpensive way to power through most games at 1440p, providing you’re prepared to keep the ray tracing to a minimum.

Read our full AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT review.

Our opinion:

✅Actually, you are worried about the limitations of 8GB VRAM. For now, 8GB of VRAM is enough, however, some games are already hitting those limits, and 8GB will only be more limiting, however, with 12GB on the 7700 XT, you literally save. longer. ✅ You can’t find a little more budget for an RX 7800 XT. The RX 7800 XT costs just $50 more than the RX 7700 XT. If you can’t find those additional or inspired greenbacks on the RTX 4060 Ti, then the RX 7700 XT is rarely a bad choice.

❌ Ray Tracing and DLSS 3 are essential. AMD would have possibly released FSR 3 and FSR 3. 1 in some games, but the technical credentials of Nvidia and its ever-growing developer cannot be overlooked. ❌ You can wait before updating. The RX 7700 XT is a smart graphics card, but it’s too expensive. Over time, its value will most likely drop, similar to what happened with the RX 6700 XT, which eventually became a fantastic card. for your money.

? We’d rather have the RX 7800 XT, but the RX 7700 XT is still an admirable selection for the discerning gamer who doesn’t yet care about ray tracing or memory.

The RX 7700 XT looks wonderful compared to its predecessor, the RX 6700 XT. It has more shaders, excellent ray tracing performance, faster memory, and includes AI accelerators that were notably missing on the RX 6000 series cards. AMD positions it as a competitor to the RTX 4060 Ti 8 GB, and it does the job well. task.

The RX 7700 high-end graphics. However, the RX 7700 XT’s impressive Reminiscence subsystem deserves praise.

One of our criticisms of the RTX 4060 Ti is its low 8GB 128-bit memory configuration. The 12 GB of VRAM and 192-bit bus of the RX 7700

The RX 7700 XT’s problem isn’t so much the Nvidia competition, it’s the RX 7800 XT that costs only $50 more.

The RX 7700 XT is built around the Navi 32 GPU chiplet, just like the RX 7800 XT, with some features disabled. Both come with a single 5nm graphics compute die (GCD) and four surrounding 6nm memory cache dies (MCD). The RX 7700 XT, for its part, has one of the MCDs disabled.

The RX 7800 XT is a better graphics card in every way, and for $50 more than the RX 7700

If you can’t stretch your budget, and I appreciate that not everyone can, the RX 7700 XT is still a tough card in max gaming at 1440p. It managed a maximum of 60 FPS in all of our review titles, with the exception of Cyberpunk 2077. 4K is still the domain of the most beloved cards, but if you play older titles, competitive shooters or well-optimized MOBA games, set the RX 7700 XT. run them in 4K without problems.

Read our full AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT review.

Our expert review:

✅ You can’t quite stretch to the RTX 4070: While the RTX 4070 is the better mid-range card, the RTX 4060 Ti puts on a decent showing for itself, especially if you want to take advantage of DLSS 3 without breaking the bank.✅ You’re rocking an RTX 20-series or RX 5000-series GPU: With a sub-20% boost over the RTX 3060 Ti, it’s not necessarily a particularly effective upgrade over most RTX 30-series GPUs, but it will be a significant upgrade to an older Nvidia or AMD card.

❌ You get a next-generation mid-range GPU: There is no significant improvement over the RTX 30 or RX 6000 series graphics cards when it comes to the middle order of previous GPU generations.

? The RTX 4060 Ti is the card you deserve to buy if you’re looking for a new mid-range Nvidia GPU and can’t expand it to the RTX 4070. You have to be a bit converted with ray tracing to need it, so badlyArray because compared to AMD’s mid-range falls short. But it’s faster than the RTX 3060 Ti and RX 6700 XT, and it supports DLSS. 3.

The RTX 4060 Ti was, in many ways, the card that many gamers expected from the Ada generation. With costs skyrocketing, the expectation was that there would be a fairly priced 40-series card with just the right amount of functionality that would fill in the gaps, anything with the kind of punchy functionality that the RTX 3060 Ti featured in the last generation.

The successor to the Ada-based RTX 3060 Ti will be the 40-series graphics card for the GPU-hungry masses. Now would be the time to bring up the case for a new RTX 40 series card.

Oh, how I wish I could tell you it was an unreserved ‘yes!’ But, while this is absolutely the card you should buy if you were previously considering an RTX 3060 Ti or RX 6700 XT, all because of its gaming performance lead, I don’t feel great about making that recommendation.

The RTX 4060 Ti is a tightly regulated graphics card, rigidly designed to achieve a certain level of functionality as cost-effectively as possible and to provide Nvidia with an avenue for any AD106 GPUs that don’t reach the RTX 4070 elegance of specific mobile chips. superior. Training

It’s been designed to beat an RTX 3060 Ti by as tight a performance margin as possible—and you honestly can’t argue with the business reasons for doing so—but without DLSS 3 and Frame Generation, it certainly doesn’t feel like a particularly exciting generational upgrade over the old Ampere card.

And, to me, it doesn’t look like a silicon wafer worth the $400 tag, even though the functionality it offers arguably is. All of this makes it a very complicated recommendation, even though it probably is. the fastest graphics card at this precise value.

It’s also worth saying that we’ve noticed decent value drops over time, especially on the 8GB variant, and for a smart discount, the RTX 4060 Ti is sure to become the go-to GPU for mid-range PC gamers. . one that is around $350, they have offered you a wonderful deal, but it is still difficult to offer anything more than that.

Read our full Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 8GB review.

Our review:

✅ Looking for a 1440p card at a great price: The RX 6700 XT was terribly priced at launch, but with cards available for $330 or less, it’s a wonderful gaming GPU today. It also has 12 GB of VRAM, more than the much-loved, sometimes faster RTX 4060 Ti.

❌ The 7800 XT and 7700 XT are out of your budget: While both are great 1440p performers, particularly the 7800 XT, if money’s tight and you don’t want to spend as much then the 6700 XT still makes a solid choice.❌ Stocks have almost dried up: As it’s a three years old card, stocks have dwindled and while that hasn’t affected the price much, trying to find one is a challenge.

? When it comes to next-gen GPUs, the RX 6700 XT still has to hold its head high. It has a 12GB frame buffer and decent 1440p functionality for its sub-$350 value. If you can find one. . .

If you can find one in stores, the best graphics card between $250 and $350 that we suggest buying is the Radeon RX 6700 XT. However, as stocks are almost out of stock, we recommend it in good faith, as they are no longer available. easily available.

The AMD Radeon RX 6700 We are not talking about the cheapest chips here either. The Radeon RX 6700 XT is still a very capable card in many aspects. But its price has dropped, especially towards the more affordable end of the market, and that tops a list of things we surely love to see.

The Radeon RX 6700 In a way, of course, it’s a straight cut in half. The RX 6700 has a fair percentage of memory and infinite cache.

One of the key features of AMD’s RDNA 2 line is a larger memory capacity compared to rival GeForce RTX 30 series GPUs, and the RX 6700 XT doesn’t support that trend. This card includes 12GB of GDDR6 – an attempt at what we call “future-proof. ” That’s more VRAM capacity than the RTX 4060 Ti 8GB and RTX 3070 and matches the RTX 3060 12GB.

With a price closer to the GeForce RTX 3070, but functionality between it and the GeForce RTX 3060 Ti, often closer to the latter, the Radeon was a good choice, but it wasn’t my first choice for that kind of money. . for an intelligent component of your life. All of that has been replaced now which is a fairly moderate amount and less expensive than anything the new generation can handle.

If you don’t use brain ray tracing and prefer the extra memory over other budget mid-range offerings on this list, the RX 6700 XT is still a decent all-around GPU to buy now. If we are lucky enough to locate one, of course.

Read our full AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT review.

Our expert review:

✅ Requires DLSS 3 and Nvidia Software: If you’re tied to Green Team’s software and scaling solutions, this is your only option at this type of value point.

✅ You want a cool and quiet card – this card offers exceptional functionality consistent with watts. Nvidia has solved this challenge with the Ada architecture.

❌ You own an RTX 30-series GPU: There’s not enough of a leap with the RTX 4060 to warrant a single-generation upgrade. Only if you’re struggling for frames on an ageing GPU is this worth buying.

? The RTX 4060 isn’t the kind of card that makes us scream about its performance, but it’s decent in its price range. We wish it were less expensive and more competitive, but it’s not. It’s just a worthwhile upgrade in moderation for anyone with a much older card that supports the Nvidia ecosystem.

The RTX 4060 occupies the rear of the RTX 40 series. It’s not the budget champion we’d like it to be, when there’s rarely a huge number of current-gen festivals at $300, it’s a bit of a shoe for this price range. That said, the RX 6700

Nvidia has positioned the RTX 4060 as a 1080p card with just enough power and power for key Nvidia technologies, adding DLSS 3 with Frame Generation. In fact, it’s actually DLSS 3 that remains the flagship feature of the RTX 4060.

Perhaps the biggest doubt, controversy or triviality, depending on how you look at it, is the inclusion of 8GB of VRAM. As with the RTX 4060 Ti 8GB or the RX 7600 8GB, there’s no doubt that the 8GB will eventually be a bottleneck, as it increasingly suits the 6GB RTX 2060 and even more so the 4GB cards. Considering its predecessor, the RTX 3060, which comes with 12GB and a 192-bit bus, the RTX 4060 really does feel like a step backwards.

If you’re playing at 1080p, that’s fine for now, but will that be the case if millions of players download Grand Theft Auto 6 and find they can’t fully enjoy it? Future-proofing is a big word in the tech world, but 12GB of VRAM would have been welcome.

For now, the RTX 4060 is a moderate performer. At $299, the RTX 4060 doesn’t deserve to run a 4K 144Hz gaming monitor, but it surely deserves to be able to play all games at 1080p with smart frame rates on the top settings. Some games like Cyberpunk 2077 with full ray tracing are a challenge for more expensive cards even at 1080p, but with the magic of DLSS 3 and Frame Generation, even the modest RTX 4060 can put on a smart show.

The RTX 4060 is also a very power-efficient GPU. It works well for players with smaller instances or instances with poor airflow, as it doesn’t generate much heat.

While we’re not surprised by the RTX 4060’s lackluster improvement over previous cards in purely raster games with no DLSS to back it up, we also don’t like its small GPU – at least it’s a little less expensive than the 12GB RTX 3060 it replaces. . It is important to note that he is even still very competitive in certain matches. If you need to stick with Nvidia on a budget, there’s rarely a better option today.

Read our full Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 review.

Our opinion:

✅ You know it’s all about running the games you love: If you’ve noticed other people playing the games you need using the B580 without problems, then you can rest assured that you’re not throwing away the bucket even if you get a high level. buy with value. And fortunately, this list of running games deserves to be long and will only get longer as drivers improve. ✅ You need raw, perfect functionality for the price: Intel’s GPU ecosystem is arguably not as reliable and comprehensive as Nvidia and AMD’s, at least not yet. However, when the B580 works, boy, does it work. In some cases, it vastly outperforms the RTX 4060.

❌ You need absolutely reliable performance: While the Arc B580 offers a lot and its drivers improve, it cannot be said to offer the point of reliability that the RTX 4060 or the RX 7600 offers. These cards will work in any case. , but unfortunately the same cannot be said for the B580.

? The Intel Arc B580 offers exceptional functionality for a cost of between $250 and $350, but unfortunately, while its drivers are improving, they’re not as reliable as those from Nvidia and AMD. In most cases, you’ll get a higher price than the RTX 4060, but you might get less than that in a small portion of cases, or even find that a game doesn’t run at all. It’s up to you if I think this bucket roll has cost.

The Intel Arc B580 brought the second generation of Intel Arc graphics cards in December 2024, and the GPU is aimed squarely at the RTX 4060 and its semi-budget competition in the $250 to $350 range. In some tactics it was successful, but without some pretty serious warnings at launch.

The BMG-G21 chip at the heart of the B580 is incredibly capable, and much of our testing clearly attests to this. It trades blows with, and often handily beats the RTX 4060, even when using frame gen (in Intel’s case, that’s either using the new XeSS-FG or the GPU agnostic AMD FSR equivalent). But “often” isn’t always, and we found it to be very far from perfect in all cases.

In fact, they were so far from perfect that some games refused to work at all. During his testing, Dave discovered that Cyberpunk 2077 was crashing with the B580 when scaling was disabled, hence the lack of knowledge about the frame rate for that game in the frames above. And the review drivers, Homeworld 3 wouldn’t run in DX12 mode, and in DX11 mode the functionality isn’t impressive.

The problems weren’t limited to gaming either, as some art apps like DaVinci Resolve also failed in testing, and Blender’s functionality was nothing to write home about, despite its clever VRAM allocation.

However, these stem from engine issues, such as those that happened with the first generation of Arc GPUs. And that means there’s room for improvement, maybe even significant improvement. In fact, we’re already seeing that Homeworld has solved its problems and is now working well. For the maximum component things worked well, even with the evaluation driving forces.

And “working well”, for the B580, does mean impressive performance for the price point. It often beats the RTX 4060 by a fair margin even at 1440p, and with upscaling and frame gen at 1080p you’re well on your way to high refresh rate gaming.

You also get the full package, even if that package is still in its infancy: decent ray tracing, upscaling, ray tracing, a low-latency mode (XeSS-LL), a 190W TBP compared to the RTX 4060’s 115W, and 12GB of VRAM compared to the RTX 4060’s measly 8GB. It’s an excellent price proposition on the lower end of the $250-$350 value range, it’s just that you have to be prepared to throw the bucket a bit with the controllers and games that are coming.

Read our full Intel Arc B580 review.

Our expert review:

✅ You’re upgrading from a card that’s years old: it’s a smart upgrade if your older GPU is struggling to reach 1080p playable frame rates in trending titles. ✅ You’re building a compact gaming rig: Thanks to its small size, the RX 7600 is a great choice for a small gaming rig or home PC. Its AV1 encoding and DisplayPort 2. 1 are also great advantages.

❌ You already own a mid-range RX 6000 or RTX-30 series GPU. The RX 7600 is very much a card aimed at gamers on a budget. It can’t compete with the latest generation mid/high tier cards and its 8GB buffer will increasingly be a bottleneck in the coming years.

? It wasn’t a wonderful addition to the Navi 33 GPU, but the Radeon RX 7600 is still a faster GPU than the RX 6600 dollars and it’s faster.

Following the launch of AMD’s Radeon RX 7900 here. Surprisingly, it was the RX 7600 that appeared on shelves next, and despite some drawbacks, it remains the most affordable GPU on the market today.

The RX 7600 is by far the cheapest of the existing generation of GPUs from AMD or Nvidia. But Intel’s Arc cards should not be overlooked either. For now, the RX 7600 is a counterfeit option if you’re looking for a card on the cheap. budget.

I was surprised at how small the Radeon RX 7600 reference card was. In fact, it’s small compared to some of the triple-slot giants we’ve seen. This alone will impress some buyers with compact cabinets looking to take advantage of its impressive demo features and media engine.

And then the elephant in the room. AMD missed a trick by sticking with 8 GB of VRAM. That’s enough for 1080p in almost all games today, but can we say the same in two years?

But that will be in the future. For now, the RX 7600 has a competent, though not exceptional, 1080p performance. It’s capable of hitting maximum frame rates in esports titles and maintaining that all-important 60fps at 1080p in almost any game. This is still the dominant gaming solution and the RX 7600 offers a decent overall improvement over the aforementioned cards.

It has an intelligent media engine that includes AV1 encoding and interpretation up to 8K, DisplayPort 2. 1, and up to 4 simultaneous 4K presentations at 144Hz each. This makes it a very capable productivity GPU or HTPC. There’s nothing available (yet) worth $269 or less that ticks all those boxes.

Here’s a small caveat, though: if you approve with the AMD card, you may not be able to take advantage of DLSS 3 and frame generation as you would if you spent a little more on an RTX 4060. It’s a small problem. Demerit to the AMD card, but since it’s so cheap, it’s still the best budget recommendation.

While it’s not what you’d necessarily call impressive in terms of overall performance, once you think about that MSRP, it makes a lot of sense. It’s possibly small and relatively cheap, but if you’re looking to upgrade from an older GPU on a very tight budget, then this affordable little number is a pretty smart choice.

Read our full AMD Radeon RX 7600 page.

Our opinion:

✅ You want to support the little guy: Okay, so massive multi-billion dollar Intel isn’t really the ‘little guy’ per se, but in the GPU industry it is. And its A750 has become a surprisingly effective first entry for the company, offering a genuine third option in the budget end of the market.✅ You only have $200 to spend: Let’s face it, we all have hard limits on our spending, and if you’ve only got this much cash the Arc A750 will deliver the best bang for your buck.

❌ Is risk averse: The engine stack was not great at launch, with inconsistent performance. That was replaced in the months since and is much stronger, with potentially more room to grow. But questions regarding the game’s functionality and stability issues remain, and will most likely persist for some time.

? This is rarely what we expected, but we actually introduced the Intel Arc A750 as a smart graphics card in 2024. This is mainly due to a massive price drop to $200, which comes and goes, but also some pound sums sterling. . It also adapts to the functionality of your controllers.

The Intel Arc A750 got off to a bit of a rocky start and still infrequently has a strange driver-induced moment today. But it offers just the right functionality for the price, as long as you don’t spend more than $200 on it. You can discover a card for this type of cash in those days, probably because it doesn’t seem to have sold very well.

The Arc A750 offers a moderately scaled-down edition of the Arc A770 GPU, the G10, which you can learn more about in my Intel Arc A770 review. It comes with 28 Xe cores, the building blocks of the Xe-HPG architecture, only 4 less than the Arc A770’s 32 Xe cores. Because of that, it’s not too far off from the speed of this card in terms of performance, but it runs slower and has some of the overall memory capacity.

But the Arc A750’s memory specs, for a card of its price, are immense. This is basically because Intel’s Arc A750 is more of a graphics card than its price. Intel invested in physically powerful specs for its first-generation GPUs, adding a large memory spec, and in the end, the drivers couldn’t get to where Intel wanted them to be. This means that some games don’t run well on the Arc A750, but it’s not too bad. This also means that the Arc A750 has abundant untapped potential.

A perspective that Intel exploits little by little with a new driver update. However, while progress has been made, it’s fair to say that Intel is nowhere near the speed of its competition when it comes to keeping its driving forces fresh, robust and optimized.

Meanwhile, Intel and its partners (like ASRock) have reduced the value of the Arc A750 to compete with AMD’s RX 6600. The RX 6600 was my last pick for this spot, but in the end I think Intel has more graphics cards to offer . gives a cash cost than the competition. And there are a few more things to sweeten the deal.

The Arc A750 comes with impressive AV1 acceleration for encoding in the new, bandwidth-savvy codec. That’s a big deal if you’re a streamer or content creator looking to improve the quality of your videos. The A750’s ray tracing ability is similarly beefed up compared to the competition’s.

There will be times when the A750 will be out of place, which largely excludes this card for anyone using an older formula without Resize BAR support, but overall I think it’s a sensible buy for its new lower price and indeed a bit of a helpless budget at the moment. At a time when graphics cards are under-the-bottom value and extremely prescriptive on the low end, Intel Arc ranks as something of a wild card, but if you’re looking for a simple device on a very tight budget, it might be better to opt for something more displayed on the driver’s side.

Read our full Intel Arc A750 review.

Nvidia GeForce RTX 3090 Ti | March 2022 “The RTX 3090 Ti is the fastest client GPU known to man, however, it comes with a hefty price tag and it’s uncertain how long it will stay at the most reasonable level. That’s as far as GPUs can surpass Ampere , and with the next next-gen architectures from AMD and Nvidia arriving this year, their dominance will likely be short-lived »PC Gamer Score: 71%.

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 | September 2020 “This frankly huge graphics card is incredibly powerful, but it’s more worthy of its Titan credentials than the GeForce brand. For the average gamer, it doesn’t perform well enough for the RTX 3080 to make sense, but for the professional. The creator is a workload crushing card.

PC Player Rating: 84%

Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 Ti | June 2021The GeForce RTX 3080 Ti is helluva graphics card for 4K gaming, in much the same way Nvidia’s RTX 3090 is. However, a price tag closer to Ampere’s finest—and far in excess of the RTX 3080—will see this card only find its way into the most expensive PC builds around.

PC Gamer Rating: 84%

AMD Radeon RX 6950 XT | May 2022″It’s cool-running, quiet, and impressively powerful. Though far more thirsty than RDNA 2 cards before it. The real issues, however, are all external and stem from the expectation that AMD and Nvidia’s next-gen GPUs are but a handful of months away now.”

PC Player Rating: 73%

AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT | December 2020 “The AMD RX 6900 XT is an impressive feat of pure functionality that improves generation after generation. However, its maximum load and minimal functionality gain advantages over less expensive graphics cards, which makes it difficult to recommend. “

PC Player Rating: 66%

Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 | September 2020″The new Nvidia card houses a monster of a GPU, tearing up the Turing generation and making ray traced gaming worthwhile. And this Founders Edition is the ultimate expression of the GeForce RTX 3080.”

PC Gamer score: 92%

AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT | November 2020″With the launch of the Radeon RX 6800 XT, AMD can claim 4K-capable performance in earnest. It marks a huge step in the right direction for team red, and delivers genuine competition to Nvidia’s high-end.”

PC Gamer score: 90%

AMD RadeonRX 6800 | November 2020 “The RX 6800 has no true Nvidia counterpart, however I can say that it more than matches an RTX 2080 Ti at 4K and offers incredible functionality at 1440p for gaming at the maximum refresh rate without compromise. “

PC Gamer Rating: 80%

Nvidia GeForce RTX 3070 Ti | June 2021 “The GeForce RTX 3070 Ti offers frustratingly variable performance, too close to an RTX 3070 for a price between it and the RTX 3080. It doesn’t have the same effect as the more productive Ampere gaming cards, but at least “At least it gives PC gamers another chance to get a graphics card at an MSRP this year. “

PC Gamer Rating: 78%

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 | October 2020 “This small, third-tier Ampere GPU offers gaming functionality that would have surpassed the Turing generation, and it does so while running at a cooler temperature, with less power, and in a much smaller footprint. “

PC Player Rating: 90%

Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 Ti | December 2020 “The RTX 3060 Ti is precisely what we expected from a fourth-tier RTX 30 graphics card, but that’s not a mark against it. Nvidia’s Ampere cards offer an almost unprecedented leap in gaming functionality compared to previous generations, and the RTX 3060 Ti manages to offer the same on a smaller budget.

PC Gamer score: 90%

AMD RadeonRX 6750XT | May 2022 “Asus’ edition of the RX 6750 at a time when the craft market is reborn and the perception of an MSRP product is once relevant. “

PC Gamer score: 66%

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 12GB | February 2021 “A healthy improvement over the RTX 2060, but some of the wow factor has gone away for the less expensive Ampere. At least you can be sure that you won’t run out of memory, and that turns out to be the case. It will be vital for gaming through 2021 and beyond, even if we’re not there yet. »

PC Gamers Rating: 84%

Intel Arc A770 | October 2022 “The Arc A770 Limited Edition is far from the best, but it offers highly reproducible frame rates at 1440p and with ray tracing enabled. But while it’s focused on Nvidia and the popular RTX 3060, it’s AMD’s RX 6600 XT that offers the most options right now. “

PC Gamer score: 69%

AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT | August 2021″In an alternate universe, without the current silicon drought, AMD’s RX 6600 XT is less than $300 and a great mid-range option. In this, the darkest timeline, it’s almost $400, negligibly quicker than an RX 5700 XT and only slightly cheaper. Though at least it’s better than the RTX 3060.”

PC Player Rating: 67%

AMD RadeonRX 6600 | October 2021 “The Radeon RX 6600 offers enough for trendy 1080p gaming, which is a smart thing. AMD has improved this package with a much more power-efficient design than the RX 6600 XT. That said, the 12-inch RTX 3060 Nvidia’s GB is still the card. We would recommend it at this price point if you can find one in stock. Otherwise, the RX. 6600 is viable, if not sparkling, alternative. “

PC Gamer Rating: 65%

Nvidia GeForce RTX 3050 | January 2022″We’re essentially looking at Nvidia taking away the ‘GTX’ prefix and giving us an RTX 1660 Ti. That makes it a good 1080p GPU, though the addition of DLSS support is far more tempting a proposition, especially at this level of GPU, than the promise of 1080p ray traced gaming. Fingers crossed it stays in stock at a reasonable price.”

PC Gamer score: 77%

AMD RadeonRX 6500XT | January 2022 “A graphics card designed to offer the minimum of hardware fails to move the game forward and looks like the most cynical graphics card ever seen in a GPU crisis. “

PC Gamer score: 47%

Each new generation of GPUs offers new features and possibilities. But raster rendering is still the ultimate metric for overall game functionality in the PC gaming world. Sure, Nvidia’s GPUs might well be better in the ray tracing tests they more or less incentivized, but when it comes to popular gaming functionalities, AMD’s newest lineup can still stay on the level, from minus to the high end.

It’s also worth noting that the previous generation of graphics cards still have something to offer, with something like the GTX 1650 Super able to outpace a more modern RTX 3050 in most benchmarks.

We’re not saying you deserve to buy an older card (Intel or AMD’s budget features are much more important nowadays), but it’s worth knowing where your current GPU stands, or just knowing the terrain. But there’s also the fact that there will be gaming platforms for sale with older graphics cards, and if they’re reasonable enough, they’d possibly still be worth it as reasonable access to PC games. This is a pretty important caveat, though, so be sure to compare anything you’re looking for with an older card with newer silicon pricing features.

We analyzed all of the newest GPUs of this generation and traced their functionality back to the previous generation in terms of 3DMark Time Spy Extreme scores. When we do not have reference numbers for an older card, we use the average index score from the UL database. These numbers correspond to an aggregate 1440p frame rate score from our benchmark suite.

Except for Intel’s Arc GPUs. We haven’t included them in this graph as the A770 and A750 3DMark results skew higher than their actual gaming performance and would be misleading. The two Intel GPUs generally post frame rate numbers that put them around either the RTX 3060 or RTX 3060 Ti at a pinch.

Here’s a list of the manufacturer set retail prices (MSRP), or recommended retail price (RRP), for most of the latest graphics cards. Those in bold font are for the current generation of GPUs. For the most part, these are the set prices for the stock or reference versions of these cards, if applicable, and not representative of overclocked or third-party graphics cards, which may well be priced higher.

NVIDIA

AMD

1. Everything within your budget

2. Buy the graphics card, the brand.

3. Um…yeah, it also depends on your instructor.

4. You can wait for a new generation, but don’t automatically forget about the latest generation cards.

5. It’s a simple upgrade

In the United States:

Amazon: on Nvidia and AMD graphics cards

Best Buy: the position to buy Founders Edition cards in the United States

Walmart: Uncommon in older or cheaper GPUs

B&H Photo: Discounts on GPUs

Newegg – save on the list price of graphics cards

In the UK:

Amazon UK: Deals on the newest GPUs

Scan – money off Nvidia graphics cards

Box: save on GPU

Ebuyer – often AMD cards with discounts

Overclockers: on latest generation AMD and Nvidia GPUs

Currys – some discounts on GeForce GPUs

Laptops Direct – some great GPU deals, but you have to search…

The old GTX prefix is now used to refer to older Nvidia graphics cards that don’t have the additional AI and ray tracing silicon that RTX-level cards have.

This RTX prefix was brought with the Turing-based RTX 20 series and highlights GPU-powered cards that feature Tensor Cores and RT Cores required for real-time ray tracing and deep learning supersampling (DLSS).

Nowadays, you only find older 16-series GPUs with the GTX prefix attached, so it’s pretty much RTX in every way.

The RTX prefix is only used to indicate cards that house Nvidia GPUs with compromised ray tracing hardware, but they are the only ones.

AMD’s RDNA 2 GPUs and RDNA 3 GPUs all support real-time ray tracing acceleration, as do Intel’s Alchemist graphics cards.

Do note that with more budget offerings, you can’t expect high frame rates while it’s enabled. Otherwise, AMD and Intel’s ray tracing acceleration are pretty good but slower than Nvidia’s.

If you’re looking for maximum performance, you used to run two cards in SLI or CrossFire. However, it is increasingly common for big games to completely forget about multi-GPU users. This includes all DXR games. There’s also the fact that there are fewer and fewer fashion cards that link two cards together.

So, no. It’s not a thing.

The obvious answer is: Only if you have a 4K gaming monitor. But there are other things to consider here, such as what kinds of games do you play? If frame rates are absolutely king for you, and you’re into ultra-competitive shooters, then you want to be aiming for super high fps figures. And, right now, you’re better placed to do that at either 1440p or 1080p resolutions.

That said, the more games that include enhancement technologies, such as DLSS, FSR, and XeSS, the more cards will get closer to 4K visuals on your 4K monitor, but at higher frame rates.

The Founders Edition cards are simply Nvidia’s in-house designs for its graphics cards, as opposed to those designed by its partners. These are usually reference cards, meaning they run at stock clocks.

In short, for the RTX 20 series, Nvidia has to offer Founders Editions with factory overclocks. This made comparing cards a bit difficult, as the Founders Edition cards give us a baseline for performance, but Nvidia has since started producing them as a benchmark again.

Intel also goes all out with its limited edition Arc Alchemist cards that feature their own internal cooler design, just like AMD does with its reference cards.

For basic entry-level 1080p games, the minimum amount of VRAM (video RAM) any graphics card has is four GB. However, you’ll notice that all of our recommended cards are 8GB or more, and that’s because today’s big-budget 3D games have graphics that can consume more than 6GB.

Once you play at 1440p or higher and higher graphics settings, 6GB may not be enough and even 8GB can be a bit restrictive in some games. That’s why the newer mid-range graphics cards, priced between $350 and $600, are the 12 game. or 16 GB of VRAM.

The latter is more than enough for almost any game. You’ll only need more than this in a small number of games and even then, only under very specific circumstances, such as 4K with maximum settings and frame generation enabled.

If you use your GPU to create AI content or workloads, the more VRAM you have, the more capacity your graphics card has to handle those tasks.

Jacob earned his first byline writing for his own tech blog. From there, he graduated to professionally breaking things as hardware writer at PCGamesN, and would go on to run the team as hardware editor. He joined PC Gamer’s top staff as senior hardware editor before becoming managing editor of the hardware team, and you’ll now find him reporting on the latest developments in the technology and gaming industries and testing the newest PC components.

If AMD talks about the RX 9070 and 9070 XT, at least online stores do, but the launch is imminent.

It turns out there’s “a giant supercomputer at Nvidia. . . operating 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, DLSS. “And so it has been for six years.

Climbing a lighthouse where they were determined to kill me in Peaks of Yore was really eye-opening; Now I understand climbers.

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