Graphics cards are the power behind gaming PCs, making choosing an appropriate card essential. That’s why we curated this list of 2024 top graphics cards to meet both your gaming preferences and budget needs.
AMD continues to offer greater value in rasterization games than Nvidia; however, AMD falls behind when it comes to full path tracing capabilities.
NVIDIA RTX 4090
The Nvidia RTX 4090 marks a remarkable advancement in gaming technology. Nvidia’s flagship GPU makes real-time videogame ray tracing possible for the first time ever, boasting 191 RT-TFLOPS of power to deliver immersive, realistic worlds quicker than our fastest previous-gen graphics cards could.
Nvidia’s new Optical Flow Accelerator increases performance by up to 30 percent, as well as their improved DLSS frame rate-boosting tech, using AI generated frames in between traditional rendered ones to dramatically increase GPU performance and boost frame rates beyond what would otherwise be possible. Although these technologies make games run at much higher frame rates than otherwise possible, older DirectX 11 or Vulkan titles may still experience CPU bottlenecks despite all this eye candy on board the RTX 4090.
Nvidia’s latest flagship card also shines in other areas that benefit creators, with support for an efficient video compression codec called AV1 that can cut DaVinci Resolve rendering times by up to 50% while simultaneously cutting bandwidth needs by as much as 80% during streaming and recording sessions. Furthermore, this support extends RTX 30-series support for 4K and 8K video editing, so creators can produce higher-quality videos with reduced data use.
While the RTX 4090’s incredible speed and futuristic features make it a compelling option for PC enthusiasts looking to step their game up, its steep price tag and power requirements may put it out of reach for casual gamers using 1440p monitors or lower resolution screens. However, Nvidia cards like RTX 2080 and 4070 provide comparable performance at more cost-effective prices.
NVIDIA RTX 4090 graphics cards can be purchased from top system builders like Acer, ASUS, Dell, HP, Lenovo and MSI as custom add-in cards. Nvidia also produces their Founders Edition model directly and offers limited quantities to its most passionate supporters. Palit’s GeForce RTX 4090 GameRock features an eye-catching ARGB shroud that illuminates and reflects light around your case; additionally their OC variant boasts a 2610 MHz factory overclock!
AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT
AMD’s RX 7900 XT provides an economical option to get into ray-tracing at an accessible price point. Featuring 84 RDNA 3 compute units providing 52 shader teraflops of processing power. Plus it comes equipped with 20Gbps GDDR6 memory for smooth performance; total bandwidth comes in at 2912GB/s versus the 3296 GB/s of an RTX 2080.
In our synthetic benchmarks, the RX 7900 XT’s performance matches up perfectly with that of an RTX 2080 XTX GPU, matching its $300 price difference in both 3DMark Fire Strike Ultra and Unigine Heaven. However, gameplay testing was somewhat varied. Traditional rasterized scenarios saw it roughly matching up with the RTX 4090 while occasionally even surpassing it slightly for Forza Horizon 5 and Shadow of Tomb Raider; at 4K resolution however it found itself falling behind Nvidia’s last-gen RTX 3080 Ti and 4070 Super cards by one step each.
Nvidia’s DLSS frame generation technology proves difficult for the RX 7900 XT in games that support it; especially noticeable was in our Cyberpunk 2084 test where it lagged behind Nvidia’s RTX 4090 Ti and 4070 Super by 9 percent.
Nvidia’s FSR (FidelityFX Super Resolution) upscaling technology can often help the RX 7900 XT recover lost frames quickly; for instance, during our tests of Horizon Zero Dawn using it enabled it to achieve stable 120fps at Ultimate Quality 4K without compromising graphical detail too much.
The RX 7900 XT’s two-slot reference design is reasonable sized and should fit easily into most ATX PC cases. The card features a gunmetal gray and red aesthetic accented by silver bits for contrast – providing an appealing change from Nvidia RTX 40 series GPUs.
NVIDIA RTX 4070
Nvidia’s RTX 4070 Super is its inaugural budget-friendly GPU equipped with real-world ray tracing performance, and makes an outstanding addition to mid-range segment. Although slightly more expensive than its vanilla counterpart, this powerful card provides great bang for your buck when gaming 1440p resolution, with frame rates 15% faster than vanilla card and even higher when games support Nvidia DLSS upscaling technology and 3 Frame Generation; two key points of differentiation from AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT in this price segment.
RTX 4070 Super features GDDR6X VRAM running at 10,500MHz with a 192-bit interface, along with 224 TMUs and 80 ROPs all packed into its two-slot package. Utilizing the same TSMC 5nm Ada Lovelace architecture as its vanilla counterpart, Nvidia added 20% more shader cores in this Founders Edition model to increase efficiency and support DLSS 3 Frame Generation technology. Furthermore, their all-black Apple-esque color scheme makes for an elegant appearance than many third-party cards on offer today.
The RTX 4070 is Nvidia’s flagship 1440p gaming card, excelling in both rasterized and ray-traced titles. Nvidia’s DLSS upscaling technology can typically double framerates in most titles; even more noticeable are games supporting its 3 Frame Generation technology which enables Nvidia to push frames out more rapidly than traditional methods, thus helping combat any stuttering or lag encountered when gaming at 1440p resolution.
This combination is enough to put the RTX 4070 Super well ahead of AMD’s Radeon RX 6800 XT in our benchmarks, though it doesn’t match up against Nvidia’s $499 RTX 4070 Ti for 4K gaming with ray-tracing enabled at high settings in 4K resolution. That makes this upgrade worthwhile if you want to expand into AI-powered visuals, making the NVIDIA RTX 4070 Super an easy recommendation if you’re in the market this year!
AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT
The RX 7800 XT provides serious performance and VRAM at an amazingly reasonable price, easily outshoutng Nvidia’s $499 RTX 4060 Ti 16GB in many games while coming close to matching its performance in others – so much so that if Nvidia weren’t offering discounted versions of it we may recommend it for 1440p gaming instead.
This card provides PCI-Express 4.0 support with 16 GT/s throughput for twice the bandwidth compared to older PCI-Express 3.0 standards, giving it twice as much potential for multi-monitor gaming and video editing, as well as AMD Eyefinity technology that lets you create one desktop with up to four displays connected via DisplayPort or HDMI.
In our ray-tracing game tests, the RX 7800 XT easily outpaced its rival RTX 4060 Ti by approximately 13% at 1080p resolution and 31% at 4K. However, this advantage dwindled slightly at higher resolutions, but made way for the latter during our Spider-Man Remastered test.
Without using ray-tracing, the 7800 XT consistently outpaced our RTX 4060 Ti in our Total War: Three Kingdoms, Shadow of the Tomb Raider and Far Cry 5 tests at 1080p resolution. This was particularly evident for Far Cry 5, where its lead extended into both our 1080p and 4K runs.
At 1440p, the 7800 XT’s advantage over the RTX 4060 Ti had decreased to roughly 10%. It still outperformed most games faster than the 6800 XT and came close to matching or exceeding RTX 4070’s performance in Assassin’s Creed Valhalla and Forza Horizon 5, as well as providing better graphics quality with lower system usage – all at a significantly more reasonable price. Overall, we found that the RX 7800 XT had enough power to match or surpass most RTX 4060 Ti in many titles while providing superior graphics quality and lower system usage than many more expensive rivals while providing better graphics quality while offering better graphics quality with reduced system usage compared to its counterpart.