Gaming graphics cards compare

For comparison purposes, the fastest card, based on the combination of all nine GPU benchmarks, three resolutions, and two settings, gets normalized to percent, and all others are graded relative to it.

We're not testing with ray tracing or DLSS here, as most of the previous generation cards don't support those features, but even in traditional rasterization rendering the new GPUs come out on top. Of course it's not just about playing games.

But a good graphics card for gaming will typically do equally well in complex GPU computational workloads. Buy one of the top cards and you'll can run games at high resolutions and frame rates with the effects turned all the way up, and you'll be able to do content creation work equally well. Drop down to the middle and lower portions of the list and you'll need to start dialing down the settings to get acceptable performance in regular game play and GPU benchmarks.

It's not just about high-end GPUs either, of course. The results weren't pretty, and we didn't even try running any of those at settings beyond p medium. Again, all of the games and settings we're using for testing have to conform to the lowest common denominator. That means ray tracing and proprietary tech like Nvidia's DLSS aren't enabled, even where they're supported.

None of those scores are factored into the GPU benchmarks rankings, but the short summary is that Nvidia is usually quite a bit faster at RT, and DLSS provides a significant boost to performance for a minimal loss in image quality. If your main goal is gaming, you can't forget about the CPU.

If you want to do your own GPU benchmarking, see our complete list of the best GPU tests , which includes a lot more games and synthetic tests as well. That's nine games, six settings and over 40 cards from the current and previous generations. Here you can see the average performance charts for our testing at p, p, and 4K medium and ultra on all three. If you want to see the full suite of individual game tests, check out the charts in our Best Graphics Cards article.

We've focused on the 'executive summary' and have omitted individual game charts as well as a few GPUs that don't fully qualify.

We've left off the integrated graphics solutions as well as many older GPUs. That gives us 28 GPUs in the charts, color coded for your viewing pleasure. You can find additional charts with the 'retired' GPUs below the main charts.

Again, our GPU benchmarks scoring uses the average of all 54 scores nine games, three resolutions, two settings. Including all 54 scores means the fastest cards are somewhat penalized because they run into CPU limitations at p and even p — especially at medium settings — and the slower GPUs can also end up penalized because they were never intended to run games at p or 4K — especially at ultra settings.

If you intend to play at p or 4K, the charts below can help you focus in on just those results. For example, the RTX overall scored Here's the same information as above, this time with all the older GPUs which we generally aren't retesting on a regular basis these days. Not that price seems to matter much these days Below is our legacy desktop GPU hierarchy with historical comparisons dating back to the s.

We have not tested most of these cards in many years, driver support has ended on most of these models, and the relative rankings are pretty coarse. We group cards into performance tiers, pairing disparate generations where overlap occurs. With all the GPU shortages these days, you're unlikely to see huge sales on a graphics card, but you may find some savings by checking out the latest Newegg promo codes , Best Buy promo codes and Micro Center coupon codes.

For even more information, check out our Graphics Card Buyer's Guide. RTX 8GB RTX 12GB GTX 8GB RTX 6GB GTX 6GB GTX 4GB GTX 3GB GTX 2GB For an incredible marriage of performance and price, you can't do better than the new Nvidia RTX The ray tracing performance will fully immerse you in your games thanks to its RT cores. This card can do some 4K if that's your aim, but it's best suited for maxing out on p. That comes in the form of a ramped up clock speed that we saw exceed the default boost clock of 1,MHz, even going as high as 1.

The p graphics card works great, but if you want to do any p gaming, you may have to turn down your settings. As a bonus for those who like a subtle build, the card is also all black, including the PCB. This new card is more than a small upgrade to the original RTX and its 4k performance is faster falling just a fraction behind the RTX If you're in the market, this card really is one the most powerful that you can find on the market.

This performance sees it especially well suited for p gameplay, where you can enjoy high frame rates. The AMD Radeon RX needs a modest watts of power, which should make it easier to slot into existing computers without needing to upgrade your power supply to something beefier. Plus, its new design with a 3-fan cooler system makes it quieter and more stylish.

Playing at p still provides clear visuals and makes it so much easier to just crank everything to the max without worrying too much about low frame rates. This graphics card comes with the slick styling of its RTX Series siblings, but tones down the performance for a corresponding reduction in price.

That'll land you a card that's got more than enough VRAM to handle high-quality game assets and enough muscle to spit out high frame rates a p. If your want to be gaming in 4k save up and look elsewhere, but if you want solid p performance and an unbelievable price, look no further than this graphics card.

One of the best ways to enjoy Nvidia's excellent new RTX is through the options available from Nvidia's board partners. You'll still get the same 5. There are a couple of chief differences between this card and Nvidia's reference model.

For one, you'll get multiple HDMI 2. You'll also find two 8-pin power connectors instead of the new pin connector that Nvidia has implemented. And then there's the triple-fan design, which should have no trouble keeping this card cool and quiet, just as the Asus TUF Gaming RTX did in our review.

It's more affordable than Nvidia's RTX , and it's only a bit more expensive than the non-XT RX while increasing the number of compute units and clock speeds. All of this makes it an especially potent choice for anyone that's optimizing for value. It may not have much to offer when it comes to ray tracing, but that's still not a widely implemented feature in games, and the RX XT may yet regain some ground when AMD eventually launches its FidelityFX Super Resolution feature.

So, if you're not overly concerned about uncertain performance in ray-tracing, the Radeon RX XT offers a compelling alternative to Nvidia's RTX while costing less and drawing less power from your wall. If you're looking at the RTX , you definitely are looking for speed. In our testing, it was one of the faster RTX models.

Those speeds come right out of the box as well, so with some tweaking, you could potentially see even more. The MSI RTX Gaming X Trio is fairly beefy, as it's stacking on a triple-fan cooler to keep temperatures in check, and it'll require you to have three 8-pin connectors.

That extra power may come in handy if you're trying to overclock this card for even more performance than the stock boost clock speed of MHz.