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Best GPUs in 2024 – our top graphics cards for gaming

These are the best GPUs available
Last Updated on March 7, 2024
Best GPU for Gaming

There are more choices than ever for the best GPUs available in 2024. You have the choice of budget, mid-range, and leading options from not only Nvidia and AMD but also Intel as the market is at its fiercest that it’s ever been. We’re only a couple of months into a new year and already we’ve seen high-profile launches from Team Green and Team Red worthy of representation here, so strap in and let’s get into it.

It’s important to remember that the best graphics cards don’t always necessarily mean the most expensive, as while leading options can objectively offer the best performance, the price isn’t always right for people. That’s why our new buying guide goes over not only high-end but also more cost-effective choices, which is particularly important given our current financial situation as the world over’s feeling the pinch. For a more granular list, we’re also bringing you the best budget graphics cards, too. 

A solid GPU is just the start for what you need to have one of the best gaming PCs on the market. We also strongly advise investing in the best CPU for gaming as well as the best DDR5 RAM and the best motherboard for gaming so that you’re fully caught up. What’s more, ensure your OS runs lightning fast with one of the best SSDs for gaming, too. After all, no one likes unnecessary bottlenecks, especially as PC games become more intensive. 

Products at a Glance

How we chose the best graphics cards in 2024

We’ve made our choices for the best graphics cards based on a combination of factors, but chief among them is the price-to-performance offered by each respective GPU. Let’s face it, regardless of how much you spend, a graphics card is an investment and likely to be one of (if not the most) expensive part of your build.

Thanks to advancements with both Ada and RDNA 3 architecture, graphics cards have gotten more power efficient and now rely heavier on AI upscaling to push performance. For the former, that means DLSS 3 which has Frame Generation utilizing the onboard Tesnor cores and Nvidia’s custom data model to digitally upscale the image while rendering natively. AMD, in contrast, uses FSR, which works in a similar fashion but is software and driver based.

Regardless of the methods used, the end result is stronger performance at both the low-end and the high-end meaning higher average FPS than when rendering natively. That means you can buy a budget card and still expect at least 1080p60 in most circumstances, and even mid-range offerings with the ability to hit 4K at respectable framerates. With this in mind, let’s get into our choices in more detail.

Our Recommended

Best GPUs in 2024 – our top graphics cards for gaming

1
PROS
  • Powerful performance in 1440p and 4K
  • Competitively priced
  • Good availability
CONS
  • Still pricey for a mid-range offering

The Nvidia RTX 4070 Super takes the top spot as the best graphics card for most people, and it wasn’t too taxing to see why. Chiefly, this comes down to its pricing of $599 against its performance which is incredibly capable in 1440p and even comfortable in 4K. It all comes down to the 20% CUDA cores found in this model over its predecessor, as this one includes 7,168 CUDA cores on the AD104 die with 12GB GDDR6X memory under the hood. 

A 12GB memory pool may not sound too staggering when compared to some of the other offerings in our roundup, but that’s going to be enough to push games in 1440p to their limit and respectable graphics settings in 4K, too. It’s a notable bump up from the 8GB of its Ampere predecessors which are starting to struggle in both target resolutions. Then we get into the black magic of DLSS 3’s Frame Generation, which when enabled can result in sky high framerates when rendered natively. 

Our RTX 4070 Super review goes over the details but we’ll give you the cliff notes here. We noted average framerates of well above 100fps and 4K60 or above in many leading titles such as Assassin’s Creed Mirage, The Finals, and Doom Eternal. One thing that Team Green absolutely excels in is ray tracing and that’s been made even stronger by the advent of DLSS 3.5’s Ray Reconstruction, which cuts down the hardware intensity for AI-powered real-time lighting that actually looks better than natively rendered if you can believe it. 

While there are more powerful graphics cards in our list, the RTX 4070 Super is our pick for best overall because it’s priced well and offers a ton of value for money which few other cards can beat. If you want something a bit more affordable or want to go all-in on a GPU for high-end 4K then we suggest you keep reading further down the page, however. 

2
PROS
  • Huge memory pool
  • Aggressive price point
  • A beast in 1080p
CONS
  • 1440p performance is hit and miss
  • Reliant on FSR / Fluid Motion Frames

While the performance of the AMD Radeon RX 7600 XT is unlikely to set the world aflame, there’s no doubting its performance capabilities for its price point around the $330 mark. We’ve opted to include this version over its predecessor thanks double the memory pool available as this GPU features a mammoth 16GB GDDR6 which should be enough to max out games in both 1080p and even 1440p when utilizing FSR effectively. 

AI upscaling really will be the difference between more middling performance and leading from this mainstream card as the RX 7600 XT performs admirably in even the most demanding hardware that we have thrown its way. In our dedicated RX 7600 XT review, we noted that the GPU could easily do well over 1080p60 in the latest games but that the 1440p performance is a little more chequered, at least when taken natively. 

Factor in FSR, however, and you should see a significant improvement to framerates in both target resolutions, especially if FSR 3’s Fluid Motion Frames (frame generation) is supported. While the card doesn’t actively use the VRAM in ways that higher end cards can thanks to its more limited 128-bit memory bus and 288GB/sec bandwidth, you aren’t likely to encounter many VRAM-related issues either. Good overhead for the future at price you can’t really argue with.

3
PROS
  • Leading gaming performance
  • Amazing for creatives
  • Futureproofed for years
CONS
  • Incredibly expensive
  • Huge power draw

If you’re in the market for the absolute best graphics card then there’s no better choice than the Nvidia RTX 4090. The second-generation BFGPU is the be all and end all for not only gamers but creatives wanting leading performance that you plain and simply won’t get anywhere else. This video card features a mammoth 16,384 CUDA cores combined with 24GB GDDR6X VRAM on a 384-bit memory bus. 

As you may imagine, however, all that power comes at quite a cost. That’s because the RTX 4090 carries a starting MSRP of $1,599 for the Founders Edition model and from Team Green’s partners. That’s significantly more expensive than any other consumer-grade gaming GPU on the market now from any brand, but it could be a worthwhile investment for the future if you want to game in 4K for many years to come. 

The RTX 4090 is unrivalled when it comes to performance capabilities for encoding and rendering as well. There’s no other GPU in its price bracket that can do what it can, making it an ideal choice for those wanting to develop games, AI large language models, and other tasks outside of purely playing the latest games maxed out. If that sounds appealing to you then maybe this card is the one for your machine.

4
PROS
  • Leading 1440p gaming for the price
  • Huge amount of VRAM
  • Better value than RTX 4060 Ti
CONS
  • Not the best for ray tracing

In terms of sheer value play, the AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT sure stands among the best of its class. Armed with 3,840 Stream Processors, 16GB GDDR6 VRAM, and a 256-bit memory bus, it’s been billed as “the ultimate upgrade for 1440p gaming” according to Team Red itself, and that’s hard to argue against considering its performance on offer. 

Starting at $499, it significantly undercuts the mid-range offerings from Nvidia while providing stronger gaming performance than the similarly priced RTX 4060 Ti. This can be evidenced in the benchmarks which see nearly double the average FPS in certain titles. You can expect well above 60fps in 1440p through the brute force nature of the GPU, with many games pushing upwards of 100fps depending on the level of optimization. 

This is down to the large memory pool and memory bus allowing for a total bandwidth of 624.1 GB/s which is considerably faster than similarly priced cards in its competition. Considering it’s available for under $500, and often discounted, you can bag a real bargain for this target resolution. It can do 4K, but you’re more beholden to the likes of FSR upscaling to make it happen than native performance; a solid all-rounder at a price you can’t beat. 

5
PROS
  • Amazing value for money
  • 16GB GDDR6 VRAM
  • XeSS works well (mostly)
CONS
  • Occasional driver issues
  • Some incompatibility with older games

While we’ve primarily discussed what AMD and Nvidia bring to the table, it would be amiss of us to omit Team Blue’s contributions to the GPU landscape. While Alchemist had some teething pains with some driver issues upon its release, the flagship of the pack, the Intel Arc A770 has developed into quite the powerhouse for 1080p and even 1440p gaming. 

Armed with 16GB GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit memory bus with a total of 4,096 GPU cores, the Intel Arc A770 is a bit of a monster considering its $330 MSRP, and what’s more, it’s frequently discounted under $300 from established retailers depending on the manufacturer. You won’t quite be pushing 1440p to its limits, but you’ll get respectable ray tracing further bolstered by XeSS AI upscaling which can really make a difference. 

Depending on how well the software’s optimised, the Intel Arc A770 can hold up in QHD with strong 1440p performance when utilizing XeSS. Fortunately, many PC games releasing are including support for this tech, so you won’t be missing out on benefits of AI even though you’re not an Nvidia or AMD user. We think the value for money combined with the performance capabilities make it a bit of a dark horse.

Things to consider with the best graphics cards in 2024

As we touched upon at the beginning of our guide, buying a graphics card is an investment so we’re going even more in depth with our recommendations so you can buy with confidence. Let’s break things into categories and go over what you should be looking out for so you can work out if an AMD, Nvidia, or Intel GPU is the right pick.

Ray tracing performance

Nowadays every modern graphics card is capable of doing some form of real-time ray tracing. We think it’s fair to say that Nvidia takes the lead in this respect as it ushered in the lightning technique in 2018 with the RTX 20 series, the first to do it. AMD, by contrast, has been playing catch up with its RX 7000 being the second-generation models to feature ray accelerators compared to Nvidia’s third-generation RT cores.

Architecture

We don’t really recommend going for a previous generation graphics card as while they can sometimes offer the best value for money, you’ll often be paying for lacking futureproofing in the long run. The three current GPU generations in circulation are the RTX 40 series (Ada Lovelace architecture), RX 7000 series (AMD RDNA 3 architecture) and the Intel Arc A-series (Alchemist architecture).

Frame rate

Ideally, the minimum frame rate you want to be hitting is 60fps in 1080p and this is what even budget graphics cards can achieve even if they have to use AI upscaling to do it. If you’re using one of the best gaming monitors then you’ll want a card that can keep up. 1080p is the lowest resolution, with 1440p doubling up, and then 4K being four times the image size. However, a larger image at a high refresh rate requires significantly more power, so be aware of this.

Clock speed

Whether you’re considering buying AMD graphics cards or those made by Nvidia and Intel, the clock speed will be a factor. This is especially true for overclocking with boost clock MHz usually being higher from partner brands such as ASUS, Sapphire, and MSI, etc. Said partner cards will usually be more expensive and factor in larger heatsinks / big coolers which means you’ll have to watch out for the size of a GPU in your machine.

Size

Every graphics card now comes with HDMI and DisplayPort as standard, usually several of each. Depending on the slot size, often dual-slot for an entry-level or mid-range model but can be as large as triple slot for the likes of the RTX 4090 and the RX 7900 XTX. You’ll need to make sure that you not only have the clearance on your motherboard but also from within your PC case.

Power usage

Every graphics card has its own respective TDP (Thermal Design Power) with the larger and more powerful GPUs drawing more from your PSU. Typically, AMD, Intel, and Nvidia will offer a recommended PSU wattage for a card, but the rule of thumb is you want at least double the total power that the card draws overall. For example, the RTX 4070 Super has a 220W TDP so you’ll need a minimum of 550W PSU or above. We’d recommend a 600W brick in this case. It’s important to make sure your system can handle the component you’re slotting in. Check out the best PSUs for our recommendations.

Is GTX or RTX better?

All of Nvidia’s gaming graphics cards are either GTX or RTX. RTX is the newer of the two and the naming convention going forward for all of its flagship generations for six years now, starting with RTX 20 series, then RTX 30 series, and now the RTX 40 series. GTX, by comparison, is old and outdated.

Which GPU is overkill?

If you’re someone who just wants to play games in 1080p or 1440p and not too concerned about incredibly high framerates then the RTX 4090 will be overkill for your system. As well as being expensive, it will be a large power draw on your machine which may be unnecessary when an RTX 4070 Super or RX 7600 XT would suffice.

Our Verdict

The RTX 4070 Super is our number one pick for the best GPU in 2024. It features a powerful level of performance coupled with an aggressive pricing of $599. Most people are going to be very happy with what this graphics card can do in not only 1080p and 1440p, but also 4K as well through DLSS 3 Frame Generation.