What is the best NVIDIA graphics cards in order of performance?

What is the best NVIDIA graphics cards in order of performance? Integrated graphics are more than capable of streaming video or tackling your productivity workload. But if you want to dive into the latest AAA adventure or to handle graphically intense projects like 3D modeling, game development, or video rendering., you need powerful graphics card. To help find the right one for you, we’ve narrowed things down to make it simpler to choose.

What is the best NVIDIA graphics cards in order of performance – GPU Benchmarks

Best NVIDIA graphics cards in order of gaming performance – Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080

SPECIFICATIONS

CUDA cores: 8,704Base clock: 1,440 MHzBoost clock: 1,710 MHzTFLOPs: 29.76Memory: 10GB GDDR6XMemory clock: 19 GT/sMemory bandwidth: 760 GB/s

REASONS TO BUY

+Incredible gen-on-gen performance+Makes 2080 Ti look mid-range+Ray tracing no longer a sacrifice

REASONS TO AVOID

-Needs a beefy PSU-In high demand

Okay, right now, the RTX 3080 is rare as pigeon eyelashes, but there is no doubt Nvidia’s new RTX 3080 is the best graphics card today. It represents a huge generational performance boost over the previous RTX 20-series. That’s impressive when put up against either the RTX 2080 or 2080 Super, but when you consider that this nominally $699 card can not just match but massively outperform the $1,200 RTX 2080 Ti, it really hits home.

The thing which really stands out from our testing is the difference it makes to ray-tracing performance. The first generation of ray tracing-capable cards required such a huge frame rate sacrifice that most people shied away from turning it on, but that’s no longer the case with this generation.

When you can now get ray-traced performance that exceeds the frame rates you’d get out of the top card of the RTX 20-series when running without it, you know that this is a whole different beast. And hey, the RTX 3080 can actually run Crysis.

Nvidia has managed this by adding a whole load more CUDA cores to the mix in this 8nm GPU and updated Tensor Cores (for extra DLSS goodness) and second-gen RT Cores to make with the ray-traced pretties.

The RTX 3080 may need a fair chunk more power—you’ll want at least an 850W PSU—and be tricky to get hold of, but this is the most desirable graphics card around today. Which I guess is also why it’s so tricky to get hold of.

For budget concern – AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT

SPECIFICATIONS

RDNA cores: 5,120Base clock: 1,825 MHzBoost clock: 2,250 MHzTFLOPs: 23.04Memory: 16GB GDDR6Memory clock: 16 GT/sMemory bandwidth: 512 GB/s

REASONS TO BUY

+Occasional RTX 3090 performance…+…but cheaper!

REASONS TO AVOID

-Can lag behind RTX 3080 at times-Mediocre ray-tracing performanceAdvertisement

The RTX 3090 may have sat unchallenged at the top rungs of graphics performance at launch, but it wouldn’t be long until AMD rustled together a challenger in the RX 6900 XT, or ‘Big Navi.’ The RX 6900 XT hopes to knock Ampere’s finest from its perch on high and send it spiraling back down to Earth. And it gets kind of close, too, with 4K performance a little off the pace of the RTX 3090—and all for one-third off the asking price.

For that reason, it’s simply the better buy for any PC gamer without any ulterior motives of the pro-creator variety. But there’s a reason it’s not number one in our graphics card guide today, and that’s simply due to the fact it’s not that much better than an RTX 3080, and sometimes not at all. It’s another $300 on top of the RTX 3080’s price tag, and you’d hope for higher performance in both rasterized and ray tracing workloads. Yet, inevitably its ray-tracing acceleration lags behind the competition.

But the RX 6900 XT does come with assurances that the RTX 3080 can’t make, such as its 16GB of GDDR6 memory, which is a whole 6GB greater than the 10GB of (faster) GDDR6X memory on the green team card. With that in mind, for raw gaming alone, the RX 6900 XT is a cheaper alternative to the RTX 3090 is still a victim to its own extreme price tag.

Best Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 Ti graphics cards in order of performance under $400

SPECIFICATIONS

CUDA cores: 4,864Base clock: 1,410 MHzBoost clock: 1,665 MHzTFLOPs: 16.20Memory: 8GB GDDR6Memory clock: 14 GT/sMemory bandwidth: 448 GB/s

REASONS TO BUY

+Finally! Something a little more affordable+2080 Super performance+Under $400

REASONS TO AVOID

-Annoying 12-pin power connector-Not quite good enough for 4KAdvertisement

The best value Ampere to date, the RTX 3060 Ti is very closely related to the RTX 3070. Both utilize the same GA104 GPU (the RTX 3060 Ti has fewer SMs enabled), with the same 8GB of GDDR6 memory across a 256-bit bus.

While 17% less capable in core count, the RTX 3060 Ti makes up for it with some judicious GPU Boost frequencies. That partially explains why the RTX 3060 Ti can be within 17% to just single digits off the pace of the RTX 3070, despite operating at a silicon disadvantage. Not bad for a $399 card (if you can find it for that price).

If you haven’t already done the maths: At $399, the RTX 3060 Ti is 20% cheaper than the RTX 3070, so performance per dollar is on the up with the diminutive graphics card. That’s why we love it so; it’s a great GPU for the full stack of resolutions and has decent ray tracing capability to boot, courtesy of second-generation RT Cores.

If the RTX 3080 or RTX 3070 seem out of reach, the RTX 3060 Ti certainly makes for a decent stand-in. Perhaps most impressive of this graphics card is how it stacks up to the 20-series generation: It topples the RTX 2080 Super in nearly every test.

Best Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 12GB graphics cards in order of GPU performance

SPECIFICATIONS

CUDA cores: 3,584Base clock: 1,320 MHzBoost clock: 1,777 MHzTFLOPs: 12.74Memory: 12GB GDDR6Memory clock: 15 GT/sMemory bandwidth: 360 GB/s

REASONS TO BUY

+Ready for 60fps at 1440p or greater+Decent gen-on-gen performance improvement+More readily available to purchase in pre-built PCs

REASONS TO AVOID

-Not always massively faster than an RTX 2060-RTX 3060 Ti is a better buy at $399

The decision to load the RTX 3060 with 12GB of GDDR6 memory appeared a strange one at first, and in many ways it still is. It’s more memory than the RTX 3080, after all, albeit slower stuff, and it tops out the RTX 3060 Ti too. However, the RTX 3060 wields it well, managing to dispatch the RTX 2060 by a large margin in most games, and by enough of a gap in the rest to make it worthwhile.

And we’re not going to turn our noses up at 12GB of VRAM when 6GB is the likely alternative.

With a decent generation-on-generation improvement and plenty of speed at 1080p and 1440p, the RTX 3060 12GB is a graphics card easily argued for. It’s also nominally cheaper than the RTX 2060 was on launch day, though it’s not so easy to find it as a discrete number nowadays.

The new king of GeForce gaming –  Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 Ti

SPECIFICATIONS

CUDA cores: 10,240Base clock: 1,365 MHzBoost clock: 1,665 MHzTFLOPs: 34.10Memory: 12GB GDDR6XMemory clock: 19 GT/sMemory bandwidth: 912.4 GB/s

REASONS TO BUY

+Superb 4K performance+Nearly an RTX 3090 for less cash+Excellent ray tracing capability

REASONS TO AVOID

-A lot pricier than the RTX 3080-Power hungry at 350W-Runs pretty hotAdvertisement

The RTX 3080 Ti isn’t the mightiest GeForce graphics card that Nvidia makes. That accolade goes to the RTX 3090, by a hair, and will be claimed by the RTX 3090 Ti once that arrives. Though when all is said and benchmarked, it is the uber high-end RTX 3080 Ti that we’d recommend to any PC gamer looking to go all out on their next build.

With performance close to the RTX 3090 at 4K, the RTX 3080 Ti is as much a gaming graphics card as its progenitor. With a vast bounty of CUDA Cores and speedy GDDR6X memory, this card demolishes any game you can throw at it with relative ease. It’s also more than capable of real-time ray tracing, courtesy of 80 RT Cores.

The reason we don’t rate this card higher up in our list of the best graphics cards, however, is down to its price. Launching at $1,200, it’s only a stone’s throw away from the $1,499 RTX 3090. Massively inflated pricing, or lack of stock, notwithstanding.

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