If you’re not committed to the Nvidia brand and are open to buying an AMD card instead, then we recommend checking out our more general best graphics card guide instead. But if you’re loyal to Nvidia, and don’t want to miss out on features such as DLSS, then you’re in the right place. We’ve picked out the best Nvidia cards that we’ve reviewed, including picks for different performance targets, whether you want a great value Full HD GPU or you fancy ultimate gaming power. Every card that features on this list has been thoroughly tested, as our team of experts make sure to use both synthetic benchmarks and real-time gaming performance in our testing. We also check the likes of power consumption and thermal performance for an all-round look at each GPU. We’ll also be reviewing all of the new Nvidia cards shortly, including the RTX 4080. So if you can’t find an Nvidia GPU to your liking just yet, make sure to return to this article at a later date.
At a glance
Most powerful graphics card: Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090 – check priceBest for 4K gaming: Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 Ti – check priceBest mid-range graphics card: Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 Ti – check priceBest affordable graphics card: Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060 – check price
In our gaming tests, we found the RTX 4090 capable of playing virtually any modern game with a 4K resolution at 100fps and beyond. The only occasion where this graphics card failed to do so was with Cyberpunk 2077 with ray tracing activated. But the 44fps average score is still an impressive feat, with the RTX 3090 failing to hit 30fps with the same settings. The Nvidia RTX 4090 isn’t for everyone, with an eye-watering price, high power consumption and large design. Its 4K performance is also overkill, making an RTX 3080 or the new RTX 4080 a better value option for those who don’t have a bank vault to rival Scrooge McDuck. But if you’re craving the most powerful graphics card that Nvidia has to offer, then there’s no doubt that the RTX 4090 is the best graphics card option. Reviewer: Ryan JonesFull review: Nvidia RTX 4090 review For the short-term future, the 3080 Ti is the card we can recommend for high-end 4K gaming – though honestly, we’d suggest waiting and seeing how the 4080 performs before pulling the trigger. The 3080 Ti was, and remains, a powerhouse graphics card that delivered excellent speeds in all of our tests. Demanding titles, including Cyberpunk 2077, ran with their graphics maxed and ray tracing on in 4K. Online shooters like Call of Duty and Battlefield universally failed to ever drop below 100fps even in their highest settings in our bench, which included 16GB DDR4 memory and a Intel Core i9-9900KF. The only downside is that, based on our experience, it’s an outright power hog that demands a top-of-the-line PSU. Nvidia also didn’t manage to leave much room for overclocking, with the Founders Edition version we tested generally failing or overheating with even minor clock speed boosts. Reviewer: Alastair Stevenson Full review: Nvidia RTX 3080 review The card proved to be fantastic value for money offering post-60fps speeds on all the games we tested with graphical settings maxed out in 1080p. This included Control, which is commonly used as the baseline for ray tracing performance. With ray tracing off it also delivered in 1440p with key titles including Borderlands 3 and Horizon playing at over 60fps. As a final boon, it’s also got a much lower power consumption than the RTX 3080 Ti which will let it run on lower capacity PSUs. It’s still retailing for around £400/$400 at the moment, which marks it as a mid-range card. Its closest rival, the AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT, is slightly cheaper at the moment making it a valid alternative if you’re not wed to an Nvidia card. But AMD didn’t offer quite as fast performance in our checks. Reviewer: Alastair StevensonFull review: Nvidia RTX 3060 Ti review During our benchmarks, the RTX 2060 could play less demanding titles, like Battlefield 5, with ray tracing on at playable frame rates in 1080p. However, it did struggle to break 40fps on demanding single player titles like Cyberpunk. But, if you turn ray tracing off, its performance is solid for most titles in 1080p. It’ll run Fortnite, Destiny 2, the Division 2 and most other online games with zero issue over 60fps. This is a key reason we recommend it as a fantastic option for buyers on a very strict budget despite its age. Reviewer: Alastair StevensonFull review: Nvidia RTX 2060 review 162 Graphics Cards
