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Best graphics card 2025 - top gaming GPUs

Get the right graphics card for your budget to boost frame rate, with our tests of Nvidia GeForce, AMD Radeon, and Intel Arc gaming GPUs.

best graphics card

What is the best graphics card? Finding a new gaming GPU can mean wading through a swamp of often baffling numbers in specs lists, as well as weighing up the pros and cons of the different feature sets from Nvidia, AMD, and Intel. Fear not, though, as we've done all the hard work for you. Our best graphics card guide will steer you towards the right card for your needs, whatever your budget.

The best graphics card for most is the AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT, as it offers fantastic performance for its price, if you can find it at its MSRP of $599 (or just over). Meanwhile, the best graphics card overall is, of course, the Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090. It might cost over $2,000, but it's by far the fastest GPU out there. Meanwhile, for a budget card, the AMD Radeon RX 9060 XT 16GB or Nvidia GeForce RTX 5060 Ti 16GB are both great options. Read on to find plenty of other options to suit other budgets, and check the Also tested section for more graphics card reviews. For more buying advice, check out the How to choose a graphics card and FAQ sections of this guide.

Why you can trust our advice ✔ At PCGamesN, our experts spend hours testing hardware and reviewing games and VPNs. We share honest, unbiased opinions to help you buy the best. Find out how we test.

AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT

AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT

Best graphics card for most

PCGamesN Score 9/10
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AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT specifications:
GPU architecture AMD RDNA 4
Stream processors 4,096
AI cores 128
RT cores 64
Game clock 2,400MHz (2.4GHz)
Boost clock 2,970MHz (2.97GHz)
VRAM 16GB GDDR6
Memory Bandwidth 644.6GB/s
TDP 304W
Pros
  • Incredible gaming frame rates
  • 16GB of VRAM
  • Great value for money
Cons
  • Draws a lot of power
  • Not many games support FSR 4
  • No equivalent of multi frame gen

The Radeon RX 9070 XT is AMD's most competitive graphics card for a number of years. At MSRP, it costs just $50 more than the Nvidia RTX 5070, yet it's significantly more powerful across the board, while also having a full 16GB of VRAM for future-proofing.

What's more, AMD has massively caught up with the competition when it comes to ray tracing and AI. This new card supports AMD's FSR 4 resolution upscaling tech, which looks massively better than FSR 3, and its GPUs can keep up with Nvidia in ray tracing now, while also handling path tracing.

There are a couple of caveats about this new GPU, though. Firstly, it draws a lot of power, so make sure you have at least an 850W PSU in your rig. AMD also doesn't have an equivalent of Nvidia's multi-frame gen (MFG) tech yet either. MFG is far from an essential feature, but it's a nice feature to have for some scenarios - you can learn more about it in the FAQ section of this guide.

The other problem with the RX 9070 XT is that it's practically impossible to find in stock at its $599 MSRP. It's still a good buy at $675 or lower, but at $700 or above it's getting too close in price to the more consistently fast RTX 5070 Ti.

Read our full AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT review to find out more.

Nvidia GeForce RTX 5070 Ti

Nvidia GeForce RTX 5070 Ti

Best 1440p graphics card

PCGamesN Score 8/10
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Nvidia GeForce RTX 5070 Ti specifications:
CUDA cores 8,960
Tensor cores 280
RT cores 70
Boost clock 2,452MHz
Base clock 2,295MHz
VRAM 16GB GDDR7 28Gbps
Memory bandwidth 896GB/s
TGP 300W
Pros
  • 16GB of memory
  • Can cope with path tracing
  • Awesome 1440p frame rates
Cons
  • Expensive, even at its MSRP
  • Sometimes outgunned by the cheaper Radeon RX 9070 XT

With its 16GB of fast GDDR7 VRAM and awesome rendering power, the RTX 5070 Ti is a vastly superior GPU to the 5070 below it, with performance that isn't far off the last-gen RTX 4080.

If you want to play games at 1440p, then this is a fantastic graphics card, with superb ray tracing performance, as well as full support for the Nvidia DLSS 4 ecosystem, including multi-frame gen.

On the face of it, the Radeon RX 9070 XT looks like a much better deal, as it's so much cheaper, and is even quicker in some games. However, in reality, the US pricing of the 9070 XT is considerably more than its MSRP. The 5070 Ti still costs more, but the difference isn't huge right now, and this card can largely justify the premium if you can afford to pay it.

Unlike the Radeon RX 9070 XT, the 5070 Ti can also cope with the demands of path tracing (the most demanding form of ray tracing) in some of the latest games, albeit at 1080p, and it has the benefits of Nvidia's multi-frame gen tech in its arsenal as well. If you want to play games at 2,560 x 1,440, and you can afford its $749 asking price, this is the GPU to buy.

Read our full Nvidia GeForce RTX 5070 Ti review for more information.

Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090

Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090

Best 4K graphics card

PCGamesN Score 6/10
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Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090 specifications:
CUDA cores 21,760
Tensor cores 170 (4th-gen)
RT cores 680 (5th-gen)
Boost clock 2,407MHz
Base clock 2,017MHz
VRAM 32GB 28Gbps GDDR7
Memory bandwidth 1,792GB/s
TGP 575W
Pros
  • Multi Frame Gen is amazing
  • Fastest gaming GPU ever
  • Great two-slot cooler
Cons
  • Astronomical price
  • Scarce supply
  • Not all games support Multi Frame Gen

The RTX 5090 is far and away the most powerful gaming graphics card you can buy. Not only is it far faster than any other card of this generation, but the 5090 is a huge step up in performance over the already monstrously powerful RTX 4090.

In our tests, this card could run Cyberpunk 2077 at 4K with ray tracing at a smooth 59fps, which compares to just 43fps for the RTX 4090 - that's a 37% increase. What's more, this card can enable Nvidia's latest multi frame gen (MFG) tech to extend its lead even further. In Cyberpunk 2077 at 4K with path tracing, the RTX 4090 can hit 82fps with the help of single frame generation. Thanks to MFG, the RTX 5090 can hit 207fps, though we admittedly wouldn't recommend playing with those settings.

The reason for the caveat at the end there is that MFG can introduce latency, which results in a laggy feel if your frame rate isn't already high to begin with. We recommend using it only if you're already getting 60fps or higher in single-player games and well north of 90fps in multi-player games. It's a good thing the RTX 5090 can easily do that in just about any game, even at 4K, then.

It's not all plain sailing for the RTX 5090, though, which is why the RTX 5090's review score is only 6/10. Not only is its $1,999 MSRP already sky-high, but the actual prices of board partner cards are much higher. Its power draw is also extreme, and you'll need at least a 1,000W PSU to feed this beast of a graphics card.

If you want the absolute fastest GPU you can buy, though, and you're prepared to pay the price, make no mistake - this is the card you want.

Read our full Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090 review to find out more.

Nvidia GeForce RTX 5080

Nvidia GeForce RTX 5080

Best graphics card under $1,000

PCGamesN Score 8/10
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Nvidia GeForce RTX 5080 specifications:
CUDA cores 10,752
RT cores 84 (4th-gen)
Tensor cores 336 (5th-gen)
Base clock 2,300MHz
Boost clock 2,620MHz
VRAM 16GB 32Gbps GDDR7
Memory bandwidth 960GB/s
TBP 360W
Pros
  • Much cheaper than RTX 5090
  • Decent 4K gaming performance
  • DLSS 4 with Multi Frame Gen is awesome
Cons
  • Hard to find in stock at MSRP
  • Not much faster than 4080 Super without DLSS 4
  • Not all games support Multi Frame Gen

If you can't afford two grand for the RTX 5090 (and that's quite understandable), but you want to play games at 4K with decent settings, then the RTX 5080 is the card to go for. Like the 5090, it supports Nvidia's latest multi frame gen tech, allowing AI to generate multiple frames to boost frame rate.

We tested the new tech with Cyberpunk 2077, maxed out with path tracing - so it looks incredible - and the RTX 5080 averaged 128fps with MFG. Drop down to 1440p and you're looking at 228fps, which is amazing in a game that's this demanding. As a point of comparison, even the RTX 4090 only averages 148fps in this game at 1440p with its maximum level of frame gen enabled.

Not all games support this new tech, of course, but the list is steadily growing, and if your game already supports standard frame gen, you can force it to use Multi Frame Gen using the DLSS Override feature in the Nvidia App.

Without Multi Frame Gen, the RTX 5080 is only a little bit faster than the RTX 4080 and 4080 Super, which is a little disappointing, but at least the new GPU maintains the $999 price of the latter, rather than the obscene $1,199 launch price of the original RTX 4080.

What's more, unlike several alternative GPUs, the RTX 5080 is actually available at its MSRP right now, even if most variants of it do exceed this figure.

Read our full Nvidia GeForce RTX 5080 review to find out more.

AMD Radeon RX 9070

AMD Radeon RX 9070

Best graphics card under $550

PCGamesN Score 7/10
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AMD Radeon RX 9070 specifications:
GPU architecture AMD RDNA 4
Stream processors 3,584
AI cores 112
RT cores 56
Game clock 2.07GHz
Boost clock 2.52GHz
VRAM 16GB GDDR6 20Gbps
Memory bandwidth 644.6GB/s
TDP 220W
Pros
  • Solid frame rates
  • Loads of VRAM
  • Power draw is reasonable
Cons
  • Might as well buy the 9070 XT at MSRP
  • No multi frame gen
  • Limited availability

When you only need to spend $50 more to get the fantastic 9070 XT, the 9070 gets a little bit lost in this crowded market, but if you genuinely can't afford the extra money for the 9070 XT, or if you simply can't find the latter in stock, the Radeon RX 9070 is a solid option.

Not only does it have more VRAM than the competing Nvidia GeForce RTX 5070, giving it some more future proofing, but it's also more powerful in most of our game tests. In fact, in Call of Duty Black Ops 6, it's even faster than the RTX 4080.

Unlike previous AMD GPUs, the 9070 can also cope well with ray tracing, where it out-performs the RTX 5070 in F1 24, and isn't far off the pace in Cyberpunk 2077. The Nvidia GPU is quicker at path tracing, and also has the benefit of multi frame gen, but the 9070 is generally the more powerful option.

Not only that, but it's also more power-efficient than the 9070 XT, with our test system drawing 395W from the mains with the 9070 installed, compared to a massive 487W with the 9070 XT.

Read our full AMD Radeon RX 9070 review to find out more.

Nvidia GeForce RTX 5060 Ti 16GB

Nvidia GeForce RTX 5060 Ti 16GB

Best graphics card under $450

PCGamesN Score 8/10
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Nvidia GeForce RTX 5060 Ti 16GB specifications:
GPU Architecture Nvidia Blackwell
Stream processors 4,608
Tensor cores 144 (5th-gen)
RT cores 36 (4th-gen)
Base clock 2,407MHz
Boost clock 2,572MHz
VRAM 16GB GDDR7 28Gbps
Memory bandwidth 448GB/s
TDP 180W
Pros
  • Loads of VRAM for its price
  • Decent value at MSRP
  • Great gaming performance
  • Supports multi frame gen
Cons
  • Actual price too high in US
  • Limited benefits to multi frame gen
  • Base performance not much faster than RTX 4060 Ti

Loads of fast VRAM is the key to the appeal of the Nvidia GeForce RTX 5060 Ti 16GB. It may have a slower GPU than the RTX 5070 but thanks to its 16GB of VRAM, it can actually outperform that card in some extreme situations, where games are using ray tracing and maxed-out detail settings, as the more expensive card has only 12GB of VRAM. Games are simply pushing the limits of graphics card memory these days, and even a lower mid-range card like the RTX 5060 Ti can benefit.

With a price that comfortably undercuts the RTX 5070 and AMD RX 9070, this puts the Nvidia GeForce RTX 5060 Ti 16GB into a niche all of its own. Its performance exceeds cheaper cards like the RTX 5060 Ti 8GB, RTX 4060 Ti, and RX 7600 all while having a lot of VRAM to futureproof against ever more complex games.

All that said, it's not a miracle cure for low gaming frame rates. Its GPU is still fairly modest and in line with its $429 asking price. If you're looking for reliable 1080p performance at high details settings with ray tracing, it's great, but it can only deliver that experience at 1440p in some games and isn't a card for 4K gaming.

That said, it gets you access to Nvidia's clever multi frame gen tech that uses AI to insert extra frames between normally-rendered frames, which can seriously boost the smooth feel of some games, though with some major caveats.

Where this card's appeal initially struggle was in being available at its MSRP. Prices were regularly well above $550 but now this card is widely available at between $429 and $479. Any extra above its MSRP dents its appeal but it's still a decent buy at under $475.

Read our Nvidia GeForce RTX 5060 Ti 16GB review to find out more.

AMD Radeon RX 9060 XT

AMD Radeon RX 9060 XT

Best budget graphics card

PCGamesN Score 8/10
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AMD Radeon RX 9060 XT specifications:
Stream processors 2,048
RT cores 32 (third generation)
Base clock 1,700MHz (1.70GHz)
Game clock 2,530MHz (2.53GHz)
Boost clock 3,130MHz (3.13GHz)
VRAM 8GB / 16GB 20Gbps GDDR6
Memory bandwidth 322.3GB/s
TBP 150W (8GB0 / 160W (16GB)
Pros
  • Better overall performance than RTX 5060
  • Much better ray tracing than Radeon RX 7000 series
  • Available with 16GB of VRAM
Cons
  • 8GB version has major performance caveats
  • 16GB card hard to find at $349 MSRP
  • No answer to DLSS Frame Generation

The AMD Radeon RX 9060 XT is the new king of budget graphics cards, if you can find it in the right configuration and at the right price. With an MSRP of $349 for the 16GB version and $299 for the 8GB version, both are better buys than Nvidia's current competition, the RTX 5060.

In particular, the RX 9060 XT 16GB comfortably outperforms the RTX 5060 and competes strongly with the RTX 5060 Ti 16GB. However, because it's such a strong performer, it keeps selling out, so getting hold of one at its proper price is very tricky, particular in the US. That said, all graphics cards are seeing inflated prices at the moment, so relatively speaking the RX 9060 XT is still decent value.

As for the RX 9060 XT 8GB, it suffers from the same problem as the RTX 5060, which is being limited to just 8GB of VRAM. This limitation means several modern AAA games simply don't run well at all at high settings, as they need more VRAM. You'd only hope to be playing those games at 1080p anyway - because the card's GPU wouldn't cope with higher resolutions in those titles anyway, even if they did have enough VRAM - but it's still a major limitation on being able to get the most out of certain games.

This factor aside, the RX 9060 XT 8GB is a solid performer for 1080p and occasional 1440p gaming and a better option than the RTX 5060 - just don't expect to run path tracing on Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, or similar ultra-demanding scenarios, even at low resolutions.

Read our AMD Radeon RX 9060 XT review to find out more.

Also tested - more graphics card reviews

How to choose a graphics card

The first step to finding a good graphics card choice for you is the same as every other component: budget. The Nvidia RTX 5090 is only the fastest option for your system if you can afford it, and knowing how much you can spend on your new GPU will help narrow down your options.

Next up, consider what sort of games you play and what monitor you have. If you mainly play indie games, older titles, or play competitive games at a more casual level, none of these options put a huge demand on your GPU, so you might be able to get away with buying a more entry level GPU such as the AMD Radeon RX 7600. It brings support for many modern features and still has the grunt to power AAA games at 1080p resolutions at medium to high settings but costs well under $300, at least based on MSRP.

Likewise, if your monitor only has a resolution of 1080p and a refresh rate of 120Hz or less, there's very little point in spending big on a GPU. If you do, you'll have the horsepower ready to run at higher resolutions and faster frame rates but only an upgrade to one of the best gaming monitor options will truly unlock that potential.

Meanwhile, if you have what many consider to be the goldilocks screen size and resolution - a 27-inch, 1440p display with a 144Hz-240Hz refresh rate - that's when mid-range GPUs such as the AMD Radeon RX 9070 and RTX 5070 come in to play. For around $600 these will provide blazing fast frame rates at 1080p and 1440p in most games while bringing steady 60-120fps frame rates and stunning visuals in many AAA games with all the settings cranked up.

If you have a 4K monitor or a super-fast 360Hz+ gaming monitor - or one that can do both, such as you can read about in our LG Ultragear 32GS95UE review - that's when you'll want to consider moving up to the likes of the RX 9070 XT, RTX 5080, or the all-conquering RTX 5090.

With those core factors taken into consideration, you can now move on to thinking about the finer differences between AMD, Intel, and Nvidia GPUs. All three companies largely offer very similar core features, with all supporting AI acceleration and ray tracing as well as normal game rendering. All also include a type of AI-enhanced upscaling and frame generation technology. AMD has FSR, Intel has XeSS, and Nvidia has DLSS.

On balance, Nvidia is leading the charge on features, thanks mainly to the image quality of its DLSS upscaling and its unique feature called multi-frame generation or MFG. MFG lets a game render one frame in a normal manner, then uses AI to insert two or even three extra frames. AMD also has a frame generation technology, but it can only insert one frame. Our RTX 5090 review showed just how impressive MFG can be, though it isn't quite the magic frame rate generator Nvidia suggests it is.

While MFG is impressive, and Nvidia's software technology lead in general isn't to be dismissed, we've seen with the likes of our AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT review that ultimately value trumps all for most buyers, and right now AMD holds an advantage here, at least at MSRP. Despite being out for nine months now, the RX 9070 XT and RX 9070 are still selling for well above their MSRP, while some of Nvidia's competing options are selling for below theirs, so make sure to check their price against the MSRP when you buy.

As for Intel, it has yet to release a graphics card that really competes above the entry-level segment of the market. Its Arc A770 competed with the likes of the RTX 4060 Ti, but without subsequent major discounts to the Intel card, it wasn't much of a fight. Meanwhile, its newer Arc B580 was for a while a sub-$250 champion, but supply of the card at that price has been vanishingly rare, and it's less viable at the $350 price at which it's often selling.

FAQs

What is a graphics card?

Graphics cards enable your PC to display images of any type and they also power through the incredibly complex calculations required to render the 3D scenes in many games.

Most desktop work and 2D games put a low demand on your graphics card but when games display 3D worlds, the calculation demands increase considerably. As you then move to the stunning, realistic worlds of modern AAA games such as Black Myth: Wukong or Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2, a graphics card is performing billions of calculations a second to keep up with demand.

The more powerful modern graphics cards also support ray tracing technology, which is used to create realistic lighting and reflection effects and is even more demanding than conventional 3D rendering. That's at least part of the reason we've seen the rise in AI to process information as quickly as possible and make your games look visually stunning while reducing the overall demand on your GPU.

However, don't be fooled by AI and ray tracing. A certain amount of conventional raw 3D-processing power is essential, which is why, when reviewing graphics cards, we test with both ray tracing and without and using AI upscaling and frame generation and without. You can read more about our testing procedures on our how we test page.

How do you upgrade your graphics card?

Unless your PC has a custom water-cooling loop that cools your GPU, upgrading your graphics card is one of the easiest and biggest-impact upgrades you can make to your gaming PC. They literally just slot in and out of your PC with a couple of screws and a clip on the motherboard's PCIe slot holding them in.

There are really only two factors to worry about, other than deciding which brand you want and how much to spend. The first is whether you have a powerful enough power supply with enough PCIe cables for your graphics card. If you're upgrading from an older mid-range card to another newer one, chances are you'll be fine. However, if you're stepping up from an RTX 2060 to an RTX 5090, you'll almost certainly need an upgrade to one of the best power supplies to run your new GPU.

Graphics cards come with power supply ratings that should guide you towards the right option for you. Most mid-range cards will run on a 500W supply but high-end cards need a 1,000W unit.

The other factor is the length and overall size of the card. Many high-end graphics cards are huge so you'll need to check the dimensions of the card you're looking to buy to see if fits in your case. For a complete guide on the process of upgrading your graphics card, check our how to upgrade a GPU guide.

What is VRAM?

VRAM is an acronym for "video random access memory" and refers to the built-in memory used by graphics cards. Its purpose is to provide your GPU with its own high-speed pool of memory that it can use to store data.

More VRAM at your disposal is always a positive as it makes your system less reliant on standard RAM to plug any data gaps. If a graphics card does have to go to system memory to find data, it's far slower and can hugely impact your game's frame rate. Capacity is only part of the story, with the speed of your GPU's memory and its bus width influencing memory bandwidth, but capacity should be your first concern.

One example of this is running Indiana Jones and the Great Circle in our RTX 5070 review. Using its maximum path tracing mode at 1080p, this game runs out of VRAM and performs drops to under 10fps, despite the card's GPU actually having enough processing power to run far higher. A 16GB VRAM card is simply needed to run this mode in this game.

The above exception aside, 8GB of VRAM is usually enough for 1080p gaming, especially on entry level cards that otherwise don't have the processing power to run games at ultra high settings. However, for mid-range and above cards, at least 12GB is needed with 16GB offering a bit of a futureproofing cushion - the AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT having this much is at least part of why it's such a great option right now.

Meanwhile, for truly high-end cards, these tend to feature 20GB or more of VRAM, to ensure games can run at 4K with all settings cranked to their maximum.

What is ray tracing?

Ray tracing refers to a different way of games producing their lighting effects. Conventional rendering uses a whole host of tricks to mimic real-life lighting effects but ray tracing (and path tracing) directly mimics the way light rays will interact with the 3D world.

When used well, it can transform the look of games from being flat and unrealistic to having a realism and depth that leaps out at you. In particular, it can improve shadows, reflections, and the overall illumination of a scene, as you can see in the image below that shows Minecraft without ray tracing on the left and with it on the right.

best graphics card - ray tracing example

However, it's not always this transformative. Many AAA games with more sophisticated graphics than Minecraft use clever techniques to very successfully mimic realistic lighting. What's more, ray tracing ruins performance. It can drop frame rates massively while having a minimal affect on the look of some games.

The first ray-tracing-capable graphics cards arrived in 2018, with the Nvidia GeForce RTX 20 series. AMD joined in on the fun with its Radeon RX 6000 series in 2020, with Intel following with its Arc discrete GPUs in 2022. Time has shown that these early cards weren't really very good for ray tracing and it's only now in 2025 that a wide range of cards are powerful enough to enable ray tracing. Plus, it's only really now that we're starting to get games that take true advantage of the technology.

Does ray tracing work on all games?

Real-time ray tracing has only been a part of games since 2018, meaning that every game released before then won't feature the technology unless it's been patched in since. However, it's not a given that every game release after that time will feature ray-traced effects. The likes of Call of Duty Black Ops 6 and Baldurs Gate 3 don't include it, for instance.

Nonetheless, many big games, such as Fortnite and Cyberpunk 2077 offer ray-tracing options, and the number of examples continues to grow. Plus, we're even starting to see really old games get the ray tracing treatment with tools such as RTX Remix. We've already seen ray tracing in Quake 2 and Half-Life 2 and more titles are likely to follow.

What is rasterization?

Rasterization is the process through which 3D models are converted into the pixels you see on your screen. Traditionally, it is a fundamentally different technique to ray tracing, but modern graphics systems allow for ray-traced effects to be used in conjunction with rasterization. When people talk about the rasterization performance or traditional rasterization of a GPU, they're referring to its non-ray-traced 3D rendering speed. The vast majority of games still only use rasterization with no ray tracing at all, thuogh we're starting to see more games require ray tracing, such as with Indiana Jones and the Great Circle and Doom: The Dark Ages.

Is a GTX or RTX graphics card better?

GeForce RTX graphics cards offer a more feature-rich experience than those sporting a GTX badge and provide superior performance for any given class of GPU. So, for instance, an RTX 2080 is better than a GTX 1080 in all areas but a GTX 1080 is faster than an RTX 2060, it's just that the RTX 2060 has access to more modern features.

Those modern features are ray tracing and DLSS support. Every RTX GPU is capable of using DLSS Super Resolution to boost frame rates via upscaling, in addition to improving visuals through ray-traced effects. Meanwhile, GTX pixel pushers don't have access to either technology.

As such, we don't recommend picking up a GTX graphics card these days. Not only are they very old now, you'll miss out on a lot of modern features.

What is multi frame gen?

A key feature you'll see mentioned a few times in this guide is multi frame gen. This is Nvidia's latest frame-generation technology that uses AI to generate entirely new frames in between conventionally rendered frames. This boosts your frame rate for a smoother look and feel. Frame generation (introduced in DLSS 3) has been available on Nvidia GPUs since the RTX 4000 series and on AMD cards (introduced with AMD FSR 3) but multi frame gen is new to Nvidia' RTX 5000 cards.

This new version generates not just one extra frame between normal frames but up to three extra frames, for a huge boost in the apparent frame rate of your game. For instance, in our RTX 5090 review, our frame rate at 1440p in Cyberpunk 2077 went from 186fps to 337fps with the GPU hardly working much harder.

However, MFG isn't a wonder cure. If you have a low initial frame rate (under 60fps for single player games and under 90fps for multiplayer), MFG will boost the look of your frame rate, but the snappy feel you expect of a higher frame rate isn't there. That's because only one in every four frames is actually responding directly to your inputs. You don't feel this as much at higher initial frame rates, as the base frame rate is fast enough to already feel responsive. However, at lower frame rates, using MFG can feel significantly worse than either single frame gen or no frame generation at all.

You can learn more about frame generation in our DLSS and FSR guides, which also explain their upscaling and other AI-derived frame rate-enhancing tech.

For more ways to upgrade your gaming PC, check out our best gaming motherboard and best gaming CPU guides.