Best graphics card 2023

Find the best Nvidia and AMD PC gaming GPU to buy right now with our graphics card buyers guide, from affordable 1080p cards to premium 4K gaming monsters.

Are you on the lookout for the best gaming GPU for your PC? Then look no further – our guide to the best graphics card takes you through the cream of the crop, from affordable 1080p workhorses to premium 4K powerhouses, we’ve got you covered.

At Custom PC, we’ve been reviewing the latest gaming GPU options since 2003, and our game tests include measuring the frame rate in Cyberpunk 2077, Doom Eternal, and Metro Exodus, all with and without ray tracing. We also test with Assassin’s Creed Valhalla. For more information, see our How we test page.

In this guide, you’ll find affordable gaming GPUs costing under $299 (£320), along with high-end graphics cards costing over $1,699 (£1,699) for those who want to enable all the eye candy at fast frame rates. Your choice of GPU will have a bigger impact on gaming performance than any other component in your PC, so it’s important to get it right.

Here are the best gaming GPUs in 2023:

1. Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090

The best 4K gaming GPU is the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090.

Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090 graphics card

The GeForce RTX 4090 shows how 4K gaming should be done. It annihilates the competition and its predecessors, making settings that were previously impossible achievable, including 240fps+ frame rates at 4K with ray tracing enabled.

The new tech it brings to the table is also mightily impressive, with DLSS 3 AI frame generation making demanding games such as Cyberpunk 2077 run at over 100fps with settings that look incredible. This tech is already lined up to be supported in several big titles as well. Few people will be able to afford one of these flagship cards, but If you have plenty of cash it’s undoubtedly the best 4K gaming GPU. Read our full GeForce RTX 4090 review for more detail on this monster GPU.

Pros:

  • Amazing 4K ray tracing performance
  • DLSS 3 has great potential
  • Fastest GPU ever

Cons:

  • Ridiculously expensive
  • High power draw

Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090 specs:

Stream processors / CUDA cores: 16,384
RT cores 128 (3rd-gen)
Tensor cores 512 (4th-gen)
Base clock 2235 MHz
Max boost clock 2520 MHz
Memory 24 GB GDDR6X
Memory clock 1325 MHz (21.2 GHz effective)
Memory bandwidth 1,018 GB/s
Memory interface 384-bit
Card interface 16x PCIe 4
Power connectors 1 x 16-pin / 4 x 8-pin

Price: Expect to pay $1,699 (£1,699).

2. AMD Radeon RX 7600

The best budget gaming GPU is the AMD Radeon RX 7600.

Sapphire Pulse AMD Radeon RX 7600

We’re so pleased that you can finally buy a graphics card based on the latest GPU tech without spending a fortune, and the AMD Radeon RX 7600 offers spectacular value. This GPU is based on the AMD RDNA 3 architecture, which improves performance in several key areas over comparable RDNA 2 GPUs.

Unlike, the Radeon RX 6600 XT, the Radeon RX 7600 can handle Cyberpunk 2077 at 1,920 x 1,080 with Ultra settings, and you can even enable ray tracing with some help from AMD FSR. What’s more, it can even handle some games at 2,560 x 1,440, including Assassin’s Creed Valhalla and Doom Eternal.

Across a lot of our tests, this affordable gaming GPU wasn’t far off the performance of the Radeon RX 6700 XT and Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 Ti, while being well ahead of the GeForce RTX 3060. There’s only 8GB of memory, but you can’t have everything at this price, and that’s enough for most gaming at 1,920 x 1,080. Read our full AMD Radeon RX 7600 review for more information about this affordable gaming GPU.

Pros:

  • Fantastic price
  • Great rasterization performance
  • Standard power connector

Cons:

  • No AI frame generation tech
  • Ray tracing performance could be better
  • Only 8GB of VRAM

AMD Radeon RX 7600 specs:

GPU Navi 33
Stream processors 2,048
RT cores 32
ROPs 32
Game clock 2250 MHz
Boost clock 2660 MHz
L2 cache 2 MB
L3 cache (2nd-gen Infinity Cache) 32 MB
Memory  8 GB GDDR6
Memory bus 128-bit
Memory clock 2250 MHz (18 GHz effective)
Memory bandwidth 288 GB/s
TDP / TGP 165 W
Interface 8x PCIe 4

Price: Expect to pay $269 (£259).

3. Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 8GB

The best 1080p ray tracing gaming GPU is the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 Ti.

Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 Ti Founders Edition

Unlike the top-end GPUs based on the Nvidia Ada architecture, the GeForce RTX 4060 Ti doesn’t have a scary price tag. In fact its price of $399 matches the price of its predecessor, the GeForce RTX 3060 Ti. It’s not massively faster than the 3060 Ti, but it has the added benefit of Nvidia’s DLSS 3 AI frame-generation tech, which massively improves frame rates in games that support it.

We found that it can cope with playing some games, such as Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, at 2,560 x 1,440, and it can also cope well with ray tracing at 1,920 x 1,080, especially if you enable DLSS. For example, with DLSS enabled, it ran our demanding Cyberpunk 2077 Medium ray tracing benchmark at 1,920 x 1,080 without dropping below a 99th percentile frame rate of 63fps.

The only downside is that it can’t quite cope with ray tracing in Doom Eternal at Ultra Nightmare settings, or Cyberpunk 2077 in Overdrive mode (even with DLSS 3 enabled), but we’re hoping the forthcoming GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 16GB will fix all that. Read our full Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 8GB review for more information.

Pros:

  • Good price
  • DLSS 3 support
  • Low power draw

Cons:

  • Only 8GB of VRAM
  • Can’t cope with Cyberpunk 2077 Overdrive mode
  • Not much faster than RTX 3060 Ti

Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 Ti specs:

GPU AD106
CUDA cores / stream processors 4,352
RT cores (3rd-gen) 34
Tensor cores (4th-gen) 136
ROPs 48
Base clock 2310 MHz
Boost clock 2535 MHz
Memory  8GB GDDR6
Memory bus 128-bit
Memory clock 2250MHz (18GHz effective)
Memory bandwidth 288 GB/s
L2 cache 32MB
TDP / TGP 160 W
Interface 8x PCIe 4

Price: Expect to pay $399 (£389).

4. Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070

The best 1440p ray tracing GPU for gaming is the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070.

Asus Dual GeForce RTX 4070

The Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 delivers fantastic performance across the board at 2,560 x 1,440, and it’s amazingly power-efficient too, with our test system drawing just 369 W from the mains. In particular, its ray tracing frame rates are superb, and its support for DLSS 3 really gives it an edge in highly demanding games. Enable this AI frame-generation tech and you can even run Cyberpunk 2077 in its new Overdrive mode.

The Asus Dual GeForce RTX 4070 card we tested (pictured) is a great example, being available for just $599 and only needing a single 8-pin PCIe power plug. Read our full Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 review for the full story.

Pros:

  • Fantastic 1440p performance
  • DLSS 3 support
  • Low power draw

Cons:

  • Still a bit overpriced
  • Radeon RX 6950 XT faster at rasterization
  • Only 12 GB of memory

Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 specs:

Stream processors / CUDA cores 5,888
RT cores 46 (3rd-gen)
Tensor cores 184 (4th-gen)
ROPs 64
Base clock 1920 MHz
Max boost clock 2475 MHz
Memory 12 GB GDDR6X
Memory clock 1313 MHz (21 GHz effective)
Memory bandwidth 504 GB/s
Memory interface 192-bit
Card interface 16x PCIe 4
Power connectors 1 x 16-pin / 2 x 8-pin / 1 x 8-pin

Price: Expect to pay $599 (£589).

5. AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX

The best 4K gaming GPU if you don’t care about ray tracing is the AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX.

AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX

Not everyone wants to turn on all the fancy lighting and shadows that come with ray tracing, especially when there’s such a massive performance penalty attached to it. If your priority is getting smooth frame rates at 4K, but you’re not too fussed about ray tracing, then AMD’s Radeon RX 7900 XTX is well worth considering.

With a price that undercuts the GeForce RTX 4080, and rasterization performance that’s in front of it, AMD has cut out an attractive market slot for the Radeon RX 7900 XTX.

Also, while AMD still can’t catch Nvidia’s latest GPU tech on ray tracing, and there’s no AI frame generation tech, the Radeon RX 7900 XTX still has much more ray tracing power than previous AMD GPUs, performing similarly to Nvidia’s GeForce RTX 3090 Ti. Read our full AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX review to see all the details and test results.

Pros:

  • Cheaper than RTX 4080
  • Improved ray tracing performance over RDNA 2 GPUs
  • Strong shader performance
  • Standard power connectors

Cons:

  • No AI frame generation tech
  • Still expensive
  • Nvidia is still faster at ray tracing

AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX specs:

Stream processors 6,144 dual-issue
RT cores 96
ROPs 192
Game clock 2269 MHz
Max boost clock 2499 MHz
Memory 24GB GDDR6
Memory clock 2500 MHz (20 GHz effective)
Memory bandwidth 960 GB/s
Memory interface 384-bit
L3 cache 96 MB
Card interface 16x PCIe 4
Power connectors 2 x 8-pin
Card length 287 mm
Expansion slots 2.5

Price: Expect to pay $1,049 (£,1049)

That’s it for our current roundup of the best gaming GPUs, but we’ll keep this guide regularly updated as we review more graphics cards in the future, so keep an eye on it if there’s nothing that suits your needs at the moment. The GeForce RTX 4070 is due to launch shortly, and we’re also expecting the GeForce RTX 4060 to launch this year, along with new AMD Radeon RX 7000 GPUs at a range of prices.

Of course, the GPU is also only one part of the gaming PC equation, so make sure you check out our guide to the best CPU for gaming as well.