Introducing the 2025 GPU Hierarchy Testbed

Every benchmark suite begins with a selection of the appropriate testbed. For the GPU hierarchy, we want the fastest possible system to go with our graphics cards, ensuring that nothing else holds the GPU back — as much as we can, at least. The reality is that lower settings and resolutions are less demanding, so 1080p testing in particular simply won't allow the fastest cards to reach their full potential. Faster CPUs routinely come out, but often the gains are only 5–10 percent, so we want to make the most of what's available. Which brings us to our component choices.

Right now, the crown for the fastest CPU for gaming goes to the AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D. It's "only" an 8-core, 16-thread CPU, but the number of games that truly push more than eight CPU-heavy threads can probably be counted on one hand. More importantly, having a large 64MB L3 cache stacked on top of the existing 32MB L3 cache — that's the "X3D" part of the model name — proves extremely beneficial for a lot of games. Not everything benefits to the same degree, but overall the 9800X3D generally outpaces the more expensive 16-core, 32-thread Ryzen 9 9950X3D. That's because the 9950X3D only has the extra L3 cache on one of the two 8-core chiplets, and the extra traffic between the various chips works against the higher core counts in most games. It certainly helps that the 9800X3D costs $320 less.

The motherboard is an often overlooked component, with some feeling that just about any board will get the job done. On some level that's true, but memory compatibility, system stability, features, and ease of use are all important factors. Our board of choice for this socket AM5 build is the Asus ROG Crosshair X870E Hero, a high-end board with a plethora of options. It's perhaps a bit overkill, but again we're trying to remove any and all bottlenecks.

For the memory, we're using a G.Skill Trident Z5 Neo RGB DDR5-6000 CL28 32GB kit. We could have bumped this up to a 64GB kit, but we felt this was sufficient. Maybe we'll upgrade the RAM when we look at whatever AMD's Zen 6 X3D chips bring to the table probably in early 2027. Note that the higher speed and lower latency of this particular kit ends up costing about twice as much as a basic DDR5-5600 CL38 kit, though at just $75 extra that's not really a huge ask. Still, the X3D chips do make higher memory speeds less of a factor — this kit probably only improves overall performance by 3–5 percent over a budget kit.

For storage, we wanted at least a 4TB SSD, preferrably with PCIe Gen5 support. That's a big ask, frankly, and a Gen4 drive could have shaved the cost down by about $150. Still, we wanted the "best" and that lead us to the Micron T705 4TB. We've had this system for a few months already, so there are drives that may technically be a bit faster and consume a bit less power, but they're also a bit more expensive. Overall, the Phison E26 controller at the heart of the T705 still rates as one of the fastest around.

Keeping the CPU cool isn't nearly as difficult with the 9800X3D as it would be with one of Intel's Core i9-14900K CPUs — which are still generally a bit faster in games than the newer Core Ultra 9 285K. We picked up a Cooler Master ML280 Mirror a while back for only $100, but the price has since doubled (it's now discontinued). Still, it works well, as should most other 280mm or 360mm liquid coolers from reputable brands: Cooler Master, NZXT, Corsair, and some others.

Wrapping up the core components, everything needs power, and with the potential to have GPUs slurping down over 600W all on their own, we want plenty to go around. We picked the Corsair HX1500i, and Platinum rated PSU that adheres to the latest ATX 3.1 and PCIe 5.1 specs. It used to cost closer to $400, but right now it's on sale for just $265, which is an excellent price for a high quality power supply.

We're not using a case, because we have an Nvidia PCAT v2 device that sits between the graphics card and the motherboard to capture power data — PCAT stands for Power Capture Analysis Tool. We've tested other power meters and any differences are negligible, meaning this isn't an Nvidia-biased tool. It allows us to see real power use, while running games. It also integrates with Nvidia's FrameView software, a customized version of Intel's PresentMon, so that we get frametimes as well as GPU clocks, power, and temperatures for every benchmark.

Everything is hooked up to a high-end 4K 240Hz monitor, in this case an MSI MPG 272URX. We mostly like the monitor, though it has a penchant to be extremely oversaturated and blown out on colors with certain GPUs, like the RX 6000-series as well as Nvidia's RTX 50-series when running at non-native resolutions. Weird. Also, the newer MSI MPG 321URX has the same specs and features but a larger 32-inch display, for $200 less, so if you're looking for a display recommendation, that's what we'd recommend today.

That wraps up the hardware side of things. What about the software, meaning the games? We've selected 15 different games, representing a variety of genres and engines. In alphabetical order, they are: Black Myth Wukong, Control Ultimate Edition (DXR), Cyberpunk 2077 (DXR), Dragon Age: The Veilguard, Final Fantasy XVI, Flight Simulator 2024, God of War Ragnarok, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle (DXR), MechWarrior 5 Clans, Monster Hunter Wilds, A Quiet Place: The Road Ahead, Spider-Man 2, Stalker 2, Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2, and Witchfire. You'll note the "DXR" on Control, Cyberpunk, and Indiana Jones, indicating we've enabled DirectX Raytracing on those three games — though we didn't use the full RT option in Cyberpunk or Indiana Jones.

Each game gets tested at four different resolution and setting combinations: 1080p medium, 1080p ultra, 1440p ultra, and 4K ultra. Obviously, some of those won't make much sense on certain GPUs, but trying to test every potentially interesting setting at every resolution on each GPU is a fool's errand. Budget GPUs will primarily target 1080p, and extreme GPUs will mostly be of interest at 4K. The 1080p and 1440p native results also serve as a viable proxy for 4K with upscaling — quality mode upscaling at 4K will perform similarly to 1440p native, and performance mode upscaling at 4K will perform similarly to 1080p native.

That's it for the 2025 and 2026 GPU Hierarchy testbed. We plan on keeping it static throughout at least the next year, though drivers will be upgraded as needed and we may change up some of the games over time. If there's anything you'd specifically like to see us test, drop a note in the comments. Thanks for reading, and please share this with your friends.

Welcome to the GPU Hierarchy

Hey there! If you're a long-time reader of my blog (all ten of you), you're going to see a name change. I've rebranded as The GPU Hierarchy, and testing of graphics card performance will be my primary goal going forward.

What started out as a blog about cryptocurrency mining WAAAY back in the day has morphed quite a bit. I haven't done any mining in years, as it has become generally unprofitable — especially considering the upfront hardware costs — but I do know a lot about graphics cards. If you know who I am and my employment history, that shouldn't be a surprise, but I'm going to try to stay mostly anonymous here.

Yes, it's been about two years since I wrote anything here. My full-time job was keeping me very busy. Now I've got a bit more freetime, so I'm going to put that to good use.

I've been testing (and retesting...) all of the modern graphics card for a while, and I'm going to start publishing a full suite of performance results. We'll have tables and charts of performance data, along with power, efficiency, and other metrics. Everything will be linked to Amazon listings (or at least a search of Amazon listings), which helps support the site. But more importantly, I want this to become a great resource for people looking to purchase or upgrade their gaming GPU.

I've assembled a test suite of 15 reasonably modern games, three of which have ray tracing effects enabled. That's 20% of games with RT enabled, and I feel that's probably about as much weight as ray tracing deserves. Upscaling and frame generation techniques will be left off, because I view those as performance enhancements rather than baseline measurements.

To be clear, I routinely enable DLSS and FSR when gaming, but fundamentally those differ in appearance — with XeSS being the red-headed stepchild that differs yet again. Plus we now have DLSS 2/3/4, FSR 2/3/4, and XeSS 1.x/2.x as options, all of which look and perform differently! Perhaps that's a story for another day and some deeper investigations, but for now we'll stick with reference performance.

So, welcome back if you've been here before (when it was hosted at HolyNerdvana). If you're new, welcome to my graphics card blog and site. I'm a veteran of the GPU industry, having tested and reviewed a variety of hardware for over two decades. I know a lot about GPUs and graphics cards, I have a variety of opinions, and this is where I'll be sharing them now.

This is a fully independent website, meaning there's no big publisher telling me what to write, when to write it, and how often I should spend a long weekend looking for BS Black Friday, Prime Day, Labor Day, etc. deals. Just the straight stuff here. I hope you find it useful, and comments are welcome. Note also the general lack of advertising, which should hopefully mean the pages load quickly. If things go well, maybe I'll get some sponsorships, but I hope to keep such things to a minimum — a throwback to the good old days of the web.

GPU Efficiency and Value Compared

I've done a lot of testing of graphics cards, and I wanted to present some interesting data. I've got nearly all of the latest generation Nvidia RTX 40-series, AMD RX 7000-series, and Intel Arc A-series GPUs tested. One of the cool things about my testing is that I get power data for every benchmark. I've then split all of the results into two separate tables, which are sortable by clicking on the top column: Rasterization Performance and Ray Tracing Performance.

There are 1080p, 1440p, and 4K results for most of the cards, though slower cards aren't tested at 1440p and 4K with ray tracing enabled as it's rather pointless. I'm not sure exactly what this will look like on my blog, but let's give it a shot. We'll start with the rasterization table.

GPU Rasterization Performance and Efficiency Table

GPU	Price	1080p FPS	1080p Power	1080p FPS/$	1080p FPS/W	1440p FPS	1440p Power	1440p FPS/$	1440p FPS/W	4K FPS	4K Power	4K FPS/$	4K FPS/W
GeForce RTX 4090	$1,599	186.9	265.9	0.117	0.703	166.8	314.6	0.104	0.530	116.1	385.2	0.073	0.301
GeForce RTX 4080	$1,100	170.0	222.2	0.155	0.765	142.7	256.4	0.130	0.557	87.1	286.5	0.079	0.304
GeForce RTX 4070 Ti	$774	153.0	224.2	0.198	0.682	121.2	242.6	0.157	0.500	69.5	260.8	0.090	0.267
GeForce RTX 4070	$590	141.2	199.4	0.239	0.708	109.2	214.3	0.185	0.509	62.0	226.4	0.105	0.274
GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 16GB	$500	104.3	147.8	0.209	0.706	74.7	153.1	0.149	0.488	40.7	157.1	0.081	0.259
GeForce RTX 4060 Ti	$374	104.4	142.6	0.279	0.732	74.8	148.8	0.200	0.502	40.2	152.0	0.108	0.264
GeForce RTX 4060	$280	97.6	136.4	0.349	0.716	69.8	141.3	0.249	0.494	37.3	143.4	0.133	0.260
Radeon RX 7900 XTX	$940	166.5	324.9	0.177	0.513	142.3	348.1	0.151	0.409	90.1	351.8	0.096	0.256
Radeon RX 7900 XT	$750	160.6	310.1	0.214	0.518	134.9	327.1	0.180	0.412	82.6	328.9	0.110	0.251
Radeon RX 7600	$258	81.7	153.1	0.317	0.534	56.7	153.3	0.220	0.370	29.2	153.2	0.113	0.190
GeForce RTX 3090 Ti	$1,456	148.0	399.3	0.102	0.371	119.8	433.0	0.082	0.277	74.6	457.3	0.051	0.163
GeForce RTX 3090	$1,177	146.1	370.4	0.124	0.395	118.0	392.1	0.100	0.301	72.8	405.6	0.062	0.180
GeForce RTX 3080 Ti	$914	134.6	344.6	0.147	0.391	107.5	356.2	0.118	0.302	65.2	360.0	0.071	0.181
GeForce RTX 3080	$690	130.3	327.9	0.189	0.397	102.8	337.8	0.149	0.304	61.9	341.3	0.090	0.181
GeForce RTX 3070 Ti	$480	109.9	270.0	0.229	0.407	82.2	278.7	0.171	0.295	47.4	282.4	0.099	0.168
GeForce RTX 3070	$380	106.8	241.1	0.281	0.443	79.5	246.8	0.209	0.322	45.7	248.4	0.120	0.184
GeForce RTX 3060 Ti	$335	92.9	200.7	0.277	0.463	68.7	204.4	0.205	0.336	38.8	204.4	0.116	0.190
GeForce RTX 3060	$280	80.6	178.5	0.288	0.452	59.3	183.3	0.212	0.324	33.6	185.7	0.120	0.181
GeForce RTX 3050	$225	51.1	122.4	0.227	0.417	37.0	126.3	0.164	0.293	20.3	127.5	0.090	0.159
Radeon RX 6950 XT	$599	143.9	297.7	0.240	0.483	114.2	324.9	0.191	0.352	65.1	326.5	0.109	0.199
Radeon RX 6900 XT	$750	138.1	282.3	0.184	0.489	108.3	299.1	0.144	0.362	61.6	300.1	0.082	0.205
Radeon RX 6800 XT	$520	131.2	275.2	0.252	0.477	101.2	293.0	0.195	0.346	57.4	298.7	0.110	0.192
Radeon RX 6800	$440	123.1	241.5	0.280	0.510	94.0	256.7	0.214	0.366	53.4	266.1	0.121	0.201
Radeon RX 6750 XT	$350	102.0	237.3	0.291	0.430	74.6	249.0	0.213	0.299	40.7	256.6	0.116	0.158
Radeon RX 6700 XT	$320	95.6	205.1	0.299	0.466	69.8	213.6	0.218	0.327	38.0	219.4	0.119	0.173
Radeon RX 6700 10GB	$270	84.3	181.0	0.312	0.466	60.5	185.3	0.224	0.327	31.8	185.5	0.118	0.172
Radeon RX 6650 XT	$235	78.4	171.5	0.333	0.457	55.5	176.4	0.236	0.315	28.3	173.4	0.120	0.163
Radeon RX 6600 XT	$270	76.0	152.3	0.281	0.499	53.3	156.8	0.197	0.340	26.7	152.7	0.099	0.175
Radeon RX 6600	$200	70.1	143.8	0.350	0.487	48.9	145.9	0.244	0.335	24.6	143.6	0.123	0.171
Intel Arc A770 16GB	$330	77.9	204.4	0.236	0.381	59.2	214.1	0.179	0.277	34.6	222.3	0.105	0.155
Intel Arc A770 8GB	$290	73.0	216.5	0.252	0.337	55.7	231.7	0.192	0.240	31.5	238.8	0.109	0.132
Intel Arc A750	$220	67.4	185.3	0.306	0.364	50.0	194.0	0.227	0.258	27.9	201.0	0.127	0.139
Intel Arc A380	$120	27.4	70.3	0.228	0.390	19.4	72.1	0.162	0.269	—	—	—	—

Okay, click away and have fun. Key points, though: AMD has some good value propositions, often from its previous generation RX 6000-series. However, the RTX 4060 is right up near the top for rasterization performance, trading blows with the RX 6600 and RX 6650 XT. Nvidia's GPU costs more but performs better, in other words.

As for efficiency... it's not even close. Nvidia RTX 40-series cards claim the top seven spots, with the RX 7600 landing in eighth and followed by the RX 7900 XT and RX 7900 XTX. What's sort of funny is that, after the 7000-series GPUs, AMD's 6000-series comes next. So Nvidia really leapfrogged AMD when going from RTX 30-series to RTX 40-series in efficiency.

GPU Ray Tracing Performance and Efficiency Table

GPU	Price	1080p FPS	1080p Power	1080p FPS/$	1080p FPS/W	1440p FPS	1440p Power	1440p FPS/$	1440p FPS/W	4K FPS	4K Power	4K FPS/$	4K FPS/W
GeForce RTX 4090	$1,599	144.4	320.1	0.090	0.451	106.7	369.0	0.067	0.289	57.9	408.0	0.036	0.142
GeForce RTX 4080	$1,100	115.9	251.7	0.105	0.461	79.3	273.1	0.072	0.290	41.1	287.0	0.037	0.143
GeForce RTX 4070 Ti	$774	96.1	236.0	0.124	0.407	63.8	252.4	0.082	0.253	32.7	263.4	0.042	0.124
GeForce RTX 4070	$590	88.1	210.0	0.149	0.419	57.5	219.6	0.097	0.262	28.8	223.9	0.049	0.129
GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 16GB	$500	60.3	152.7	0.121	0.395	38.6	155.7	0.077	0.248	18.6	157.1	0.037	0.119
GeForce RTX 4060 Ti	$374	60.4	149.7	0.162	0.404	38.5	152.5	0.103	0.252	17.8	149.2	0.048	0.119
GeForce RTX 4060	$280	56.2	142.2	0.201	0.395	35.3	143.6	0.126	0.246	16.3	140.2	0.058	0.116
Radeon RX 7900 XT	$750	83.3	327.3	0.111	0.254	55.7	326.4	0.074	0.171	27.8	329.1	0.037	0.085
Radeon RX 7900 XTX	$940	88.2	350.7	0.094	0.251	59.3	346.6	0.063	0.171	30.0	350.5	0.032	0.086
Radeon RX 7600	$258	30.3	150.6	0.117	0.201	17.6	148.0	0.068	0.119	—	—	—	—
GeForce RTX 3090 Ti	$1,456	95.0	418.0	0.065	0.227	65.2	437.7	0.045	0.149	34.5	449.2	0.024	0.077
GeForce RTX 3090	$1,177	91.4	380.9	0.078	0.240	62.5	392.4	0.053	0.159	32.6	395.4	0.028	0.082
GeForce RTX 3080 Ti	$914	83.5	345.0	0.091	0.242	57.8	351.6	0.063	0.164	29.4	347.9	0.032	0.085
GeForce RTX 3080	$690	80.6	330.3	0.117	0.244	55.2	336.3	0.080	0.164	27.0	328.2	0.039	0.082
GeForce RTX 3070 Ti	$480	63.9	272.4	0.133	0.234	40.6	271.5	0.084	0.149	17.2	249.3	0.036	0.069
GeForce RTX 3070	$380	62.0	242.2	0.163	0.256	39.4	243.0	0.104	0.162	16.6	224.0	0.044	0.074
GeForce RTX 3060 Ti	$335	53.5	201.2	0.160	0.266	34.1	201.2	0.102	0.169	14.0	183.8	0.042	0.076
GeForce RTX 3060	$280	45.6	177.2	0.163	0.257	29.0	178.1	0.104	0.163	13.0	171.8	0.047	0.076
GeForce RTX 3050	$225	27.4	119.1	0.122	0.230	17.1	121.2	0.076	0.141	—	—	—	—
Radeon RX 6900 XT	$750	60.3	299.5	0.080	0.201	40.0	301.6	0.053	0.132	19.6	300.6	0.026	0.065
Radeon RX 6950 XT	$599	64.4	321.9	0.108	0.200	42.7	323.6	0.071	0.132	21.0	328.2	0.035	0.064
Radeon RX 6800 XT	$520	57.6	290.2	0.111	0.199	37.8	296.4	0.073	0.127	18.2	297.1	0.035	0.061
Radeon RX 6800	$440	53.3	257.1	0.121	0.207	34.9	265.0	0.079	0.132	16.8	267.2	0.038	0.063
Radeon RX 6750 XT	$350	41.4	250.0	0.118	0.165	26.0	256.3	0.074	0.102	12.2	259.0	0.035	0.047
Radeon RX 6700 XT	$320	38.0	208.4	0.119	0.182	24.1	214.0	0.075	0.113	11.5	216.6	0.036	0.053
Radeon RX 6700 10GB	$270	34.3	186.1	0.127	0.184	21.0	188.2	0.078	0.112	—	—	—	—
Radeon RX 6650 XT	$235	29.2	163.7	0.124	0.179	17.6	167.8	0.075	0.105	—	—	—	—
Radeon RX 6600 XT	$270	27.8	145.6	0.103	0.191	16.6	145.2	0.061	0.114	—	—	—	—
Radeon RX 6600	$200	25.4	139.3	0.127	0.182	15.0	138.6	0.075	0.108	—	—	—	—
Intel Arc A770 16GB	$330	42.4	209.6	0.129	0.202	29.8	220.6	0.090	0.135	—	—	—	—
Intel Arc A770 8GB	$290	40.8	224.9	0.141	0.181	24.4	226.6	0.084	0.108	—	—	—	—
Intel Arc A750	$220	42.6	196.9	0.194	0.216	25.9	210.0	0.118	0.123	—	—	—	—
Intel Arc A380	$120	12.1	68.6	0.101	0.177	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—

Ray tracing as usual greatly favors Nvidia GPUs. In terms of value, the lower tier RTX 40-series and 30-series parts rank near the top, with the Arc A750 also making a name for itself. The best AMD GPU for ray tracing value goes to the RX 6700 10GB, sitting in eleventh place overall and followed closely by the RX 6600. Naturally, the most expensive cards are pretty poor in terms of value.

Efficiency meanwhile hugely favors Nvidia's RTX 40-series, with a relatively huge gap between the RTX 3060 Ti and the RTX 4060. The latter does 0.395 FPS/W at 1080p while the former is only 0.266 FPS/W. AMD's top option ends up as the RX 7900 XT, with just 0.254 FPS/W at 1080p, though the 7900 cards do slightly better at 1440p and 4K. Intel's Arc might offer up some decent performance, but it also uses more power and generally ends up near the bottom of the efficiency charts.

GPU Performance Hierarchy and the Best Graphics Cards, November 2022

With graphics cards finally back in stock, I've put together this comprehensive GPU performance hierarchy of the past two (now starting on three) generations of graphics cards. These are the best graphics cards around, but it's also important to know what you're getting. I've benchmarked all of these cards, at multiple resolutions and settings. Here's how they stack up across a test suite of 15 games.

I've also listed current GPU prices, which have improved substantially over the past few months. Most AMD graphics cards are now selling at or below their official MSRPs, and Nvidia's fastest GPUs (RTX 3080 Ti, RTX 3090, and RTX 3090 Ti) are also well below their MSRPs. The RTX 4090 and RTX 4080 have also launched, alongside the various Intel Arc GPUs. Here's the current list, updated regularly as new GPUs arrive.

GPU Benchmarks and Performance Hierarchy

Note: Click the column headings to sort the table!

Graphics Card	Overall Performance	4K Ultra	1440p Ultra	1080p Ultra	1080p Medium	Online Price (MSRP)	Specifications
GeForce RTX 4090	182.5	128.7	167.2	179.8	225.6	$2,177 ($1,599)	AD102, 16384 shaders, 2520 MHz, 82.6 TFLOPS, 24GB GDDR6X@21Gbps, 1008GB/s, 450W
GeForce RTX 4080	162.9	100.7	148.2	167.9	217.0	$1,249 ($1,199)	AD103, 9728 shaders, 2505 MHz, 48.7 TFLOPS, 16GB GDDR6X@22.4Gbps, 617GB/s, 320W
GeForce RTX 3090 Ti	144.7	83.0	128.2	153.5	209.7	$1,449 ($1,999)	GA102, 10752 shaders, 1860 MHz, 40.0 TFLOPS, 24GB GDDR6X@21Gbps, 1008GB/s, 450W
Radeon RX 6950 XT	137.7	74.6	124.4	151.3	210.9	$799 ($1,099)	Navi 21, 5120 shaders, 2310 MHz, 23.7 TFLOPS, 16GB GDDR6@18Gbps, 576GB/s, 335W
GeForce RTX 3090	136.0	75.1	119.2	145.5	205.2	$1,298 ($1,499)	GA102, 10496 shaders, 1695 MHz, 35.6 TFLOPS, 24GB GDDR6X@19.5Gbps, 936GB/s, 350W
GeForce RTX 3080 Ti	132.4	72.6	115.7	141.9	201.3	$1,149 ($1,199)	GA102, 10240 shaders, 1665 MHz, 34.1 TFLOPS, 12GB GDDR6X@19Gbps, 912GB/s, 350W
GeForce RTX 3080 12GB	129.0	70.1	112.5	138.4	198.3	$899 (N/A)	GA102, 8960 shaders, 1845 MHz, 33.1 TFLOPS, 12GB GDDR6X@19Gbps, 912GB/s, 350W
Radeon RX 6900 XT	127.6	66.9	113.4	142.2	203.2	$669 ($999)	Navi 21, 5120 shaders, 2250 MHz, 23.0 TFLOPS, 16GB GDDR6@16Gbps, 512GB/s, 300W
GeForce RTX 3080	123.9	65.9	106.5	132.8	197.5	$732 ($699)	GA102, 8704 shaders, 1710 MHz, 29.8 TFLOPS, 10GB GDDR6X@19Gbps, 760GB/s, 320W
Radeon RX 6800 XT	120.8	62.1	107.2	135.1	196.5	$597 ($649)	Navi 21, 4608 shaders, 2250 MHz, 20.7 TFLOPS, 16GB GDDR6@16Gbps, 512GB/s, 300W
Radeon RX 6800	108.0	53.5	93.8	120.6	187.6	$499 ($579)	Navi 21, 3840 shaders, 2105 MHz, 16.2 TFLOPS, 16GB GDDR6@16Gbps, 512GB/s, 250W
GeForce RTX 3070 Ti	106.0	50.6	91.0	117.4	182.0	$549 ($599)	GA104, 6144 shaders, 1770 MHz, 21.7 TFLOPS, 8GB GDDR6X@19Gbps, 608GB/s, 290W
GeForce RTX 3070	100.2	46.6	85.3	112.2	176.0	$529 ($499)	GA104, 5888 shaders, 1725 MHz, 20.3 TFLOPS, 8GB GDDR6@14Gbps, 448GB/s, 220W
GeForce RTX 2080 Ti	97.9	47.9	82.7	107.6	169.2	$997 ($999)	TU102, 4352 shaders, 1545 MHz, 13.4 TFLOPS, 11GB GDDR6@14Gbps, 616GB/s, 250W
Radeon RX 6750 XT	95.7	44.3	80.5	109.4	180.3	$420 ($549)	Navi 22, 2560 shaders, 2600 MHz, 13.3 TFLOPS, 12GB GDDR6@18Gbps, 432GB/s, 250W
GeForce RTX 3060 Ti	91.0	41.1	76.5	102.3	166.0	$389 ($399)	GA104, 4864 shaders, 1665 MHz, 16.2 TFLOPS, 8GB GDDR6@14Gbps, 448GB/s, 200W
Radeon RX 6700 XT	90.2	41.6	75.5	103.4	171.3	$379 ($489)	Navi 22, 2560 shaders, 2581 MHz, 13.2 TFLOPS, 12GB GDDR6@16Gbps, 384GB/s, 230W
GeForce RTX 2080 Super	83.4	37.2	70.9	94.4	152.5	$599 ($699)	TU104, 3072 shaders, 1815 MHz, 11.2 TFLOPS, 8GB GDDR6@15.5Gbps, 496GB/s, 250W
Radeon RX 6700 10GB	81.3	35.1	68.0	95.2	158.0	$329 (N/A)	Navi 22, 2304 shaders, 2450 MHz, 11.3 TFLOPS, 10GB GDDR6@16Gbps, 320GB/s, 175W
Intel Arc A770 16GB	80.9	39.4	68.4	89.6	139.0	$349 ($349)	ACM-G10, 4096 shaders, 2100 MHz, 17.2 TFLOPS, 16GB GDDR5@17.5Gbps, 560GB/s, 225W
GeForce RTX 2080	79.9	35.0	68.0	91.2	147.2	$699 ($699)	TU104, 2944 shaders, 1710 MHz, 10.1 TFLOPS, 8GB GDDR6@14Gbps, 448GB/s, 215W
Radeon RX 6650 XT	73.7	32.2	60.4	86.0	147.7	$299 ($399)	Navi 23, 2048 shaders, 2635 MHz, 10.8 TFLOPS, 8GB GDDR6@18Gbps, 280GB/s, 180W
GeForce RTX 2070 Super	73.7	31.8	62.5	84.7	137.0	$499 ($499)	TU104, 2560 shaders, 1770 MHz, 9.1 TFLOPS, 8GB GDDR6@14Gbps, 448GB/s, 215W
Radeon RX 6600 XT	72.0	31.4	58.4	84.0	145.6	$279 ($399)	Navi 23, 2048 shaders, 2589 MHz, 10.6 TFLOPS, 8GB GDDR6@16Gbps, 256GB/s, 160W
Intel Arc A750	71.4	33.8	59.9	79.0	128.6	$289 ($289)	ACM-G10, 3584 shaders, 2050 MHz, 14.7 TFLOPS, 8GB GDDR5@16Gbps, 512GB/s, 225W
GeForce RTX 3060	69.8	31.6	57.6	78.3	131.0	$299 ($329)	GA106, 3584 shaders, 1777 MHz, 12.7 TFLOPS, 12GB GDDR6@15Gbps, 360GB/s, 170W
GeForce RTX 2070	65.5	28.2	55.6	75.3	122.1	$499 ($399)	TU106, 2304 shaders, 1620 MHz, 7.5 TFLOPS, 8GB GDDR6@14Gbps, 448GB/s, 175W
GeForce RTX 2060 Super	62.2	26.4	52.5	72.0	116.8	$331 ($399)	TU106, 2176 shaders, 1650 MHz, 7.2 TFLOPS, 8GB GDDR6@14Gbps, 448GB/s, 175W
Radeon RX 5700 XT	61.7	29.3	53.3	73.7	125.8	$298 ($399)	Navi 10, 2560 shaders, 1905 MHz, 9.8 TFLOPS, 8GB GDDR6@14Gbps, 448GB/s, 225W
Radeon RX 6600	60.8	25.9	49.0	71.6	125.4	$209 ($329)	Navi 23, 1792 shaders, 2491 MHz, 8.9 TFLOPS, 8GB GDDR6@14Gbps, 224GB/s, 132W
Radeon RX 5700	54.4	25.7	47.2	64.8	111.3	$298 ($349)	Navi 10, 2304 shaders, 1725 MHz, 7.9 TFLOPS, 8GB GDDR6@14Gbps, 448GB/s, 180W
GeForce RTX 2060	51.9	20.6	42.1	60.8	106.2	$229 ($299)	TU106, 1920 shaders, 1680 MHz, 6.5 TFLOPS, 6GB GDDR6@14Gbps, 336GB/s, 160W
GeForce RTX 3050	50.6	22.3	41.1	57.1	98.1	$249 ($249)	GA106, 2560 shaders, 1777 MHz, 9.1 TFLOPS, 8GB GDDR6@14Gbps, 224GB/s, 130W
Radeon RX 5600 XT	48.5	22.5	42.0	58.1	100.6	$279 ($279)	Navi 10, 2304 shaders, 1750 MHz, 8.1 TFLOPS, 8GB GDDR6@14Gbps, 336GB/s, 160W
GeForce GTX 1660 Super	36.5	15.4	31.5	44.4	82.8	$195 ($229)	TU116, 1408 shaders, 1785 MHz, 5.0 TFLOPS, 6GB GDDR6@14Gbps, 336GB/s, 125W
Radeon RX 5500 XT 8GB	33.3	15.0	28.5	39.8	72.6	$229 ($199)	Navi 14, 1408 shaders, 1845 MHz, 5.2 TFLOPS, 8GB GDDR6@14Gbps, 224GB/s, 130W
GeForce GTX 1660	32.9	13.7	28.5	39.9	75.1	$199 ($219)	TU116, 1408 shaders, 1785 MHz, 5.0 TFLOPS, 6GB GDDR5@8Gbps, 192GB/s, 120W
Radeon RX 5500 XT 4GB	27.9	11.5	23.3	33.5	66.9	$149 ($179)	Navi 14, 1408 shaders, 1845 MHz, 5.2 TFLOPS, 4GB GDDR6@14Gbps, 224GB/s, 130W
GeForce GTX 1650 Super	26.5	10.5	21.0	33.2	67.9	$209 ($169)	TU116, 1280 shaders, 1725 MHz, 4.4 TFLOPS, 4GB GDDR6@12Gbps, 192GB/s, 100W
Radeon RX 6500 XT	25.9	9.3	18.8	31.9	68.5	$159 ($199)	Navi 24, 1024 shaders, 2815 MHz, 5.8 TFLOPS, 4GB GDDR6@18Gbps, 144GB/s, 107W
Intel Arc A380	25.8	9.4	21.2	31.0	58.7	$139 ($139)	ACM-G11, 1024 shaders, 2000 MHz, 4.1 TFLOPS, 6GB GDDR5@15.5Gbps, 186GB/s, 75W
GeForce GTX 1650	20.0	7.4	15.8	26.6	51.1	$156 ($159)	TU117, 896 shaders, 1665 MHz, 3.0 TFLOPS, 4GB GDDR5@8Gbps, 128GB/s, 75W
Radeon RX 6400	20.0	7.2	14.5	24.5	52.7	$139 ($159)	Navi 24, 768 shaders, 2321 MHz, 3.6 TFLOPS, 4GB GDDR6@16Gbps, 128GB/s, 53W

If you're looking at those numbers and wondering where they come from, they're a composite score generated by using the geometric mean of testing conducted at 1080p, 1440p, and 4K. Ray tracing hardware factors into the scores as well, which explains why Nvidia's RTX GPUs often outclass their AMD counterparts, and the same mostly goes for Intel Arc GPUs.

Prices are not a factor in the above rankings, but I've linked to Amazon in the first column — not all GPUs are available there, or in stock. Obviously, previous generation parts tend to be far less desirable, as prices have not dropped nearly enough relative to the performance on tap. Note that I do get Amazon affiliate compensation if you use my links.

With the overall performance rankings out of the way, I've also selected my top four picks for the enthusiast, high-end, mid-range, and budget markets. Here's where price becomes a much bigger consideration.

The Best Enthusiast Graphics Card

GeForce RTX 4090 24GB ($1,599)

Nvidia's GeForce RTX 4090 is the new ruler of the graphics card world, particularly for 4K gaming and especially if you want to play games with ray tracing effects. It's expensive and also sold out right now, but if you can nab one... damn, is it fast! You also get 24GB of memory, DLSS support — including the new DLSS 3 Frame Generation technology to further boost performance, especially in CPU limited scenarios — and improved efficiency. This is without question the top enthusiast graphics card right now.

The Best High-End Graphics Card

Radeon RX 6750 XT 12GB ($420)

Picking the best high-end GPU is a bit more difficult. The RTX 3080, 3070, and 3060 Ti are all worth a thought, but overall I give the edge to the Radeon RX 6750 XT. It has more memory, it performs nearly as well as the Nvidia cards — better if you're not worried about ray tracing effects — and it's reasonably priced starting at $449. You can also opt for the RX 6700 XT, which is only a few percent slower and costs about $50 less (for however long it remains in stock).

The Best Mainstream Graphics Card

Radeon RX 6600 8GB ($229)

There's little question about this one, as the RX 6600 delivers excellent performance and only costs $229 (sometimes less). Such prices were practically unheard of during the past two years for a GPU of this quality, but with the massive drop off in GPU mining profitability, there appears to be a growing surplus of AMD's Navi 23 parts. Our overall performance ranking puts it behind the RTX 3060, but that card costs about $100 more. Online prices are lower than even the RTX 3050, a card that's easily eclipsed by the RX 6600. This is arguably the best graphics card value right now. As a wild card alternative, you could also try to pick up an Intel Arc A750, which delivers superior performance and features... as long as the drivers don't bite you in the ass. Which they probably will.

The Best Budget Graphics Card

Radeon RX 6500 XT 4GB ($159)

This is a tough one, as the Radeon RX 6500 XT has a lot of limitations. It doesn't have much memory, it's limited to a 4-lane PCIe interface, it only has two display outputs, and it doesn't even have video encoding hardware. The problem is that the next step up basically puts us right back at the $250 midrange price point. Given you can find the RX 6500 XT for just $159, and it competes with the GTX 1650 Super that costs $60 more, there just aren't many other worthwhile options for under $200. Intel's Arc A380 would be an option, but it's continually sold out — which probably has more to do with a lack of supply than high demand.

Performance Charts

If you want a slightly different view of the performance rankings, here are the four charts — this time without trying to smush everything into a single composite score. So instead of looking at average and 1% lows "combined," you're getting the pure, unadulterated performance data.

Looking Forward to More Ada and RDNA 3

Nvidia's next generation Ada Lovelace architecture (RTX 40-series) and AMD's next generation RDNA 3 architecture (RX 7000-series) are slated to arrive before the end of the year, with the RTX 4080 and 4090 now launched and the AMD 7900 series coming December 13. While I could argue that you should just wait for the new parts to arrive, there's little reason to expect great prices — the RTX 4090 and now RTX 4080 sold out within hours at most and are now mostly sitting at scalper prices. Again. But I don't expect the high prices to remain the norm for very long, as there's no longer profitable GPU mining to support outrageous prices.

If you already have a decent graphics card, there's no rush to upgrade today. Also keep in mind that the wafer costs on the upcoming architectures are going to be significantly higher, and prices were paid in advance, many months ago — when GPU prices were still far higher. 4nm/5nm class GPUs will simply be inherently more expensive to make, and AMD and Nvidia will want to try and keep higher profit margins.

Beyond the rest of 2022, I do expect to see RTX 4070 Ti and lower tier Ada Lovelace GPUs start showing up in early 2023. AMD will also follow up the RX 7900 series with various other 7000-series parts, with probably at least two 7800-class cards in early 2023. The mainstream and budget cards won't come for a while, though.

Crossy Road Medieval Character Unlocks

I'm going to interrupt my normally scheduled GPU talk to go off on a tangent: Crossy Road. It's a stupid game. I've played it waaaaaay too much! Recently, the Medieval update came out with a new map, plus 14 new characters. I've already unlocked every other character, except for the Piggy Bank that requires you to pay $2.99 — I'm cheap, and also addicted. LOL

So, here are the 14 medieval characters, brief notes on each, and what you need to do to unlock them.

1. Gorgeous Prince: Prize Machine. Laughs knowingly and appears quite full of himself.
2. Princess: Prize Machine. Sometimes giggles, sometimes sniffs arrogantly, she's apparently the female counterpart to the Gorgeous Prince.
3. Blacksmith: Prize Machine. Anvils, anvils, everywhere! Lots of the regular objects on the medieval level are replaced with anvils, which the blacksmith can whack. It doesn't do anything other than make a sound.
4. Peasant: Prize Machine. Laughs like Beavis and Butthead, or some evildoer. If you stand still, he'll throw rotten fruit in whatever direction he's facing.
5. Falconer: Prize Machine. Not much to say, except the bird squawks and when you die it flies away.
6. Monk: Prize Machine. Carries a bible, which he lifts into the air when you stand still. He's the only character that can find Robin Hood.
7. Healer: Prize Machine. Carries around a book and a backpack, but otherwise nothing special that I could see.
8. Noblewoman: Prize Machine. Hums to herself and people bow to her when she passes.
9. Nobleman: Prize Machine. Mumbles importantly to himself and people bow to him when he passes.





10. The Wart: Prize Machine. A nod to Disney's A Sword in the Stone, The Wart is the only character that can draw Excalibur and unlock Merlin. Otherwise, he's pretty nondescript.
11. Black Knight: Requires 100 tokens, obtained by playing the Pecking Order daily challenge. He's an homage to Monty Python and the Quest for the Holy Grail. If you stand still for a bit, he loses his arms first and then his legs. Keep moving, or get to a log or a lily pad and he can rest.
12. Lady of the Lake: Jump in the sparkling river. There's an audio cue when you see the river that's different looking than the others. When playing as the Lady, all rivers are now sparkling. She carries a sword (presumably Excalibur), and will raise it in the air if you stand still for a bit.
13. Merlin: Play as The Wart and find an open field with the sword in the stone. Approach it and it shakes and rises up, and you unlock Merlin. Note that you can find the sword in the stone with other characters but the sword remains stuck. Merlin carries a wizard's staff, and if you stand still he'll raise it up and cause nearby objects to float.

14. Robin Hood: Play as the Monk (Friar Tuck?) and you can sometimes find him standing to the side. I found him near a river, but I don't know if that's always the case. Robin Hood will often encounter his Merry Men near jousting areas, and they will dance a jig with him.

Congratulations! Assume you have enough time and patience to spin the stupid Prize Machine a bunch of times (I was at 83,000 coins when the Medieval Update arrived), you can now unlock all of the new characters.

What's the Medieval level like? The trains are replaced by jousters, there are roads with carriages and people riding horses, and you get the usual rivers and such. All told, it's a fun little updates for people who, like me, spend too much time playing stupid games while running benchmarks.

AMD Radeon RX 6700 10GB (Non-XT) Review and Specifications, Featuring Sapphire

We've got something new for today: My first graphics card review for the site. It's mostly because this is a card that hasn't been reviewed much, the AMD Radeon RX 6700 non-XT 10GB model. This GPU came later in the life cycle, and it sits roughly between the RX 6650 XT and RX 6700 XT — in price as well as performance. It's sort of a last gasp for RDNA 2, right as RDNA 3 cards are about to launch, though the RX 7900 XTX and RX 7900 XT will be priced in an entirely different category. You can already find the FPS results in our GPU performance hierarchy, but let's dig into things a bit deeper for this review.

AMD Radeon RX 6700 10GB Specifications
Architecture	Navi 22
Process Technology	TSMC N7
Transistors (Billion)	17.2
Die size (mm^2)	336
Compute Units	36
GPU Cores (Shaders)	2304
Ray Accelerators	36
Boost Clock (MHz)	2450
VRAM Speed (Gbps)	16
VRAM (GB)	10
VRAM Bus Width	160
Infinity Cache	80
Render Outputs	64
Texture Mapping Units	144
FP32 TFLOPS (Single-Precision)	11.3
FP16 TFLOPS (Half-Precision)	22.6
Bandwidth (GB/s)	320
Total Board Power (Watts)	175
Launch Date	March 18, 2021
Launch Price	$369 (unofficial)

For quite some time, the Radeon RX 6700 XT was the only desktop card to use AMD's Navi 22 GPU. Later, the RX 6750 XT joined the fun, and both are fully enabled variants of the chip. Given there are always defective die from a wafer, and most of those can be harvested by disabling the affected functional units (CUs, SMs, memory controllers, etc.), we long expected there would be an RX 6700 non-XT card. But it didn't come, and it didn't come, and then it suddenly stealth-launched from a couple of AMD's AIC (add-in card) partners: Sapphire and XFX. Maybe there are others making the 6700 10GB, but in the US at least these are the only ones available.

There's no official pricing on the RX 6700 10GB, sort of like there's no official price for the RTX 3080 12GB or some of the other custom GPUs. It's been a few months since they first appeared, and our recollection is they cost over $400 at launch, but pricing has dropped in the ensuing months. Now, the Sapphire Pulse card we're reviewing goes for $349 while the XFX Speedster model costs $329.

That's probably fair, as Sapphire tends to build a better product — quieter fans, same or better performance. Still, the Pulse is a baseline model with no frills like RGB lighting to get in the way. Also note that it has just a single 8-pin power connector, a tried and true option that shouldn't melt and will provide more than enough electricity for the 175W part. The card has three DisplayPort 1.4a outputs and a single HDMI 2.1 port, typical of most modern graphics cards.

Compared to the RX 6700 XT, you get four fewer CUs (Compute Units) and a 160-bit memory interface. Along with one of the memory channels, you also lose 16MB of Infinity Cache. Memory bandwidth is still reasonable at 320 GB/s, and the extra 2GB might help performance in some games. Speaking of which...

There's not much point in spending a lot of time analyzing the performance. As expected, it lands about midway between the RX 6650 XT and the RX 6700 XT. That makes sense considering it has 11–25  percent more memory bandwidth than the RX 6600/6650 XT and about 5–7 percent more compute available. It also has more Infinity Cache, which means it might make better use of the compute, and the real-world clocks tend to be higher than the official specs.

It's interesting to see how this latecomer fares against other similarly priced graphics cards as well. Overall, it trades blows with the Intel Arc A770 16GB, winning at 1080p medium, tying at 1080p ultra, and then falling behind at 1440p and 4K. It also wins against the RTX 3060, sometimes by a lot, and at times it looks more like an RTX 3060 Ti competitor.

But raytracing proves to be the usual Achilles' Heel for AMD's RDNA 2 architecture, and in our more demanding DirectX Raytracing tests the RX 6700 10GB often falls behind the 3060, and in Minecraft it even trails the lackluster RTX 3050. Buy it for the rasterization performance, in other words, and not for its raytracing prowess.

Also, given the $20 savings, if you're looking at the RX 6700 10GB you might want to opt for the XFX variant. Sapphire's card is fine, but every penny counts in these trying times. If you can afford the extra $20, you could probably also afford another $50 and start getting into cards that are overall more capable, like the RX 6750 XT.

Keep an eye out for sales this holiday season, as we're expecting a lot of GPUs to get cleared out to make way for the incoming RX 7000-series and RTX 40-series graphics cards. Those will start at the extreme and high-end pricing segments, but come spring 2023, we'll probably see something closer to the mainstream market — RX 7700 maybe, as a trimmed down take on the RX 7700 XT? Make it so, AMD, make it so, and this time skip the one year delay between those card launches.

Holy Nerdvana Verdict: 81/100

A capable GPU that would have been a lot more attractive had it arrived shortly after the RX 6700 XT. Pricing and performance are still decent, raytracing proves a weak spot for AMD as usual, but we can't help but look longingly toward the near future when we'll see next-generation mainstream graphics cards deliver significantly more performance for a hopefully similar price.