Graphics Card Comparison
Ranking graphics cards from most powerful to least.
Last updated: September 2017
Finding the best graphics card for your money involves serious research. This page ranks graphics cards from best to worst.
This list consists of graphics cards released in roughly the last five years. To see even older cards or any graphics card you don't see here, please consult the Tom's Hardware GPU Hierarchy Table.
The list starts with the best graphics cards first, from both NVIDIA and AMD. Wherever the two brands are essentially equivalent in power, they appear on the same row.
Please note: These graphics card rankings are approximate. Performance will vary from game to game. When possible, we suggest doing your own performance research on the games you want to play. In some games, some graphics cards will perform slightly better than cards above them, or slightly worse than cards below.
The "Notes" column give a rough idea of how well each graphics card performs with mainstream, demanding games at the given specification.
For more PC hardware recommendations, check out our homepage at logicalincrements.com.
Graphics Card Comparison
| NVIDIA | AMD | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Titan Xp | ||
| Titan X (Pascal, 2016) GTX 1080 Ti |
||
| GTX 1080 | RX Vega 64 | 1080p 144fps gaming this row and up |
| RX Vega 56 | ||
| GTX 1070 | 1080p 120fps gaming this row and up | |
| GTX Titan X (Maxwell, 2015) | ||
| GTX 980 Ti | R9 Fury X | 4K 60fps gaming this row and up |
| GTX 1060 6GB GTX 980 |
RX 580 RX 480 8GB RX 480 4GB R9 Fury R9 Fury Nano |
|
| GTX 1060 3GB | R9 390X | |
| GTX 970 GTX 780 Ti GTX 780 |
RX 570 R9 390 R9 290X |
1440p 60fps and VR gaming this row and up |
| GTX 770 GTX 590 |
RX 470 R9 380X R9 290 HD 7970 |
PS4 Pro GPU equivalent |
| GTX 1050 Ti | ||
| GTX 1050 GTX 960 GTX 670 GTX 580 |
RX 560 4GB R9 380 R9 280X R9 280 HD 7950 HD 5970 |
|
| GTX 950 GTX 760 GTX 660 Ti |
RX 560 2GB R7 370 R9 270X HD 7870 |
|
| RX 460 R9 270 |
1080p 60fps gaming this row and up | |
| GTX 660 GTX 570 GTX 480 |
HD 7850 HD 6970 |
900p 60fps gaming this row and up Playstation 4 GPU equivalent |
| GT 1030 GTX 750 Ti GTX 560 Ti GTX 470 |
R7 260X HD 6950 HD 5870 |
|
| GTX 750 GTX 650 Ti GTX 560 |
HD 7790 HD 6870 HD 5850 |
Xbox One GPU equivalent |
| R7 360 R7 260 HD 7770 HD 6850 |
Integrated: Intel Iris Pro Graphics 6200 | |
| GTX 460 | R7 250X HD 7750 HD 6770 |
|
| GT 740 GT 650 GTX 550 Ti |
R7 250 HD 5770 |
Good enough for many indie games Integrated: Intel HD Graphics 530 |
| GT 640 | HD 6570 HD 5670 |
|
| R7 240 | Good enough for most classic games | |
| GT 730 | HD 5550 | |
| Older GPUs and iGPUs below this threshold |
How are these graphics cards ranked?
These graphics card rankings are determined by performance in real-world PC gaming benchmarks. A benchmark is measured by the number of frames-per-second (FPS) a computer can achieve playing a certain game at a specified resolution and graphical settings.
Since most people purchase graphics cards for their gaming capability, we view real gameplay benchmarks (as opposed to synthetic benchmarking programs) as the best way to measure the performance of a graphics card. Graphics card performance can vary from game to game, but this comparison table reflects the general rankings of each card.
Our favorite sources for gaming benchmarks include TechPowerUp, TomsHardware, AnandTech, TechSpot, and many more.
Where do integrated GPUs rank?
Integrated GPUs (also known as iGPUs or APUs) are GPUs included inside your CPU. For the most part, iGPUs/APUs are very weak compared to dedicated graphics cards.
Intel's newest iGPU, the Intel HD 530 featured in Skylake CPUs, is roughly on par with the AMD R7 250 graphics card, as noted in the chart. In general, we do not recommend integrated GPUs for gaming.
Questions?
If you have any questions about our graphics card comparison, or any other aspect of building a PC, feel free to leave a comment here, or email us at contact@logicalincrements.com.