So it’s time to step up your game and buy into Nvidias 40 series of graphics cards. At the time of writing, there are currently nine different iterations of the RTX 40 series. However, do you really need the ballistic speeds of an RTX 4090, or can you save a few dollars and get something a little less powerful?
Raw 8k power
Money is no object, and you want to play games on your Ultrawide 8k monitor, read your Twitch stream on your second monitor, and watch your Bitcoin farm on your third. You want your eyes to only be treated to the most buttery smooth FPS the world is able to provide while you fly through stutter-free games. Only the best is good enough. The RTX 4090 is the only card for you.
The RTX 4090 is the Bugatti of GPUs at the time of writing, and nothing is even coming close to it. AMD is going to have to really pull something out of the bag to challenge the number-one spot. However, this is by far the most expensive RTX 40 series card on the market and will set you back $1599 just for the Founders Edition from Nvidia.
For now, you can’t get more power than an RTX 4090, but the price tag makes it unobtainable for most. If you desperately need obscene FPS, multi-monitor setups, and 8k gameplay, then this would be the best option. However, for most, this price is far beyond reasonable, and the power output is unnecessary.
Bang for your buck
With the latest release of the RTX 4080 Super, there is a strong case for buying the latest RTX 40 Series card from Nvidia over the AMD 7900 XTX competitor. The $999 price tag has directly matched the big Radeon card and bettered its performance. However, if you’re looking for a card that is worth the money paid and you’re not expecting to hammer the hell out of it, these two cards wouldn’t be my go-to.
For value for money, longevity, and high FPS, even at 4k gaming, my recommendation would be Nvidia $599 RTX 4070 Super. It comes with a solid 16 GB of Vram, which is something that is becoming more and more commonly required in AAA gaming, and solid performance across the board. It may not be the 8k gaming monster of the RTX 4090, but it’ll hold its own at around 100FPS at 2k. At almost a third of the price of the flagship RTX 40 Series model, the RTX 4070 Super gets my vote for value for money.
The RTX 40 series lame duck
There is always one card that just doesn’t cut the mustard and ends up fading into obscurity, only ever to be used on crappy school machines and low-budget mining rigs. The contender for the lame duck of the troublesome RTX 40 series goes solidly to the RTX 4060.
With a high price point, it fails to deliver on even the most basic of expectations of an RTX 40 series card. The first and most glaring example of its shortcomings is its failure to even beat the RTX 3060 TI; a previous generation GPU. Even at 1080p the RTX 4060 comes in a staggering 30 frames shy of the RTX 3080. Let’s face it, this is not a 4k card so those results aren’t even worth talking about.
The RTX 4060 also comes with only a paltry 8GB of Vram. This is a number comparible to a decent Android phone, with Snapdragon 865 working with around 8 to 6GB. Why they bothered to release such an underpowered GPU is beyond me, but the results are in. The RTX 4060 ranks incredibly low in the Steam hardware charts, and hopefully will stay that way, for the sake of the gamers.