NVIDIA vs AMD: which GPU should you buy?
Updated 29 October 2026
NVIDIA GeForce and AMD Radeon cards trade blows at almost every price. The short answer: AMD usually gives you more raw gaming performance and more memory for your money, while NVIDIA is ahead on ray tracing, upscaling and software for creative and AI work. Which matters more depends on what you play and what else you do with your PC.
NVIDIA vs AMD at a glance
| NVIDIA GeForce | AMD Radeon | |
|---|---|---|
| Raster performance per pound | Good | Usually better |
| Ray tracing | Stronger | Much improved on RX 9000, behind on older cards |
| Upscaling | DLSS (RTX 20 series and newer); multi frame generation on RTX 50 | FSR, works on most GPUs; FSR 4 needs an RX 9000 card |
| VRAM for the money | Often less | Often more (16GB from mid-range up) |
| Creative and AI software | CUDA is the standard | Improving (ROCm), less widely supported |
| Streaming encoder | NVENC, very good | Good on recent cards |
| Drivers and app | NVIDIA App | AMD Software: Adrenalin Edition |
Gaming performance
In traditional (raster) games without ray tracing, AMD cards often match NVIDIA cards that cost more. On the used market the gap can be bigger, because Radeon cards tend to hold their value less. A used RX 6800 XT, for example, performs about the same as an RTX 3080 in our benchmark and has 16GB of memory against 10GB. See them side by side in our GPU comparison.
Ray tracing and upscaling
Ray tracing makes lighting, shadows and reflections more realistic but costs a lot of performance. NVIDIA has led here since the RTX 20 series, and in heavily ray-traced games such as Cyberpunk 2077 with path tracing the difference is large. AMD's RX 9000 series closed much of the gap.
Upscaling renders the game at a lower resolution and rebuilds the image, boosting frame rates:
- DLSS (NVIDIA) is widely supported and generally the best-looking. Frame generation needs an RTX 40 or 50 card; multi frame generation is RTX 50 only.
- FSR (AMD) runs on almost any GPU, including NVIDIA and Intel cards. FSR 4, which uses machine learning and looks much better, needs a Radeon RX 9000 card.
Video memory
AMD has generally given more VRAM at each price: 12GB on the RX 6700 XT and 16GB on the RX 6800, 7800 XT and 9070, where similar NVIDIA cards often had 8GB or 12GB. Memory matters more every year, as new games use more for high-resolution textures and ray tracing. Read how much VRAM you need.
Power and heat
Recent NVIDIA cards are usually more power-efficient: an RTX 4070 draws 200W, while the similarly fast RX 7800 XT draws 263W. That means a smaller power supply, less heat and slightly lower running costs. Older high-end cards from both makers (RTX 3080, RX 6900 XT) draw 300W or more. Check yours with our PSU calculator.
Drivers
Both makers' drivers are stable today. NVIDIA tends to have day-one game support and better support in older and less common games and software; AMD's Adrenalin software has excellent built-in tuning, recording and performance overlays. Note that NVIDIA's 580 driver branch is the last to support the GTX 900 and GTX 10 series, so newer cards are the safer long-term buy.
So which should you buy?
- Choose AMD Radeon if you mainly play without ray tracing, want the most performance and memory for your money, and don't need CUDA.
- Choose NVIDIA GeForce if you want the best ray tracing and DLSS, stream or edit video, or run AI and creative software.
- Consider Intel Arc for budget 1080p and 1440p builds: the Arc B580 has 12GB of memory at an entry-level price.
Whichever you pick, compare used prices first: see every card in the GPU tier list or browse used NVIDIA and used AMD graphics cards.