Is Nvidia The Best Graphics Card.
Is Nvidia the best graphics card? What is the best graphics card and what should you choose if your in the market right now.
The biggest issue as we enter 2021 are the supply issues still needing to be resolved. It has been a busy time with both new graphics cards and CPU’s being released without enough supply to fill the needs of customers.
We all know this will be resolved so what do we do? What graphics card do we choose?
Graphics Cards – MSFS 2020 – 40-50 FPS @ 1440P.
We are all interested in the performance of graphics cards in Flight Simulation so here I have included a three tier set of graphs with Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 as the test. Information from Gamers Nexis.
In this we can see the top performing graphics card is the RTX 3080 and RTX 2080 Ti at the top of the pile in the high 40’s in 1440P. Next in line are the 2080 Super and RTX 2070 Super as expected but both these cards drop into the high 30FPS range. The final cards to return a plus 30 FPS performance figure are the and RTX 2080 with the RTX 2080.
Its always about your budget so although the RTX 3090 was not included its MSRP was not listed on Nvidia.com it will likely out perform the currently listed cards as you would expect. We can also expect the Radeon 6900 XT & Radeon 6800s to be in this performance region as well.
The RTX 3080 was listed from $1169 then the RTX 3070 was starting at $919 followed by the RTX 3060 & RTX 3060 TI both being listed at $749. There are now many suppliers offering cards and at a wide range of prices.
3080 2080Ti 2080 Super 2070 Super 2080 1080 Ti
Graphics Cards – MSFS 2020 30-40 FPS @ 1440P.
This is where we see the main tier of graphics cards, the RTX 3080 & RTX 2080 Ti lead the field but the AMD 6000 series of GPU’s are now being released and are reported to go head to head with the NVIDIA cards. This should be exciting to say the least. The top cards for AMD are the Radeon RX 6900 Xt, RX 6800 Xt & RX 6800.
The bulk of the GPU market is actually Nvidia‘s RTX3070 & RTX 3060 cards and AMD equivalents when available. At this point there is no AMD card equivalent cards but they surely wont be far away likely to be Radeon RX 6700. the RX 6600 down to maybe the RX 6500 variants.
This area is lead by the RTX 2080 Super coming in at 38 FPS and closely followed by the RTX 2080, RTX 3070 Super and GTX 1080 Ti all falling between 35-40 FPS. The group closely together between 30 to 35 FPS were the 2070, 5800 XT Radeon VII RX 5700 XT and RTX 2060 Super bringing up the rear of this field.
These are great performing cards all in the $700 to $900 price range depending on supplier. It is a competitive market here so check the prices as the base differences generally remain the same and its the extras you pay for such as extra fans etc between models of the same base type.
RTX2070 RX 5700 XT RX 5700 Radeon VII RTX 2060 S
Graphics Cards – MSFS 2020 20-30 FPS @ 1440P.
The final tier of graphics card return 20-30 FPS at this resolution and probably should be considered carefully if you really want decent performance.
The performance at 1080P will be better so If your cash strapped your choice here will deliver a reasonable performance. These are all older cards you may pick up for a great price if your really behind in the graphics card stakes and need an upgrade.
GTX 1080 RTX 2060 Vega 64 GTX 1070 GTX 980 Ti
Leaks and Nvidia 4000 Series?
The recent releases by both Nvidia with their RTX 3000 series really amazed all the techies out there then AMD released their 6000 series cards and the cat was firmly amongst the pigeons!
Now, just today there has been a leak regarding the RTX 4000 series cards with what looks to be a massive performance boost in the order of 40% without even increasing speeds and hardware. They have managed with their latest chip technology to increase the cuda cores in the Nvidia Graphics cards enormously according to Gamer Meld YouTube Channel.
Top Tier AMD vs NVIDIA.
In asking is Nvidia the best graphics card? AMD have put a shot across the bow on Nvidia with he release of the AMD RADEON 6800 XT. It puts itself on par and ahead in some scenarios with the Nvidia RTX 3090. At this price point we would expet blistering performance from both models here. I don’t have any MSFS 2020 Benchmarks to call on for a great example but the 6000 series of GPU’s sound like they will be right there with Nvidia’s performance. A great thing for all gamers.
Graph from AMD. You can check out the AMD presentation here.
Generational Performance growth.
Its truly amazing to see the improvement in performance over the last three generations of Nvidia and AMD graphics cards.
The graph above shows the latest performance tests by Toms Hardware in percentage with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 being the fastest graphics card on the block. It is also the most expensive around $2200 at time of writing so check out AMAZON.com for the latest prices.
We can see the growth from the 900 series to the RTX 2080 Ti is amazing from this graph from NVIDIA.com. The growth is amazing going from just over 2000 Teraflops to nearly 13500 in the 2080 Ti.
The 3000 series has made yet another improvement as you can see in the graph below.
Graphic from FRBS.com
Radeon Cards – Next Fastest Graphics Cards.
It is refreshing to see AMD cards are the next two fastest cards with the Radeon RX 6900 and Radeon RX 6800 next in line for performance at around $2100 & $1200 respectively on AMAZON.com. Click to check out the latest prices.
Its All about Graphics Cards & Budget.
The reality of Graphics cards and which is the best for you is more often a budget decision. If you can afford a RTX 3090 or a RX 6900 your more in the minority with the bulk of sales for gamers in the mid range area where the RTX 3060, 3070 where currently AMD don’t have a competing card to put forward unless your going to look at the last generation Radeon 57oo XT 8GB card in the $700 region where the 2060 Super is about 9% better in the comparison benchmarks overall on and similar in price on Amazon.
Conclusion.
Is Nvidia the best graphics card is being challenged by AMD for sure with the tp AMD cards right there with some quality cards up there challenging for the top.
In the mid range region with the 5700xt an example of the good priced mid graphics cards completing with NVIDIAs offerings.
As more cards become available the choice is going to be great for performance to dollar with the initial prices coming down as supply improves. Its a great time to be a gamer with the likes of MSFS 2020 and its amazing graphics being released now.
Author.
Brendon McAliece is a multi lingual-expat who brings over three decades of flight simulator/PC building experience as well as over two decades of real world jet fighter experience as a weapons/egress technician. He holds a sport pilot certificate giving him real world flying experience. Hi travels have taken him from Europe to the Middle East, Asia and his home of Australia. He has a passion for travel, languages, Flight simulation as well as Guitaring and Coffee. You can read more in his blogs below.
Learn more @
DreamingGuitar.com – DreamingCoffee.com – LetsFlyVFR.com
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