Are YOU an Enthusiast?
Do you crave the best experiences possible in your games with no expense spared? Are you the type that keeps on top of ‘what is the best GPU’? Do you like to track GPU benchmarks and reviews? At this level of PC building, you should have confidence that you are getting the best graphics card for your system and can crank up all the in-game settings in the latest titles for fully immersive gaming. Do you value the increased fidelity you get with high-resolution, high refresh displays? The great news is AMD has some of the best graphics cards for gaming with leadership performance, features, and pricing that will keep your gaming rig future ready.
More Memory Matters
Peak Memory Usage in Newer Games[1]
Recommended GPUs In Newer Games
Without enough video memory your experience may feel sluggish with lower FPS at key moments, more frequent pop-in of textures, or – in the worst cases – game crashes. You can always fine tune the in-game graphics settings to find the right balance of performance, but with more video memory you are less likely to have to make these compromises. For this enthusiast build, we recommend graphics cards with at least 16GB of video memory for ultimate 1440p and 4K gaming. For more mid-range graphics that are targeting 1440p, AMD Radeon™ offers 12GB GPUs that are excellent for QHD displays. Check out this post for more information.
The Best AMD Radeon™ Graphics Cards
Starting at $499
For the best GPU for your gaming, your choice (as always) should be influenced by your target experience (what games do you want to play? what display will you use?) and your budget. The GPUs outlined above will impress at any resolution you choose to play at, but the true value of this tier comes from the increased performance to support high-FPS, max graphics settings in your games in higher resolution setups (ie. 1440p, 4K, and Ultrawide displays).
Starting with the Radeon™ RX 6800 Series and Radeon™ RX 6900 Series, these are some of the top graphics cards at 1440p and 4K in your favorite games now and your future favorites. They have excellent raytracing performance, a history of strong performing, reliable drivers, and coupled with FidelityFX™ Super Resolution technology they can tackle the most demanding games out there. Against competition, they stand out with leadership performance, pricing, and features. Let’s look at some AMD vs. Nvidia GPU benchmark comparisons.
GPU Benchmark:
Radeon™ RX 6800 XT (16GB) versus RTX 3070 Ti (8GB)[2]
GPU Benchmark:
Radeon™ RX 6950 XT (16GB) versus RTX 3080 (10GB)[3] 
At the very top of our product family is our new Radeon™ RX 7900 Series graphics. These are the best AMD gaming graphics cards and the pinnacle of performance and features, with 1440p and 4K gaming above and beyond the rest of our GPU lineup. These GPUs are on a newer, more efficient[4] AMD RDNA™ 3 architecture with enhanced raytracing performance in games as well as AI acceleration for both gaming and productivity applications. They also are the only graphics cards in the market that support DisplayPort™ 2.1, the latest display technology so your PC is future ready for next generation displays. Finally, the Radeon™ RX 7900 Series GPUs support AV1 encode[5], the newest standard for better video quality and faster streaming.
Against competition, these are the fastest cards with the most video memory you can get in their price bands.[6],[7]
GPU Benchmark:
RX 7900 XT (20GB) versus RTX 4070 Ti (12GB)[8]
GPU Benchmark:
RX 7900 XTX (24GB) versus RTX 4080 (16GB)[9]
Other Parts Needed to Build an Enthusiast Gaming PC
Processor (CPU) – Important for overall system performance, and the wrong processor can be a gaming bottleneck. AMD Ryzen™ 9 CPUs are the best high-end gaming optionsfrom AMD.
Motherboard – The main framework that all PC components connect to and can affect graphics card bandwidth. For the highest-end PCs an AM5 X670 (Ryzen 7000 Series CPU - PCIe Gen5) gives you premium power delivery and enhanced overclocking.[10]
Memory – 32GB in dual channel (2 identical sticks of 16GB) is recommended.
Graphics Card – The main component responsible for framerates and visual quality. With AMD, you have several great 16GB GPU options starting at $499.
Display – High-refresh, high-resolution displays include QHD (1440p) and UHD (2160p) resolutions along with ultra-wide options. You can choose from over a thousand available AMD FreeSync™ Premium Pro certified displays for a stutter and tear-free gaming experience.[11]
AMD Software: Adrenalin Edition™
AMD Software: Adrenalin Edition™ continues to provide users with a range of powerful tools and features designed to enhance their gaming experience. This includes:
- AMD Noise Suppression technology: Eliminate unwanted and distracting background noises from your surrounding environment or the environment of others you’re streaming with.[12]
- AMD Radeon™ Boost technology: Extra performance & responsiveness through dynamic resolution or shading adjustments.[13]
- AMD Anti-Lag technology: Reduces input lag for a more responsive gaming feel.[14]
- AMD Radeon™ Super Resolution technology: Works with thousands of games to increase your gaming performance using in-driver upscaling.[15]
- New Streaming Enhancements: Improve your streaming quality today using the latest version of OBS, now with AMD encode support, or use our capture and streaming capabilities that are built right into AMD Software.
Keep up to date with the latest version to take advantage of continuous performance improvements in your games through driver updates. In addition to these tools and features mentioned above, for our hardcore enthusiasts there are various ways to tune your performance and metrics within AMD Software. The Performance tab found in AMD Software: Adrenalin Edition opens the door to gamers, allowing them access to monitoring and performance tools such as control over the engine and memory clocks, fan curves and voltages on their Radeon™ graphics card. Gamers can tune their GPU to their desired performance levels as well as select different performance tuning presets to take full control of their Radeon GPUs.
From flagship performance with AMD Radeon™ RX 7000 Series GPUs, to incredible price/performance with the Radeon™ RX 6000 Series graphics cards, AMD has you covered. With the recommendations above, you can jump into some fantastic, enthusiast-level gaming at 1440p, 4K, and beyond starting at $499.
For more information on where to buy AMD Radeon™ RX 6000 and 7000 Series graphics, visit our Where to Buy Radeon RX 6000 Series and RX 7000 Series pages.
And for more information on AMD Software, visit www.amd.com/adrenalin and discover what else you can do with our software.
Matthew Hummel is a Product Marketing Manager for Radeon™ graphics cards at AMD.
Currently saving the president’s kidnapped daughter in Resident Evil 4
Endnotes
1.) Testing done by AMD performance labs March 2023, on an AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX 24GB graphics card (Driver 23.3.3) paired with AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D processor, AM4 motherboard, 32GB DDR5 memory, and Windows 11 Pro across Resident Evil 4, The Last of Us Part I, and Hogwarts legacy at 4K max graphics settings. Raytracing tested enabled versus disabled where applicable. RX-926
2.) Testing done by AMD performance labs March 5, 2023, on an AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT graphics card (Driver 23.2.1) paired with AMD Ryzen 9 7900X processor, AM5 motherboard, 32GB DDR5-6000MT memory, and Windows 11 Pro vs. a similarly configured test system with GeForce RTX 3070 Ti graphics card (Driver 528.24) across 32 games at max settings, in 4K resolution. System manufacturers may vary configurations yielding different results. Performance-per-dollar is calculated by taking the average scores of the games above divided by the lowest available price on Newegg (USD) as of April 3, 2023. RX-897.
3.) Testing done by AMD performance labs March 5, 2023, on an AMD Radeon RX 6950 XT graphics card (Driver 23.2.1) paired with AMD Ryzen 9 7900X processor, AM5 motherboard, 32GB DDR5-6000MT memory, and Windows 11 Pro vs. a similarly configured test system with NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 graphics card (Driver 528.24) across 32 select games at max settings, in 4K resolution. System manufacturers may vary configurations yielding different results. Performance per Dollar calculated by taking the average scores of the 32 titles, divided by the lowest available price on Newegg (USD) as of April 3, 2023. RX-896.
4.) Based on AMD labs testing in November 2022, on a system configured with a Radeon RX 7900 XTX GPU, driver 31.0.14000.24040, AMD Ryzen 9 5900X CPU, 32GB DDR4-3200MHz, ROG CROSSHAIR VIII HERO (WI-FI) motherboard, set to 300W TBP, on Win10 Pro, versus a similarly configured test system with a 300W Radeon 6900 XT GPU and driver 31.0.12019.16007, measuring FPS performance in select titles. Performance per watt is calculated using the manufacturers’ stated total board power (TBP) of the AMD GPUs listed herein. System manufacturers may vary configurations, yielding different results. RX-816.
5.) Video codec acceleration (including at least the HEVC (H.265), H.264, VP9, and AV1 codecs) is subject to and not operable without inclusion/installation of compatible media players. GD-176
6.) Based on AMD internal analysis of publicly available MSRP of NVIDIA RTX 3090 and Radeon RX 7900 XTX gaming graphics cards as of March 2023. Testing by AMD Performance Labs in November 2022, using the 3DMark TimeSpy Extreme benchmark on a test system configured with a Radeon RTX 7900 XTX GPU (22.40.00.24), Ryzen 9 7900X CPU, 32GB DDR5-6000MT, AM5 motherboard, and Windows 11 Pro, vs. a similarly configured system with an Nvidia GeForce RTX 3090 GPU (522.25). System manufacturers may vary configurations, yielding different results. Performance may vary. RX-837
7.) Based on AMD internal analysis of publicly available MSRP of NVIDIA RTX 3080 Ti, RTX 4070 Ti, and Radeon RX 7900 XT gaming graphics cards as of March 2023. Testing by AMD Performance Labs in January 2023, using the 3DMark TimeSpy Extreme benchmark on a test system configured with a Radeon RTX 7900 XT GPU (22.12.2), Ryzen 9 7900X CPU, 32GB DDR5-6000MT, AM5 motherboard, and Windows 11 Pro, vs. a similarly configured system with an Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 Ti GPU and RTX 4070 Ti (528.02). System manufacturers may vary configurations, yielding different results. Performance may vary. RX-879
9.) Testing done by AMD performance labs March, 2023, on an AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX graphics card (Driver 23.2.2) paired with AMD Ryzen 9 7900X processor, AM5 motherboard, 32GB DDR5-6000MT memory, and Windows 11 Pro vs. a similarly configured test system with GeForce RTX 4080 graphics card (Driver 528.24) across 32 games at max settings, in 4K resolution. System manufacturers may vary configurations yielding different results. Performance per dollar is calculated by taking the average scores of the same 32 games, divided by the lowest available SEP on Newegg (USD), as of April 3, 2023. RX-927
10.) Overclocking and/or Undervolting AMD processors and memory, including without limitation, altering clock frequencies / multipliers or memory timing / voltage, to operate outside of AMD’s published specifications will void any applicable AMD product warranty, even when enabled via AMD hardware and/or software. This may also void warranties offered by the system manufacturer or retailer. Users assume all risks and liabilities that may arise out of overclocking / undervolting AMD processors, including, without limitation, failure of or damage to hardware, reduced system performance and/or data loss, corruption or vulnerability. GD-106.
11.) AMD FreeSync™ technology requires AMD Radeon™ graphics and a display that supports FreeSync technology as certified by AMD. AMD FreeSync™ Premium technology adds requirements of mandatory low framerate compensation and at least 120 Hz refresh rate at minimum FHD. AMD FreeSync™ Premium Pro technology adds requirements for the display to meet AMD FreeSync Premium Pro compliance tests. See www.amd.com/freesync for complete details. Confirm capability with your system manufacturer before purchase. GD-127
12.) AMD Noise Suppression works on AMD Ryzen™ 6000 Series processors with integrated graphics and newer, and AMD Radeon™ RX 6000 Series desktop graphics and newer. Noise Suppression requires AMD Software: Adrenalin Edition™ 22.7.1 and newer, and may not install on systems equipped with Realtek ACP-based ANR. GD-213
13.) Radeon™ Boost is compatible with Windows 10 and 11 in select titles only. Hardware compatibility includes RX 400 and newer consumer dGPUs, Ryzen™ 2000 and newer APUs, including hybrid and detachable graphics configurations. No mGPU support. Radeon™ Boost VRS compatible with AMD Radeon™ RX 6000 Series Graphics exclusively. For a list of compatible titles & APIs see https://www.amd.com/en/technologies/radeon-boost. GD-158
14.) Radeon™ Anti-Lag is compatible with DirectX 9, DirectX 11 and DirectX 12 APIs, Windows 10 and 11. Hardware compatibility includes Polaris and newer consumer dGPUs Ryzen™ 2000 and newer APUs, including hybrid and detachable graphics configurations. No mGPU support. GD-157
15.) Radeon Super Resolution works with games that support exclusive and borderless full-screen modes. AMD Software: Adrenalin Edition 22.5.2 or newer is required. GD-197
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