If you\u2019re just getting into PC gaming, there\u2019s a good chance you\u2019ve heard of two companies almost above all else: AMD and Nvidia. These are the two major graphics card manufacturers in the PC gaming world; it\u2019s fair to say they\u2019ve got the same kind of duopoly over the market as Google and Apple have over the mobile world. If you\u2019re building a PC – or even if you\u2019re ordering a custom-built one – you\u2019ve almost certainly had to deliberate on whether you want an AMD card or an Nvidia option.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The truth of the matter is that both AMD and Nvidia make excellent graphics cards, and that if you\u2019re going to make the leap into the world of PC gaming, either one of them would be fine for your setup. However, they\u2019re not entirely created equal, and there are some key differences between the architecture of both cards that could inform your decision. We can\u2019t say whether AMD or Nvidia make \u201cbetter\u201d cards, but here are just some of the differences between them to help you on your way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The next major innovation in the graphics tech world is ray tracing, which was introduced in Nvidia\u2019s last-gen RTX 20 series and refined further in the current-gen RTX 30 lineup. AMD\u2019s new RX 6 range natively supports ray tracing on a hardware basis, but if you want the best out of your ray tracing-enabled games, you\u2019re going to want to go with Nvidia, which has had more time to perfect its approach to this tech. AMD cards often run ray tracing games at a lower frame rate than Nvidia\u2019s cards do, so if ray tracing is important to you, Nvidia is the option you should plump for.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Right now, the Radeon RX 6600 XT is pretty much the best budget card on the market. While its price tag might be stretching the definition of \u201cbudget\u201d somewhat – it usually retails for around \u00a3450, after all, which for many people is the price of a full machine – if you\u2019re putting a reasonable PC together, you should expect to spend around this much on a dedicated GPU. The RX 6600 is excellent for 1080p and 1440p gaming, and Nvidia\u2019s nearest competitor, the GTX 1660, just gets outperformed by AMD\u2019s Radeon card in most areas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
You\u2019ll sometimes see AMD or Nvidia splash screens at the beginning of games. These screens indicate that the game was built for, and optimised for, that particular graphics tech. This doesn\u2019t mean you can\u2019t run an Nvidia-optimised game on an AMD card, of course, but it does mean that you\u2019re going to get the best results in terms of frame rate and performance if you play on the card for which the game was optimised. Generally speaking, more games are optimised for Nvidia hardware, making Nvidia a slightly better choice for overall gaming.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Nvidia\u2019s higher-end options – the RTX 3090 or Quadro cards, for example – are perfect for industrial or professional work such as CAD or film editing. Nvidia also makes lower-cost Quadro cards that are perfect for CAD work, while AMD\u2019s offerings in this area leave a lot to be desired. If you\u2019re going to be using your graphics card for purposes other than gaming, then it\u2019s probably best to plump for Nvidia, because they\u2019re much more well-equipped in this area.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At the time of writing, if you want to pick up a high-end Nvidia card, you\u2019re going to be paying serious dollar for it. AMD\u2019s RX 6900 retails for around \u00a32,000, which sounds like a lot until you realise that the RTX 3090 can often go for about \u00a3400-\u00a3500 more than this. Of course, the performance is pretty comparable between cards, so AMD\u2019s option works out at slightly better bang for your buck. However, the difference is really felt in the low-to-mid tier of graphics card tech; AMD\u2019s options in these price brackets simply outshine Nvidia\u2019s in almost every way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
High-end Nvidia cards emphasise their compatibility with ray tracing, but in all honesty, there still isn\u2019t a game that uses ray tracing in a way that justifies the eye-watering price point of Nvidia\u2019s best cards. While games like Cyberpunk 2077 <\/em>do benefit immensely from the visual boost given to them by ray tracing, the performance hit is far from worth it; you\u2019ll often see a 30-40fps drop if you enable ray tracing, and it doesn\u2019t make enough of a difference for this to be worth it. With that in mind, AMD\u2019s offerings become much more appealing, given that they aren\u2019t particularly good cards for ray tracing (yet).<\/p>\n\n\n\n AMD cards use the Vulkan API, while Nvidia cards prefer DirectX. If you don\u2019t know what an API is, think of it as a piece of software that renders and displays 3D graphics. It\u2019s more complicated than that, of course, but we\u2019re not software engineers, so we\u2019ll leave it there. More games use Nvidia\u2019s DirectX standard than Vulkan, and although you\u2019ll be fine with either, DirectX provides a more universal gaming experience. With that being the case – and with many games being optimised for Nvidia tech – Nvidia is the more mainstream choice for gamers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We know this might not have cleared up your questions, but the fact is that there really is no one \u201csuperior\u201d choice for gaming. If you want the most universal and simple gaming experience, we suggest plumping for an Nvidia card, but if you have less money to spend and don\u2019t mind weaker ray tracing, AMD makes some seriously attractive graphics card options. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" If you\u2019re just getting into PC gaming, there\u2019s a good chance you\u2019ve heard of two companies almost above all else: AMD and Nvidia. These are the two major graphics card manufacturers in the PC gaming world; it\u2019s fair to say they\u2019ve got the same kind of duopoly over the market as Google and Apple have … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6873,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"close","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,27,26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6872","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-videogames","category-general","category-tech"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nerdleaks.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6872"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nerdleaks.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nerdleaks.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nerdleaks.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nerdleaks.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6872"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nerdleaks.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6872\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nerdleaks.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6873"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nerdleaks.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6872"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nerdleaks.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6872"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nerdleaks.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6872"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Nvidia\u2019s DirectX API is more widely optimised than Vulkan<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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