GPU Performance Hierarchy 2019: Video Cards Ranked

When you run games or do high-end creative work like 4K video editing, your graphics card plays the biggest role in determining performance. Get a good GPU, and you can play recent games at smooth frame rates; get one of the best GPUs for gaming and you can enjoy those games at high resolution, with the special effects turned all the way up.

To help you decide which graphics card you need, we've developed the GPU hierarchy below, which ranks all the current chips from fastest to slowest. We've assigned each a score for comparison purposes, where the fastest card gets 100 and all others are graded relative to it, based on our testing. These numbers are based on the geometric mean frames per second (fps) from our Far Cry 5, Forza Horizon 4 and Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation benchmarks, giving us a solid mix of game genres and APIs.

If you're curious about how your previous-generation Nvidia Pascal (10-series) card will handle cutting-edge ray tracing effects, check out our Ray Tracing On Nvidia’s Pascal Architecture, Benchmarked. Just keep in mind there were only a handful games (and a few demos) available with ray tracing support when we wrote this, although the number of upcoming titles supporting the technology is growing steadily. Future ray tracing-enabled games may be more (or less) demanding.

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In recent weeks, AMD made its mainstream Navi-based Radeon RX 5500 official, though we still don't know pricing or availability for the desktop version of this GPU. Perhaps AMD is awaiting the launch of Nvidia's GTX 1650 Super before putting a price on its replacement for its ageing Polaris parts. 

But while we wait, recent mentions of Navi 22 and Navi 23 in a recent Linux driver (first spotted by 3DCenter forum veteran Berniyh) may (or may not) be our first glimpse of higher-end AMD GPUs that could compete with Nvidia's RTX 2080 Super and 2080 Ti.

While we await new GPU hardware, we've seen the launch of a few high-profile games, like Control and Borderlands 3. If you're wondering how the former performs, we've investigated how Control runs on integrated graphics, as well as several high-end graphics cards. We also took a look at how Borderlands 3 works on various graphics cards. Also, we've tested Red Dead Redemption 2 on integrated AMD graphics to high-end Nvidia cards.

Nvidia’s GeForce RTX 2080 Ti is the logical choice for uncompromising 4K gaming, though if you're willing to dial-back detail settings in some games for fluid gameplay, the Radeon VII, Radeon RX 5700 XT, GeForce RTX 2080 Super, and GeForce GTX 1080 Ti are 4K-capable as well.

AMD’s Radeon RX 5700 occupies a lower performance tier, along with Nvidia’s GeForce RTX 2070 Super, GeForce RTX 2060 Super, the older AMD Radeon RX Vega 64, and Nvidia’s GeForce GTX 1080. They’re ideal for running at 2560x1440 using the highest quality presets. And as you can see, they score similarly in our index.

The GeForce RTX 2060, GeForce GTX 1070 Ti, Radeon RX Vega 56 and GeForce GTX 1070 don’t land far from each other, either. All four cards are capable of great frame rates at 2560x1440, and they’re all good options for driving a VR head-mounted display.

There’s a larger group of Radeon RX 590, Radeon RX 580, GeForce GTX 1060 (6GB), GeForce GTX 1060 (3GB), GeForce GTX 1650 and Radeon RX 570 boards that excel at 1920x1080. They can even be made serviceable at 2560x1440 if you dial down your detail settings far enough. But beware: insufficient GDDR5 memory on cards like the 3GB GeForce GTX 1060 may cause severe performance issues at higher resolutions.

This also affects the next category, where GeForce GTX 1050 appears slower than Radeon RX 560 due to the former’s 2GB of memory, hurting it in some games, like Forza. Gaming at 1920x1080 or 1280x720 is far more realistic with these cards.

Finally, Radeon RX 550 and GeForce GT 1030 close out this generation’s hierarchy with performance well-suited to popular eSports titles.

Test System and Configuration

Legacy GPU Hierarchy

Tom's Hardware readers accustomed to referencing our legacy desktop GPU hierarchy with historical comparisons dating back to the 1990s will find them below Here we group cards into performance tiers, pairing disparate generations where overlap occurs.

For even more information, check out our Graphics Card Buyer's Guide.

MORE: Best Graphics Cards for the Gaming in 2019

MORE: How to Stress-Test Graphics Cards (Like We Do)

MORE: AMD Radeon RX 480 Roundup

MORE: Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 Roundup

MORE: Nvidia GeForce GTX 1070 Roundup

MORE: Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 Roundup

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