Competition At The Mid-Range
Both Nvidia and AMD have recently launched a new wave of video cards aimed at the PC players who want high-end performance at a mid-range price. These new GPUs expand the wealth of options for those on tighter budgets, and as you’ll see in our benchmark tests, deliver impressive performance in relation to their predecessors. But the old question for PC gaming enthusiasts is relevant now more than in recent years: AMD or Nvidia? Well, it depends.
While Nvidia has largely remained unchallenged in the most expensive category with the RTX 2080 Ti, its begun to diversify its affordable options by offering a reasonable entry points for the relatively new ray tracing tech–namely, the RTX 2070 and RTX 2060 cards. Now, we have souped up versions aptly named the RTX 2070 Super and RTX 2060 Super. Nvidia’s RTX lineup now has incremental steps between each pricing tier, but these new cards perform well enough (relative to their price point) to render base models obsolete.
AMD, on the other hand, has been largely playing catch-up. The Radeon VII, which launched in February this year, was the company’s strongest GPU yet but had trouble keeping up with its Nvidia’s counterpart. However, AMD has made good on its approach of being the brand that brings value–not only is AMD offering aggressive pricing, its new RX 5700 XT and RX 5700 have the performance to back it up.
For those who count every dollar when it comes to building PCs or upgrading their existing rig, it’s an exciting time to make the jump for a new GPU. The competition is strong, and regardless of your choice, you’re getting plenty of performance for your dollar. In this comparison and review of the new RTX Super and Radeon RX cards, you’ll see how these sub-$500 cards stack against each other.
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