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The top 5 graphics cards in 2022 for AMD and NVIDIA have ground-breaking technology and will provide gamers and creators with immersive experiences like they have never had before. For those who have not been paying attention to graphics card technology or who are new to it, there is a lot to know about recent developments. The hottest thing in gaming right now is playing in 4K and 8K resolutions.
The two manufacturers in graphics card technology are AMD and NVIDIA. Other manufacturers rebrand this technology and provide slight innovations, but the core components of all graphics cards are manufactured by AMD or NVIDIA.
Before jumping into specific products, it would be good to review the latest terms and technologies of both AMD and NVIDIA. Both manufacturers discuss the technology behind their GPUs in slightly different terms as the technology behind them both are slightly different.
What are GPU Cores?
Graphical Processing Units (GPUs) are different than traditional computer processors (CPUs) in the way they process data. A traditional CPU has fewer cores and is architected to handle a large set of random instructions. A GPU has thousands of cores and handles a small set of specific instructions across a large set of data, such as applying a shade texture to 4,000 pixels. The higher the core count, the better a GPU will be at handling larger resolutions, such as 4K or 8K. The higher the core count also reduces the amount of heat generated by the graphics card.
What is GPU Core Clock Speed?
The core clock speed of a graphics card refers to the graphics card processor and its ability to process data, which ultimately determines how well and how fast it will process images. This is known as Frames Per Second (FPS) and it measures how many image frames can fit into one second with what quality. Quality ranges from what your display monitor can handle, whether that is 1080p, 1440p, 4K UHD, or 8K. The higher the resolution, the faster the clock speed will need to be in order to keep up and provide a smooth experience. The standard that provides a smooth experience is 60 FPS.
What is GPU Memory?
The amount of GPU memory determines how much data a graphics card can hold in its memory. GDDR6X is the latest version.
What is Boost Clock?
Boost Clock determines how much more speed it can deliver before hitting temperature limits
What is 4K Resolution?
3840 x 2160 display resolution. This is 4x the resolution of 1080p. HDMI 2.0 or DisplayPort 1.2 are recommended.
What is 8K Resolution?
7680 x 4320 display resolution. This is 8x the resolution of 1080p. Requires HDMI 2.1 or DisplayPort 1.4.
NVIDIA Technology
NVIDIA has released a lot of patented technology to give it an edge. All of their GeForce RTX 30x series cards support up to 8K resolutions. When you look at NVIDIA graphics cards, you may see a lot of discussion about terms like ray tracing, tensor cores, and RT cores. The definitions provided below will help you quickly understand how they are relevant.
What are CUDA Cores?
CUDA Core count is a number that represents the actual number of cores within the GPU.
What is Ray Traced Graphics?
Ray tracing is the way we see and react with lighting in the real world is very hard to achieve in the digital world. It is how light is reflected and received from the eye of the first-person viewer perspective. It mimics the way that light works in the real world and is often thought of the holy grail of digital graphics.
What are Tensor Cores?
Tensor cores are a small subset of GPU cores specifically dedicated to performing mathematical computations to clean up noise or grainy images as a result of increased resolution. It adds color pixels through its machine learning algorithm where there would be otherwise be blanks.
What are RT Cores?
RT cores are a dedicated small subset of cores that processes ray tracing to produce reflections, shadows, and refractions.
AMD Technology
What are Compute Units?
A Compute Unit is the measure which AMD uses to count its GPU cores. Compute Units are not analogous to CUDA cores. They are very different. A Compute Unit contains many processors and some memory, so it’s difficult to compare across the two brands.
What are Ray Accelerators?
Similar technology to NVIDIAs RT Cores, except Ray Accelerators are not dedicated cores like RT cores are. There is one built in with every Compute Unit which is why they are 1:1 when you look at their graphics cards.
What is Game Frequency?
Game Frequency is the clock speed of the GPU
What is Infinity Cache?
Infinity cache is a low power, low latency cache of data that is 3.25 times faster than GDDR6 graphics memory. It improves performance for 4K and 1440p resolutions by delivering faster FPS. Bigger cache sizes means that it will be able to deliver higher resolution images 3.25 times faster than GDDR6.
What is FidelityFX?
AMD FidelityFX is a suite of nine open-source tools for the AMD RNDA processor architecture. These tools do things like boost FPS, increase visual quality, enhance lighting, optimize rendering, denoise reflections, and improve real-time ray tracing.
Now that we understand the technology and terminology used by the two graphics card companies, let’s dive into the top graphics cards for each in 2022.
Top 5 Graphics Cards for NVIDIA in 2022
The top 5 graphics cards for NVIDIA in 2022 all support 8K resolution. They all come with one (1) HDMI 2.1 port and three (3) DisplayPort 1.4a. These graphics cards are all based on the latest Ampere architecture, have PCIe gen 4, and Direct12X Ultimate.
| Model | Clock Speed | CUDA Cores | Memory |
| GeForce RTX 3090 | 1.4 GHz | 10,496 | 24GB GDDR6X |
| GeForce RTX 3080 Ti | 1.37 GHz | 10,240 | 12GB GDDR6X |
| GeForce RTX 3080 | 1.44 GHz | 8,704 | 10GB GDDR6X |
| GeForce RTX 3070 Ti | 1.58 GHz | 6,144 | 8GB GDDR6X |
| GeForce RTX 3070 | 1.5 GHz | 5,888 | 8GB GDDR6 |
Top 5 Graphics Cards for AMD in 2022
The top 5 graphics cards for AMD in 2022 all support 4K resolution. They all come with at least one (1) HDMI 2.1 port and one DisplayPort 1.4a. The lower end models do not come with USB-C, however as the higher end models do.
| Model | Clock Speed | Compute Units | Memory |
| Radeon RX 6900 XT | 2.15 GHz | 80 | 16GB GDDR6 |
| Radeon RX 6800 XT | 2.15 GHz | 72 | 16GB GDDR6 |
| Radeon RX 6800 | 1.85 GHz | 60 | 16GB GDDR6 |
| Radeon RX 6700 XT | 2.42 GHz | 40 | 12GB GDDR6 |
| Radeon RX 6600 XT | 2.35 GHz | 32 | 8GB GDDR6 |
NVIDIA and AMD are the two manufacturers that provide graphics cards in the industry. Other manufacturers (OEMs) use their technology and innovate around them to create unique products. It is imperative to continue researching product specific variations before making any major purchase. It is highly recommended to visit NVIDIA and AMD’s website for more information, OEM product pages and other blog resources in order to understand what the best graphics card will be for you.
For a list of these graphics cards under OEM manufacturers, check out the links to Amazon below: