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You will need a GPU with a lot of RT cores to play ray tracing games smoothly. Only a handful of GPUs have that many RT cores. Here they are.
If you want to play games with ray tracing enabled, you will need a powerful GPU capable of that. Ray tracing is significantly more demanding and requires a lot of RT cores to run games smoothly. For example, the Nvidia RTX 5090 is equipped with 170 RT cores, which is why it’s the best GPU for ray tracing. However, this graphics card costs over $2000, which is not affordable for everyone.
That’s why we have prepared a list of some of the best GPUs for ray tracing at different price points. The list is ranked according to ray tracing performance. Please note that we have excluded RTX 40 series cards and older models, as they are no longer in production and are officially unavailable for purchase.
Note: Parts of this article are subjective and reflect the writer’s opinions. Also, the prices mentioned herein are subject to change.
Best GPUs for Playing Ray Tracing Games
1) Nvidia RTX 5090
The Nvidia RTX 5090 is the most powerful GPU in the world as of this writing. It packs a total of 170 RT cores, 21,760 shader cores, 680 TMUs, and more. This GPU is also equipped with 32GB of high-speed GDDR7 memory. Therefore, it can handle ray tracing very well. Cyberpunk 2077 has one of the best implementations of ray tracing. It runs at 60+ FPS at 1440p with RT Max settings. For 4K resolution, you will need to turn on DLSS. The game can also run with path tracing, which is a more advanced version of ray tracing.
| Specifications | Values |
|---|---|
| Architecture | Blackwell |
| Shader cores | 21760 |
| RT cores | 170 |
| TMUs | 680 |
| ROPs | 176 |
| Base core clock speeds | 2017 MHz |
| Boost core clock speeds | 2407 MHz |
| Memory capacity | 32GB GDDR7 |
| Memory bus width | 512-bit |
| Memory bandwidth | 1.79 TB/s |
| Manufacturing node | 5nm |
| Thermal design power (TDPs) | 575W |
2) Nvidia RTX 5080
The Nvidia RTX 5080 is a high-end GPU for ray tracing. It may not be as powerful as the RTX 5090, but it comes quite close despite costing less than half as much. This graphics card has a total of 84 fourth-generation RT cores, which is more than enough to deliver solid ray tracing performance at 1440p with DLSS Quality settings or 4K with DLSS Performance settings. It also features 16GB of fast GDDR7 memory, which is sufficient for both 1440p and 4K with DLSS.
| Specifications | Values |
|---|---|
| Architecture | Blackwell |
| Shader cores | 10752 |
| RT cores | 84 |
| TMUs | 336 |
| ROPs | 112 |
| Base core clock speeds | 2295 MHz |
| Boost core clock speeds | 2617 MHz |
| Memory capacity | 16GB GDDR7 |
| Memory bus width | 256-bit |
| Memory bandwidth | 960 GB/s |
| Manufacturing node | 5nm |
| Thermal design power (TDPs) | 360W |
3) Nvidia RTX 5070 Ti
The Nvidia RTX 5070 Ti is for people who can’t spend $2000 or even $1000 on a GPU. It costs $749.99 and delivers 70–80% of the RTX 5080’s performance in ray tracing games, which is quite good for budget-conscious users. Nvidia equipped it with 56 RT cores and 16GB of VRAM, so it provides solid ray tracing at 1080p natively and 1440p with DLSS. It also has great overclocking potential, which can push it closer to the RTX 5080.
| Specifications | Values |
|---|---|
| Architecture | Blackwell |
| Shader cores | 8960 |
| RT cores | 56 |
| TMUs | 280 |
| ROPs | 96 |
| Base core clock speeds | 2295 MHz |
| Boost core clock speeds | 2452 MHz |
| Memory capacity | 16GB GDDR7 |
| Memory bus width | 256-bit |
| Memory bandwidth | 896.0 GB/s |
| Manufacturing node | 5nm |
| Thermal design power (TDPs) | 300W |
4) AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT
The Radeon RX 9070 XT is AMD’s most powerful GPU this generation. Compared to previous AMD graphics cards, this Radeon GPU is significantly stronger. It has 64 of AMD’s third-generation RT cores, which is enough to deliver solid ray tracing performance. It can run Cyberpunk 2077 at 60+ FPS on a 1440p display with RT Ultra and FSR 4 settings. However, it is still slower than its main competitor, the RTX 5070 Ti, though the two GPUs are quite close in rasterization.
| Specifications | Values |
|---|---|
| Architecture | RDNA 4 |
| Shader cores | 4096 |
| RT cores | 64 |
| TMUs | 256 |
| ROPs | 128 |
| Base core clock speeds | 1660 MHz |
| Boost core clock speeds | 2970 MHz |
| Memory capacity | 16GB GDDR6 |
| Memory bus width | 256-bit |
| Memory bandwidth | 644.6 GB/s |
| Manufacturing node | 4nm |
| Thermal design power (TDPs) | 304W |
5) AMD Radeon RX 9070
AMD packed the Radeon RX 9070 with 56 RT cores, offering 80–90% of the performance of the XT variant at a significantly lower cost. In rasterization, it is much more powerful than the RTX 5070, but slower in ray tracing. The RTX 5070 has only 12GB of VRAM, which is not enough for many ray tracing games and may struggle even more in future titles.
Since the Radeon RX 9070 comes with 16GB of memory, it is more future-proof. This Radeon GPU also has a lot of overclocking potential, which can push its performance closer to the XT variant.
| Specifications | Values |
|---|---|
| Architecture | RDNA 4 |
| Shader cores | 3584 |
| RT cores | 56 |
| TMUs | 224 |
| ROPs | 128 |
| Base core clock speeds | 1330 MHz |
| Boost core clock speeds | 2520 MHz |
| Memory capacity | 16GB GDDR6 |
| Memory bus width | 256-bit |
| Memory bandwidth | 644.6 GB/s |
| Manufacturing node | 4nm |
| Thermal design power (TDPs) | 220W |
Final Thoughts
The Nvidia RTX 5090 is the best GPU for ray tracing, but its high price puts it out of reach for most gamers. The Nvidia RTX 5070 Ti and 5080 deliver 50–70% of the RTX 5090’s performance at a significantly lower cost. Those on an even tighter budget can consider the Radeon RX 9070 and 9070 XT instead. They already deliver good ray tracing performance, which may improve further when AMD releases the Redstone update dedicated to ray tracing.
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