AMD graphics cards have improved a lot over the years, with a lot of them making it our list of the favorite GPUs to buy in 2023. But as much as I want to recommend AMD GPUs and make people join Team Red, I keep bringing Nvidia back to the conversation as it continues to dominate in certain key areas, allowing gamers to have a better overall experience. Even in 2023, when the gap between AMD and Nvidia GPUs is narrower than ever, there are some legitimate reasons to stick with Nvidia. Allow me to highlight a few of them below.
1 More raw performance
Nvidia has the most powerful graphics card on the market right now in the form of the GeForce RTX 4090. We called it "The untouchable king of performance" in our review, and it still holds true to this day. There's simply nothing in the name of competition for the RTX 4090 from AMD at the moment, and it remains to be seen if that changes anytime soon. The Radeon RX 7900 XT and RX 7900 XTX are both excellent GPUs, but they're not even competing for the same piece of the pie and only go head to head with the RTX 4080.
If like me, you're chasing the best performance to run all modern AAA titles at high-resolutions, then you simply can't go wrong with Nvidia. That may not be true as you move down the ladder to look at something like the RTX 4070 or lower that's in a weaker spot due to lower price-to-performance ratio, but that's where Nvidia's DLSS upscaling technology enters the scene, once again turning the tide in favor of Nvidia. DLSS upscaling is currently at its best, and that brings me to my next point.
2 Nvidia is winning the upscaling battle
Gaming at native resolution is slowly becoming a thing of the past as almost all new games support resolution upscaling technologies like DLSS and FSR. While FSR has also matured alongside AMD GPUs over the years, it still trails behind Nvidia's upscaling tech. Nvidia's DLSS 3, in particular, is nothing less than "Unicorn Magic" as I like to put it, because of how much of an improvement it offers over the previous versions to deliver a massive boost in frame rates. It does all that while maintaining a good overall image quality that looks closer to native resolution. I honestly can't remember the last time I played a game at its native resolution besides benchmarking and testing new hardware, because that's how good Nvidia's upscaling is at maintaining visual fidelity.
Notably, the Ray Reconstruction feature introduced with the new DLSS 3.5 makes ray tracing more realistic than ever. It goes hand-in-hand with Nvidia's DLSS Frame Generation feature to deliver an excellent experience, and it's one of those things which you simply can't experience with an AMD GPU. AMD's FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR and FSR 2.0) also have a lot of good things going for them, but they're both at least a generation behind what Nvidia has managed to achieve with DLSS in 2023. Yes, AMD has introduced FSR 3.0 with the goodness of frame generation, but it's limited to only two titles at the moment, neither of which has been a great showcase of the tech so far. Besides that, FSR 3.0 isn't an AMD-exclusive feature, and you can use it with any GeForce RTX 20-series GPU and above.
3 Improving the experience with features like Ray Reconstruction
Continuing on the topic of ray tracing, I'd like to highlight how Nvidia's Ray Reconstruction has been a game changer (quite literally) in shaping my experience of playing Cyberpunk 2077. It's essentially a feature that takes ray tracing to new heights, simulating realistic shadows, reflections, and more, to improve the overall visual fidelity. Without getting into too many details, it's safe to say that Nvidia's Ray Reconstruction is both smarter than hand-tuned Denoisers and also generates better lighting effects, meaning you get clearer, higher-quality ray traced reflection and shadows while gaming.
Titles like Cyberpunk 2077 running at RT Overdrive mode can be extremely taxing on your GPU, but that's where Nvidia's other helpful technologies like Frame Generation comes into the picture. The fact that I can play Cyberpunk 2077 with Psycho graphics mode (max settings), complete with Path Tracing on an RTX 4070 Ti-enabled rig with high frame rates on the board goes to show how capable and useful these technologies are. I say that because the same title with exact same graphics settings without any upscaling doesn't run nearly as smooth as it does with everything enabled on this rig. All these features are exclusive to Nvidia GPUs at the moment, once again making them a better choice. I am sure AMD is well aware of improvements Nvidia has made to shape the overall gaming experience, but it doesn't have much to showcase at the moment. I can only see DLSS getting better from here on out, and I hope AMD's FSR 3.0 evolves into something better and is supported by more titles.
Closing thoughts
AMD's older graphics cards weren't nearly as popular the ones it has on the market right now, and they're indeed very easy to recommend in 2023. That being said, it's also hard to ignore how Nvidia continues to dominate the space by building on its strength, especially now with all the AI and machine learning advancements. Nvidia also has an upper hand with its Reflex tech to reduce latency while gaming, and I also like how Nvidia has more partners pumping out better and more ambitious GPUs with crazy design and heatsinks, unlocking more performance.
I am optimistic about the future of Team Red, especially after looking at the current lineup of AMD GPUs on the market, and its increasing effort to catch up with Nvidia's upscaling technologies. I honestly can't wait to see what AMD has in store for us over the next few years, but I personally don't see myself turning away from Nvidia, at least until things starts falling into place for AMD.