GPU Tier list

 So, I decided to do the same thing I did with CPUs but with GPUs. Here, I'll focus not just on the high end, but also midrange components, and even budget components. I feel like I gotta do that because with CPUs there remains a healthy budget market even today, whereas with GPUs...that's all but dried up. So yeah. I'm basically gonna take the entire product stack into consideration, with emphasis on the $200-300 price range. 

Nvidia 8000 series (2006)

Arguably the GOAT. Definitely the GOAT of the 2000s. When I got into PC gaming, everyone was talking about these, because much like core 2 duos and quads on the CPU side, on GPUs, these crushed the 360 and PS3. Again, those consoles were designed as high end PCs at the time, and here Nvidia and Intel just obsoleted them in like a year. They were also quite affordable. The venerated 8800 GT was $250, and that was an expensive card at the time. Normally the high end was $500ish, and here, the 8800 GTX was $600. And the $250 model almost kept up with it. It was insane. Anyway, much cheaper options existed too like the 8500 GT, the 8600 GT, etc., although none was as solid of a value as the 8800 GT, which BTFOed the consoles 1-2 years after launch. S tier.

Radeon HD 3000 series (2007)

AMD just acquired ATI not long before this, and yeah....ATI was always the "AMD" of GPUs. Like, the second brand, the budget brand. The cheap brand. I mean, it was okay, but the driver support was wonky, and not very long lasting. My first GPU was actually a HD 3650, the AMD equivalent of an 8600 GT or 9500 GT. And yeah the driver experience was awful. But it breathed new life into my old HP desktop regardless. I can't hate on it too bad, B tier. Drivers only lasted about 5 years though. 

Nvidia 9000 series (2008)

The refresh didn't bring much improvement on the high end. Just a bunch of rebrands, the real magic was with the more midrange cards like the 9500 GT and 9600 GT, which were very cheap and very potent. Again, golden age of PC gaming right here. Not quite GOATED, but A tier.

Nvidia GTX 200 series (2008)

Basically, the third iteration of "tesla" (8000/9000 series) architecture. It was becoming quite dated by this point, and lacked DX11 support, which would give it a reduced lifespan. It was very powerful, with the GTX 280 being like 2x the 8800 GT, but it was also VERY expensive. Given AMD struggled to compete with it, basically, nvidia did what Nvidia does and just created tons of new price tiers to offer premium performance, but not really bringing it to the masses. The GTX 260 was like $400. Ya know? It was crazy. And it really didn't last very long due to its lack of features. Just a bad series all around IMO. D tier. 

Radeon HD 4000 series (2008)

Like the 200 series and the HD 3000 series, it didnt last very long. It, too, lacked DX11. AMD was horrid with driver support. But it was much cheaper than the 200 series and offered a much better value at the time. By this point the 8800 GT's performance level was offered by the HD 4830 for like $130. Again, GPU prices were crazy back then. This is why I dunk on the market now. Back then, you could get good hardware for cheap. If anything, the CPU was more of a pain than the GPU long term. Even the 4870 was like only $300. Even with inflation, it's nothing like today.

The big advantage of AMD here is that it did drive the GTX 200 prices down. Nvidia got super arrogant and AMD smacked them down. Still, I can't say the HD 4000 series had great longevity, so I kinda gotta give it like a B tier.

Radeon HD 5000 series (2009)

This took aim at the GTX 200 series too, although I'd say its primary competitor was the GTX 400 series. It targetted the higher end of the 200 series and traded favorably with the 400 series, and at least for the $200 series, often at a lower price. It also had decently better driver support, more VRAM, and DX11 support, making it about as reasonably futureproof as a card could be back then. Gotta keep in mind, 4-6 years was normal back then. And this actually was viable until around 2015-2016, whereas the HD 4000 series and GTX 200 series cards were running out of steam by 2013. A tier. Not quite S, but a solid offering from AMD.

Nvidia GTX 400 series (2010)

A bit late, and a reaction to the HD 5000 series, but it did have better driver support long term. AMD pulled the plug on the 5000 series in 2015 when windows 10 launched, whereas this got drivers until 2018. It didn't matter a ton ton because both GPUs were fairly deprecated by then, but I do think the Nvidia card aged just slightly better here. All in all, also A tier. Both brands did a solid job here.

Radeon HD 6000 series (2011)

And here we have the inevitable refreshes. This one did make 5000 equivalents cheaper, but they had no more longevity. The HD 6000 series was discontinued at around the same time as the HD 5000 series driver wise, and the 1 GB VRAM was the bane of this card's long term existence. C tier. 

Nvidia GTX 500 series (2011)

Similar to the HD 6000 series, it was refreshed 400 series. It has slightly more VRAM, but still topped out at 1.5 GB which didn't help it massively long term. Drivers aged a little better. I guess the advantages it had made it a bit better than AMD's offerings, but neither aged particularly well. I considered giving it a B but I cant justify it, it's more of a C. 

Radeon HD 7000 series (2012)

This one was the GOAT. The venerated GCN architecture that AMD used for generations after this. It sported up to 3 GB VRAM and its architecture aged quite well due to being used in the PS4, having relatively long driver support for AMD, and being reasonably powerful for its time. Probably one of the best series AMD ever launched. S tier.

Nvidia GTX 600 series (2012)

Also pretty GOATED. The GTX 660 and 660 Ti were basically 580s with more VRAM. The high end seemed to lag a bit though, and the kepler architecture kinda aged poorly. This is where AMD "fine wine" became a thing. The HD 7000 series was like the AMD series that aged super gracefully, and then this Nvidia one just...didn't. Nvidia just kept making new architectures while AMD iterated on RDNA. And while Nvidia's innovations would eventually help it capture the high end, AMD kinda dominated the midrange for a while and kept Nvidia in check price wise. I'll give this an A tier since I feel like the Radeons were actually the winners here. 

 Nvidia GTX 700 series (2013)

 REFRESHES GALORE! I mean, there's a pattern, you'd have one series that revolutionizes the market and then a refresh which improved things, but not as much. And yeah, the 700 series was kinda mid. It felt like a bit of a stagnation. The higher end was held back by VRAM, the architecture aged kinda badly. It wasn't bad for the time, but kind of mid. B tier. 

AMD RX 200 series (2013)

This felt like a 7000 series refresh. And I don't even recall much about it. Looking it up, I'd say it had more movement than Nvidia. I mean, the RX 280X was on par with the 7970 GHZ edition for $300. So probably a better value than Nvidia at the time. Heck, it actually does look like really good value, looking it up. I'll give it an A tier since this should have kicked Nvidia's butt. It had really competitive offerings all the way down the stack. And my gosh, look at those sub $100 offerings. Not saying those were very good, but they had so many. I think the 250/250X were the lowest end worth buying IIRC. But yeah that's 5850/460 performance for like $100. That's INSANE. This is why I always rip the market now. Oh, and the RX 290X looked like it was on par with the 780 Ti...while costing much less. 

Yeah, I'm giving this an A tier. Very strong A tier. Actually kinda makes the 700 series refresh look mid. 

Nvidia GTX 900 series (2014)

This series was a bit of a mixed bag for me. If you were at the high end, it was amazing. GTX 970 and above were very solid. The 950 and 960...they were mid. Very, very mid. Like GTX 660 3.0 level mid. The higher ones aged very well, with some of them being the first 8-10 year GPUs. This is where we started getting real longevity with GPUs. The driver support, VRAM, and general power of cards was enough to carry you up to the modern era. So around 2023 or so. 

Still, I can't give this S tier because....well....those mediocre midrange cards. So A tier.

 AMD RX 300 series (2015)

 So, these were a bit more mid I think. The high end card was between a 970 and 980. The midrange was competitive with Nvidia looking it up but nothing special. AMD kinda feel off here. It wasn't bad. But it wasn't great. It's like HD 7000 series 3.0 at this point. And yeah, IIRC these guy discontinued at the same time as the 7000 series so yeah, they aged kinda badly. C tier. 

Nvidia GTX 1000 Series (2016-2017)

 These are the GOATs of the 2010s. You had very solid performance gains, very solid pricing. Lots of VRAM, solid driver support. And yeah, reasonably long life. The 1060 was on par with a 980, the 1070 was on par with a 980 Ti. The 1080 Ti is still on par with the card I use today. This is the last series we truly had a lot of progress for the money with. Some say they never made another series like this because it was just too good and people wouldnt buy more cards. S tier. 

AMD RX 400 series (2016)

AND kinda flopped at the top end, topping out with the $250 RX 480 8 GB. But it had solid value. And AMD was very competitive for what it brought to the table. I can't give it S tier because again, it topped out at the $300 range, and we can see this is where AMD really ran out of steam here and failed to compete. But still it deserves at least a B for value alone. 

AMD RX 500 series (2017)

It's a refresh. SIngle digit performance gains. Just 400 series slightly overclocked. I swear they launched it just so they could say the 580 actually beat the 480 by like 2% or something. Still, despite that, it also had worse driver support over time. Honestly the magic is gone. C tier. 

 AMD RX Vega series (2017)

 These are AMD's high end cards intended to compete with the 1070, 1080, etc. They flopped. They were buggy messes. Very power inefficient. They were hated by the masses. AMD was kinda imploding by this point. And this is kinda how we got the Nvidia monopoly we have today....F tier. 

 Nvidia GTX1600/RTX 2000 Series (2018)

 And this is where Nvidia turned evil. Nvidia raised the prices like it was the GTX 200 days all over again. The RTX 2060 was priced more like a GTX 1070. It was the lowest end RTX card at $350. And yeah. Many of their performance gains were blunted by price increases. This is also where we got ray tracing from, and DLSS, which should be seen as massive innovations, but given what it did to the industry...no. This is where we started witnessing the death of the affordable GPU. Up through this point, we had options all the way from like sub $100 up to $700. But here, Nvidia pushed $1k for the 2080 Ti, $700 for the 2080, $500 for the 2070, and $350 for the 2060.

The 16 series were for the poors and featured a 1660 Ti/Super for around $250-270, so...GTX 1070 perfomance with less VRAM. The 1650 and 1650 Super were around 1060 level for around $150ish. And those were okay. But yeah. Im going to be honest. This was a very mid series. I mean, groundbreaking in some ways, with the higher end cards still relevant to this day, but yeah, only if you were rich. D tier. 

 AMD RX 5000 series (2019)

 AMD offered the somewhat more affordable RX 5000 series cards, which were a much better value for the money on paper, but they lacked those RTX and DLSS style features and a bunch of other things. They also were buggy and broken driver wise, and by this point AMD's driver support returned to their norm. So these aged like milk. Would've been a welcome addition to the market in 2017, but by 2019, yeah, AMD is kinda in their death throes here while Nvidia is securing its monopoly status in the market...

F tier. between this and Vega, they're in their GPU bulldozer moment. 

Nvidia RTX 3000 series (2020-2021)

Another relatively unattractive series from nvidia. Most of the lineup stuck to 8 GB RAM. While the cards at the higher end had plenty of power, they were crippled by the VRAM. The 3060 had 12 though, making it a relatively GOATED Nvidia staple. Btw, they did that because they knew the market would never accept 6 GB at this point. So they unironically made probably the most futureproof 60 card since the 1060 here. But it was $330 at launch and due to the COVID pandemic and crypto nonsense, good luck finding one. This era was just hell for GPU pricing. 

It's probably the most memorable of the RTX series, but yeah. I just can't help but hate it. B tier and I'm being generous. 

AMD RX 6000 series (2021-2022)

The RX 6000 series started out very unattractive. They tried to arrogantly compete with Nvidia at the same price/performance points, it didn't work. Their offerings were inferior. Even if on par with raster, they often had less VRAM at the low end, although at the high end they had more. They had ray tracing, but it was sub 2000 series performance levels. Their driver support is iffy on these. They've aged...okay, but given AMD was already talking about cutting support, yeah...AMD really needs to stop doing that. It's not acceptable any more. Especially given how long we keep GPUs these days. It's not like 2008 any more where things advanced so fast it didnt matter if a 4 year old GPU no longer got drivers, you do that crap in the 2020s and the internet is gonna hate you for it.

Still, I gotta say, this is also arguably the best of AMD's modern offerings IMO. Post COVID, AMD's GPUs crashed in price first, leading to that golden moment for those 2014-2017 era GPU owners to finally upgrade to a modern card. And having a 6650 XT, it's still a solid value, even to this day. I wouldnt recommend it over a 5050, but it's still available. Probably the GOAT of the 2020s so far, but I cant give it S tier. It's more like an A tier.

And to be fair it had its stinkers too. The 6400 and 6500 were cut down jokes of cards. ANd yeah, the sub $200 market is now dead by this point. 

Nvidia RTX 4000 series (2023)

At the high end, this is a very solid series. At the low end, it felt more middling. Its weird to see the "low end" now include $300 GPUs, but again, you see what happened to the market here? The low end market just dried up. The 4060 is now the bottom dog here. And it was a middling improvement over the likes of the 6650 XT and 3060. It had less VRAM than the 3060. It was $300 when you could buy a 6700 XT for a similar price. It had Nvidia's tech, and AMD wasn't being TOO aggressive on price here. AMD was offering $250 for similar performance. I mean, it's kinda what the market was until RAMmagedon eh....again, I'm not overly impressed. I guess B tier solely because the high end of the market was thriving, but otherwise I'd give this a C. 

AMD RX 7000 series (2023)

 This series was largely offered along side the 6000 series, at similar price points as the 6000 series. It was newer and has better tech, and AMD isnt talking about totally cutting driver support yet, but yeah it also didn't offer much the 6000 series didn't. They were kinda competing with themselves as much as with Nvidia on this one. They offered a better value than Nvidia on price/performance, but they never could compete with the top end. Not as good as the 6000 series, and yeah. Idk, I kinda feel like this is the RX 500 series all over again. Just not topping out at $300. So idk, I'll give it a B, but it feels like an unnecessary refresh. 

Nvidia 5000 series (2025)

I'm not gonna include RAMageddon in this as it's neither AMD nor Nvidia's fault. But based on MSRP and market conditions. I kinda felt meh on this. On the one hand, at the 60 level, the 5060 was $300, and offered a pretty decent jump over the 3060 and 4060 finally, but it still had 8 GB VRAM. Which is just barely acceptable. It was a nice jump, but it offered poor value, and in order to get more, you needed to spend $430 on a 16 GB 5060 Ti. This is pre RAMmagedon. Are they insane? Well, they have a monopoly, and what are you gonna do, buy Nvidia? Like really, they dont care. They offered a $250 5050 which is basically just a 4060, but yeah, again, not a huge amount of movement this gen. I mean in raw power a few GPUs had an okay shift in performance, but most didn't, and 8 GB RAM is atrocious by this point. 

Honestly, C tier...

AMD RX 9000 series (2025)

 AMD's equivalent. Sometimes a better deal. I know the 9070 XT can be a better deal with a 5070 Ti, for instance at the higher end. At the low end, the 9060 XT seemed to be a cheaper 5060, at $280 pre RAMmageddon, with the 16 GB version trading favorably with the 5060 Ti for less. So it does offer more value. But again, AMD still has inferior tech, their driver support for the future is iffy. There are drawbacks. Still, depending on the value offered, I'd easily buy it over Nvidia right now. Nvidia is the default brand to buy but if AMD has better value it has better value. Sadly, much of that has been erased by the RAM shortage, with prices being as high as Nvidia's for the 9060 XT for instance. The 9070 XT is still compelling at the high end though. Still, we're talking like $350-800 for GPUs now. Where's the low end market? As I said, it just flat out died since the RTX 2000 series. So...idk....I'll give it C tier too. It isnt that amazing for the money. 

Conclusion

Honestly, I feel like this story goes all in with everything else I've been saying about the GPU market going to crap since the 2000 series. You can definitely see the inflection point there and the subsequent death of the low end and even parts of the midrange market, with the new low end offering prices similar to what used to be midrange at best, even upper midrange. It's a joke. It's terrible. I hate the modern market. GPUs used to be so cheap, and so competitive. And all that's been gone since about 2018. To be fair, even in 2015-2017, we started seeing signs of the trouble. The root cause? AMD just failed to compete, and then when Nvidia asserted its dominance with new tech, they could just charge whatever they wanted and get away with it. Even more so due to crypto and more recently, AI. It's a joke. There's a reason Im like "if things continued the way they used to, we should be getting 5090 performance for $300", I'm not kidding. Things used to advance that fast. And now they're super slow. Which can mean longevity, but it also means paying a lot more as well. 

Anyway, the tiers, here they are:

S Tier

Nvidia 8000 Series (2006-2007), Radeon HD 7000 series (2012), Nvidia 1000 series (2016-2017) 

A Tier

Nvidia 9000 series (2008), Radeon HD 5000 series (2010), GTX 400 series (2010), Nvidia 600 series (2012), AMD RX 200 series (2013), Nvidia 900 series (2014), AMD RX 6000 series (2021-2022)

B Tier

Radeon HD 3000 series (2007), Nvidia 9000 series (2008), Radeon HD 4000 series (2008), Nvidia GTX 700 series (2013), AMD RX 400 series (2016), Nvidia RTX 3000 series (2021), AMD RX 7000 series (2023) 

C Tier

Radeon HD 6000 series (2011), Nvidia 500 series (2011), AMD RX 300 series (2015), AMD RX 500 series (2017), Nvidia RTX 4000 series (2023), Nvidia 5000 series (2025), AMD RX 9000 series (2025) 

D Tier

Nvidia 200 series (2008), Nvidia 16/2000 series (2018) 

F Tier

AMD RX Vega series (2017), AMD RX 5000 series (2019)

Some tiers are debatable. Arguably, the F and D tiers should be one tier. You can argue the 2000 series wasnt THAT bad and should be C tier, but I hate what it did to the market, and yeah. On the high end, some of the A series ones are borderline S, but I did reserve S for what I thought were the best.