Summary

• Upgrading to an RTX 40 series GPU from these GPUs can provide up to 150% performance gains.
• The RTX 40 series cards provide great price-to-performance for select upgrades.
• High-end RTX 30 series owners should wait for the RTX 50 "Blackwell" series GPUs

Nvidia's RTX 40 series has been fraught with enough questionable products to last us till the Blackwell cards. But it has also delivered some of the best GPUs in recent years, with big gains over Team Green's previous-gen SKUs.

If you're currently rocking one of the various GPUs listed below, it's a great time to consider an upgrade to the RTX 40 series. For the same price or slightly more than what you paid for your existing graphics card, you can get access to a significantly more powerful product — with gains ranging from 20% to over 100%.

I've tried to cover the most popular GPUs for which an RTX 40 series card makes for a worthy upgrade. But, if your card isn't listed, you'll still be able to judge if an upgrade is worth it.

6 RTX 3060

The people's GPU

The RTX 3060's top spot in the Steam Hardware Survey is well-known. And it isn't hard to see why this graphics card became so popular. At nearly $100 cheaper than the RTX 2060 Super (for a lucky few at first), it launched with the same performance and Nvidia's DLSS 2.0 upscaling.

Whichever variant of the RTX 3060 you own (8GB or 12GB), upgrading to, say, the RTX 4060 Ti will give you a 35-40% boost in performance. At ~$380, the RTX 4060 Ti costs more than the RTX 3060's original MSRP, but the performance uplift combined with the more advanced DLSS and Frame Generation features more than make up for it.

Barely faster than the RTX 3060 Ti, even the best RTX 4060 Ti GPUs make sense only for RTX 3060 owners.

5 RTX 2080 (or Super or Ti)

Hear ye, Turing flagship owners!

For the bravehearts who spent around $700-$1200 on an RTX 2080 (or its Super or Ti variants) way back in 2018-19, the price-to-performance of the RTX 30 series came as a shock. After all, spending over $500 on a GPU was a much bigger deal before the RTX 40 series made desktop PC gaming too expensive.

Just an RTX 3060 Ti was enough to trade blows with the mighty RTX 2080 Super.

Just an RTX 3060 Ti was enough to trade blows with the mighty RTX 2080 Super. The RTX 2080 Ti, though faster, was still behind the $500 RTX 3070. It's true that the RTX 30 series MSRPs were merely on paper, but with time, prices stabilized and RTX 20 owners felt let down. If you're one of them, skipping the RTX 30 series altogether and switching to the RTX 4070 Ti (if you can still find it) or RTX 4070 Ti Super will result in a nearly 60-75% performance uplift.

And this is without even considering the superior ray tracing and DLSS magic of the RTX 40 series that dwarfs anything the RTX 2080 series is capable of.

4 RTX 2070 (or Super)

A great card crippled by VRAM

While the 60-class cards from Nvidia have been the sweet spot for the majority of gamers (at least until the RTX 3060), it's the 70-class cards that allow you to unlock a new performance level. That's how it was for the GTX 1070 and for the RTX 2070 and its Super variant.

With a 10GB or 12GB framebuffer, the 70-class Turing cards could have aged far better than they did.

But, with time, the limiting 8GB VRAM of both GPUs started crippling their performance at higher resolutions. With a more robust 10GB or 12GB framebuffer, the 70-class Turing cards could have aged far better than they did.

For an upgrade to Nvidia's latest-gen cards, the RTX 4070 cards seem the perfect choice. At ~$530, it'll give you a performance jump of around 60-80% over the RTX 2070 or 2070 Super. Upgrading to the new RTX 4070 Super ($600) will increase your gains to 110-120%.

3 RTX 2060 (or Super)

The entry-level RTX card needs to rest

The RTX 2060 and 2060 Super brought the benefits of Nvidia's RTX features to the larger gaming community. Launched at $349 and $399 respectively, these were solid mid-range cards that introduced gamers to new-age visuals without a massive investment.

But if you're running one of these in 2024, you might have already realized that AAA gaming at 60+ FPS at high settings isn't really possible with them anymore. If you don't want to spend a penny over $400, the RTX 4060 Ti 8GB can provide almost 55-60% more performance.

I'd recommend opting for the RTX 4070 or RTX 4070 Super cards for more than double the performance, if your budget permits.

2 GTX 1080 (or Ti)

Any Pascal holdouts?

The iconic GTX 1080 Ti (and even GTX 1080) stood the test of time for years, and rightly so. The Turing cards didn't offer any worthwhile reason to upgrade from the Pascal flagship. And while the Ampere series had faster cards like the RTX 3070 Ti and RTX 3080, buying the 40 series is what results in a real upgrade from the GTX 1080 or 1080 Ti.

Even the cheaper RTX 4070 is a massive upgrade from the Pascal flagships.

For instance, the RTX 4070 Super doubles the performance of the GTX 1080 Ti while costing $100 less. Even the cheaper RTX 4070 is a massive upgrade from the Pascal flagships.

1 GTX 1060

You can finally replace this bestseller

The GTX 1060 (3GB or 6GB) still ranks among the most popular GPUs in the Steam Hardware Survey. It's no doubt a phenomenal product for the price it launched at ($299) but it sorely lacks the chops to power today's demanding games.

If you can invest $400, the RTX 4060 Ti will net you 2.5x times the performance.

If you're thinking of an upgrade in 2024, even an RTX 3060 can offer nearly double the performance of the GTX 1060 for the same price. But if you can invest $400, the RTX 4060 Ti will net you 2.5x times the performance of the Pascal bestseller.

RTX 40 series: Upgrade or wait?

For owners of the above or weaker GPUs, it makes sense (both financially and otherwise) to switch to one of the recommended RTX 40 series GPUs in 2024. But, what if you own something like the RTX 3070, RTX 3070 Ti, or better?

In that case, you can easily wait for the RTX 50 series to arrive. The Blackwell cards are rumored to launch in late 2024-early 2025. Till then, your high-end 30 series GPU can last you well even in demanding games, especially if you make your GPU perform better with a few tried-and-tested tips.