GeForce GTX 1080 Ti

NVIDIA $650

The former heavyweight champion of the graphics card world still packs a punch, and prices may drop with the arrival of the RTX cards. But Nvidia isn’t likely to keep manufacturing the 1080 Ti, so as supply dries up prices will likely climb again before new cards disappear into the ether. Like the RTX cards, you should have a 1440p or 4K display before buying a card like this, as it’s overkill for 1080p.

Performance remains excellent in existing games, losing to the RTX 2080 by less than 5% on average. The main concern with the GTX 1080 Ti is that it doesn’t have all the new features of the RTX cards. It might be tied with the RTX 2080 for performance right now, but with 25 games already slated to use Nvidia’s DLSS algorithm, and 11 games that will feature ray tracing effects—and likely more to come—buying the GTX 1080 Ti now isn’t advisable.

Still, I wouldn’t suggest upgrading from a 1080 Ti unless you absolutely must have the best/fastest graphics card. You can probably skip a generation or two while waiting for ray tracing and DLSS support to mature.