Digit Zero1 Awards 2021: Best Graphics Cards

The graphics card shortage that was meant to get rectified late last year never happened. And GPU manufacturers as well as OEMs couldn’t be any happier. Retailers are also happy, well most of them are. The rest are being forced to buy out unsold inventory from distributors to be allocated any graphics cards. The only folks who are truly sad are us gamers. We really can’t catch a break with all the constant fluctuations. In the midst of all this, GPU manufacturers have barely put out any entry-level cards. It’s been more than a year since the RTX 3090 launched and we’re yet to see an entry-level card from NVIDIA. AMD just put out the RX 6600 but that’s retailing for more than INR 70K so it’s not an entry-level card if you’re going by the price. And if that wasn’t enough, older GPUs are being brought back from the grave to help with the global chip shortage issue. This year we saw the launch of the RX 6000 series of graphics cards from AMD bringing hardware-accelerated ray-tracing capabilities but more importantly, we saw the launch of several new scaling technologies to help existing graphics cards perform better. First there was AMD’s FidelityFX Super Resolution technology which helps even 3-5 year old cards get additional FPS in current games, and it even works on NVIDIA cards. Not to be left behind, NVIDIA also brought out NVIDIA Image Scaling to compete with FSR. Even better was the release of DLSS 2.3 which significantly improves visual fidelity in games with RTX enabled. So there’s was a lot of action on the software front and hopefully, there will be a lot of new releases when CES rolls in this coming January. All of these have been significant developments in the GPU space, but we’re certain that gamers would be a lot more appreciative when the GPU shortage eases up. 

Winner: ZOTAC GAMING GeForce RTX 3080 Ti AMP Holo (Price – ₹176,999)

It was a tough competition between the AMD RX 6900 XT and the NVIDIA RTX 3080 Ti cards. The former is the absolute best from AMD and the latter is practically a replacement for the RTX 3090 which is NVIDIA’s best card but was launched a year ago. Between the two, the Radeon RX 6900 XT performs better than the RTX 3080 Ti in a lot of video games  in 1080p and 1440p gaming. However, when it comes to 2160p or 4K gaming, then the RTX 3080 Ti either equals or sometimes performs better than the RX 6900 XT in quite a few video games. And since these flagship cards are marketed at 4K gaming graphics cards, it’s only natural to value 4K performance higher. Up until last year, we did not value ray-tracing  games since the technology was barely present in many video games and wasn’t a good indicator of the industry at large. However, since then Microsoft implemented DXR in consultation with all hardware manufacturers and even the gaming consoles support ray-tracing. So when we factor in ray-tracing performance into the calculation, then any ambiguity of deciding the winner goes right out of the window. The NVIDIA cards perform better in synthetic benchmarks as well as in video games such as Far Cry 6, Cyberpunk 2077, Resident Evil 8 Village and Watch Dogs Legion. And thus propels the RTX 3080 Ti to become this year’s Zero1 Award Winner.

1st Runner-Up: AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT (Price – ₹143,999)

Like we already mentioned, the Radeon RX 6900 XT and NVIDIA RTX 3080 Ti are very competitive at 4K resolution without ray-tracing involved. However, at 1080p and 1440p, the RX 6900 XT easily retains a lead over the RTX 3080 Ti and should the game support AMD’s FidelityFX Super Resolution technology, then you could potentially get a lot higher frame rates without any discernible loss in visual fidelity. Moreover, considering the fact that you can get an RX 6900 XT for about `40K cheaper than an RTX 3080 Ti, it’s really a no brainer of a card. Also, the ray tracing performance isn’t bad. If the RTX 3080 Ti ends up giving 100 FPS in a video game with ray-tracing at 4K, then the RX 6900 XT will give you about 90. Both cards give you more than enough frame rates to experience ray-tracing in current gen video games with ease. In fact, the RX 6900 XT is a more economical choice as well.

Best Buy: ASUS TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 3060 Ti OC Edition (Price – ₹89,500)

Never in the history of the Zero1 Awards would we have ever given the Best Buy mention to a graphics card that costs nearly a lakh. That’s the world we live in. And the other surprise is that an RTX 3060 Ti is getting the Best Buy mention whereas an RTX 3060 isn’t. The simple answer is because the performance delta between the RTX 3060 and the RTX 3060 Ti is so vast and yet they’re similarly priced because of the GPU shortage issues. The RTX 3060 is simply not worth the inflated prices that it sells for. The RTX 3060 Ti, on the other hand, is a great mid-range graphics card that allows for 1080p as well as some 1440p gaming with ray-tracing turned on. The ASUS TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 3060 Ti OC Edition gives you that additional value because of the factory overclock and that makes this years Best Buy, an even sweeter deal.

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Mithun Mohandas

Mithun Mohandas is an Indian technology journalist with 10 years of experience covering consumer technology. He is currently employed at Digit in the capacity of a Managing Editor. Mithun has a background in Computer Engineering and was an active member of the IEEE during his college days. He has a penchant for digging deep into unravelling what makes a device tick. If there's a transistor in it, Mithun's probably going to rip it apart till he finds it. At Digit, he covers processors, graphics cards, storage media, displays and networking devices aside from anything developer related. As an avid PC gamer, he prefers RTS and FPS titles, and can be quite competitive in a race to the finish line. He only gets consoles for the exclusives. He can be seen playing Valorant, World of Tanks, HITMAN and the occasional Age of Empires or being the voice behind hundreds of Digit videos. View Full Profile