[Recommended Collection] GeForce RTX Series Graphics Card Specifications Comparison

Written by
Jasper Cole
Updated on:July-12th-2025
Recommendation

Master the latest specifications comparison of NVIDIA RTX series graphics cards and gain an in-depth understanding of high-end consumer graphics card technology.

Core content:
1. Real-time ray tracing technology of RTX series graphics cards and its impact on game quality
2. Four key points of RTX graphics card architecture evolution: ray tracing core, tensor core, shader execution efficiency, memory system
3. Performance comparison and market trends of RTX 40 series and 30 series graphics cards

Yang Fangxian
Founder of 53AI/Most Valuable Expert of Tencent Cloud (TVP)

GeForce RTX consumer graphics cards

The GeForce RTX series of graphics cards is a high-end consumer graphics card product line launched by NVIDIA in 2018. The "RTX" in its name stands for "Real-Time Raytracing" , which is real-time ray tracing technology. This technology is a major breakthrough in computer graphics. It can simulate the way light propagates in the real world, thereby achieving more realistic light and shadow effects in game and movie rendering.

The main reason for launching the RTX series of graphics cards is to meet the growing demand for high-quality graphics rendering , especially in the gaming and entertainment industries. As the quality of game images continues to improve, traditional rasterization rendering technology has been unable to meet the pursuit of realism. The application of ray tracing technology makes it possible to render movie-level visual effects in real time, which has greatly promoted the development of gaming and graphics rendering technology.

The architecture evolution of RTX graphics cards is mainly reflected in the following aspects:

Ray Tracing Core (RT Core): Starting with the RTX series of graphics cards, NVIDIA introduced a dedicated ray tracing core to accelerate the intersection test between light and objects in the scene, greatly improving the computational efficiency of real-time ray tracing.

Tensor Core: RTX graphics cards are equipped with tensor cores, which are dedicated to deep learning-related matrix operations and provide hardware support for AI-driven graphics technologies such as DLSS.

Shader execution efficiency: With each generation of architecture updates, NVIDIA continues to optimize shader execution efficiency, including improved instruction scheduling and execution unit design to provide higher graphics rendering performance.

Memory system: RTX series graphics cards support the latest memory technologies such as GDDR6 and GDDR6X, which provide higher bandwidth to meet the needs of high-resolution and high-frame rate games.

Multi-view rendering (MVR): In the Turing architecture, NVIDIA introduced multi-view rendering technology, which allows multiple views to be rendered simultaneously in a single rendering process, providing better support for VR and multi-monitor setups.

Main generation

GeForce RTX 40 series, 30 series, 20 series, and 16 series are the main selling generations of RTX consumer graphics cards.

GeForce RTX 40 series graphics cards, performance: Based on NVIDIA's new Ada Lovelace architecture. This generation of graphics cards has achieved a qualitative leap in performance, efficiency, and AI-driven graphics. The Ada Lovelace architecture is equipped with the third-generation RT Core and the fourth-generation Tensor Core, which significantly improves ray tracing and AI performance. As the flagship model in the series, the RTX 4090 has 16384 CUDA cores and 24GB GDDR6X video memory, which can bring unprecedented experience to gamers and creators.

Unfortunately, the RTX4090 was listed as a banned card by the US Department of Commerce. The domestic market will mainly promote the castrated version of the 4090, the 4090D. For details, please see this article [The 4090D priced at 12,999 yuan is here, will you buy it?]

GeForce RT 30 Series GPUs  :  Deliver the performance gamers and creators need. Powered by the 2nd generation NVIDIA RTX architecture - NVIDIA Ampere architecture, this product features dedicated 2nd generation RT Cores, 3rd generation Tensor Cores, and new SM multi-unit stream processors for realistic ray tracing effects and advanced AI performance. 

GeForce RTX 20 series graphics cards: Pioneers of ray tracing, the first graphics cards to introduce real-time ray tracing technology, based on the Turing architecture, with dedicated ray tracing cores and Tensor Cores. This generation of graphics cards not only improves gaming performance, but also provides a powerful toolset for creative professionals, supporting AI-accelerated graphics and video editing tasks.

GeForce GTX 16 series graphics cards: cost-effective choice, GeForce GTX 16 series graphics cards are also based on the Turing architecture, but are mainly aimed at the cost-effective market. Although they do not provide the ray tracing and DLSS functions of the RTX series, they still provide good performance and are suitable for users with limited budgets or who do not need high-end graphics features.