The PC gaming landscape is once again set for big changes with the launch of new hardware. As the next generation rolls in, many of us are adrift in dreams of upgrades. With the top-end RTX 4090 launching on October 12 and the slightly more affordable RTX 4080s officially launching this November, we're drooling over the potential boost that can come with new GPUs.
Depending on what you play and how, you might be interested in different advancements. For the competitive shooter die-hards, Nvidia is making some big promises when it comes to improvements in frame rate for some of the most popular games. For those chasing impossibly high FPS numbers, a new monitor may well be needed to keep up with these cards.
For its new 40-series GPUs Nvidia claims competitive players will benefit from playing on a 27-inch 1440p 360Hz monitor like the Alienware 34 QD-OLED, which is one of our favourites in the category. The company says the new cards will deliver framerates of 360+ with latency as low as 10ms in optimised games, giving players a signficant edge.
A graph on Nvidia's RTX 40 announcement page shows off some of these improvements in popular esports titles. The examples given are for the upcoming RTX 4090, paired with an Intel Core i9 running Apex Legends, Fortnite, Overwatch, Rainbow Six Siege, and Valorant at 1440P. Most were happily pulling over 400fps with under 10ms latency on the company's tests.
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The demanding Apex Legends doesn't do quite as well as the other games. In the graph, it's been capped at 300fps, which feels like it's falling short of Nvidia's 360fps claims. Still, this is a pretty huge improvement over what I've ever achieved in Apex. That boost in performance likely wouldn't help a last-place champion like me, but for those into esports, any advantage is key.
Fortnite performs the best out of the bunch, but that's what you'd expect from a game optimised to work just about anywhere. If it can run on a Switch or even a phone, it's not too surprising. The graph shows Fortnite zooming along at an uncapped 601fps at 8.4 ms of latency. The speed at which kids dressed as a bear piloting another bear will turn into houses when you shoot them is going to be staggering.
Rainbow Six Siege comes in a very healthy second with an uncapped framerate of 493 and only hitting 7.9ms in the latency department. Valorant is next with 433fps at 8.2ms, which might just help you rank up through the nerves. Overwatch, like Apex Legends, had its framerate capped but this time at 400fps and was hitting 8.6ms latency. It'll be extra interesting to see how the upcoming Overwatch 2, which recently lost its lead hero designer, works with these cards.
