These are just some of the major ones.

Budget models like theRX 7600and high-end RDNA 2 cards can also handle ray tracing.

Ray Reconstructionis a new feature made possible thanks to NVIDIA DLSS 3.5.

The game ‘Portal’ with ray tracing enabled.

Steam

It utilizes machine learning algorithms to denoise ray-traced graphics without having to rely on intensive hand-tuned denoising.

AMD hasn’t released any similar ray-tracing features yet, but I expect that to change with RDNA 4.

These upscaling algorithms allow you to render games at below native resolutions to improve performance without sacrificing visuals.

Starfield screenshot

Bethesda / Xbox Game Studios

Hardware-accelerated AI upscaling does a much better job at this than traditional upscaling algorithms.

To take advantage of AI upscaling, you’ll need an Intel Arc or NVIDIA RTX GPU.

Much like AI upscaling, AI anti-aliasing also relies on machine learning algorithms to smooth out jagged edges.

startech.com hdmi 2.1 cable

StarTech.com

DLAA relies on AI to achieve smooth edges.

DLAA is supported on all RTX GPUs.

NVIDIA introducedframe generation with DLSS 3, and it’s only supported on RTX 40 Series cards.

It’s a hardware-accelerated feature that works really well with minimal visual artifacts.

I have an RX 6600 XT and had the opportunity to try it in Starfield.

If you’re interested in using frame generation technology today, get an RTX 40 Series GPU.

This is all enabled, thanks toMicrosoft DirectStorage.

It works best on powerful GPUs and fastNVMe SSDs.

HDMI 2.1 is even more powerful than DisplayPort 1.4, which has long been the standard for PC gamers.

However, if you’re using a monitor with DP 1.4, there’s no real benefit.

HDMI 2.1 is best paired with a modern high-end 4K TV.

VRR technologies like NVIDIA G-Sync work just fine on DisplayPort.

You don’t even need that much of a recent GPU to get mesh shaders.

Just like mesh shading, VRS was introduced with Turing GPUs.

It also works on Intel GPUs.

AMD has its own version called FidelityFX Variable Shading, which works on RDNA 2 and newer GPUs.

As it’s possible for you to imagine, this leads to a direct performance increase in most games.

ReBAR works on both NVIDIA and Intel GPUs.

AMD’s version is called Smart Access Memory.

AV1 Encoding

TheAV1 codecis the successor to the HEVC video streaming codec.

AV1 supports hardware-accelerated decoding that improves bandwidth speeds and image quality.

If you agree, check out our list of thebest graphics cardsfor excellent suggestions for your next GPU.