Summary

GTX is a mostly-retired line of graphics cards by NVIDIA.

It was formerly its flagship line, but it has been relegated to entry-level cards.

RTX, on the other hand, is NVIDIA’s current lineup of cards.

Nvidia RTX 3090 Ti GPU in a gaming PC

Justin Duino / How-To Geek

RTX has ray tracing, while GTX doesn’t.

NVIDIA has been making graphics cards for several years.

However, there are two lineups of GPUs you’ve probably come across with: GTX and RTX.

What are the differences between both?

What Does GTX Mean?

NVIDIA fully embraced the GTX branding by 2008, when it launched the GTX 200 series.

GTX stands for “Giga Texel Shader eXtreme.”

The GTX lineup has had a legendary run spanning more than a decade by this point.

What Does RTX Mean?

RTX graphics cards have dedicated RT cores or hardware accelerators dedicated solely to computing ray tracing operations efficiently.

RTX cards have these RT cores, while GTX cards don’t.

Related:What Is Ray Tracing?

RTX vs. GTX: Which One Should I Buy?

GTX is mostly a retired brand by this point.

you’re free to also get used ones,but we wouldn’t recommend it.

Everyone else, though, should probably aim for an RTX GPU.