The best graphics card for 4K gaming – performance per rand comparison

4K gaming is constantly becoming more feasible as newer graphics card generations lower the cost-of-entry by ever-increasing margins.

However, it is still far more expensive than gaming at 1080p, with most high-end 4K users opting for ridiculously-expensive graphics cards or SLI configurations.

We thought we’d compare the performance-per-rand value of single graphics cards for 4K gaming in South Africa, in order to provide local gamers with a better idea of which cards are better-suited for high-resolution gaming.

Performance data for all cards was taken from Guru3D, and pricing refers to the cheapest available product.

Please note that the FireStrike Score column refers to the graphics card’s FireStrike Ultra (4K) Score.

Graphics Card	FireStrike Score	Price	Value Score
GeForce Titan XP	6,774	$1,200	N/A
GeForce GTX 1080	5,142	R11,499	0.45
GeForce GTX 1070	4,290	R7,599	0.56
GeForce GTX Titan X	4,033	R18,681	0.21
GeForce GTX 980 Ti	4,017	R7,528	0.53
Radeon R9 Fury X	4,002	R12,225	0.33

Unfortunately, South African pricing is not yet available for the GeForce Titan X Pascal graphics card, which shows the most promise as a single-card 4K gaming solution.

We can see however, that the newer Pascal graphics cards deliver the better performance by far, despite the falling prices of previous-generation GPUs.

The exception to this rule is the GeForce GTX 980 Ti, which is still as attractive a value proposition as it was upon release, offering playable 4K gaming and great overclocking potential at a lower cost than ever before.

The Maxwell Titan X and Radeon R9 Fury X are no longer worth purchasing for any 4K gaming rig, with the former succeeded by its Pascal-based counterpart and the latter soon to be succeeded by AMD’s upcoming Vega architecture.

Winner: Nvidia GeForce GTX 1070