Consoles and gaming PCs have been in an unofficial contest for decades. Both have their strengths: PC gaming with its customizability and superior graphical quality, and consoles with their lower entry barrier and plug-and-play nature. If you’re trying to decide which to buy, price is likely the biggest factor.

With Sony bumping up the cost of its PlayStation 5 lineup earlier this month, it’s only natural for conversations about which gaming platform offers better value to resurface. Take the PS5 Pro, the apex of PlayStation’s options, as an example; it’ll set you back $899.99 at the time of writing. That’s a number that can be hard to swallow for a mid-generation upgrade.

When the PS5 Pro launched, its rasterization performance and GPU specifications drew close comparisons to the RX 6800 — a card from AMD’s RDNA 2 generation. However, the PlayStation’s ray tracing and PSSR upscaling bring it closer to newer RDNA 4 architecture GPUs from AMD, with improved ray tracing and FSR 4 upscaling, which is why we have decided to stick to that generation in this list while also highlighting their NVIDIA counterparts. With that context in mind, here is a breakdown of the graphics cards that can go toe-to-toe with Sony’s most capable console — and the ones that leave it firmly in the rearview mirror.

If you want to match the PS5 Pro on a budget, this might be the card for you. The RX 9060 XT 16 GB is the second most affordable GPU in AMD’s current RDNA 4 lineup, and it stakes its claim as a legitimate competitor of Sony’s console hardware even in the most recent and demanding games. Independent testing from Terra Ware on YouTube used Crimson Desert, a standalone adventure IP released in March, as a basis for comparison. The title has three performance modes: Quality, Balanced, and Performance. 

In the Balanced and Performance modes, the testing revealed that the 9060 XT and the PS5 Pro performed very similarly with their respective upscaling technologies activated. In terms of ray tracing performance, the gap between the 9060 XT and the PS5 Pro narrows further. Here’s how ray tracing works. The PlayStation automatically uses the Ultra setting on Quality Mode and High for the other two, but the PC maintained the same quality for the entire test. 

The Quality mode runs 4K native, and that’s where the PS5 Pro really starts to slow down compared to this graphics card; the PlayStation reports 27-30 fps, while the 9060 XT stays more consistent around 29-30 fps. Those dips are more pronounced on the console, so gamers looking for reliable performance should be more inclined toward the 9060 XT. At an MSRP of $349 — though reality has it closer to $449 — this is the floor of what it costs to compete with the PS5 Pro on PC.

The RTX 5060 Ti is NVIDIA’s competitor to the 9060XT, and it comes in at a pricier $429 MSRP. That’s more of an ideal price at this point, though, as current memory chip shortages are driving the prices up. The rasterized performance difference between the two cards is enough to keep things interesting, but NVIDIA’s ecosystem comes with a more robust package. Like the 9060XT, this card also has 8 GB and 16 GB options.

However, the 8 GB memory buffer can be a bottleneck when playing at resolutions higher than 1080p. You might encounter losses in texture quality or frame time drops; experiences that make the 16 GB version of the graphics card the more favorable option for a seamless gaming experience.

In a test by Digital Foundry, which also featured the PS5 Pro and the 9060XT, the 5060 Ti performed better than both by about 2 to 15%, depending on the title and graphics setting. In terms of game support, NVIDIA’s latest upscaling tech (DLSS 4) has more support than AMD’s FSR 4, since more games come with it baked in. On the other hand, you have to rely on mods like Optiscaler to enable AMD’s latest upscaler in many titles.

The RTX 4070 Super is a last-generation NVIDIA card, meaning its RTX 50 series successors are already on the shelves. Despite the flurry of newer options, exploring the used market could unearth a gold mine if you’re looking to squeeze more performance out of your budget. The 4070 Super is a prime example of this; you can get it for as low as $520 on eBay. It’s not dated either: NVIDIA launched it in 2024 as a mid-series upgrade for the 4070, packing the card with 12 GB of GDDR6X memory and a level of rasterization muscle that the 5060 Ti 16GB finds it difficult to match.

This is particularly interesting since many people associate VRAM size with performance, but there are a lot of other factors that come into play when it comes to rendering games. In a test by Hardware Unboxed, Cyberpunk 2077 running at 1440p with Ray Tracing turned up to Ultra and Quality Upscaling could only reach 46 FPS on the 5060 Ti, while the 4070 Super averaged 66 (a 43% uplift). Although this represents an outlier, across an average of seven games with Ray Tracing turned on at 1440p, the 4070 Super was 8% faster.

When considering pure rasterized performance, the 4070 Super was 30% faster than the 5060 Ti across 16 titles at 1440p and 4K. Using the performance difference we established earlier between the PS5 Pro and the 5060 Ti, we can say that the RTX 4070 Super will outstrip the console with room to spare.

If you have reservations about exploring the used market, the current gen RTX 5070 is also a valid option for 4070 Super-like performance. This card launched at an MSRP of $549, but prices now range from $600-$700 depending on your deal-hunting skills. Like the 4070 Super, the 5070 also comes with 12 GB of memory, but the newer generation features the faster GDDR7. 

That configuration gives it more memory bandwidth. However, the former contains fewer CUDA cores and consumes less power than the latter. Wondering what CUDA cores are? We have an explanation for you. That equates to equal rasterized performance across 16 games in 1440p and 4K. However, gen-on-gen improvements to ray tracing mean the RTX 5070 is 4% faster across 7 titles in 1440p in ray tracing and performs equally in 4K. 

For those interested in gaming in 4K natively or with quality upscaling, this card serves as an entry-level option. However, you should note that the 12 GB memory buffer may start to show its limitations in more demanding titles like “Alan Wake 2”.

The Radeon RX 9070 is AMD’s response to NVIDIA’s 5070, sharing the same MSRP of $549. It is also not exempt from the memory chip issues affecting the market, driving the price of the cheapest model currently available on Newegg to $620. However, it possesses a generous 16 GB of GDDR6 VRAM and raster performance that slightly edges out the 5070. 

According to Hardware Unboxed‘s testing, the RX 9070 is 4% faster than the 5070 and 4070 Super in rasterized gaming performance at 1440p and 7% faster in 4K. NVIDIA’s superior ray tracing performance means the 9070 is 10% slower than the 5070 across those seven titles in 1440p with ray tracing turned on. The 16 GB memory buffer is a meaningful future-proofing advantage over the 5070’s 12 GB, particularly as games become increasingly VRAM hungry. 

If you intend to build a PC in 2025 with longevity in mind, and the PS5 Pro as your performance benchmark, the RX 9070 clears with enough headroom and might even challenge the PS6 when it releases.