These days, 240 frames per second is the competitive minimum in the pro shooter scene. That does not mean that more casual players can't play below those framerates, but if you want to be serious about your game we do recommend investing in a system (and GPU) that can reliably push at least 144 frames each second. as a 60 FPS setup just won't cut it. Less than 1 percent of all of our analyzed professionals (across all games) play at 60Hz, so if we are to go by what the pros are saying it's imperative that you go for a high refresh rate setup.

This doesn't mean that you need to spend massive amounts of cash to get the top of the line components, however. We've been looking at all the GPUs that are available today (and comparing those with what the professionals are using) and we came up with a list of graphics cards that should suit pretty much every budget and build. We do consider 144 frames per second to be the absolute minimum, so we've created this list with that in mind. That said; most pros are on 240 FPS setups these days, so if you really want to go all out and you have the budget for it we would recommend you to go for a 240 Hz setup. With GPUs becoming more and more powerful and high refresh rate monitors becoming more common, the entry barrier to these high refresh rate setups lowers all the time, which is great news.

Rainbow Six Siege isn't a horribly demanding game if you turn down some graphical settings, so if you're not interested in going for a high refresh rate setup you can definitely get away with a cheaper (last gen) graphics card, but in this list we will only talk about GPUs that are currently being produced and sold.

The reason that professional players prefer a higher frame rate over eye candy (you can see this in the way they usually turn down their video settings and almost never use a resolution higher than 1920x0180) is because a high refresh rate offers a much smoother experience and because a higher refresh rate equals a lower system latency.

Along with Nvidia's 30 series of cards (it's worth noting that the tech is available for GeForce 900 and up cards) they also released their Reflex Low Latency Technology. This allows you to measure system latency as well as reduce it, as long as the game you're playing supports it. Rainbow Six is one such game. If you've got compatible hardware you can drastically reduce your overall system latency (the Reflex SDK dynamically reduces the game's render queue by keeping the CPU in perfect sync with the GPU, which reduces pressure on the CPU and GPU, leading to lower overall latency) and measure your latency in case something is going wrong somewhere. This is especially handy for competitive gamers who want their system latency to be as low as possible at all times.

If you want to you can read more about it here or by clicking the button on the right if you want to read a more 'watered down' version that we wrote on the topic.

Nvidia has been leading the way when it comes to high performance graphics cards for a pretty long time now so it's no surprise to see that the vast majority of professional gamers opt for an Nvidia card. That's reflected in this list as well, with all cards being from the 'team green' brand.

As always it's important to make sure that you have a balanced system. It does not make sense to spend all of your budget on a top tier GPU if your ram and CPU can't keep up.

Note: the average FPS you get ingame will severely depend on your ingame settings, as well as the rest of your rig (CPU, RAM, …) so take these estimates with a grain of salt. 

If you play Rainbow Six Siege at a competitive level (and thus at 1080p and usually not at max settings) then the RTX 3060 is a fantastic card for you. At 1080p it stays way above 240 frames with ease, churning out an average of 413 frames each second. It's a bit less suited for playing at higher resolutions (it will occasionally drop below 240 frames per second on 1440p) but as long as you are not going to be focusing on many other games where you'll want to raise the video settings way up, this is probably one of your best bets.

It's nice to see that budget cards perform so well in this game these days, so the RTX 3060 is our budget pick as well as our 'best overall' pick for this game.

The RTX 3070 is perhaps out favorite card of this current lineup thanks to its fantastic value/performance proposition. The fact that is performs admirably in the vast majority of our analyzed games makes it a great buy for pretty much all of the games that we cover, and this is also the case with Rainbow Six Siege.

For a 1080p system it's probably even a little bit too powerful, unless you've got a 360Hz monitor, which is why we would recommend the RTX 3070 as an ideal 1440p card. It delivers a reliable performance of around 295 frames per second on average at that resolution, with the frames never dropping below the 250 mark, giving you a buttery smooth framerate at all times.

Considering the fact that this is a great 'mid to high tier card' we would also recommend the RTX 3070 to people who like to play a wide variety of games at different system requirements, as it's a great 'middle ground' card between budget performance and the very top tier (which can be very expensive) of GPU technology.

If you want to get 144+ frames per second on all resolutions then the RTX 3080 should be your weapon of choice. It's one of the most powerful GPUs that money can buy right now, and that definitely shows in its performance. At 1080p it never even drops below 420 frames per second, and even if you raise that up to 1440p you can count on a steady framerate of around 368 frames per second.

As such, the 3080 could be considered overkill for this game (unless you've got an unlimited budget and/or you're someone who plays at the highest levels and needs to grab every possible margin that helps you perform) unless you play at 4K and higher refresh rates. The other GPUs in this list perform great at 1080p and 1440p but tend to suffer at 4K, so if that's your resolution of choice you should probably consider the 3080. It will deliver around 190 frames per second on average at 4K, making it a very respectable choice.

If you got yourself a shiny 360Hz monitor and you absolutely cannot spend the money on a 3070 (or a 3080) then you can always consider the 3060 Ti. At 1080p it's good for around 405 frames per second. When it dips, it does dip good (but that happens to all GPUs and is just inherent to the game) meaning that it won't stay above 360Hz all the time. As such, if you have money left over we'd recommend a slightly more powerful card for 360Hz gaming, but in a pinch this one can certainly be relied on as it never drops below 330 frames per second at 1080p, making it smooth enough to consider as a partner for a top tier 360Hz monitor.