Best GPU for Rainbow Six Siege

Based on 87 Pro Players

The most used graphics cards by Rainbow Six Siege players

The most popular graphics cards are calculated based on 87 professional players.

Introduction


Excelling in any video game means that you’ll want to use a setup that doesn’t limit you in any way. You’ll need good peripherals so that your aim (among other things) doesn’t get hindered, but you definitely also need a good PC so that you can maximize your frames per second. One of the most important components on that front is your GPU. To help you on your search for the best GPU for Rainbow Six Siege we’ve been gathering our analyzed data and let our experts use that to come up with a list of GPUs that should fit any budget and setup.

Disclaimer

The Pro Usage Top 5 gets updated daily so that you can get an up-to-date overview of what the pros are using at any given time, which includes discontinued cards. In the body of the article we will focus on cards that are currently available for purchase.

What makes a GPU good for Rainbow Six Siege?


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. A 60 FPS setup quite simply 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. The advantages are very clear and simply can’t be ignored if you ask us.

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. It also means that we might see a change in the (near) future. Nowadays, pro gamers are overwhelmingly playing at 1080p, but with computers getting more and more powerful with each new generation, we might see 1040p monitors becoming the next standard. We’ve already reviewed a new 1440p 360Hz monitor with an Ultra-fast IPS display, and we’re very impressed, so we wouldn’t be surprised to see more pros moving towards this new format.

NVIDIA Reflex


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) is because a high refresh rate offers a much smoother experience and because a higher refresh rate equals a lower system latency.

When they released the 30 series of cards, NVIDIA 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 GeForce RTX 4070 Ti

NVIDIA Reflex Compatible


NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Ti

The GeForce RTX 4070 Ti is part of the 40 series of graphics cards, made by NVIDIA. These succeeded the 30 series of graphics cards.

Specs

NVIDIA CUDA Cores7680
Boost Clock2.61GHz
Memory Size12GB
Memory TypeGDDR6X

We mentioned it in the intro: with how powerful modern GPUs (and, as a consequence, PCs in general) are becoming, we might see a move towards 1440p becoming the standard refresh rate in the not-so-distant future. The 4070 Ti is the perfect example to support this theory. It’s not the most powerful card out there right now, but it performs like an absolute beast at 1080p even with the settings maxed out. With framerates that hover just below the 600 FPS mark we would even consider calling this card ‘overkill’ if you’re focusing on Rainbow Six Siege at 1080p as your main game.

This card shines at 1440p. Even with the settings turned up all the way you’re going to get around 360 frames per second on average. Turn the settings down to competitive values and you’ll pretty much never dip below the 360 FPS mark.

If you’re playing at 1080p with the graphics turned down you can always consider a more affordable card, but as a general future-proofing card for Rainbow Six Siege, this would be our choice, as it handles 1080p as well as 1440p like a champ.

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070

NVIDIA Reflex Compatible


NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070

Used by 5 Rainbow Six Siege players ()
  • Alem4o
    Alem4o
  • BiBooAF
    BiBooAF

The GeForce RTX 3070 is part of the 30 series of graphics cards, made by NVIDIA. These succeeded the 20 series of graphics cards.

Specs

NVIDIA CUDA Cores5888
Boost Clock1.73GHz
Memory Size8GB
Memory TypeGDDR6

Not everyone games on the latest and greatest gaming monitors, so if you’re aiming at that 1440p 240 FPS mark or you’re on 1080p with a 360Hz monitor then the RTX 3070 is an excellent choice. It’s one of our favorite cards of the past couple of years thanks to its price/performance proposition, and if you’re on a mid tier system then this card will deliver in spades.

At 1080p resolutions you’re getting well over 360 frames per second, ensuring that you’ll never have to worry about frame drops when competing, and at 1440p you’ll be getting around 280 frames per second at competitive settings and 220 frames per second at max settings. We consider this to be more than enough to recommend it as a 1440p 240Hz card.

If you’re looking for value, it’s tough to beat the 3070, and with the fact that it’s a card that’s part of an older lineup, the value proposition becomes even more attractive since it can often be found on sale.

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090

NVIDIA Reflex Compatible


NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090

Used by 1 Rainbow Six Siege player ()

The GeForce RTX 4090 is part of the 40 series of graphics cards, made by NVIDIA. These succeeded the 30 series of graphics cards.

Specs

NVIDIA CUDA Cores16384
Boost Clock2.52GHz
Memory Size24GB
Memory TypeGDDR6X

If budget is no issue and/or you truly want to maximize the performance of your rig, then the 4090 is the card to go for. At 1080p with max settings, it never even dips below 360 frames per second, and at 1440p (with max settings) you’re going to get an average of around 400 FPS with this card. The 4090 is so powerful that it can even make reaching competitive framerates at 4K resolutions a reality; with around 290 frames per second at 4K this is one to get if you’ve got a 240Hz 4K monitor and you want to get the most out of it.

This is currently the most powerful graphics card out there, making it cost a pretty penny. As such, we would only recommend this card to players with deep pockets or to gamers who are dead set on getting the absolute best setup out there (and have a monitor to match those ambitions) so that they can also play the latest graphical masterpieces at max settings. For other dedicated Rainbow Six players, we would recommend cheaper cards, as the 4090 can definitely be considered ‘overkill’ at the traditional resolutions, certainly if you play competitively (and thus at lower graphical settings).

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti

NVIDIA Reflex Compatible


NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti

The GeForce RTX 3060 Ti is part of the 30 series of graphics cards, made by NVIDIA. These succeeded the 20 series of graphics cards.

Specs

NVIDIA CUDA Cores4864
Boost Clock1.67GHz
Memory Size8GB
Memory TypeGDDR6X, GDDR6

If you’re going to be playing at 1080p, and you know you’ll be staying at that resolution for the foreseeable future, then the 3060 Ti is a good budget option. At max settings, it’ll quite comfortably give you around 240 frames per second at 1920×1080, and if you drop those settings down to competitive values you’re looking at 360 FPS on average.

As a budget 1440p card it can also be considered, but given the fact that it quite often dips below 240 FPS we’d look towards other cards if you’re looking to game at 1440p.

As a budget card, this is a great one to consider, but if you can justify some extra spending then we would recommend you to look towards more powerful cards if you’re a competitive gamer.

Best GPU for Rainbow Six Siege – Conclusion


Rainbow Six Siege is a game that nicely shows how fast GPUs (and PCs in general) develop. When it first came out, it was quite hard to reach competitive framerates in the game, but these days you’re getting very respectable framerates even on budget cards. That might also have something to do with the developers optimizing the game, but it’s still cool to see the evolution of GPUs displayed in a game like this.

All the cards on this list reach the 144 limit with ease so it’s a matter of figuring out what kind of setup you want to run and what kind of video settings you’re aiming for. We’re confident that we have a card here for pretty much every budget and setup so we hope that this article has been informative for you.

0 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments