Best GPU for Call of Duty Warzone

Based on 13 Pro Players

The most used graphics cards by Call of Duty: Warzone players

The most popular graphics cards are calculated based on 13 professional players.

Introduction


The Battle Royale genre has become one of the most popular genres in gaming. With so many gamers absolutely loving this thrilling take on multiplayer gaming it’s of course no surprise that most developers are trying to get a piece of that cake, and while the CoD franchise wasn’t as successful with its first attempt (Call of Duty: Blackout) they’ve now definitely hit the mark with Warzone. Tons of gamers boot the game each day to try and get a taste of victory, and with the release of Warzone 2.0 (and the game clearly not showing any signs of slowing down) we’ve unleashed our analysts on the game.

We’ve gone ahead and evaluated the performance of current GPUs and collected all of our findings in this article to help you decide on your next purchase.

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 CoD: Warzone?


If we boil it down to the essence, your GPU (Graphics Processing Unit) is in charge of providing the image on your monitor. The power of your GPU determines how detailed of an image it can produce, but also how fast and smooth it can make said images appear in succession on your screen. The most powerful graphics cards have enough horsepower to render the newest games at the highest details and visual fidelity, but for competitive gaming that’s not really why you should be interested in these cards.

Competitive gamers prioritize getting frames per second over anything else, and that’s because getting a high framerate (coupled with a high refresh rate monitor) really does give you a myriad of advantages in the game. The most obvious one is that, if you’re gaming on a monitor that can display all of these frames, the image that you get is much smoother and crisper, but it doesn’t end there. Higher framerates also result in faster response times, and that can mean the difference between winning or losing at the higher levels.

Luckily you don’t really need to get the latest and greatest GPU to achieve decent framerates in most games. Pretty much every competitive gamer lowers a lot of ingame settings (click here to see our settings guide for Warzone) to get higher framerates (and also because some settings that are meant to make the game more beautiful can be distracting) so depending on your budget and the framerate you’re eyeing you’ve got plenty of options. Sadly, Warzone isn’t exactly the easiest game to run so compared to some of our other analyzed games you will need to make a decent investment if you want to maximize your framerate in this game.

What is for sure is that you’ll want to make sure you can run the game at 144 frames per second at minimum. Of all of our analyzed professionals across all games, only 1% are still gaming on a 60 fps setup. Almost everyone else is at 144 FPS or higher, with 240Hz being the current standard refresh rate. With framerates there are diminishing returns though, so if you’re strapped for cash then a 144 FPS setup is also definitely an option in this game.

For this article we’re mainly focusing on the performance at 1080p since it’s important to prioritize framerates if you’re a competitive player. The highest tier cards are an option for 1440p gaming these days though, which is also something that we’ll mention in their respective entries.

NVIDIA Reflex


High frame rates don’t only make for a smoother looking game. There are very real advantages outside of the visual clarity that you reach by prioritizing frame rates. The higher your frame rate, the lower your overall system latency will be, for example. If the latency of your system is too high (or there’s a bottleneck somewhere, like a mouse or keyboard that registers too late) your competitive performance will suffer.

Call of Duty: Warzone is one of the games that supports Nvidia Reflex Low Latency Technology, which means that its developers worked with Nvidia to implement tech to lower the overall latency (click here to read Nvidia’s article on that) and measure your system latency so you can identify any possible issues. If you’re gaming at the highest levels and/or you just want to be at your very best every time it’s in your best interest to reduce the overall latency to the lowest possible amount. This technology is available for the GeForce 900 series and up. Do note that you need compatible hardware in order to use the Reflex Latency Analyzer though.

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090

NVIDIA Reflex Compatible


NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090

Used by 3 Call of Duty: Warzone players ()
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    shroud
  • Recrent
    Recrent
  • Swagg
    Swagg

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

Sadly, Warzone is not an easy game to run, so if you’re interested in playing this game at the current competitive framerate standards (240Hz, with 360Hz looming on the horizon) then you will need to invest a serious chunk of cash into your GPU, especially if you want to play at 1440p.

The RTX 4090 is the best card to get for 1440p Warzone gaming: it’ll get you around 235 frames per second at competitive video settings, and around 200 at max settings. Compared to other Battle Royale games, those aren’t great numbers, which further emphasizes how difficult Warzone is to run.

It’s pretty much the same story at 1080p: at max settings, you’re getting around 210 frames per second. Go for competitive settings and you’ll be sitting around 240 frames per second.

If you’re gaming on a 240Hz monitor and you want to get the most out of it, the 4090 is the card to go for.

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070

NVIDIA Reflex Compatible


NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070

Used by 2 Call of Duty: Warzone players ()
  • Ninja
    Ninja
  • Cloakzy
    Cloakzy

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

Given the fact that 240 FPS is a difficult framerate standard to hit for even the best GPUs out there (meaning that 360 FPS is a distant pipe dream) it’s reasonable to assume that many gamers are going to go for the 144 FPS mark. If you’re one of those gamers and you’re playing at 1080p then the 3070 is a great option to consider.

If you lower the ingame settings to competitive values you’re going to be sitting at around 160 frames per second on average, and if you raise those ingame settings to the max you’re going to be working with around 120 frames per second. That’s a nice set of framerates to work with so that you can tweak your ingame settings to your personal liking without dropping too many frames, making this a good card for 144 FPS 1080p gaming.

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

If you want to game at 1440p resolution and your target is 144 frames per second then the 4070 Ti is a fantastic card to consider. At 1440p, it’ll put out around 200 frames per second at low video settings and 155 at max, making this a card that reliably stays above 144 FPS at all times.

At 1080p, you’re looking at around 170 FPS at max settings and around 205 FPS at competitive settings. If you truly want to get the most out of a 240Hz monitor we’d recommend more powerful cards, but if you’re on a budget then this will do fine, doubly so if you take into account the fact that even the most powerful card on earth can’t reliably stay above 240 FPS at max settings.

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060

NVIDIA Reflex Compatible


NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060

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

Specs

NVIDIA CUDA Cores3584
Boost Clock1.78GHz
Memory Size12GB, 8GB
Memory TypeGDDR6X

Since it’s not so easy to reliably reach 240 frames per second (and higher, obviously) in Call of Duty: Warzone, it might make sense to go for a more budget-oriented setup if you’re building one from scratch. Of course we will always recommend to reach for higher framerates if you’ve got the budget for it but if you’re going to be focusing on this game and you don’t want to spend the money for the top tier cards and monitors then this RTX 3060 is a very sensible choice. Despite the fact that it, on average, performs just below 144 frames per second (with low settings at 1080p) it’s definitely a card that will not disappoint.

Being the least powerful card in the 30 series lineup, it’s naturally going to suffer the most in performance, but what’s nice is that it doesn’t dip too far below 144 frames per second. With a framerate that never goes below 100 you’re not going to be suffering from any disorienting drops, which is why we’re recommending this as a great budget card for someone who wants to play on a 144 frames per second setup.

Best GPU for Call of Duty Warzone – Conclusion


Call of Duty: Warzone isn’t the heaviest game to run on our list of analyzed games but it’s definitely not the lightest game either. For that reason you’ll want to be looking at the top end of the spectrum in general.

If you’re after the 144Hz mark things become a little bit easier: if you’re willing to lower your graphical settings, there are a bunch of budget options to choose from that’ll get the best out of that fancy monitor without much trouble.

As with most PC components it’s important to have a balanced build, however. If you’re on a limited budget it doesn’t make sense to go for an RTX 4090 if you’re going to be running it with a low tier CPU and on a 144 Hz monitor. A GPU alone won’t push a low tier system to suddenly become a high tier system, so make sure to budget appropriately and get yourself a compatible and evenly distributed build. If you have any questions please don’t hesitate to reach out to us on Twitter or Discord.

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