Just like our general advice for buying a graphics card, for 4K gaming we recommend buying the best graphics card that fits your budget. If you bought something like the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090, which is the fastest single graphics card on the market in 2023, you will be able to reliably run current games at 4K with maxed settings and maintain a steady 60fps. In some games you will even be able to achieve 120fps under these conditions. This makes the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090 easily the best option at the moment for gaming at 4K, especially if you want to game at higher framerates. The power required to run games only increases over time as newer games are more and more demanding on the hardware. Though the RTX 4090 may seem like overkill, even with this phenomenal level of performance, games will eventually grow too, demanding the RTX 4090, though you can rest assured that won't happen for quite some time. Again, we must repeat that you should only do this if you can fit the RTX 4090 into your currently planned budget. As the card costs $1,599, you shouldn't go splurging to get one. Short of the RTX 4090, there are plenty of other graphics cards that are well-suited for running games at 4K with a consistent 60fps. Nvidia's GeForce RTX 4080 can also accomplish this, as can AMD's Radeon RX 7900 XTX and AMD's Radeon RX 7900 XT. The Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 Ti is just a bit slower, and there are plenty of last-gen cards that are decent options for high-end 4K gaming too. For AMD, it's essentially the AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT and everything higher, and for Nvidia it's basically the RTX 3070 and everything higher. Last-gen cards are still readily available at retailers, but that might not last for long in 2023. If these cards are a bit out of your price range but you still want to game at 4K, there are more budget-friendly options that can do a reasonably good job of running games at 4K. AMD's Radeon RX 6600 XT and Nvidia's GeForce RTX 3060 are both capable of running games at 4K with medium graphics settings. You could also consider the Intel Arc A770, which has the plus of having 16GB of RAM but has inconsistent performance due to buggy drivers. Gaming on cards that are even less powerful is technically possible especially if you reduce graphics settings further and take advantage of a technology like FSR or DLSS. Below this point, however, your mileage is going to vary considerably. Running newer games on a lower-end card at 4K would likely need to have their graphics settings reduced to the point that you just don't gain a visual benefit from running the game at 4K. That doesn't necessarily mean that using a lower-end card is pointless, though. Older games can run smoothly at 4K with less powerful graphics cards, and that alone can be worth having even if you need to run newer games at 2K or 1080p. To be safe it's best to check our review of any card you are planning to buy before buying to gain an idea of how well it will perform. This way you are less likely to be disappointed and can find a card that best fits your budget and performance expectations.