Get Death Stranding for free when you buy an Nvidia RTX graphics card

Death Stranding isn't going to be a particularly demanding game to play on PC if my early performance tests are anything to go by, but it is one of the few games at the moment that's going to support Nvidia's DLSS 2.0 upscaling tech to help it hit smoother frame rates at higher resolutions. And to celebrate it being one of a handful of playable DLSS games, Nvidia are bundling the game in for free with all RTX card purchases made between now and July 29th.

The offer applies to all RTX graphics cards, as well as gaming laptops and gaming desktops with an RTX card inside them, too, giving you a choice of everything from the £285 / $295 RTX 2060 all the way up to the £1000 / $1000+ RTX 2080 Ti. You'll have until August 31st to redeem your free game code, although naturally even if you buy an RTX card today and get it before Death Stranding launches on Tuesday, July 14th, you'll have to wait until the game comes out before you can start playing.

From my own initial tests, even an RTX 2060 can hit a smooth 60fps at 4K with DLSS 2.0 turned on at max settings, so it's not like you're going to need to spend mega money in order to make the most of your free game.

Looking at the current graphics card landscape more broadly, I'd still recommend an RTX 2060 for anyone looking for a decent graphics card for playing games at 2560x1440 (even if AMD's Radeon RX 5600 XT is technically my number one best graphics card choice due to it being cheaper and just as powerful). The RTX 2060 is perfectly capable of hitting 60fps in most of today's best PC games on High graphics settings at 1440p, and is more than powerful enough for playing games at 60fps+ at 1080p as well.

If you want to be absolutely sure you're going to hit a steady 60fps on Ultra settings at 1440p, however, then I'd recommend moving up to an RTX 2070 or RTX 2070 Super. At the moment, prices for the RTX 2070 Super are much higher than normal, making it a bad deal right now. Instead, you'll get a lot more for your money with a regular RTX 2070, and you can find all the lowest prices in our regularly updated graphics card deals hub. Plus, you can see exactly how both graphics cards compare in my RTX 2070 vs RTX 2070 Super benchmark comparison.

I should also point out that Nvidia will be releasing their next generation of Nvidia Ampere RTX 3000 graphics cards at some point this year as well, so you may just want to put off buying a graphics card altogether and wait for the new ones. As I said at the start, Death Stranding doesn't really need an RTX card to make the most of it. The game doesn't have any ray tracing support, for example, so it's only Nvidia's upscaling DLSS 2.0 tech that you'll get any benefit from. And besides, even a GTX 1060 can run the game perfectly well on max settings at 1080p according to my own performance tests, so I wouldn't say there's really any pressing need to take the plunge on an RTX card now if you're keen to play Kojima's bonkers post-apocalyptic postman simulator.

Instead, I'm much more tempted by AMD's current free game offer, which gets you a free copy of Assassin's Creed Valhalla when you buy any Ryzen 7 or Ryzen 9 CPU from now until October 3rd.