Don’t Buy a Graphics Card for More than $500 Right Now

If you’re looking to upgrade your PC with a new high-end graphics card costing over $500, hit the pause button. GPU prices continue to drop and some cards may look especially attractive, like the RTX 3090 Ti. $920 under that obscene $1,999 (opens in new tab) MSRP kicks off — the best graphics cards are about to face some serious competition. This is especially true for cards at the top of the GPU benchmark hierarchy.So if you’re after that RX 6950 XT “Only” $934 (opens in new tab),Please wait.

Today’s top cards (beyond the RTX 3070, or perhaps the RTX 3070 itself) could be supplanted by faster models within the next few months. So if you buy them now, you might end up getting a better card for the same price in November, or the same latest generation card at a discounted price. Cards currently under $500, such as the RTX 3060 Ti and below and RX 6700 XT and below, are unlikely to be replaced in the near future. In the sub-$250 realm, you can’t beat the value you get today Radeon RX 6600 (opens in new tab) When RTX2060 (opens in new tab)the latter is Only $229 At Amazon (opens in new tab).

If you need three good reasons to wait for a graphics card upgrade, we have the Nvidia RTX 40-series Ada Lovelace GPU, the AMD RX 7000-series RDNA 3 GPU, and the Intel Arc Alchemist GPU. The last one probably won’t reach the top of the performance ladder, but the A770, A750 and A580 could be priced very aggressively if Intel wants to grab market share. This could lead AMD and Nvidia to respond with price cuts for their mid-range and budget GPUs. So everything from budget to mid-range to high-end to extreme GPUs is in flux.

This is not to say that no one should buy a new graphics card. If you have a pressing need or are building your first PC and can’t wait any longer, a decent budget or mid-range product is fine. , waiting until 2023 is probably too long for some. A significant price change is unlikely in the budget to mid-range sector, so if you want a new GPU, consider it.

Let’s quickly recap what’s happening at the top of the GPU performance stack.

Everyone expects Nvidia to announce the RTX 4090 at least at their GPU tech conference on September 20th. Nvidia says they’ll talk about the next GeForce architecture but why talk about architecture without launching at least one graphics card Nvidia probably also provided details on his RTX 4080 and Titan card may also be provided.

Complaints about performance indicate that we can see well over 50% improvement over today’s fastest GPUs. Pricing could also set new records in a bad way, but if you’re looking to upgrade to the new $500+ Nvidia GPUs, we’ll see how it goes. If so, you could wait a month before swiping your credit card on the RTX 4090 and assuming it’s actually up to 75% faster. Or use discretion and grab his RTX 4080.

In short, we fully expect the RTX 4090 card to launch by October at the latest. If the RTX 4080 isn’t released at the same time, it’s entirely possible that it will be released within a few weeks. This should put pressure on Nvidia and its partners to wipe out everything after his 3080, which should also affect prices for the 3070 and 3060 series.

AMD may not be far behind with its RDNA 3 GPUs. This was the announcement of the complete Ryzen 7000 CPU lineup which demoed an unnamed but presumably high-end card. Once the dust has settled from the scheduled CPU launches on September 27th, AMD could be ready to move on to new GPU launches by next month.

Like Nvidia, AMD hopes to start with their fastest GPU, the Navi 31. The top model should feature at least 50% more memory bandwidth and capacity compared to the RX 6950 XT, doubling the theoretical compute performance if current rumors are correct. Will AMD steal some of his Nvidia thunder and offer a GPU that can beat the RTX 4090?Possibly, but we’ll have to wait and see. The bad news is that if AMD actually delivers better performance, it’s likely to be just as expensive.

But again, you don’t have to splurge on a top-shelf model. AMD should launch a slightly cropped RX 7800 XT at the same time as the RX 7900 XT or soon after. The potential for significant changes in price and performance doesn’t stop there. The RX 6700 XT is probably as expensive as I buy a GPU. Because newcomers inevitably affect prices elsewhere. .

Budgeting to the midrange sector is also where Intel’s higher spec Arc graphics cards come in. Intel used its own benchmarks to demonstrate competitive performance from both the Arc A770 and Arc A750. Based on Arc’s recently published specs, even the mainstream Arc A580 could offer decent competition in the sub-$250 market.

Intel is aware of the situation and recognizes that it is struggling for market share. Previous reports of erratic drivers on the Arc A380 do not instill confidence. In other words, even if Intel’s Arc A770 could match or beat his RTX 3070, you can’t claim the RTX 3070’s price.

We think Intel’s A770 will go after the RTX 3060 Ti instead, with the A750 targeting the RTX 3060 and the A580 going up against the RTX 3050. Perhaps even more surprising is that Intel could win each of these matchups. At that point, Nvidia could easily drop the price.

We’ve rounded up all the rumored specs, but the A770 doesn’t have any more rumored specs other than the price. I’m pretty sure about the max configurations of Nvidia’s AD102 GPU and Nvidia’s Navi 31, but how many features are actually enabled and at what clock speeds does the chip run? It’s not known to the public, but there are a lot of rumors and it’s less reliable than others. Remember that is the easiest.

Perhaps the most important specs are the number of GPU shaders and theoretical calculations. Experience has shown that data like this is going to be an apples and oranges comparison due to the differences in the various architectures, but both AMD and Nvidia have improved and depending on their final clock speeds, the following It could be a very interesting showdown of. month or two.

For current generation GPUs, Nvidia runs a whopping 40 teraflops of theoretical compute on the RTX 3090 Ti, while the RX 6950 XT has only 23.7 teraflops. The RTX 4090’s potential specs are around 65 teraflops (a 60% increase), while the RX 7900 XT could reach 59 teraflops or more, more than double the current halo AMD GPUs. Intel is far behind those two, with the A770 already lagging behind existing Halo parts, but that’s to be expected as well, as they’re aiming for a massive mainstream market.

Perhaps more important than the upcoming AMD or Nvidia heavyweights is the penultimate GPU. The RTX 4090 and RX 7900 XT will almost certainly take premium pricing to new levels, but what about the RTX 4080 and RX 7800 XT? The price is also suggested to be almost halved. $999 for an RTX 4080 that’s 30% faster than the existing RTX 3090 Ti? Well, that’s one possibility. The same applies to the RX 7800 XT and RX 7900 XT.

Again, we don’t know where any of these upcoming cards will really hit in terms of price or performance or even specs. increase. The only thing I can say with confidence is that all new GPUs will sell out quickly. My hope is that supply will catch up with demand much faster than it has in the last two years. Miners won’t prop up unfair prices, so if the stars match, we might see good availability and prices before the end of the year.

And even if the price of the next-gen GPU exceeds what we were actually willing to pay, it’s likely that we’ll be left with a lot of current-gen graphics cards piled up in warehouses, as reported. Inevitably, the price of existing cards should be reduced. Worst case, you’ll wait a month or two and end up saving a few bucks (unless another “total storm” hits). At best, you’ll get 50% more performance at no extra cost.

But I was wrong before, not many people properly predicted the impact of the entire pandemic and the 2020 cryptocurrency boom wreaking havoc on the GPU market. Unfortunately, even without them, scalpers can ruin your upcoming launch party or holiday shopping season. Patience is still a virtue.

if you really need just now, I’d look for a card priced under $500, maybe closer to $250.Let’s look at Radeon RX 6600 (opens in new tab) When RTX2060 (opens in new tab), both are excellent values. Once things settle down, you can move on to something more quickly.If they aren’t fast enough, AMD’s RX6700XT (opens in new tab) When RX6650XT (opens in new tab) is also good value, and the 6700 XT’s 12GB of VRAM and RTX3060 (opens in new tab) should also be considered.

It’s not uncommon to buy a GPU just before new hardware arrives. Prices usually have a trickle-down effect, with his Nvidia cards in the $300-$600 range still selling above their official suggested retail price.