Hey guys building a PC. So Graphics Card Prices have gone bandannas!! They have almost doubled recently. But I'm not going to put off a new build. I'll just have to suck it up.

So looking for a GPU somewhere in the $400-$500 range is what I'm thinking. Any recommendations? I'm WAY out of touch with GPU trends and what's hot in that space.

I've been eyeballing this one:
ASUS ROG Strix AMD Radeon RX 5500XT Overclocked 8G @ about $430'ish.

EDIT: Going to up the budget a bit to the $500-$900 range. Anyone have any recommendations? A amazon link would be super helpful.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: myrottiety,

I'd try to get my hands on an NVIDIA RTX 3070-based card.

Supply is quite constrained, so finding one in stock might take some time and effort.

Good Luck!

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 review: The ideal upgrade for most PC gamers

I just installed a new Nvidia Geforce GTX1660 Super in my existing computer as an upgrade.


https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/g...ards/gtx-1660-super/

If you are not gaming or running CAD you can get by with a lot cheaper options.

What will be the purpose of this PC? If basic Word, Excell and internet stuff you really don't need a separate GPU at all.

quote:

Originally posted by cruiser68:
If you are not gaming or running CAD you can get by with a lot cheaper options.

What will be the purpose of this PC? If basic Word, Excell and internet stuff you really don't need a separate GPU at all.

It’ll mostly be gaming.

quote:

Originally posted by EZ_B:
I'd try to get my hands on an NVIDIA RTX 3070-based card.

Supply is quite constrained, so finding one in stock might take some time and effort.

Good Luck!

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 review: The ideal upgrade for most PC gamers

.

At a quick look that card looks like it’s almost at $1K now.

I thought the one I suggested above would rid me of an annoying 1 to 2 second hang in the video when playing World Of Warships. It did help but the issue was still present. It wasn't until I later installed an SSD drive that the issue was gone. So, I am assuming you will be installing a super duper fast solid state drive. From what I just experienced, that is as important as having a really nice GPU.

quote:

Originally posted by myrottiety:

quote:

Originally posted by EZ_B:
I'd try to get my hands on an NVIDIA RTX 3070-based card.

Supply is quite constrained, so finding one in stock might take some time and effort.

Good Luck!

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 review: The ideal upgrade for most PC gamers

.

At a quick look that card looks like it’s almost at $1K now.

Not sure if you have just looked on ebay or elsewhere, but that card is definitely still selling for $499 at Bestbuy. The trouble is, you have to sit and refresh the page for days on end in order to get lucky enough for one to show up in stock. Once that happens, you have to be even more lucky to get it into your "cart" and actually purchase it. What you are seeing on ebay is price gouging a-holes who are reselling the cards at inflated prices.

If you can hold out a little longer, you should start seeing more stock by summer time.

quote:

Originally posted by myrottiety:

quote:

Originally posted by cruiser68:
If you are not gaming or running CAD you can get by with a lot cheaper options.

What will be the purpose of this PC? If basic Word, Excell and internet stuff you really don't need a separate GPU at all.

It’ll mostly be gaming.

What resolution is your monitor, and what CPU are you planning to have?

I've heard that graphics cards are so scarce right now that people are buying 1k desktop computers just to get the cards that come in them.

I guess I'm glad I got my 2070 when I did because even those are up to 800 dollars minimum and that's "last generations" card.

From what I understand the upgrade from 10xx series to 20xx series was a significant breakthrough in tech, but the 20xx to 30xx is just incremental.

So if you can settle for a 2070 you'll probably be happy with most applications.

quote:

Originally posted by DonDraper:

quote:

Originally posted by myrottiety:

quote:

Originally posted by cruiser68:
If you are not gaming or running CAD you can get by with a lot cheaper options.

What will be the purpose of this PC? If basic Word, Excell and internet stuff you really don't need a separate GPU at all.

It’ll mostly be gaming.

What resolution is your monitor, and what CPU are you planning to have?

I've got a AMD Ryzen 7 3700X on the way. I'll likely run a HDMI up to my 55" TCL TV. It's a 4K TV but I don't expect to game @ 4K. If it runs a 1080 I'm good with that.

4K cards are extortion levels high right now.

EDIT TO ADD: Ideally I'd like for it to run "most" games at 60 fps or better if I can. Along with the Ryzen 7 8 core I'm throwing in 32GB of RAM.

quote:

Originally posted by DonDraper:

quote:

Originally posted by myrottiety:

quote:

Originally posted by EZ_B:
I'd try to get my hands on an NVIDIA RTX 3070-based card.

Supply is quite constrained, so finding one in stock might take some time and effort.

Good Luck!

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 review: The ideal upgrade for most PC gamers

.
At a quick look that card looks like it’s almost at $1K now.

Not sure if you have just looked on ebay or elsewhere, but that card is definitely still selling for $499 at Bestbuy. The trouble is, you have to sit and refresh the page for days on end in order to get lucky enough for one to show up in stock. Once that happens, you have to be even more lucky to get it into your "cart" and actually purchase it. What you are seeing on ebay is price gouging a-holes who are reselling the cards at inflated prices.

If you can hold out a little longer, you should start seeing more stock by summer time.

Graphics Cards are 'unobtanium' right now, so to say that 'supply is quite constrained' in an understatement but, 'you should start seeing more stock by summer time'?? That seems REALLY extreme! I know the current demand is high, but....Were all the shipping containers lost at sea recently carrying the 1Q 2021 allotment of NVIDIA and AMD Radeon Graphics Cards?

About any current game-quality card is only available at prices 2x 3x underlying value. Personally I am holding off replacing my GTX1060 for the foreseeable future. My guess is maybe six-to-twelve months and supply will have caught up with demand.

Really there are three paths:

1) Buy what your budget will accept at today's market prices, and just accept that performance going forward and not replace it.

2) Hold off on the new gaming PC/new graphics card till the prices drop back to earth (what I'm doing), or

3) Buy what your budget is and build now with an interim card, with the expectation of replacing that card with a final card when prices normalize.

If your plan is #3, the money spent on the interim card can be though of as essentially a rental charge so you have something to use while waiting. (Note that when you buy the final card when prices have stabilized, you shouldn't expect to recoup much of the cost of the interim card by selling that one, as the value of your interim card will have dropped, too.)

^^^NVIDIA & AMD Radeon Graphics Cards AND Sony PS5 Consoles are both 'unobtanium' right now!

My 16YO son wanted a PS5 initially, but after two months w/o success, we gave up trying to obtain one at his direction. He shifted gears and decided he wanted to build a Gaming PC. We've got all the components EXECPT the Graphics Card right now, but I was only able to get the components I did get by initiating an internet search/buying frenzy on Christmas morning! Power Supplies and Memory (w/ certain timings) are essentially unavailable, as are Graphics Cards, though single piece quantities are randomly available at double the MSRP from gouging sellers. Beyond that, basically anything that not being sold at 'ass raping' 100% premiums, is selling at prices above MSRP!

As far as PC vs Gaming Console, there are a lot more titles available on PC, and with multi-platform game play for multi-player games now available in the same online lobbies, the PC players seem to have definite advantage in the FPS type games.

Right now is, no exaggeration, the single worst time to buy a graphics card that I can ever recall. Not only are we coming off a historically low point in availability thanks to chip manufacturers not being able to deliver enough product, and now we are running right up to Chinese New Year when everything over there shuts down for two weeks. Plus, some tarries that had been postponed just went into effect, so GPUs coming into the country right now are being hit with a 25% import duty.

Honestly, just find an RX580 or a GTX 1060 locally on Craigslist who doesn’t know what is going on, and wait till May to get a real card. If you do manage to buy a new GPU right now, you will be paying between 50% and 100% more than you should if you buy retail, and even more than that if you buy from eBay. I know it sucks, but if you care about value at all, don’t buy right now. Look, I was planning to build a new PC around now as well, but I decided to wait to buy a GPU myself. I have the $2k to drop buying an RTX3090 or whatever else right now if I wanted to, but every new GPU is such a terrible value that I refuse to do it.

If you absolutely, positively mush have something with some horsepower right now, about the best you can do is a GTX 1080 for under $300, or 1080ti for under $500 on eBay. They are still overpriced, but the raw dollars you are wasting are a lot less, and they still work well for non-4K gaming.

- Bret

Built a new rig in October. Still waiting to get a 3080. I was close last week, Best Buy has a pretty good bot deterrent system, but still you have to be quick. Haven't gotten around to writing a powershell script to email when they are in stock

Good luck!

^^^How did you determine BestBuy even had ANY inventory? Any way to get notifications on availability? I had heard that they were expecting inventory during the first week of January, but haven't heard/seen anything since. The BestBuy product pages (I'm interested in an EVGA RTX 3080 FTW3) show either 'Sold Out' or 'Coming Soon' and I've seen NO changes (other than the MSRP increase) since Christmas!

There's just no "good" advice right now. A $500 RTX3070 is the card I'd buy and I'd hold out for one at that price from an authorized retailer to maintain the warranty.

I wouldn't buy used unless you get a deal. My son just bought two used GTX1080 reference cards from his friend for $90 each. They are selling for over $350 each on eBay. If you paid $350 and waited until the new cards were widely available, you'd lose over $260 reselling the GTX1080. You'd basically be paying over $760 for an RTX3070.

I'm in the same boat. Finished up my build (sans GPU) and turned it on for the first time. All good!!! Now the wait for an RTX 3080 begins. LOL

Discord has some sort of inventorying system. I ALMOST got an EVGA 3080 from Best Buy (made it to the "Put in cart" button) but no joy.

quote:

Originally posted by myrottiety:

quote:

Originally posted by cruiser68:
If you are not gaming or running CAD you can get by with a lot cheaper options.

What will be the purpose of this PC? If basic Word, Excell and internet stuff you really don't need a separate GPU at all.

It’ll mostly be gaming.

RTX3080 is the best graphics card for the money for gaming today IMO. That is at RETAIL Price. These should be around $600 but scalpers are buying up inventory and selling at scalper prices.