One of the hottest problems plaguing the PC construction industry at present is the price of graphics cards. In the last 12 months, we've seen absolutely ridiculous prices for popular GPUs; In fact, in January, we commented on how the prices of massively inflated graphics cards made it difficult for an enthusiast to upgrade or build a new PC.
Today, we are revisiting the problem to see how the GPU market is at the moment, what is the pricing and availability in relation to various points of the past year, and what do you think price trends. We will also review some performance figures to show which graphics cards have the most sense to buy right now.
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The best graphics cards 2018
Over the last year, it's almost impossible to buy a graphics card at the MRSP because we're sure you're all aware of it. Two fairly simple reasons: Memory is more expensive today than when launching these GPUs, making it more expensive to buy the HBM and GDDR5 memory used on these cards, resulting in lower costs. higher manufacturing. The other is the cryptocurrency boom, especially for Ethereum, which has caused a much higher than normal demand for GPUs while miners have jumped on soaring prices for crypto.
While graphics card prices were slightly higher than MSRP prices for most of 2017, prices began to climb in January thanks to strong growth in cryptography and massively inflated values in February. and beginning of March. The table below shows the April 2017, November 2017 and January 2018 price data points for a range of graphics cards from the current generation, plus the MSRP of course. These are not the absolute lowest possible prices, but rather a "typical" selling price for these GPUs.
And as you can see, in January, a range of popular cards like the GTX 1060 and GTX 1070 are typically more than double their MSRP. It was even worse on the AMD front with the RX 570 and the RX 580 often going up to triple the MSRP, while relatively new Vega cards were expensive and almost always out of stock. You know things are bad when a simple RX 580 is sold well above the MSRP of a GTX 1080 or Vega 64.
| MSRP | April 2017 | November 2017 | January 2018 | Typical current (May 2018) | Current Best (19459005) (May 2018) | |
| GeForce GTX 1050 Ti | $ 140 | $ 150 | $ 160 | $ 190 | $ 230 | $ 190 |
| GeForce GTX 1060 3GB | $ 200 | $ 220 | $ 235 | 410 $ | $ 260 | $ 230 |
| GeForce GTX 1060 6GB | $ 250 | $ 280 | $ 310 | $ 530 | $ 330 | $ 300 |
| GeForce GTX 1070 | 380 $ | $ 420 | $ 470 | $ 890 | $ 520 | $ 470 |
| GeForce GTX 1070 Ti | $ 450 | $ 500 | $ 900 | $ 530 | $ 500 | |
| GeForce GTX 1080 | $ 500 | $ 560 | $ 590 | 940 $ | $ 600 | 550 $ |
| GeForce GTX 1080 Ti | $ 700 | $ 755 | $ 740 | $ 1,200 | 940 $ | $ 900 |
| Radeon RX 550 | $ 80 | $ 80 | $ 100 | $ 120 | $ 145 | $ 115 |
| Radeon RX 560 16CU | $ 100 | $ 130 | $ 140 | $ 160 | $ 140 | |
| Radeon RX 570 | $ 170 | $ 190 | $ 250 | $ 540 | $ 330 | $ 260 |
| Radeon RX 580 8GB | $ 230 | $ 260 | $ 310 | $ 660 | $ 350 | $ 300 |
| Radeon RX Vega 56 | $ 400 | $ 450 | $ 670 | $ 600 | $ 600 | |
| Radeon RX Vega 64 | $ 500 | 505 $ | $ 800 | $ 750 | $ 700 |
So, how do things see the moment? The good news is that prices have dropped significantly since the early parts of 2018, and it is much easier to find graphics cards in stock than at the time. You can see that even though the prices are not yet fantastic, they are much closer to the MSRP than it has been for the whole year, especially for Nvidia GPUs.
Cards like the 6GB GTX 1060 that was selling over $ 500 in early 2018 can now be found for as little as $ 300; still $ 50 on the MSRP, but a lot more affordable than it was.
And I must note here that for this analysis, I did not take into account the recent release of GPU Founders Edition from Nvidia to the MSRP via their official store. It was possible to get an Nvidia card at a price lower than the prices shown in these charts for about a day, but stocks sold fairly quickly. Instead, these prices were collected after the Founders Edition cards were exhausted, and we only looked at the cards that were in stock.
Prices for AMD graphics cards also dropped, but they were more heavily inflated during the early parts of 2018, so they did not drop as close to their MSRP as the cards Nvidia. Still, a popular GPU like the RX 580 was priced around $ 660 and it can now be found for over $ 350.
There are some strange exceptions to the price cuts we have seen in the last month. Entry-level cards like the GeForce GTX 1050 Ti and the Radeon RX 550 and RX 560 are currently more expensive than they've ever been and, in the best case, you'll find prices that are not different from those of January. Memory prices are hitting the entry-level cards more heavily, and I think that's perhaps why these more affordable options are still well above the MSRP.
AMD's and Nvidia's high-end cards have dropped, but not as much as other graphics cards. The GTX 1080 Ti, for example, is cheaper than in January, but costs several hundred dollars more than in 2017. AMD Vega cards are a little cheaper than in January, but they are still well above the MSRP and they are in stock, there are currently only a few options on the market.
Looking at the percentage change in prices, we can see how the market changed from January to today. Mid-to high-end graphics cards have dropped 35-45% in a few months, while Vega cards are 10% cheaper and the GTX 1080 Ti has dropped 22%. At the same time, consumer offers increased by 21%.
While GPU prices are currently higher than they were at the end of 2017, there is a clear downward trend. PC Part Picker's GPU price trend charts better illustrate this downward trend than our charts, with most mid and upper-end charts showing significant downward trends over the last month or two months. So even though we are not quite at the 2017 level yet, unless there is a sudden explosion in the mining market, it should not be too long before we get back to that point.
Unfortunately, when we compare the current GPU prices to the MSRP, the picture is not as beautiful. Even taking the lowest price available for these GPUs, most prices are inflated by 10 to 53%, with an average price increase of 31% ...
Again, AMD GPU prices are inflated by larger amounts than Nvidia cards at the moment, which is bad news for those interested in a Team Red card. And thanks to the high price of HBM and GDDR5, I'm not sure that we will ever return to the MSRP, which is rather disappointing given that many of these cards are now several years old.
The GTX 1080, for example, was launched in May 2016 and currently has 10% more than its introductory price two years later. Usually this kind of card would be well under the introductory price now. The RX 580 is basically a renamed RX 480, which was launched in June 2016 and I'm not sure that it has ever been seen at the MRSP apart from a few brief moments.
Our only real hope for better GPU pricing at this stage is a whole new generation of cards, which should become a reality (at least for Nvidia) later this year.
Best Value: Price Relative to Performance Analysis
Let's look at what are the most sensible cards to buy at the moment . After all, there is no point in reviewing the GPU revision or price analysis for several months or even last year because everything has changed since then. We have not seen the need to re-benchmark these maps, instead, using data that we have collected from previous comments. If you are interested in a closer look at the performance of these cards, there is a lot of content content that will give you a good idea of how these cards stack up.
We are going to show six modern titles at 1440p with Ultra settings or roughly, both the raw performance that you can expect with dollar-per-image values that will illustrate which cards are the best value using the usual selling prices you saw earlier.
The first game we have is Far Cry 5, which is well optimized for Nvidia and especially AMD graphics cards. It is therefore not surprising that AMD's alignment is very interesting in this game, even though its price is higher than that of the MSRP compared to Nvidia cards.
At around $ 350, the RX 580 is distinguished by its lower cost per chassis than the GTX 1060 6GB, although the 360 1060 is the best overall card priced at $ 260. Up the stack, we recommend the GTX 1070 Ti on Vega 56, although both are good shopping, while in the high end, the GTX 1080 is stronger than Vega 64. In the battle of the cards, the GTX 1070 Ti entry-level, the RX 560 is great value, much more than the GTX 1050 Ti.
In Destiny 2, things are more heavily skewed in favor of the green team. The GTX 1060 3GB is once again the star, while the 6GB variant is better than the RX 580. Vega cards do not make much sense from the value point of view in this title, well behind the GTX 1070 and GTX 1080 in cost per image. At the lower end of the scale, the RX 560 16CU is still a better option than the GTX 1050 Ti.
In Star Wars Battlefront 2, we do not have current data for some lower-level maps, but we will continue to look at some of the more popular mid-level and high-end options. In this highly optimized title, the RX 580 is just out the GTX 1060 as the best option, while high-end Nvidia cards are once again better value than Vega, including the GTX 1070 Ti. That said, the GTX 1080 Ti is the worst value currently in this title.
Assassin's Creed Origins is one of those games that makes the most sense for running on Nvidia hardware. The GTX 1060 6GB is better than the RX 580 by a sizeable margin, and this is growing by comparing the GTX 1070 Ti and the GTX 1080 to AMD's two main Vega offerings. The Vega 64 air - cooled model is really a bad value in this particular game.
The Shadow of the Middle Earth war just narrowly favors Nvidia in the battle of mid-range cards, although both GTX 1060 6GB and RX 580 are excellent options for this game Once again, at the high end of the spectrum, it is Nvidia who takes the crown with both GTX 1070 Ti and GTX 1080 offering the best value compared to Vega.
Wolfenstein II is the last game we are watching, and it's a title that works well on AMD hardware in particular. The RX 580 in this game is a much better buy than the GTX 1060 6GB, while the Vega 56 is competing with the GTX 1070 Ti for a cost per image. We will continue to opt for the GTX 1080 rather than the Vega 64, where the value proposition is in favor of Nvidia.
Taking the average cost per image for the last four games we watched, the GTX 1060 6GB is getting closer to the RX 580 as a better value GPU, but if you can find a RX 580 for $ 300, it returns For top-level maps, the GTX 1070 Ti is the best value, offering a better cost per frame than the GTX 1070 and Vega 56, so the GTX 1080 is significantly better than the Vega 64.
The best-value card seems to be the GeForce GTX 1060 3Go right now, with the RX 560 16CU offering significantly better value than the GTX 1050 Ti if you're looking for something less expensive.
In an alternative reality where GPUs are available at MSRP, it's the cost per image you look at averaging Far Cry 5 and Destiny 2 results. What a shame that AMD graphics cards can not to be found anywhere near their MSRP.
The good news is that if you plan to buy a graphics card right now, there seems to be a lot of stock of all models by retailers like Newegg and Amazon, but high-end cards like Vega 64 are a little harder to find.
Whether you have to buy a new graphics card now or just wait for the potential launch of new GPUs by the end of the year is harder to say. We do not know what the future generations of Nvidia or AMD will look like, and there is every chance that intermediate cards like the GTX 1060 will not be replaced when these new graphics cards come out.
And then there is also the continuing downward trend of GPU prices to consider. If you wait a month, you could get a price on a GPU that you are looking for, but you will stay longer on your old map. This is definitely a much better choice to upgrade now than in January, when GPU prices were at their peak, so if you're waiting since the beginning of the year, it's not the case. There is no better time than now.
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