Is the GPU market "better" now?

 So, 6 months ago when I bought my 6650 XT I kind of lamented the state of the GPU market. It's been a rough last 6 years or so. Last time I bought was in 2017 when my 760 broke and I needed a new card stat so I went for a 1060. Then in 2018-2019 Nvidia started price gouging and raising their GPUs one price tier while stagnating the lower part of the market. The 3000 series kept the same trend, and the 4000 series looked to be doing the same (and largely has).

At the same time, AMD kinda...stagnated. Their 400 and 500 series cards offered really solid affordable performance, although didnt compete with nvidia's high end at all. Vega seemed to fill in the gap for higher end consumers but was largely uncompelling against nvidia's higher end 1000 series cards. When the 2000 series came out, nvidia had ray tracing and DLSS, and AMD just offered....more of the same. They were better price/performance wise but their cards were more basic and they had various technical issues with their 5000 series. Their 6000 series was an improvement, providing some ray tracing as well as FSR upscaling technology, but was still overpriced and largely uncompelling. But...after the GPU bubble bust in 2022, AMD's pricing...imploded. Which is when I FINALLY upgraded my 1060 to a 6650 XT. It took 5 years to double my 1060's performance for the price. And I bought my 1060 late in its life cycle. By christmas 2017 it was 18 months old, and such cards are generally replaced with a new series every 18 months on average up to that point (now it's closer to 2 years). So yeah. Idk whether to be proud of my 1060 for being a "legendary" card or mad at the market for stagnating. perhaps both, as what makes cards "legendary" is normally a long life cycle that happens because 1) there's a massive jump in price/performance that specific generation and 2) the market stagnates after leading to it being unchallenged in its price class for a while. It took until 2019 just for those 2016-2017 cards to be challenged at all, and an upgrade wasnt worth it until 2022. It was kind of pathetic.

Well, at this point, I want to revisit the GPU question. Is the market "better" now, with Nvidia and AMD finally launching their mainstream offerings? Well...yes and no. A lot of gamers are complaining. The big complaint being over 8 GB VRAM on new cards, and also a lack of general price movement vs last gen. So I want to discuss these aspects of it.

First, the 8 GB VRAM. people say it's not enough. Some new games really require more at ultra settings. Okay, yeah, fair. Well, for me, it depends on the pricing. 8 GB is kinda stale. I mean, the 570, and 580 had 8 GB for well under $300 generally back in 2017, and Nvidia was a little more stingy with 6 GB in my preferred pricing class, but it still largely was sufficient. And admittedly, 6 GB has, for the most part, had the same issues that 8 GB is now having. I remember having VRAM issues with COD WWII in 2017 and stuttering as a result. I remember titanfall not running max textures either. I know 8 GB was always fine to MAX games, and was the "sweet spot" for VRAM, but that's no longer the case, 12 GB is it now, with us needing more down the line potentially. 

Still, is 8...sufficient? Eh, yes. As I said, it depends on the price. The market has generally seemed to accept that for the $200-300 price range, where I normally buy, that 8 is fine. ANd it is. You can still run games on at minimum medium settings on it, maybe high. You just cant do ultra with ray tracing. I will say if you are spending more thna $300 you DEFINITELY should have more, but I generally see the $200-300 GPUs as the "everyman's GPU." THat's what NORMAL people buy. They're mainstream, 1080p performers. Nothing special, no frills. And games often dont run on max. People on $250ish GPUs generally sacrifice on quality settings quite a lot and focus on running games at SOME playable leve, rather than running stuff at the latest and greatest settings. Normally, people aim for medium-highish. Which is what your typical sub $300 card will run most modern releases at these days. And that's just normal. 

Now, again, if youre paying over $300 you shouldnt accept 8 GB, and as such, I would say cards like the 4060 ti are a freaking joke, $400 for 8 GB VRAM and a 128 bit bus? What a fricking joke. Nvidia really knows how to take advantage and screw over their userbase. And that's one of the reasons why people think the market sucks. For most people, nvidia IS the market. And nvidia is just gouging people. I saw a meme lately that who wants affordable GPUs with good performance and everyone raised their hand, and then they asked, who wants to buy intel or AMD and no one did. Yeah, you turn the market into a de facto monopoly and things are gonna suck. But if you go AMD, things start looking better. The 6700 XT with 12 GB has been available for $310-350 lately. I mean, 6000 series are still killing it. Those christmas discounts I took advantage of are just, the mainstream price now, and stuff is dropping like crazy. 6600s range from $180-210. 6600/6650 XTs range from $220-250 generally speaking. Then you got the new 7600 for $250-270. The old 6700 for $280ish. And the 6700 XT just north of $300 from $310-350ish. Oh, and if you wanna go higher 6800s and 6800 XTs cost like $400-500ish and come with 16 GB VRAM. SUre, you dont get as good ray tracing performance or DLSS, but you cant say that the options arent good. And then arc is offering their A750 for as low as $180ish at times. 

I mean, if youre in the $180-300 range, things arent half bad. I'd say it's FINALLY time to upgrade your 2016-2017 era cards. 

Nvidia is also improving but still maintaining being expensive. The 3050 is still $220, which is better than $300, but still, youre competing with the 6600/6650 XT at that price, which is 50% better. The 3060 8 GB is $260, which is better than $340 but kinda bad vs the 6650 XT or 7600. The 3060 12 GB is interesting as it's the only 12 GB sub $300 card, but it kinda has 6600 tier performance otherwise. The 4060 has 8 GB VRAM for $300, but is barely faster than the 3060, 6650 XT, and 7600. 

Which...brings us to another point of complaint. That these cards often poor price shifts since last gens. I mean...yes...but also no.

Let's face it, things are solidifying around those 6000 series discount deals. The 6600 cost $330 at launch, and the 6600/6650 XT was up to $400. Nvidia held the 3060 at $330, and the 3050 at $250, and those often sold about $30-50 higher even after the bubble burst. 

So....AMD deeply discounted their cards. Prior to next gen launch, 6600s were around $220ish , the 6650 XT was around $270, and I got the 6650 XT for down at $230, which was INSANE at the time. I figured this WAS the "next gen" jump in price/performance we were waiting for. I mean, like 40% off MSRP? That's almost unheard of among GPU pricing. I figured that those deals were so good I wouldnt get much better waiting for next gen...and lo and behold, now everyone is complaining about next to zero price movement. The 7600 comes along for $300 $270 and offers....basically single digit performance increases over the 6650 XT for the same price. MAYBE 20% in the best case scenario, but normally more like 5-10%. Outliers seem to range from -5% to +20%. Yes, sometimes last gen is faster, it's crazy. ANd people are complaining, because it's just another 6650 XT. It did drive the 6650 XT down to $220-250 it seems, and that's about what I paid, so I DID get a next gen deal last christmas, but it's making everyone mad now. Why should you buy a 7600 if you could've bought a 6650 XT 6 months ago at the same price? It's almost no movement. And of course, the 4060 is a weird product. The 3060 was a 12 GB card for $330 and dropped to $280, and the 4060 is like 20% faster...with 8 GB VRAM. Like...why? isnt that a downgrade in some ways? And when games struggle to max games at 8 GB suddenly the 12 GB 3060 is faster. It's weird. The 4060 ti did the same thing vs the 3060 ti. Like 10-20% faster and that's all. That's like nothing in computing terms. In the old days we used to see 20-30% on the low end, and up to double on the high end. 40-50% increases every 18 months seemed to be the norm. So I admit its kinda pathetic.

However, also dont forget that last gen had MASSIVE price cuts before this new series came out. So large it seemed totally unprecedented to me, and seemed to, in and of itself, give us a generational leap in price/performance. 

And that's where I think the disconnect is. The real leap came from.....price cuts. And then launching the next gen at the same price. Normally the next gen IS the price cut. They run the last gen at inflated prices and then launch the next gen where you can suddenly get 40-50% more performance on average for the same price. 

This time, we got that early by them putting last gen cards on insane firesale prices, and then launching new products with roughly the same price/performance. It's wierd but it is what it is.

Either way, aint complaining. I got the 6650 XT and I knew that this was happening. I saw early next gen cards at the high end stagnating the market for yet another generation and figured things werent getting better any time soon. The best deal was just buying that old stuff at firesale prices, and it turned out to be an effective strategy. I got a 6650 XT for $230 and going online right now cheapest is...$225. So go figure. 

And again, the $250-270 7600 is barely faster. That's the new next gen card. It's 5-10% on average faster....for like 10-15% more money. La dee freaking da.

Anyway, should you buy? If you're on a 2016-2017 era GPU still...probably. I dont think things are improving any time soon in the next 2 years. AMD and nvidia have given the signal that were not seeing a new series until 2025. SO it's safe to buy now. As safe as it gets in hardware, generally speaking.

As for intel, since I barely mentioned them. Well, they made headway into the market. But their cards are buggy, very immature, dependent on tech not everyone has (rebar) and are twitchy as heck. Old games dont work well on them, to the point my old 1060 may be faster in them. But then they'll perform better than nvidia and AMD in specific scenarios. So yeah, all over the place. Still, given the lack of consistency, i wouldnt bother. Its better to get something that just works. 

But yeah, this is the new normal, and it's finally okay for mainstream buyers IMO. If anything right now is weird because theres like 6 products overlapping in the $200-300 price range all giving similar performance to each other. Just figure out which ones are best and buy one. I'd probably recommend a 6600 for under $200 if you can find one, a 6650 XT, or a 7600 in the $200-300 eange. Nvidia still seems a hair overpriced IMO and offers poorer value. I'd say right now looking up prices tonight, the 6650 XT for $225 is probably the best deal. Keep in mind the 7600 is only marginally faster. In terms of price/performance you aint beating that one i think. Still, all the different cards have their uses, 3060 12 GB and 6700 dont stand out at $280ish, but they DO have more VRAM if you really care about that. And yeah. Just buy what you think is best.

As for the sub $180-200 market...eh...still sucks. You MIGHT get a 6600 or arc A750 as low as $180 at times, but that's not really normal. And below that youre stuck with crap tier cards still. So while the traditional "60" class of cards have finally returned, with good options on the market, the market still sucks for "50" tier cards. Which is a shame, because those cards are normally staples for budget buyers. And it sucks to only get something half as powerful as what you can get for like $30-50 more. 

But yeah, regardless, the market is as good as it's gonna get, so you might as well buy. Best time to buy since the 1000/400/500 series (2016-2018). 

 EDIT: Seems like Daniel Owen, the tech youtuber just came out with a video today discussing how much performance you can get upgrading your own 1060. Apparently it's 2x for $200 (6600) and 3x for $300 (6700 XT). 

The 6650 XT is roughly in between those and if the 6600 is roughly 2x I expect the 6650 XT to be 2.4x, as it's considered 1.2x the 6600. I also have seen videos suggesting the 4060 is slightly faster than the 6650 XT overall, although daniel owen himself would likely find more noticeable differences in his own tests. 

So yeah. It's time, guys. If you're still on a 1060 or a 1650 or a 580 or something, just...upgrade it now. It's worth it. The market is better these days. You could argue it could be better still and I wouldnt necessarily disagree (we should be up to 6950 XT/4070 level performance for $300 by this point if previous trends held firm), but eh, at least we're past that ugly "can't even double a 1060 at the same price" zone we've been in until some time in late 2022.