How much is too much to spend on a graphics card?

[Jarenien]

DID YOU SAVE MONEY TO BUY IT?
ARE YOU ABLE TO PAY RENT?
ARE YOU ABLE TO BUY FOOD?
ARE YOU ABLE TO PAY YOUR BILLS IN THE SAME MONTH YOU BUY THE CARD?

THEN IT DOESN'T MATTER.

Love how the poor-arse mouth-breathers downvote this when it is 100% correct. As long as your individual needs are met and don't suffer because of it, a person can do whatever tf they want, and all you crybabies need to chill out and go to college and get a job that allows you to afford expensive sheet.

 

[ddferrari]

I usually keep my cards for ~5 years, so $1,000 works for me. That works out to 55¢ a day before electricity (much cheaper than a weekly coffee from Starbucks!).

I paid $700 for a high-end 3080 in 2019, so the $850 spent on a nice AIB 5070ti in 2025 didn't seem unreasonable in the least. Now this card is $1500 on Newegg, so I got lucky on the timing. I was sensing back them that prices were going to keep increasing rapidly so I pulled the trigger. Glad I did.

 

[ddferrari]

Love how the poor-arse mouth-breathers downvote this when it is 100% correct. As long as your individual needs are met and don't suffer because of it, a person can do whatever tf they want, and all you crybabies need to chill out and go to college and get a job that allows you to afford expensive sheet.

Based on your angry reply, it's very apparent that YOU are the one that needs to chill

 

[mbk34]

I once spent £230 on a RX 6650 XT and that was definitely about my limit. I looked now and the price for the same GPU was around £600! I'd have to have a screw loose to want to pay that sort of money for a small electronic circuit board and a couple of fans.

 

[Amigosdefox]

Spent $200 on a Voodoo 3 3000 PCI. Would spend $700 max today

 

[godrilla]

Depends if you are buying at the peaks or troughs. As an enthusiast PC gamer for 20 years I learned that there is a pattern of highs and lows and timing plays a big roll. Equity of on hand hardware adds to the equation to offset cost of purchase. If you are replacing one addiction with another than enthusiasts PC gaming is still cheaper than drinking and smoking long term if you buy on when the market is low like in 2023 a 4090 suprim liquid was selling for as low as $1500, and 2025 Q3 5090s were close to MSRP.

 

[Infernus]

$699 MSRP would be the most I would pay, anymore it's just not worth it, and I find it a waste of money.

 

[Melkor Unlimited]

Used RTX 3080

For the games I actually play it would be overkill.
Event the old 5500XT is.
Most of them can be played on iGPU (Radeon 760M).

 

[IKnowMoreThanYou]

If I had not gotten a smoking deal on a CyberPower pre built on Black Friday three years back with a 4080, i9 and the works, I wouldn't have upgraded. Until today's prices fall by half at least, I won't ever upgrade - and that's from a video game addict that rarely leaves home and makes a low six figure income. I'll wait til the end of the Nvidia 60xx cycle, and start watching for another pre built at below rock bottom price. If that isn't a thing, oh well, I'll be playing the latest diversions at minimum settings.

 

[Sevetset]

The pricing of modern graphics cards has reached an absurd level, especially when a GPU costs more than the rest of your entire build. It wasn't long ago that prices were reasonable, but everything changed with the rise of crypto mining. Manufacturers began cutting production to create artificial shortages, a strategy reminiscent of the mid-70s gas, coffee and sugar crisis. Now, they are using data center demand as the new excuse for limited supply and higher prices. Since these companies prioritize the massive margins found in the enterprise market, the regular consumer is left to deal with the fallout. Even the used market on eBay has become detached from reality, leaving us with no choice but to pay up or go without.

 

[TheBigFatClown]

It should cost no more than $300.00 for a flagship graphics card. I paid just under $200 for my 6650 and I'm good for the next 5 years with it. Actually, as a gamer who couldn't care much less about RTX I could potentially be good for life. Without good prices as an incentive to upgrade I just don't see it happening.

 

[PaladinNH]

My hard line was at $1000. I try to look at total PC cost. In 1997, I spent $3300 on a new Pentium II/Riva 128 box including 19" CRT. Take off at least $800 for the monitor and we're looking at a $2500 system.

Computers are far cheaper today, and the US dollar along with it. Even with the RAM and GPU crunch. A powerful CPU like my 14600K (sub-$200) was a fraction of those new Pentiums, so more can go into the GPU.

I figure a reasonable system including display shouldn't be over $2500. $300 went to my 55" OLED, and If $1000 goes to the GPU, I'd argue you can still build a damn good system for the remaining $1200 today. $600-$700 platform from Microcenter, $200-300 SSD, $100 Case, $100 PSU, $35-50 on a CPU cooler.

This would allow an RTX 5080 at MSRP (which at the time I thought was too much but not unreasonable), or a 5070 Ti at recent stable prices (I know it's higher now). $2000 for a 5080 is just nuts. Love the 9070XT at $850, same price as my 5070 Ti and similar caliber card.

Then again, I used the word reasonable far too often in my post in a world of $8000 5090s...

 

[toooooot]

Just spent $850 on a 9070XT and I feel like that was too much. Definitely a much needed replacement to my 6700XT. I like to put things in terms of beers (assuming a beer is $3 at your local watering hole) I feel like paying more than 200 beers on a GPU is unecessary and it is unreasonable for a dev to ask you to have a GPU worth more than 200 beers just to play a game. I'm not against 1000 beer GPUs, I just have a hardtime understanding how a GPU could ever be worth that much. I'm glad that the people who bought 5090s got more beers out of it than they put in, but when it comes time you that you need to upgrade a 5090 it could be worth less than the 250beers I paid for my 9070xt.

I also wait for steam sales to get games so it's often a year after release when the game has most of its updates and optimizations before I play it.

Beers aside, it's hard for me to recommend anything other a 9070XT right now. There is no way in hell that 5060's or 9060s are worth anywhere near the current asking prices. I get that everything is overpriced right now but if you're going to overpay, atleast overpay for something that can still give a good experience. Aside from that, just enjoy your beers. I don't see anything worth remotely it's asking price right now. I get that there are people with hard budgets with not much wiggle room. While I can respect that, my best recommendation to those people is go through your backlog on steam. GPUs aren't getting any cheaper anytime soon.

You missed good deals on this card in summer. The price dropped as low as ~650 bucks.

 

[toooooot]

I once spent £230 on a RX 6650 XT and that was definitely about my limit. I looked now and the price for the same GPU was around £600! I'd have to have a screw loose to want to pay that sort of money for a small electronic circuit board and a couple of fans.

I purchased rx 580 for around 150 new, some time ago. I sold it for 380 when crypto mining was high/

 

[yamiyaiba]

Does it cost more than a current gen gaming console did on release? If yes, it costs too much.

Does it cost not then a current gen console costs now? Then it DEFINITELY costs too much.

Sure, PC is better for a number of reasons. But if I can play AAA games optimized for a particular set of console hardware for less than a single component of a gaming PC, something has gone horribly wrong.

 

[Inthenstus]

$650

 

[alexnode]

I am a professional 3d person. And £1000 $1400 might be the top... my last upgrade was £1700 4 years ago and I found this really high. We need competition.

 

[dankbot420]

I was lucky to snag a 5070 Ti for $850 earlier this year. Then sold the 3080 Ti it replaced for $450 so it wasn't too painful.

 

[Burty117]

I know many of you will sneer at a "lowly" entry-level GeForce GT 1030 with "only" 2 GB of GDDR5....but honestly, given that MY gaming consists almost entirely of mid-to-late 90s/early-to-mid 'noughties' retro gaming (think Doom, Duke Nukem, Quake 1+2+3, etc., and other related games using the same engines), I really don't NEED anything more than that.

I paid around GBP £110 for an Inno3D GeForce GT 1030 'passive-cooler' last Xmas. That's the most I've ever paid for a GPU.....and the most I ever WILL pay.

I have nothing that justifies paying the exorbitant prices these top-end cards are going for.

I hardly think that I count as a 'gamer', anyway, considering I only mess around with these for the odd half-hour or so when I'm really at a loose end. 95% of the time, I have far better things to be getting on with....

Diff'rent strokes for diff'rent folks, as the saying goes. We ALL have different priorities, y'know?

Miq.

I have to ask, what CPU do you have paired with a 1030?

 

[gdavid65]

Around $USD1000 right now.. only because I have a well paying job and can afford to blow a bit on luxury items for gaming. Going back 10 years, $300 maybe, which would generally get you mid-level.

Usually you could just sit on whatever you had, something much better would come along for what you paid 2-3 years later and you'd upgrade.

Now whatever you buy could cost much more in 3 months, or simply not be available, so everything is all messed up, and who knows if it will ever return to normal.

I won't be continuing to chase the price upwards though next time, as I've got a huge back-catalogue of games to get through anyway.

With AMD and Nvidia now declaring themselves as data center companies, **** them both, maybe might next card will be made in China. Even if they'll be behind, they'll be much cheaper.

 

[Melkor Unlimited]

Most I'd spent on a GPU today: $150

I have a bad news for you:

$108 ... GT 1030 2GB (I would not touch that with 10 foot pole)
$261 ... RTX 3050 6GB

Most I'd spent on a CPU today: $150

Spoiler

$145 ... Intel Core Ultra 225F (s1851 Arrow Lake) - DDR5
$145 ... Intel Core i5 14400F (s1700 Raptor Lake) - DDR4 or DDR5

$163 ... Ryzen 5 9600x (AM5 Zen5) - DDR5
$240 ... Ryzen 7 8700G (CPU + iGPU) - DDR5
$143 ... Ryzen 5 5600xt (AM4 Zen3) - DDR4
$208 ... Ryzen 7 5700G (CPU + iGPU) - DDR4

I have a more bad news:
$121 ... 2x 8 GB DDR4-3200 CL16
$245 ... 2x16 GB DDR4-3200 CL16

$224 ... 1x16 GB DDR5-6000 CL48
$423 ... 1x24 GB DDR5-5600 CL46
$433 ... 2x16 GB DDR5-6000 CL38

What could I get today?

Spoiler

$374 ... 16GB DDR4 + AM4 + 5700G
$417 ... 16GB DDR4 + (AM4+5600xt)/(s1700+14400F) + GT1030
$570 ... 16GB DDR4 + (AM4+5600xt)/(s1700+14400F) + rtx 3050

$509 ... 16GB DDR5 + AM5 + 8700G
$547 ... 16GB DDR4 + (AM5+9600x)/(s1851+225F) + GT1030
$700 ... 16GB DDR4 + (AM5+9600x)/(s1851+225F) + rtx 3050

Add some SSD 512GB, FHD monitor, Keyboar, mice, chasis, PSU .... to mix ($116) and you may call it a day. Or not?

What is ridiculous?

Spoiler

$417 ... 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD, Ryzen 7320U, 15.6" TN FHD
$489 ... 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD, Intel i3 1315U, 15.6" IPS FHD
$816 ... 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD, Ryzen 5 240, rtx3050 6GB, 16" IPS FHD

You may get whole notebook cheaper.

 

[Melkor Unlimited]

Around $750 which I paid for my 6800XT when I got my 7800X3D.

When I in the future upgrade to a zen7 CPU I might be willing to stretch it to $850. If I can get at least 100% uplift over my 6800XT.

75% to 85% uplift you may get.
Full 100+% over 6800xt not likely.

 

[hahahanoobs]

I'd pay up to $600 CAD for a new or used GPU.
Same with monitors and TV's. Phones I like to keep under $400 new or used.

 

[Etoyo]

I ended up spending €600 (~$650) on the 9700 XT because I was worried about price hikes, which ended up happening. €500 (~$540) was my hard limit before that.

 

[onebignerd]

I thought $450 for the 4060 graphics card I bought in 2022 was high. No way would I pay the $500 to over $1,000 for a mid-range graphics card 5060 or 5070 nowadays!! Looks like the system I'm running now will be my last system, because I don't see prices dropping to reasonable levels before I drop.