Radeon RX 6000 series GPUs have dropped in price much faster than their Nvidia counterparts, with AMD selling nearly all of its RDNA2-based products at MSRP or lower. Nvidia, on the other hand, still seems to be struggling with inflation issues, as nearly all of its RTX 30 lineup remains inflated relative to MSRP, with rates of up to 40%. Here’s how the prizes stack up currently (as of May 18).
For reference, we’ve gathered pricing data on only aftermarket Nvidia and AMD graphics cards, as they’re more widely available and AMD has stopped selling the RX 6700 XT, RX 6800, RX 6800 XT, and RX 6800 XT reference graphics cards. RX 6900 XT in its own store. .
Nvidia’s RTX 30-series products have seen decent price drops since early 2022, but most of its product lineup is still suffering from steep price increases. The only exceptions are Nvidia’s high-end product stack. Only the RTX 3090 Ti (unsurprisingly) and RTX 3080 Ti sell for Nvidia’s official MSRP, but those MSRPs are already effectively marked up.
The RTX 3090 is landing in a weird place right now. It’s priced 13% above MSRP, with similar gaming performance to the 3080 Ti but with twice the VRAM. Apparently either the supply is limited and drives up the prices, or there is enough desire for a 24GB card that it can sustain a premium.
The rest of the Nvidia line unfortunately has much higher markups, ranging from 17% on the 3070 Ti to 40% on the 3060 Ti. The vanilla RTX 3070, 3070 Ti, and RTX 3080 10GB models are potential options at around 20% “inflation” from MSRP. The RTX 3060 might also be worth a look, at $410 right now.
The GeForce RTX 3080 12 GB remains an interesting curiosity. Depending on the card, performance can almost match the RTX 3080 Ti, and prices aren’t much higher than the 10GB variant. Nvidia never announced an MSRP for this model, but will pay $70 more for both GB of additional VRAM might be worth considering. You can almost get 3080 Ti performance levels and save $280.
Unfortunately, Nvidia’s “budget” RTX 3050 is one of its worst values relative to MSRP. Currently, the cheapest model is still $330 at Newegg. The worst offender comes in the form of Nvidia’s RTX 3060 Ti, still sitting at 40% off MSRP. That’s probably because, based on MSRP, it would otherwise be one of the best values.
Note that we looked around at various outlets, but for Nvidia cards, Newegg turned out to be the best price in all cases. Well, the best prices assuming you don’t want to give eBay a chance.
Pricing for the RX 6000 series fare much better than their Nvidia counterparts, and with the help of AMD’s new “6×50 XT” RX cards, pricing is now even more in AMD’s favour.
Almost all RDNA 2 cards can be found around MSRP, or potentially at a discount of up to 10%. The only exceptions are the RX 6800 XT and RX 6800, which are currently 23% and 31% above MSRP. Again, this may be thanks to the “too good to be true” introductory prices, as these cards tend to compete well with Nvidia’s RTX 3080 and RTX 3070 GPUs.
The biggest discount right now comes in the form of the RX 6900 XT, which is currently priced as low as $900 on Newegg. Of course, this card has almost the same specs as the cheaper RX 6800 XT – it’s only about 7% faster at best. The vanilla RX 6600 also costs 9% less than MSRP, making it excellent value for money as it easily eclipses the RTX 3050 in general gaming performance.
Note that AMD has stated that it will continue to sell the RX 6900 XT and RX 6700 XT, while the RX 6600 XT will be phased out to be replaced by the RX 6650 XT. You can get a 6600 XT at MSRP right now, but we expect prices to get worse as supply dries up.
AMD takes the lead for now
For now, AMD is easily winning the price war against Nvidia in almost every price range, with the added help of its recent RX 6×50 cards. This might earn the red team a bit more attention, as Nvidia remains the most popular option among mainstream gamers.
It’s unclear how long AMD will have this lead. Prices for graphics as a whole always tend to drop each month, which means that in a few months Nvidia should have a lot more cards at MSRP than they do today. But we could also see AMD’s GPUs start to drop well below MSRP, which was relatively common in the past (eg with the RX 5000 series before 2020).
Next-gen graphics cards are also on the horizon. There have been many rumors about an unexpected early July release for the RTX 40 series graphics cards, which if true, could completely change the GPU landscape. We expect Nvidia Ada GPUs to deliver excellent performance, although we don’t know how much they will cost. AMD meanwhile is expected to release its RDNA 3-based RX 7000 series GPUs later this year, we expect in Q4.
If you’re considering buying a graphics card right now, AMD offers good values. However, with prices plummeting, buying a next-gen GPU just before the new cards arrive might not be a good idea. But that’s what we said in 2020, just before the launch of the RTX 30 series, and we’ve all seen how it turned out. Here’s hoping GPU history doesn’t repeat itself in 2022.
