How much WILL you pay for a graphics card?

Ragnahex · 17 Jul 2021 at 11:19

i love all these people saying "my budgets was x but then i overspent" then that wasn't your budget. Personally i've decided to skip out on pc gaming not because i can't afford it but just because it's getting more and more expensive and this trend will only continue.

pooley · 17 Jul 2021 at 11:51

Ragnahex said:
i love all these people saying "my budgets was x but then i overspent" then that wasn't your budget. Personally i've decided to skip out on pc gaming not because i can't afford it but just because it's getting more and more expensive and this trend will only continue.

yep they just basically just 'upped' their budget lol

Psycho Sonny · 17 Jul 2021 at 11:53

TNA said:
That is all I play

I noticed a huge difference in FIFA some years back between 1440p and 2160p though. Even my friend as I recall that came over back then was impressed with the difference and he is not even a gamer.

Majority of gamers don't as you can see by top 20 list

TNA · 17 Jul 2021 at 12:07

Psycho Sonny said:
Majority of gamers don't as you can see by top 20 list

Even so, one should not go around making blanket statements.

At the end of the day there is a night and day difference between 1080p and 2160p in image quality. If you play fast paced games and can’t tell the difference then that is your problem, that does not change the fact there is a difference. As I said, I used to play FIFA a lot before and saw a big difference in that.

I also look forward to 8K in the future. But this time I will not upgrade until the graphics power is there to run it. DLSS will help, but I will only upgrade once a card comes out that runs most my Steam library 8K60. My guess is 2-3 more generations of cards depending on how well they do with MCM designs.

Haggisman · 17 Jul 2021 at 20:04

Psycho Sonny said:
There is zero noticeable difference unless you really examined both side by side whilst staying still in game.

Rubbish, there is a hugely noticeable difference between 1080p and 1440p on my TV. 1440p to 4k not so much, but it's still there. 1440p is the sweet spot though I reckon

Purgatory · 17 Jul 2021 at 20:09

One important thing many forget with 4k and 8k is the horrible desktop scaling needed. This is why for computer use I use 1440p 5120x1440 as no scaling required. 4k is great for TV gaming and movies but for desktop use and applications it's not great with all the text scaling issues.

TNA · 17 Jul 2021 at 20:37

Purgatory said:
One important thing many forget with 4k and 8k is the horrible desktop scaling needed. This is why for computer use I use 1440p 5120x1440 as no scaling required. 4k is great for TV gaming and movies but for desktop use and applications it's not great with all the text scaling issues.

Not had issues like that in many years myself. Scaling has worked fine for me. But then again I do not use loads of applications like I used to.

McGraw · 18 Jul 2021 at 08:41

Psycho Sonny said:
The extra detail is great sure. But it's not worth the extra £2K on a GPU to power it.

1440P is best of both worlds. 1080P is fine for those on a budget.

It also depends on what you are playing. I only play CSGO and Apex Legends, both of which are better on high refresh. I play on a 240hz screen for that reason. I wouldn't swap to 4K until they have 240hz monitors and they are below £500 with at least HDR800

I run a 3070fe. No way I’d pay 1k let alone 2k for a GPU.

just like 120+fps/hz gamers can’t go back to 60, as a flight/driving simmer who only really plays games like RE/RDR2/CP2077 there’s no going back to small screens so 4K is essential for me

ProStreet · 18 Jul 2021 at 08:51

Still looking for a 3060ti.. they seem the highest in terms of ratio of today's price / MSRP out of all of the graphics cards at the moment.

Dave2150 · 18 Jul 2021 at 09:02

Usually, £800 ish would be my limit. However for the last few years this is no longer a simple decision, as it's impacted by mining, crypto and lockdowns.

Effectively, I was paid £321 to take delivery of my 3090.

Bought 3080 in November, for £830
Sold previous GPU (Radeon VII) for £800 on an acution website (ignoring this from calculations for now)
Mined £1200 (profit) from early November to June
Sold 3080 on an auction website (bid style, let the market determine value) for £1350
Bought 3090FE for £1399

There are many in the same category as I, who have effectively had free GPU's this generation.

KeanuIsLife · 18 Jul 2021 at 13:31

For doubling performance next gen I would pay £800 MAX, preferably more like £650 - £750 but who knows what a 4080/7800XT is going to cost....

LtMatt · 18 Jul 2021 at 13:33

£600, then £900, then £1099, then £1200, then £1546, then £1899.

This is an expensive hobby, but it sure is fun.

oldbanana · 18 Jul 2021 at 13:46

Bought a 3080 for 1000€ last week, probably not going over that since I hardly play antything, but 4k @ 120hz you cant really go with anything less, it hardly handles the res, also 1080p @ 360hz is demanding too.

Teabreaker · 18 Jul 2021 at 17:50

I was one of those that originally tried to hold out for a 3060TI FE as I thought and still believe it's the best value for money graphics card currently on the market if bought at MSRP.
So that pretty much meant £400 was the ceiling of my budget and I didn't want to pay any more than that. However, as months passed by with drops missed time and time again. I got frustrated and did a somewhat impulse buy.
Caught a drop for a 3070 FE card on a competitor site and I managed to bag it for £480 (includes delivery which was ~£10). Although I would have preferred to pay £100 less for a slightly less powerful 3060TI, I'm glad I don't have to be constantly stuck to my phone waiting on the next drop.

newuser · 18 Jul 2021 at 18:18

LtMatt said:
£600, then £900, then £1099, then £1200, then £1546, then £1899.

This is an expensive hobby, but it sure is fun.

You'd better hope prices keep going up or you wont be able to buy a new GPU.

KeanuIsLife · 18 Jul 2021 at 18:48

Teabreaker said:
I was one of those that originally tried to hold out for a 3060TI FE as I thought and still believe it's the best value for money graphics card currently on the market if bought at MSRP.
So that pretty much meant £400 was the ceiling of my budget and I didn't want to pay any more than that. However, as months passed by with drops missed time and time again. I got frustrated and did a somewhat impulse buy.
Caught a drop for a 3070 FE card on a competitor site and I managed to bag it for £480 (includes delivery which was ~£10). Although I would have preferred to pay £100 less for a slightly less powerful 3060TI, I'm glad I don't have to be constantly stuck to my phone waiting on the next drop.

You honestly got an amazing deal there!! Don't feel too bad about going over budget, most people would have cracked and spent WAY more than that for a 3070!

ASMB · 18 Jul 2021 at 18:58

Yes many people have paid over that for a 3060 rather than hold out for prices to get back to normal so well done on holding out for MRSP. Although I do understand people who have sold their previous gpu and used the money from it to make up the difference above MRSP for current cards, eg I can currently sell my Vega 56 for more than it cost brand new

MCFC_ANDY · 18 Jul 2021 at 19:22

ASMB said:
Yes many people have paid over that for a 3060 rather than hold out for prices to get back to normal so well done on holding out for MRSP. Although I do understand people who have sold their previous gpu and used the money from it to make up the difference above MRSP for current cards, eg I can currently sell my Vega 56 for more than it cost brand new

thats fair enough, they balance each other out, you can make a case for those

Legionaire68 · 19 Jul 2021 at 00:14

ASMB said:
Yes many people have paid over that for a 3060 rather than hold out for prices to get back to normal so well done on holding out for MRSP. Although I do understand people who have sold their previous gpu and used the money from it to make up the difference above MRSP for current cards, eg I can currently sell my Vega 56 for more than it cost brand new

This what I did with my 2080 non super, I got more on the auction site than it cost me two years earlier and about £200 more than I would have expected if there was any 3060 Ti stock at Msrp.

I bought a 6800 Xt Nitro+ from Overclockers for £860 which was only 20% above Msrp :eek:

but I had missed out on the 3080 and reference 6800 Xt launches and had an ultra wide and 4k TV that I wanted to get 60 plus fps on. Next time my card was in stock it was £1160, I would not have bitten at that and stuck with the 2080 for longer.

pp111 · 19 Jul 2021 at 05:56

Ragnahex said:
i love all these people saying "my budgets was x but then i overspent" then that wasn't your budget. Personally i've decided to skip out on pc gaming not because i can't afford it but just because it's getting more and more expensive and this trend will only continue.

I must confess that I am starting to wonder. This is a real stab in the heart for PC gaming as far as I am concerned. Cost has just reached new levels of stupidity and I am not sure I want to play along anymore. People are just nuts paying these prices. I can't get my head round it at all. And if it's going to be like this, then I think I want to get off the bus. Maybe things will settle down, but I just can not even express the disbelief on my part as to why people are spending such ludicrous sums on hardware that clearly is not worth a fraction of what they are paying.