Up For Debate - What Price Range Do You Go For In A Graphics Card?

Written by Jon Sutton on Sun, Oct 23, 2016 4:00 PM

We’re getting to that time now where both Nvidia and AMD have pretty much shown their hands for this generation. We’ve got the 1080 Ti waiting in the wings of course, along with AMD’s impending Vega, but for now we basically know the lay of the land in terms of the GTX 10 Series and AMD’s Radeon RX 400 graphics cards. With all that in mind we can begin making a confident decision on which graphics card to buy.

As ever, Nvidia has you got you covered from top to bottom this generation. From the recently announced GeForce GTX 1050 which can be had for as little as $109, all the way up to the mighty GeForce GTX 1080 and the GTX Titan X Pascal (stretching up to $600 and $1500 respectively. AMD on the other is just concerned with the high volume low to mid-range market, ranging from the Radeon RX 460 up to the RX 480.

There’s heaps to choose from and, as I said in last week’s Up For Debate, a seemingly infinite variety of different versions from AIB partners. Where then, to begin? I think the first we all do is lay down a price. The maximum amount we are prepared to go through in order to sate our lust for blinding visuals and silky smooth frame rates.

For me personally I’m always looking in the same price range pretty much every time I buy a graphics card - around £200-£300, which is around $200 -$300 these days. Any less than this and I feel I’m going to have to upgrade too soon and any more and it starts to feel like I’m paying over the odds for very little gain (at least on my 1080p monitor).

So how much do you look to spend when you buy a new graphics card? Are you always looking at the same sort of price range or do you occasionally go big? Let us know!

How much do you typically spend on a graphics card?

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10:47 Oct-30-2016

In my case i'm following a logical step-by-step upgrade each time i'm in the mood to upgrade my rig. The first gpu i bought exclusively for gaming was an asus 660, followed by a gtx 970 and just recently a gtx 1080. Each time im selling the old gpu on ebay and use the money to considerably alleviate the price of the new one. Planning to do this until im in xx80-TI territory, then who knows.

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22:49 Oct-25-2016

I've gone from 760's to 780ti's to 980's and a 1070. Currently i'm more interested in the -200 dollar price range realizing that i've been wasting my money with overkill cards. I'll probably stick to the lower mid range for a while as they seem to be a much better bargin then before.

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06:14 Oct-25-2016

What I payed $150 for (Gigabyte 1GB HD5870) became $250 (ASUS HD7870 2GB) and now its like $400 AUD for a mid range card RX480 I am choosing to wait currently running the ASUS HD7870-DC2-2GD5-V2 will probably have to wait till 2020 when I do a full PC upgrade as GPU price to performance isn't worth it I want the card to last at least 4 years not 1 or 2 on high settings 2 or 4x AA looking to go to 2K res smooth gameplay maybe 4K

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02:45 Oct-25-2016

Always wanted to go for the $350-500 range but rendering is killing me so I'm gonna say $2000+. Yeah i know at least I'm getting my money back from it.

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02:06 Oct-25-2016

I'm actually planning to get the 1050ti and ride that out for a bit until the 1080s or something nice comes down to the $250 range. But a lot could happen by the time that happens so, who really knows?

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23:18 Oct-24-2016

spend anymore then 300 you wasting your money unless you NEED the the performance (rendering,development)

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02:10 Oct-25-2016

I think $270 was the most I ever spent...on my current card actually (MSI GTX 660ti PE/OC) What a great value I got out of that card absolutely the best one I've had , going back to the late 90s/early 00s. Going to test out these new 1050ti's though. Could use a little bump.

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23:09 Oct-24-2016

First year I went all out and actually spend a stupid amount of money on a Card and got the 1080. So far really good but honestly there really wasnt anything out there my 970 wasnt able to handle...this just handles everything on max, which is a big bonus.

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23:08 Oct-24-2016

I am waiting for the 1080 Ti but I am pretty sure once it releases the prices will be inflated to the $1000 range. It is unacceptable if it is so. Typically, I would like to spend a max of around $600 for a card like that but unfortunately its far from reality.

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19:55 Oct-24-2016

Sales.
Got my 970 for 300 euro instead of nearly 500.

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19:05 Oct-24-2016

If i were filthy rich, i would go for like 800 USD. But in reality, i am spending about 300 USD :)

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15:13 Oct-24-2016

I go for cheapest because inflation takes all my money.

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13:19 Oct-24-2016

Pretty much had no choice spending $600+ for my GTX 1070 FE some weeks after it was launched but in the end, it was worth it & I'm very satisfied with it! I hope to spend a lot less for another 1070 for Sli next year, hopefully a GAMING X.

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12:53 Oct-24-2016

I usually always go with the mid range of the high performance cards. This means going with the x70 or xx70 with Nvidia cards. I feel that spending $600+ on a graphics card is overkill. I will at most spend $500

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13:02 Oct-24-2016

Gpus that cost around 350$ in the US are priced around 400+euro here so I went with the 400$ choice in this debate because the price range i'm looking for my gpus is around the 300-500$ mark.Usually its an x70 model.Though now I have good feeling about the AMD 480X and 490 (which probably be priced at around that sum)

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11:29 Oct-24-2016

Right now 500 for this build (though that included an external DVD writer, so 480). I would guess 400-500 in the future, unless I save good money on another component to go an extra hundred. Most I'd spend is 600. But honestly I'm maxing games on this with ease and still complaining seeing tons of pop-in and aliasing. Even with texture packs and an expensive GPU doesn't fix that. :P

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11:08 Oct-24-2016

I spent CAD225 (before taxes) for my GTX 960 back in March 2015, which would be USD180 back then and USD170 in today's exchange rate.
I probably wouldn't spend more than CAD400/USD300 for a GPU if I stick to 1080p.

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11:25 Oct-24-2016

BUT what I really go for when buying is Value and getting a Good Deal! Id readily spend more if the discount was crazy enough. So for me the price range isnt the first thing I decide on.

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10:23 Oct-24-2016

Current GPU has put me back £260, so not too bad.


My max, if I were to go all out would be £5-600.


Probably gonna go all out for Back, unless the top Vega card impresses.

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06:22 Oct-24-2016

Gfx card around 250 euros (my last card was 560ti for 230eur used for 5 years and still working in my net pc and my current one is 970 for 300eur got it in 2015) that can last for 3-4 years

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05:05 Oct-24-2016

Definitely mid-range, though I think Im going to get the 1080ti when it releases

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04:20 Oct-24-2016

$300 for my current GPU. I'll probably switch to integrated when Zen release.

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02:44 Oct-24-2016

Too much and my next one will be more... Maybe a 1080Ti
Also just pre-ordered 1050Ti for the gf !
All worth it !
PC GAMING RULES ALL !!!

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03:03 Oct-24-2016

xo

2

Can They Run... |

| 60FPS, Ultra, 1440p
Ryzen 7 5800X 8-Core 3.8GHz GeForce RTX 3090 Zotac Gaming Trinity 24GB 32GB
| 60FPS, High, 1080p
Ryzen 3 3100 4-Core 3.6GHz GeForce RTX 3050 16GB
| 30FPS, High, 1080p
Ryzen 5 2600 GeForce GTX 1660 Gigabyte OC 6GB 16GB
| 60FPS, Low, 1080p
Ryzen 5 5500U 6-Core 2.1GHz GeForce GTX 1650 16GB
| 60FPS, High, 1440p
Ryzen 7 5800X 8-Core 3.8GHz Radeon RX 6900 XT 16GB 32GB
| 60FPS, Medium, 720p
Core i5-10300H 4-Core 2.50GHz GeForce GTX 1650 8GB
| 60FPS, High, 1080p
Core i9-9900K 8-Core 3.6GHz GeForce GTX 1060 Gigabyte Mini ITX OC 6GB 32GB
0% No [1 votes]
| 60FPS, High, 1080p
Ryzen 5 3600 6-Core 3.6GHz Radeon RX 5700 PowerColor Red Dragon 8GB 16GB
| 60FPS, High, 1080p
Ryzen 3 3100 4-Core 3.6GHz GeForce RTX 3050 16GB
0% No [1 votes]
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Core i9-9900K 8-Core 3.6GHz GeForce RTX 2080 Ti Asus ROG Strix OC 11GB 32GB
| 30FPS, Ultra, 1440p
Ryzen 5 2600X 6-Core 3.6GHz GeForce GTX 1080 16GB
100% Yes [1 votes]
| 60FPS, High, 1080p
Ryzen 3 3100 4-Core 3.6GHz GeForce RTX 3050 16GB
| 60FPS, High, 1080p
Ryzen 3 3100 4-Core 3.6GHz GeForce RTX 3050 16GB
100% Yes [1 votes]
| 60FPS, High, 1080p
Ryzen 3 3100 4-Core 3.6GHz GeForce RTX 3050 16GB
100% Yes [1 votes]
| 60FPS, High, 1080p
Ryzen 3 3100 4-Core 3.6GHz GeForce RTX 3050 16GB
0% No [1 votes]
| 60FPS, Ultra, 1080p
Ryzen 5 5600X 6-Core 3.7GHz Radeon RX 6700 XT 12GB 32GB
| 30FPS, Low, 720p
Core i3-2367M 1.4GHz Intel HD Graphics 3000 Desktop 4GB
| High, 1080p
Ryzen 5 2600 GeForce GTX 1070 Ti MSI Gaming 8GB 16GB
100% Yes [1 votes]
Core i7-7700K 4-Core 4.2GHz Intel HD Graphics 630 Mobile 24GB
0% No [1 votes]
| 30FPS, Low, 1080p
Core i5-7600K 3.8GHz GeForce GTX 970 MSI Gaming 4GB Edition 16GB
100% Yes [2 votes]