This week has seen the biggest graphics card price drops yet at Newegg and Amazon

By Alex Whitelock
published

Retailers are starting to play ball

Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080
(Image credit: Future)

If you've been patiently waiting for a GPU at a decent price then it could almost be go time - we're now dangerously close to MSRP on a number of Nvidia and AMD cards.

This week specifically has seen some of the deepest falls in graphics card prices at leading online retailers in both the US and UK. We've always got an eye on the market here at TechRadar and, while things are moving quickly, we reckon we've just observed the biggest drops yet at leading retailers like Amazon and Newegg. 

Specifically, as of writing this on Thursday AM, we've seen small but consistent discounts on everything from the humble RTX 3050 all the way to the RTX 3090. Things have held steadier on AMD cards this week - but they were already at lower asking prices versus their Nvidia counterparts.

To highlight this, we've rounded up some of the drops we've seen in the past day alone. Here's what we're seeing, tracking the lowest prices found on each card:

Swipe to scroll horizontally
First party graphics card price drops in the past day
Header Cell - Column 0 USUK
RTX 3050$349 to $329£278 to £269
RTX 3060$437 to $389£389 to £379
RTX 3070-£548 to £538
RTX 3070 Ti$799 to $769£638 to £629
RTX 3090$1,699 to $1,679-
RX 6500 XT$224 to $209-
RX 6600-£319 to £299
RX 6600 XT$439 to $409-
RX 6700 XT$569 to $529-
RX 6800$889 to $799-

It's worth noting that the above price drops are discounts that we've just observed from one day alone while updating our daily graphics card prices page. Taken into context, you could tack these onto pricing data from the past few weeks for even bigger cumulative price drops. We don't have the data for that yet though.

The biggest daily drop today? The AMD RX 6800 at Newegg, which has dropped a whopping $80 from $899 to $799 (opens in new tab). The RTX 3060 has also significantly dropped at this retailer too, from $437 to $389 (opens in new tab) - a sum that brings it to within $80 of MSRP.

Note, it's likely by the time we publish this page we'll see some minor fluctuations in these prices so please forgive any minor errors. Things tend to move quickly these days with retailers updating their listings on a daily basis.

Nvidia geforce rtx 3050

(Image credit: Future)

This week's cheapest graphics card prices

If you're interested, here's our daily roundup of the best graphics card prices on every recent Nvidia and AMD model. As previously stated, please allow some minor fluctuations in the prices here - they're the cheapest we've found at publication but it's not uncommon to see small bumps or drops in prices.

Is now a good time to buy a graphics card?

It's the best time in the past 18 months to buy a graphics card, for sure. The question on our minds right now is whether there's further wiggle room for prices to drop further. Right now, all signs point towards that being the case.

Firstly, we've got the new RTX 4000 series of cards from Nvidia looming now. Details are very thin on the ground - especially release dates - but we expect them to drop before the year's end. If they do drop fairly soon then you can expect prices on the RTX 3000 series to really take a tumble.

There's also the much anticipated Ethereum shift to proof of stake this summer, which should mean crypto mining is no longer profitable on the most heavily mined coin. It's hard to judge when this will land, or how things will play out, but it's likely we'll see a glut of graphics cards land on the used market if mining is no longer an option.

So, waiting it out isn't a bad idea in general. Of course, this doesn't help you if you need a graphics card now. In which case, we'd say it's not a bad time to pick up a card. While some cards (specifically the RTX 3070 and 3080) are still way above MSRP, we're starting to see some mid-range 1080p cards like the RTX 3060 and RX 6600 get close to original pricing now. While that won't help those looking to run 4K or high-end 1440p machines, for the average gamer, these mid-range cards are starting to look like decent buys.

Alex Whitelock
Alex Whitelock
Deals Editor

Alex is deals editor at Future PLC and an all-around expert at one thing - saving readers as much cash as possible while scoring them the best products for their needs. With content that's always packed full of helpful information, no-nonsense expertise, and of course deals, Alex has also written for other leading sites such as T3 and GamesRadar. At work, you'll find him mostly covering computing, gaming, and advising people on how to save on their cell phone plans. Outside of work, you'll find him playing guitar, indulging his love for music, or down at the local climbing gym mostly hanging off boulders far too difficult for his abilities.