Are graphics cards completely overpriced these days, or do AMD and Nvidia simply offer (too) much performance, which then has to be paid for accordingly? To illustrate this, we have processed the performance and price increases of previous Nvidia generations of the x70 and x80 model series, and our author will also summarize his opinion in detail beforehand. To anticipate: In his opinion, the truth lies somewhere between “overpriced” and “reasonable prices”. But first we want to give you up-to-date purchase advice on graphics cards by presenting you with a price-performance analysis. All current AMD and Nvidia graphics card series that are suitable for games were included in the analysis – in the end, of course, by far not all series remain as purchase recommendations.
Price-performance buying tips 27.1.2023
Based on many of the tests we analyze for our graphics card specials, we regularly create an updated performance index. We currently gave the AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT the performance index value of 100. The Nvidia GeForce RTX 4080 with a value of 114 is on average 14 percent faster – the AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT and Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 Ti with values of 51 and 49 respectively are about half as fast as the RX 7900 XT.
This can also be illustrated like this: If the RX 7900 XT achieves 100 FPS in a certain game, then the RX 6700 XT and RTX 3060 Ti achieve around 50 FPS.
To calculate value for money, we divided the current price by the performance value and multiplied the result by 10 to end up with values that fit nicely on the same graph along with the performance values. In the case of the PL values (PL = price-performance ratio), a smaller value is of course better, since we then have to pay less euros per performance value.
Value for money: graphics and recommendations
To make it clearer, we create two graphics. First of all, it’s about graphics cards up to and including the RTX 3070 Ti with a performance value of 66. The RTX 3050 falls out of the price-performance ratio here because it is extremely bad.
The AMD RX 6600 XT is also missing, as it is more expensive than the slightly more powerful RX 6650 XT. This is how it currently looks up to the RTX 3070 Ti and thus at the same time up to a price range of 650 euros, sorted by performance:
Graphics cards price-performance under 700 euros January 2023
Source: Antonio Funes
Note: The performance value of the RX 6500 XT is just under 20, but our graph only starts at 20 – so its performance bar is missing. You can see that over 500 euros the price-performance ratio with PL values over 90 is significantly worse. In addition, under 600 euros, the Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 and the RTX 3060 Ti are not doing well compared to AMD (PL values 89.4 and 89.5).
The AMD RX 6600 has the best value, although it is only recommended for Full HD gaming. The RX 6700 XT is ideal for stronger performance. The non-XT version is even better off, but there are very few models available individually since it was originally only planned for complete PCs. But what about from 700 euros? This is shown in the next graphic:
Graphics cards value for money from 700 euros January 2023
Source: Antonio Funes
In addition to the RX 7900 XT, only the RX 6800 XT and 6950 XT have a PL value of less than 100. However, the two 6000 series are extremely changeable when it comes to the prices of the available models. Here the price limit can go up or down by 50 to 100 euros almost every day. Therefore, the RX 7900 XT is our price-performance tip for graphics cards from 700 euros and also beats the weaker, but not much cheaper RTX 4070 Ti.
The RTX 3080 and RX 6900 XT seem rather unattractive, in the high-end range the RX 7900 XTX is the winner, unless you attach great importance to ray tracing, where the RTX 4080 performs significantly better. Because of the poor PL value, the RTX series 3080 Ti, 3090 and 3090 Ti with PL values from 165 to 200 as well as the RTX 4090 with a PL value of 133 are completely out of the game.
