There are plenty of reasons to go out looking for the best graphics card prices and deals. Maybe you took one glance at the system requirements for CyberPunk 2077 and shed a single tear for your ailing GPU. Perhaps you’re trying to make some cash on the side through cryptocurrency mining. Whatever you’re planning on doing with it, you should be able to get the best deals and prices on graphics cards.
Many people are searching for graphics cards right now, however, and it’s not uncommon to see bare shelves and hugely inflated prices way above the MSRP – Nvidia and AMD’s originally intended prices for these cards.
That’s where we come in. Here at TechRadar, not only are we constantly searching for the best cheap graphics card prices and deals on a daily basis, but we’re also giving plenty of advice on what you should be looking to pay. So, if you’re search has so far been unsuccessful, we’re here to help you build that dream gaming PC.
The great graphics card shortage of 2021
As you probably already know if you’re visiting this article, there’s a huge worldwide shortage of graphic cards deals right now due to a myriad of supply and demand issues. The good news is recent reports have indicated that this shortage could ease in the next few months, although right now graphics card prices remain painfully high. If you’d like to read more about the reasons for this shortage, you can see our FAQ section at the bottom of the page.
We’re trying our best to find our readers the very best graphics card prices possible here on this page but definitely temper your expectations. We’ve excluded ‘scalpers’ on well-known auction sites in our price comparison, but prices still remain high and stock remains scarce at even the most trusted of retailers.
Buyer beware – on eBay and other auction sites, people like to list images as real listings under the guise of fighting bots, and generally pull other scam-like shenanigans. We highly recommend you don’t purchase via these auction sites if you can do so, even if it means holding off for a few months to upgrade.
Today’s best graphics card prices and deals
Pre-built gaming PCs – worth considering
Oh god, is TechRadar really going to recommend we go pre-built instead of looking for a graphics card deal? Not exactly, but it’s at least worth considering buying a pre-built machine right now under the current GPU pricing climate until when things return back to normal. While pre-built gaming PCs used to be synonymous with terrible value and cheap components, these days you can get a surprisingly good value machine. Here’s a couple we’ve found this week that are worth considering.
Alienware Aurora R12 gaming PC: $1,979 $1,812.99 at Dell
Looking for a gaming desktop that’s going to handle pretty much any game you can throw at it? This Alienware Aurora comes with an RTX 3060 Ti graphics card, Intel Core i7-11700F processor, 16GB of RAM, and a 512GB SSD – absolutely amazing specs for the price considering how premium this brand is. Note, we’ve seen these machines go for as little as $1,370 before, so it’s worth waiting until the next sale for this one.
HP Pavilion TG01 gaming desktop: $1109 $1009.99 at HP
Save $100 – If you’re looking for something a little cheaper, you can customize yourself a really cost-effective gaming PC over at HP right now. For maximum bang for the buck, we’d recommend an RTX 3060, AMD Ryzen 5-5600H, 8GB of RAM, and a 512GB SSD. Those aren’t super high-end specs, but they’ll get you some great performance for 1080p gaming.
iBuyPower RDY SLMRG205 gaming PC: $1449 $1,299 at iBuyPower
Save $200 – If you’re on a (relatively) small budget, you could consider this excellent mid-range iBuyPower PC. A fairly hefty discount today makes it a fairly priced machine considering it’s got an RTX 3060, 16GB of RAM, 512GB SSD, and a Ryzen 5 3600. The CPU is a little on the weaker side in our opinion, but everything else here is great – especially the GPU, which as we know is what you’re really paying for here.
High-end graphics card prices and deals
The RTX 3080 is Nvidia’s latest flagship ‘consumer’ graphics card, and the current performance king in regards to 4K gaming (well, aside from the bonkers RTX 3090).
Rocking the new ‘Ampere’ architecture means the RTX 3080 boasts a fairly significant performance advantage over the now older Turing RTX 2000 series, although perhaps not quite the ‘double’ that Nvidia claimed in its marketing. That said, if you’re looking for incredible 4K gaming, DLSS support and Ray-tracing performance, the RTX 3080 is going to your card of choice.
Nvidia planned on keeping the price fairly static at launch with a price of $699 / £649 / AU$950 on the founders edition – roughly the same as the previous Turing generation of cards, but still more than the $599 the GTX 1080 launched at. Considering the power on display here, these are actually very reasonable prices although as you’d expect people are snapping these up and those remaining cards fetch a kings ransom.
Currently, prices in the upwards of $1,200 / £1,200 are not uncommon on auction sites and we expect those to hold for for the foreseeable future until supply can start to step up. We’ve rounded up the best prices we can find right here, although we recommend holding off unless you find something reasonable.
Read more in our Nvidia RTX 3080 review
With the RX 6800 XT, AMD is looking to stick to Nvidia with a high-end Ray-tracing ready beast capable of firing out some serious 4K gaming performance.
Benchmarks put it within a hairs breadth of the RTX 3080 at launch, with a slight edge to team green when it comes to 4K and Ray-tracing performance. Still, with a launch price of $649 / £649 / AU$960, AMD are looking to do what AMD does best with the RX 6800 XT – provide a ton of power for a respectable price point.
Unfortunately, like the RTX 3080, prices for the RX 6800 XT are significantly upscaled right now thanks to the incredible demand for performance GPUs. On auction sites, prices of $1,200 / £1,200 are not uncommon right now, and we wouldn’t recommend paying out for these scalped prices if you can hold off waiting for a few months.
Read more in our AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT review
Mid-range graphics card prices and deals
Like it’s predecessors, the Nvidia RTX 3070 is going to be that card that brings incredible enthusiast-level performance to a much more reasonable price point. With 4K performance roughly equivalent to last generations RTX 2080 TI, the RTX 3070 is definitely one very, very speedy card for even the most intensive of applications.
A launch price of $449 / £469 / AU$809 puts it smack bang right in the middle between the RTX 3080 and the more budget orientated RTX 3060 Ti, making it the choice for 4K enthusiasts who want to still want a bang for the buck GPU. Considering this card looks to outstrip the RTX 2080 Ti on performance with less power consumption, a smaller chassis, and half the launch price, it’s good value on paper.
We say on paper because, as expected, demand is massively outpacing supply currently on this card like the other new releases on our list. Current scalper prices can fetch upwards of $800 / £800 right now, which are absolutely exorbitant prices to pay for a card that isn’t at the very top-end of the market. We recommend checking in regularly, as we’ll be updating this article every day with the latest prices.
Read more in our Nvidia RTX 3070 review
For those looking for shear power to price ratio, the AMD Radeon RX 6800 looks to bring a hefty specs sheet to the consumer GPU market and a viable alternative to the Nvidia RTX 3070.
Indeed, on most applications at 1080p and 1440p, the Radeon RX 6800 edges out the RTX 2070 in raw performance at launch on average, depending on your title. Its lead does, however, significantly narrow when it comes to 4K FPS, and another factor that may sway consumers toward the RTX 3070 is the more mature support for Ray-tracing and DLSS – new tech that’s becoming more widespread. Still, if you’re looking for huge frame rates right now, especially for 1440p, the Radeon RX 6800 is a solid mid to upper-mid range buy.
Prices at launch were slated at $499 / £469 / AU$809 although currently the Radeon RX 6800 fetches around the same street price at the RTX 3070 – around £800 / $800. Because this card isn’t quite as popular as its Nvidia counterparts however, you may have more luck finding it at the big retailer sites. Just here we’re updating our article daily with the best prices we can find for the Radeon RX 6800.
Read more in our AMD Radeon RX 6800 review
With a launch price of $399 / £299 / AU$540 the new Nvidia RTX 3060 Ti looks to be a great choice for those PC gamers who are looking to build a machine that’ll hold it’s own against the new consoles while coming in on budget.
Unlike the beefier RTX 3080 and 3070, the Nvidia RTX 3060 Ti provides only entry-level 4K performance, but when it comes to offering great frame rates at 1080p with ray-tracing, it’s actually faster than the previous generations RTX 2080 Super. So, if excellent future-proofed 1080p performance is your priority, the RTX 3060 Ti is an incredibly capable card that should give you plenty of bang for the buck.
Again, scalpers currently hold this card at around $650 / £600, so it’s probably going to be worth waiting for things to calm down a little before you pick one up. We’re updating this page with the latest RTX 3060 Ti prices just below as we find them, however.
Read more in our Nvidia RTX 3060 Ti review
Budget graphics card prices and deals
Released in 2020, the Nvidia GTX 1660 Super was essentially a refresh of the existing GTX 1660, bringing it up to date with a fresh batch of GDDR6 memory under the hood to help it keep up with the latest games.
Even in 2021, The GTX 1660 Super is very much a solid 1080p gaming card. Of course, it forgoes the latest support for Ray-tracing and DLSS, but that’s easily forgiven for its retail price of $229 / £180 / AU$330.
Better news yet is the GTX 1660 Super is also a lot more readily available than the newest RTX 3000 cards right now. While prices can still be a little inflated at some retailers, you can easily pick one of these cards up for around $300 / £250 and be building a fantastic machine for 1080p gaming in no time.
Read more in our GTX 1660 Super review
If you’re really on a budget for that build, the Nvidia GTX 1650 Super provides an excellent low-cost card that also has the benefit of having really low power draw and cool temperatures.
Ok, so in 2021, this card isn’t going to blow you away with its performance, especially on those latest games, and Ray-tracing can only be dreamt of at this price. However, this card will run modern games at 1080p, and is more than adequate if you’re simply building a machine for casual use.
Also, unlike the newer RTX cards, it’s readily available from the big retailers right now with asking prices that are actually reasonable. Currently, you can pick up a GTX 1650 Super for £180 / $200 depending on which variant you go, which is almost a quarter of the price of some of the RTX cards right now.
Frequently asked questions
Why are graphics card prices so high right now?
There’s a myriad of underlying reasons, but simply put it’s because demand is massively outstripping supply right now.
The global pandemic, new product launches, and the continued popularity of using GPUs for cryptocurrency farming have all had a compounding effect on demand to the extent to which we find ourselves now. According to Steam’s recently published statistics for 2021, the world’s biggest online PC gaming platform saw a 20% increase in the number of titles purchased and a staggering 50% increase in hours played.
Subsequently, it’s no surprise that graphics cards – the most vital component in any respectable gamers rig – have found themselves in exceedingly short supply.
When will graphics card prices return to normal?
Oh god, when will it end? That’s a common phrase uttered by many PC gamers over the past few months – including much of the TechRadar staff. Put simply, we don’t know, although the good news is recent reports by 3D Center have indicated that prices are slowly falling – in Germany at least.
WCCFTech is another site that’s recently reported that it anticipates GPU prices in the US to fall below 150% MSRP within the next two to six months. It seems most of this is driven by a slight lull in cryptocurrency demand worldwide as well as a crackdown on crypto farms in China. According to PCGamer, Taiwanese PC builders have reported an influx of used ex-mining GPUs being sold on Chinese markets, which could be a sign of things to come.
Of course, we wouldn’t recommend purchasing a GPU that’s been absolutely scorched by months of constant mining, although fingers crossed we see supply meet demand soon.
We’ll still be searching daily to find the best graphics card prices we can for our readers, so please feel free to check in regularly. We’ll also be updating this article with the latest information as we find too.
Which retailers should I check for graphics cards?
Want to continue the search? Here’s a list of the best retailers to check in for graphics card prices specifically. We’ve linked directly to the relevant pages, so all you need to do is follow these links and bookmark them.
- In the US:
- Nvidia
- Best Buy
- Amazon
- B&H Photo
- Newegg
- In the UK:
- Nvidia
- Overclockers
- Scan
- Novatech
- Ebuyer
- In Australia:
- Scorptec
- Mwave
- PLE Computers
As a first port of call, for Nvidia cards we’d recommend checking in at the official site primarily for both the US and UK. They sell founders edition cards for their retail price, so you absolutely won’t get upcharges for buying direct. As you’d expect, however, Nvidia sells out very quickly indeed and you’ll have to be prepared to jump on a card if you see one for a normal price.
Best Buy, B&H Photo, Amazon and Newegg are all good retailers to check in on in the US, although you’ll want to keep an eye out for inflated prices at the latter two. In the UK, we’d recommend going to Overclockers specifically and signing up to price notifications on the specific graphic card deals your looking for.
If you’re looking for an RTX 3080 specifically, we’ve got a separate where to buy Nvidia RTX 3080 guide that’s updated daily with the latest information – we recommend checking in there if you’re looking for this premium card.
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