Where to buy an Nvidia or AMD graphics card, the most highly sought-after products in PC gaming right now

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• New Nvidia and AMD graphics cards have driven a PC gaming boom amid an international chip shortage.
• RTX 30 and RX 6000 series cards are made at a variety of price points and performance levels.
• Buying an RTX 30 or RX 6000 series card is incredibly difficult but it's important not to overpay.

The computer graphics cards designed by Nvidia and AMD serve as the heart of a gaming PC, with cards at a wide range of prices offering increasing levels of image quality and rendering speed.

As home-built gaming computers become more common, demand for individually sold graphics cards has spiked dramatically, leaving most stores out of stock on a day-to-day basis. Just a few retailers, like Microcenter, Best Buy, and Newegg, have advertised restocks. Manufacturer EVGA offers direct sales of the latest graphics cards, but the constant demand has created a lengthy waitlist for potential buyers.

International tariffs and resellers on eBay and Amazon have also led to graphics cards being sold way above their suggested retail price. Prices can increase if the manufacturer makes changes to the base card design too, like adding special lighting or an extra cooling fan.

To help you make the best graphics card purchase without overpaying, we've broken down the ins and outs of Nvidia's RTX 30 and AMD's RX 6000 series products. That said, it's important to remember that stock remains hard to come by for all the models we've listed, so prices above MSRP are likely unavoidable for the time being.

The starting prices we've listed are for reference so you can decide whether any higher prices you may come across are worth the premium. We'll update this page with more buying options and restock alerts as they're announced.

Nvidia RTX 30 series graphics cards

Nvidia has described the demand for its latest series of RTX 30 graphics cards as "unprecedented." Seven different cards have joined the RTX 30 line since September 2020, with recommended prices ranging from $329 to $1,500.

Priced at about $700, the RTX 3080 is an ideal choice for most people that will meet the needs of all but the most hardcore PC gaming enthusiasts. The $400 RTX 3060 Ti is a perfect pick for midrange and budget PCs, delivering excellent performance at 1080p, but struggling when pushed to 4K.

Nvidia graphics cards also have excellent software features and developer support that can benefit gamers who stream or record their gameplay for YouTube and Twitch. Nvidia's exclusive DLSS software helps improve performance in certain games by using artificial intelligence to upscale visuals.

AMD Radeon RX 6000 series graphics cards

AMD's graphics cards aren't quite as popular as Nvidia's, but they boast plenty of power and are generally less expensive than their RTX counterparts. AMD cards get an additional performance boost when paired with AMD processors, which compete with Intel as the most popular gaming CPUs, and are generally more cost effective.

At $649 AMD Radeon 6800XT offers comparable performance to the RTX 3080 for $50 less, while the $579 AMD RX 6800 is a parallel to the $599 RTX 3070ti. The $999 Radeon RX 6900XT outperforms the $1,500 RTX 3090 in some games, but AMD's cards struggle with some newer features, like ray traced lighting and AI-powered resolution scaling.

Certain newly released games with those features will likely run slightly better on Nvidia hardware until AMD develops its own solutions to boost performance. On the other hand, some popular titles like "Borderlands 3" run better on AMD devices, so the performance differences will vary depending on your choice of games.

Where to buy an Nvidia or AMD graphics card

Recommended retailers for an Nvidia or AMD graphics card include Microcenter, Best Buy, Newegg, and Amazon (Nvidia, AMD). Unfortunately, inventory remains sold out at most store, but restocks occur from time to time. AMD also sell units from its own online store, and Nvidia has a tool for checking stock at other retailers.

If you're on the hunt for an Nvidia or AMD graphics card we recommend checking these landing pages on a regular basis:

• Microcenter
• Best Buy
• Newegg (new graphic cards are sold through a daily lotto due to low stock)
• Amazon (Nvidia, AMD)
• Nvidia
• AMD

Manufacturer EVGA is also offering a virtual waitlist via its website, so you can choose to be contacted by email when stock is available. However, the EVGA waitlist is months long, and the RTX 3080 and RTX 3060ti are in especially high demand.

How to shop for a graphics card

New graphics cards are incredibly hard to buy right now due to an international chip shortage that began in 2020. Resellers are charging far more than retail price on eBay and Amazon and even older cards are selling for above market rate. Given the current market situation it may be more affordable to shop for a pre-built gaming PC or laptop, rather than buying a graphics card separately and building your own.

Prices for the same cards can vary between manufacturers, with upgrades like extra cooling fans or RGB lighting increasing the cost. Graphics cards shipped were also impacted by a US tariff increase that arrived in early 2021, leading manufacturers to increase their prices by $70 to $300 more than what RTX 30 series and AMD 6000 series cards originally sold for in fall 2020.

What to know before buying a graphics card

The graphics card might be the most important part of building a gaming PC, as it will likely determine your computer's peak performance. However, the more you spend on a graphics card, the more you'll need to spend on other parts to make sure you're not limiting its potential.

Even a $1,500 graphics card like the RTX 3090 can struggle if paired with an old processor or motherboard, so be sure to make sure the components in your PC are all modern and compatible before spending most of your budget on a graphics card.

Specifically, you should make sure your power supply can deliver requirements for your card of choice, and you should see if your motherboard supports PCI 4.0. A weak CPU can create a bottleneck that limits the overall speed of your gaming computer too, so don't overspend on your graphics card if you can't upgrade your CPU to a similar quality.

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By: [email protected] (Kevin Webb)
Title: Where to buy an Nvidia or AMD graphics card, the most highly sought-after products in PC gaming right now
Sourced From: feedproxy.google.com/~r/businessinsider/politics/~3/9h2mTZ3_Iw8/where-to-buy-graphics-card-nvidia-amd
Published Date: Wed, 14 Jul 2021 15:57:10 +0000

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