GPU’s are finally easy to come by, and with the 4-series cards incoming the 3 series are shooting way down in price, with some coming below MSRP to get them off the shelves. With the release of the powerhouse 3090ti the sales of the mid-end cards slumped, with the price bracket being relatively similar people have opted to save and go for the bigger options.
NVIDIA’s current top seller is the 3060ti, which is the turbo charged version of the basic 3060, but sales have began to slump with the prices coming together a little more (the high end card prices have dropped significantly). To put it into perspective, this time last year the 3060ti sat at an average of £750, whilst the 3090 sat at an average of £2300. At time of writing, the 3060ti sits at £400 and 3090’s can be picked up at £1200 in some places, with 3090ti’s coming in at £1450 at scan.
To compare the prices from then to now –
3060 – Was £529 is now £329
3060ti – Was £750 is now £400
3070 – Was £850 is now £479
3070ti – Was £950 is now £579
3080 (10GB) – Was £1300 is now £719
3080ti – Was £1449 is now £879
3090 – Was £2300 is now £1200
3090ti – New release, but it was £2500 and is now £1450
So prices have significantly dropped in recent times. Now the simple answer to this article is to list the GPU’s in power order, but that wouldn’t give a fair comparison of price vs quality so I will be detailing the comparison of the top 5 cards in the list below.
My Top 5 Rated Cards
(Please note I have swayed to Nvidia for this, purely because I test and have access to NVIDIA.
- NVIDIA RTX 3080 12GB
Note that I have chosen the 12GB model over the 10GB model. This is because of the extra CUDA cores and VRAM which makes a big difference in gaming. Great card, great value for money, doesn’t break the bank anymore and plays 4k games up to 60fps.
- NVIDIA RTX 3070TI – Brilliant all round card, plenty of power, doesn’t break the bank and plays QHD games at up to 120FPS.
- NVIDIA RTX 3060TI – Best value for money GPU, but lowest UHD framerates in the top 5, with the right settings you can get up to 30FPS in 4k but if you’re only playing QHD this card will more than suffice.
- NVIDIA RTX 3090TI – The ultra powerhouse only came 4th due to the value for money pricing, high power consumption and expense of the setup required to keep this bad boy cool.
- NVIDIA RTX 3080TI – The late 2021 powerhouse comes bottom of the top 5, purely due to the lack of pricing dip compared to the 3090/3090ti.
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To conclude, the 3080 12GB is the best value for money card on the market right now, coming in at around £800 for the sheer power it has is a total bargain.
If you think I’ve got the current top 5 wrong (pre-4 series) please let me know in the comments!