AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT Drops to $349, Includes a $60 Game Bundle

[Dr. Dro]

Try to explain that to people who (want to) play that game.

Infinitesimally small portion of the customer base, especially considering people who tend to play online shooters/eSports games tend to splurge on their machines (and simultaneously aren't shy of lowering settings)

 

[mechtech]

I mean there's always a way to do worse, like buying a 7600 XT

ya or a GT1030 lol

Amazon.ca

Sadly the only card in this price range in Canada, but on the bright side it was this price during late covid and moms old pc needed a card, so I had to buy one lol oh well good enough for what she does.

 

[Dr. Dro]

ya or a GT1030 lol

Amazon.ca

Sadly the only card in this price range in Canada, but on the bright side it was this price during late covid and moms old pc needed a card, so I had to buy one lol oh well good enough for what she does.

or this Chinese RX 550 that got snuck up in there

Amazon.ca

Jeez these are bad deals lol

 

[Macro Device]

The 8GB 4060 Ti has enough power for Ark: SA and Hogwarts Legacy at 1440p/60fps but its 8GB VRAM limitation means

Like I said, this is not an end of the world for an AVERAGE QHD gamer. These two are relatively recent triple-A titles running at very high settings. Far from your average CoD or CS:GO experience.
Yes, 8 GB for this amount of money is a very terrible idea and both NV, AMD, and also Intel (for a good measure) should be shelled for this.
But for this amount of calculating power, 8 GB is fairly adequate and is problematic... mostly for people like us who do "silly stuff" on their PCs. 4060 and especially 4060 Ti suffer mostly from their low VRAM bandwidth rather than from VRAM amounts. Should've been 160-bit and 192-bit SKUs to begin with (provided we don't affect their calculating power in any other way and also rename to 4050/Ti and lower their price to something more reasonable, say, $189/$269).

This will continue to happen more often

Of course. Intel 4C8T era couldn't last forever, either.

The 4090 sucks for its price.

This always happens to products of their own tier. Ford Focus is of a gajillion percent better value than some... idk what the best vehicle is but let's say some Ferrari is. Sure, Focus achieves a lot more mph per $ and generally is better in every "per $" aspect but it doesn't do what Ferrari does. And never will. It is not what Ferrari is. And never will be. Hence the stupid price.

4090 easily would've been a sub 1000 USD GPU if AMD came up with some "7999 XTX" that makes 4090 look slow and outdated. AMD never did that. You can see the rest for yourself.

 

[wolf]

Even the 6500 XT isn't a bad card for older and less demanding games. I know because I have one.

So is my roughly equally matched GTX 1060 6G, which at least isn't gimped on PCI-E bus and VRAM. Don't need to own one to know and understand how the physical spec limitations make the card undesirable, especially considering price. There are plenty of great choices/options for older and less demanding games.

I'm genuinely happy for you that you find good utility in the 6500XT and might even 'like' it, but I happen to believe this is one of the top contenders (if not top spot) for worst video card in recent memory, like the ~equally woeful-but-in-different-quantities GTX1630.

I agree with you that it's mostly been sold at a horrendous price through its shelf life.

That's clearly the biggest drawback and if it were much better, might stood a chance at forgiving the card.

 

[Lew Zealand]

This always happens to products of their own tier. Ford Focus is of a gajillion percent better value than some... idk what the best vehicle is but let's say some Ferrari is. Sure, Focus achieves a lot more mph per $ and generally is better in every "per $" aspect but it doesn't do what Ferrari does. And never will. It is not what Ferrari is. And never will be. Hence the stupid price.

4090 easily would've been a sub 1000 USD GPU if AMD came up with some "7999 XTX" that makes 4090 look slow and outdated. AMD never did that. You can see the rest for yourself.

I won't be buying $1K GPUs so price comparing them has always been of no concern, but the popular narrative this generation is the 4090 was "worth it" and the rest of the stack isn't (especially the 4080) and frankly I just never looked because I didn't care. The 3090/Ti and 2080 Ti were clearly halo cards and priced well beyond any value but that was not the popular narrative this generation. I expected it to be the worst value of course though only by a bit but that graph clearly demonstrates it's still a halo outlier.

 

[Macro Device]

4090 was "worth it"

It's well worth it if you bought it for professional use that doesn't require more than 24 GB VRAM. For gaming... meh. Better off buying something less deranged, 4080S for example, and not cranking everything on Ultra. Unless your budget is virtually infinite.

 

[Visible Noise]

It's well worth it if you bought it for professional use that doesn't require more than 24 GB VRAM. For gaming... meh. Better off buying something less deranged, 4080S for example, and not cranking everything on Ultra. Unless your budget is virtually infinite.

I bought a 4090 so I don’t have to worry about turning down settings. At 1440p I’m cpu bound with a 14900K. I bought it from Dell a year ago below MSRP.

 

[Broken Processor]

Meh I don't care what AMD charge anymore I'll not be buying another of there GPUs for a long time after my 6800xt fails to do what I need which it kinda already is because of drivers it just bogs down in games it's impossible to get it to play nicely with global settings to have the minimum CPU frequency set to 100mhz less than maximum permanently without it resetting for no reason. It still has the power I just can't use it in the way I need it to. Love the card hate the software.

 

[AusWolf]

Infinitesimally small portion of the customer base, especially considering people who tend to play online shooters/eSports games tend to splurge on their machines (and simultaneously aren't shy of lowering settings)

It's not your use case, and not mine, but it's still a valid one not to be shunned, imo.

So is my roughly equally matched GTX 1060 6G, which at least isn't gimped on PCI-E bus and VRAM. Don't need to own one to know and understand how the physical spec limitations make the card undesirable, especially considering price. There are plenty of great choices/options for older and less demanding games.

I'm genuinely happy for you that you find good utility in the 6500XT and might even 'like' it, but I happen to believe this is one of the top contenders (if not top spot) for worst video card in recent memory, like the ~equally woeful-but-in-different-quantities GTX1630.

That's clearly the biggest drawback and if it were much better, might stood a chance at forgiving the card.

There are 6500 XTs being on sale for £130 in the UK right now, which I think is a fair price. It's the launch price and the mining hike that made it a terrible value, not its specs. The x4 bus isn't a problem until you run out of VRAM, which you shouldn't anyway because the card is not meant for the latest top-tier games.

I agree that the 1060 6 GB is a better card, but it isn't sold anymore, unfortunately.

The 1630 would have also been a good display adapter / video accelerator for 50-80 quid, but it never saw a price tag anywhere near it during its short life, that's why it failed miserably.

 

[Chrispy_]

Infinitesimally small portion of the customer base, especially considering people who tend to play online shooters/eSports games tend to splurge on their machines (and simultaneously aren't shy of lowering settings)

Right now, yeah.
Back when 8GB cards started to go mainstream (RX 480, 8 years ago) the benefits to 8GB over 4GB weren't exactly massive. A lot of people just saved a few bucks and bought the 4GB variants.

The thing is, Polaris cards like the RX 480, 570, 580 are still pretty popular even today and put up a pretty good fight in most games still. More powerful 4GB cards like the older R9 Fury or the newer 1650 Super are all but useless today.

So yeah, at the 1080p resolution these 8GB GPUs are targeting right now, 8GB is mostly fine. But people on a tight budget buying entry level hardware rarely have the luxury of changing their GPU every year. Many of them will use the PC in an unchanged state until it dies or fails to run their games, and that's where more VRAM is potentially worth the extra outlay. We've had games that need >8GB on the market for a couple of years now and the number of games that don't run well on 8GB GPUs is growing exponentially.

 

[Dr. Dro]

Right now, yeah.
Back when 8GB cards started to go mainstream (RX 480, 8 years ago) the benefits to 8GB over 4GB weren't exactly massive. A lot of people just saved a few bucks and bought the 4GB variants.

The thing is, Polaris cards like the RX 480, 570, 580 are still pretty popular even today and put up a pretty good fight in most games still. More powerful 4GB cards like the older R9 Fury or the newer 1650 Super are all but useless today.

So yeah, at the 1080p resolution these 8GB GPUs are targeting right now, 8GB is mostly fine. But people on a tight budget buying entry level hardware rarely have the luxury of changing their GPU every year. Many of them will use the PC in an unchanged state until it dies or fails to run their games, and that's where more VRAM is potentially worth the extra outlay. We've had games that need >8GB on the market for a couple of years now and the number of games that don't run well on 8GB GPUs is growing exponentially.

However, each time you increase the memory capacity, you'll get fewer benefits because at a point, it's frankly just enough.

For example, right now, you have to push to an absolute extreme to differentiate between a 16 and a 24 GB card for gaming, and at the resolution these GPUs are intended to operate at, 8 GB is enough in 99% of cases.

 

[Chrispy_]

However, each time you increase the memory capacity, you'll get fewer benefits because at a point, it's frankly just enough.

For example, right now, you have to push to an absolute extreme to differentiate between a 16 and a 24 GB card for gaming, and at the resolution these GPUs are intended to operate at, 8 GB is enough in 99% of cases.

More memory adds zero performance.
Insufficient memory is a disaster.

I'd argue 8GB is no longer enough for 99% of cases. That was true maybe a couple of years ago. it's starting to look like 8GB is enough for 95% of cases, even fewer if you want to use raytracing, fewer still if you want to play all the newest releases.

As I said, right now, for the 4060, 4060Ti, and 7600 we're talking about, 8GB is enough for the intended 1080p experience - provided you accept that you won't always be getting all of the texture detail or always be able to enable every possible graphical effect. For these compromise cards at lower price points, that's not an unreasonable expectation.

The thing is that people are still going to be using these cards in 2026, 2027, and beyond. Even today, some people prefer lower framerates at higher resolutions. 1440p30 is what some people choose - it's why consoles have performance mode and quality mode. If you want the "quality" mode on an 8GB GPU at a higher resolution, you're in serious trouble with a significant number of games.