I'm currently using a PC with an RTX 3080 for gaming at 1440p, and I haven't run into any VRAM limitations so far. I recently bought an RX 9070 for $700 CAD because GPU prices still seem unusually high. If I can sell my 3080 for roughly $450 CAD, the upgrade would effectively cost me about $250 CAD for an estimated 30% increase in performance, along with more VRAM. Was this a sensible upgrade, or should I sell the RX 9070 and keep using the 3080?
4 Answers
If you do keep the 9070, sell the 3080 while it still has decent resale value. The 9070 should give you a useful performance bump and more memory headroom, but keeping both doesn’t make much sense unless you have a separate system for the older card. If you’re already happy with the 3080, returning or selling the 9070 is also a perfectly reasonable choice.
The upgrade is defensible at that price. After selling the 3080, you’re paying about $250 CAD for roughly 30% more performance and substantially more VRAM. That can be worthwhile if the extra frames improve your experience at 1440p. Just make sure there aren’t other parts of your system that would benefit more from the money.
I’d be more cautious about calling it a major upgrade. Depending on the game and settings, the real-world improvement at 1440p may be closer to 20–30%, which isn’t huge when your 3080 is already performing well. If prices were normal, I’d probably wait for something at least around the 9070 XT or RTX 5070 Ti level.
If your 3080 is still meeting your needs, there’s no urgent reason to upgrade. You could keep it for another couple of years and use the 9070 later, especially since you haven’t encountered VRAM problems. Buying a new GPU right now can be difficult to justify unless you really need the extra performance.
I mainly bought it because $700 CAD seemed reasonable compared with the current prices of other cards. I was worried prices might not drop anytime soon.