I currently have a GTX 1070 Ti and want to move to 1440p gaming at roughly high settings. GPU prices are still pretty high, so I'm trying to figure out what cards are considered good enough today without overspending. Should I buy something now, look at used GPUs, or wait for prices to improve?
4 Answers
There’s no guarantee that waiting will bring prices down substantially. A sale period such as Black Friday might help, but it’s difficult to predict, and prices could remain high for a long time. I’d set a target price for a card that meets your needs and buy when a good deal appears rather than waiting indefinitely.
That makes sense for 1440p, since the GPU is usually the limiting component. Just keep in mind that moving to a much faster graphics card may eventually make a CPU and RAM upgrade worthwhile too.
For a new card, the Radeon RX 9060 XT is probably one of the better value options for 1440p. The RTX 5060 Ti 16GB is also capable, though it may cost more. Cards such as the RX 9070, RX 9070 XT, and RTX 5070 Ti are more than sufficient, but they’re expensive enough that they may not fit the idea of a budget-conscious upgrade.
I’d aim for at least 12GB of VRAM. A used RTX 4070, 4070 Super, 4070 Ti, Radeon RX 7800 XT, or RX 7900 GRE could be a strong upgrade if you find one around the $350–$600 range. The RTX 3060 12GB can handle 1440p, but it isn’t a huge enough step up from a 1070 Ti to be especially compelling unless the price is very low.
A 3060 Ti-class card can technically run 1440p, but newer games often require medium settings or upscaling to maintain 60 FPS because of limited VRAM. If high settings are important, I’d avoid 8GB cards and look toward something like an RX 9060 XT 16GB, RTX 5060 Ti 16GB, RTX 4070, or RX 7800 XT. Native 1440p is becoming demanding in poorly optimized games, so extra VRAM helps.
I’m also using an overclocked Ryzen 5 5500 with 16GB of RAM. I’ve considered upgrading the CPU, but I’m leaning toward upgrading the GPU first.