(Disclaimer, I realize I’m asking a question that everyone will have their own answer to and my answer is dependent on me and my situation, just curious to hear other’s perspectives.)
I’ve been rocking my GTX 1080 since a few months after launch, and it’s held up incredibly well at 1440p ultra wide. However I’m finally at the point where I have a decent number of games I’m waiting to play until I have hardware that can run it (Oblivion remaster, Borderlands 4 in a couple days, GTA VI in four years when it comes to PC). However I’m stuck on what card to get. The 9070XT would be my immediate choice, if the MSRP was not 600 and the cheapest available cards selling at 720+.
Now if the MSRP was 700 I’d feel more comfortable buying the card at that price, as even at the inflated price it seems to offer the best performance in that price range. However if people have been able to get their hands on it for 100 bucks cheaper by being vigilant and waiting, I can’t really justify the scalp fee.
The 5070 is the only card available to purchase at the 550-600 range, and while I’m not strictly opposed to it, I’d rather an AMD card since I’ve been on Linux mostly these days.
I guess long story short, is holding out for an MSRP 9070XT even viable, or is it pretty much guaranteed not to happen before the next gen comes out in a year or two? And would you pay the extra price for the 9070XT over the 5070?
pcpartpicker has a price alert tool that works amazing when it’s not 2020. For my recent purchase I ended up choosing a price that I was willing to pay after looking at the price histories for various cards. Definitely worth checking out.
They also have a price history tool. https://pcpartpicker.com/trends/price/video-card/ looks like the 9070xt hasn’t been under 650$ since March. If you didn’t mind waiting a month or three to see how the fiscal year change and the holidays affect pricing, you could just set a price alert at 650 and call it a day.