this post was submitted on 21 Jun 2025
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I tested $200-ish GPUs from Nvidia, AMD, and Intel—but no matter who wins, budget gamers lose (www.tomshardware.com)
submitted 1 week ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 week ago (2 children)

I picked up an RX6600 like 4 months ago for my partner to play Monster Hunter Wilds. It was $300 CAD (So, $220) and plays everything on the market at medium settings, 60fps.

It's a lower mid range card that does what we expect in the price range. It was also a sale price, but we got it.

I'm not denying that prices are, in general, higher, particularly if you're looking for traditional mid range options or even high end cards, but budget options exist.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Well yes and no, The RX 6600 is a 4-5 year old card, and absolutely low end by today's standards.
I'm not saying that to be arrogant, because I use a 6600 XT myself. And it works OK for me. Because I mostly play retro games.
But if you look at reviews of the 9600 XT, the 6650 XT which is slightly better than 6600, is the bottom of the charts if it's even included, at typical framerates more than 50% below the 16 GB 9600 XT.
So yes you can get cheaper cards, but the price is higher per FPS. Maybe except for the Intel Arc B580.
You can also get the 9600 XT in a cheaper 8 GB version, but that is STRONGLY warned against, because for some new games, performance fall off a cliff with only 8GB!
So the 8 GB Radeon RX 9600 XT is not even recommended as an entry level card!

But to be honest, I was positively surprised when I saw the 16 GB version is only $380 (USD) here in Denmark. Because that's actually cheaper than what I paid for the 6600 XT when it came out. Back then that was $450 USD, and by far the best option on cost per fps.

Prices have been crazy, but they are actually somewhat normalizing now.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 week ago

Yep, grabbed a 6900xt for my wifes PC build a few months ago here in the states for $400 and got an AIO and some free ddr5 ram with it. New isn't always worth it. Older cards still have a ton of life left in them.