Transcription
Here's the short version of the video. If you're looking to get a high-performance 1440p gaming build right now with the best value in mind, the RX970 at $580 is currently the best deal.
However, the 5070 Ti had been up around $1,000 for the last several months, and there's currently one available at $860, which is the best deal on a high performance, I'd say enthusiast tier card, especially. This is getting you into the Nvidia feature set, and 16 GB of VRAM. You'd be very happy with this at 1440p and can even do a good job in a 4K-based build.
But if you're a little more budget conscious, but also want enough VRAM to not have to upgrade your GPU anytime soon, the 960 XT 16 gigabyte is great for 1080p and 1440p builds. We'll have a little more reliance on upscaling and occasionally turning down graphics settings compared to the 9070 option or the 5070 Ti option, but we'll still be at very high graphics settings and very nice frame rates for a long time.
And if you have a lower budget than $400, you are unfortunately getting into VRAM constraints. Cards like the 5060Ti 8 gigabyte version are probably the most performance per dollar out of the bunch. Uh, and you can get that as low as $370 right now. And I think that makes more sense than getting the 8 GB 960 XT from AMD.
But honestly, once you're below $400, your best bet in terms of value is probably looking at the used market and if you can get a 3080 with either 10 or 12 GB. There was a 12 GB uh model, but you know, they're less frequently available. They weren't producing as much quantity. The 3080 10 GB if you can get it in that $300-ish dollar range is probably your best bet. uh because really anything um below the $400 mark in the used market is starting to get you into 8 gigabyte territory and giving you some problems. And unfortunately, the Intel options with more than 8 GB aren't offering very good performance per dollar in the current market.
Now I'm going to justify all of these choices, but first I have thrown away so much money over the years by rejecting VPN sponsors. And that's because the first thing I check is do they offer an independently audited no logs policy? If they don't, that's it. I'm not working with them because one of the main reasons you want a VPN in the first place is for increased privacy. ProtonVPN checks that box as well as everything else you're looking for in a high-quality VPN service. My main use case for VPNs is for accessing the libraries to streaming services and game services uh that don't exist in my country but do exist in others. Now, a lot of you are looking for protection when doing peer-to-peer file sharing, torrenting, etc. has great support for that as well as a kill switch that's convenient to use. Uh there's also great speeds with over 22 gigabit per second up to uh in 20,000 servers in 145 countries. Really has everything you need. And you can access all of that with a great discount by following my link in the video description and/or pinned comment. And it's less than the price of a cup of coffee per month.
So, let's justify my recommendations I made at the start, as well as maybe give you some alternative choices. I do think the RX970 with its 16 GB of VRAM for $580. And with VRAM being as expensive as it is right now, uh, this is a pretty good deal that will give you enough VRAM and enough performance for happy 1440p gaming for a long time. And AMD's FSR4 upscaling has done a very good job at not quite matching the latest versions of DLSS, but reaching that good enough quality to where you can kick on the upscaling without feeling like you're getting a huge loss to image quality and have a good experience.
I still overall prefer Nvidia's feature set. They have better path tracing support, better uh uh frame pacing when using frame generation, etc. However, let's look at the competition and the pricing. So AMD's closest price competitor here is the 5070 from Nvidia, which I could pull up and show that the lowest priced models are coming in at $600, and they go up swiftly from there. So it's about the same price, but a little bit more expensive, but you're getting 12 GB of VRAM and actually noticeably less performance. Uh, since my last buying guide, I've actually retested the 9070 up against the 5070 in a bunch of tests at 1440p, both native resolution and with upscaling at both maximum graphic settings with ray tracing, as well as reduced settings without ray tracing. In the latest games and popular games of 2025 and 2026, I've actually found that AMD's 970 has expanded its lead compared to what I saw in launch reviews. I had it at a 16% uh geometric advantage over the 5070 in my testing. And that's for a lower price and with more VRAM. So that's why I'm saying that the 9070 is the best value choice for a uh a a very high performance 1440p build while still focused on value.
Now that being said, I think the 5070 still performs admirably. There were a few cases where you saw the 9070 get a blowout win because the 5070 was running out of VRAM. So, you will have to manage the VRAM situation a little more closely on the 5070, but honestly, it's not that big of a headache. And most games at 1440p, especially if you're using DLSS, won't be going over the 12 GB. Uh, however, some games do. It's a little bit more of a headache and it's just something to keep your eye on with longevity. It also has less uh overall performance, but like I said, better like frame generation feature set. Um, it's better at path tracing, although it's a little borderline for path tracing. It's not unusable. Uh, so in other words, I'm not saying don't buy a 5070. I'm just saying the 9070 does offer uh a very attractive price point um for its VRAM capacity and performance in the current market and overall gets my recommendation for best value.
Now, let's look uh both up and down in terms of where your budget is at. So, beyond this price point from AMD, you could go into the uh 9070 XT. And I've actually tested those out again recently, and there's not a huge performance gap between the two. Uh Tech PowerUp has a 12% lead for the 970 XT. In my most recent testing at 1440p resolution, I actually had it as a little less than 10%. uh at 1440p I think Hardware Unboxed latest testing I think had a 10% lead. Uh so it can depend on the exact games you're testing and the resolutions. At 4K resolution I think it does expand to more like a 12% lead. Uh but um I think a lot of gamers are still on 1440p or upscaling when using 4K. Uh in which case you're getting less than a 10% uh or about a 10% performance jump to get the XT version. But if we look at pricing, uh the 9070 XT uh does jump uh pretty noticeably in pricing. You're jumping up to $690 or about $700 or even higher for most models on that. So $690 versus $580. Uh so you're spending about 19% more money for about 10% more performance. Uh so that's where I'm still thinking from a value proposition. The 9070 gets you a similar experience uh to the 9070 XT for over a $100 discount. Uh it's not a meaningfully different experience. Uh so that's why I'd currently recommend the 9070 over spending the additional money on the 9070 XT.
If you want to spend more money than um this $580 9070, I think that would be better spent going all the way up to the 5070 Ti. Uh, for one thing, uh, it's getting you a better deal on the 570 Ti than we've had for a long time. Now, there was a time where you could get them for $750. They did sit at their MSRP for at least several months in 2025. However, for pretty much all of 2026, they've been sitting at around $1,000 plus and only occasionally dipping below that. Well, this is one of those occasions. Uh there's currently an $860 570 Ti in stock. And so while that's still not getting you a massive overall performance boost uh over the 9070 baseline, Tech PowerUp has it about 17% faster. That's similar to what I see in my testing in that kind of 15 to 20% faster range. Uh the main difference is that the 5070 Ti uh is getting you back into that Nvidia ecosystem with the better frame pacing on its frame generation. There's also better uh multiple options and dynamic frame generation modes. And also the 5070 Ti is good enough at path tracing at 1440p that I think it's actually a very usable experience. Um and so you're kind of starting to get into a new class of experiences now available. Uh whereas I felt like with the 9070 XT, it's pretty much a lot like a 9070 not really opening up a lot of new opportunities. Uh so the 5070Ti isn't great value still as in terms of just performance per dollar at $860 versus the um uh $580 price point. You're spending 48% more money uh to not get anywhere near a 48% performance improvement. Again, that's why I said the 9070 is the best value option for a high-end 1440p build. Uh but if you want to go to like an enthusiast tier product um uh you know if you actually are interested in things like path tracing and you want to try out the Nvidia feature set overall uh this is a better deal than we usually get recently on a 5070 Ti and it does open up those experiences and I think some people would be willing to throw that additional money at the build uh to get that. So, it's certainly not as good of a value performance per dollar as the 9070. Uh, but it does open up some of those new opportunities. So, I think it's worth considering. And specifically, as far as high-end GPUs go, it's the most expensive one that I think makes any sense cuz if we go past the 5070 Ti, um, uh, we go up to cards like the 5080, which are nearly $1,300, and then the 5090 is, uh, coming in at $4,000. So, I mean, the 5090 is an amazing 4K GPU. If you have $4,000 to spend on it, and that's something you can reasonably do financially, cool, do that. It's the ultimate extreme performance GPU. Uh, I think you'll be very happy with it. But I think that's just out of most people's consideration. So, uh, for most people, the 5070 Ti at its current uh, slightly discounted, at least compared to normal price, is the best option because the 5080 still only has 16 GB of VRAM. does not offer any additional features compared to the 5070 Ti. And at $1,260 uh versus $860, um you're spending 47% more money to get about 15% more performance cuz it really is only about 15% more performance, no additional features for gaming, uh and no more VRAM. So, uh, that's where the high-end Nvidia cards really top out in terms of it's actually worth spending potentially worth spending the money on them.
So, summary so far for high-end 1440p gaming with the best value, RX970 at $580. Uh, for enthusiast level 1440p gaming, um, the, uh, 5070 Ti is going to be about where value starts to get really, really diminishing.
So, now let's go into those uh justifications for the um if if you don't have the budget to go with the $580 card. Uh why did I suggest the RX960 XT 16 GB at $420? Um I don't love this card at $420. And like compared to the um the $580 970, it's actually better performance per dollar. You're getting more performance per dollar by getting the $580 9070 compared to the $420 960 XT cuz you're spending 38% more money uh for what actually comes out to be about 50% more performance. Um if you look at the 960 XT 16 GB up against the 970, it is about a 50% performance jump to get that 9070. And like I said, at 38% more money, the 5070, uh, sorry, the 9070, excuse me, is offering actually better performance per dollar. Uh, same amount of VRAM. Uh, but if you just don't have the budget to go to the $580 card, that's why we're now considering the 960 XD 16 GB simply because it still offers enough performance at 1440p and 1080p to be a very good experience. you'll just more more frequently have to turn things down from the maximum graphic settings uh or use a little more aggressive upscaling or use upscaling a little more frequently. Um but it's still overall very good experience um on on uh a 1440p or 1080p display. And with 16 GB of VRAM, you're not having to babysit the graphics settings um compared to the 8 GB cards uh which are really what you'll get if you go any lower in price.
If we look at the current market, uh, that's kind of the problem. So, the 960 XT 6 gigabyte, uh, like I said, comes in at $420 plus, but if we go with the 8 GB version, you only drop to $360. And some of them are even closing in on $400. So, if you save just a little bit more money, you you cut your VRAM in half. And there are a lot of games where you're having to babysit your VRAM on 8 GB cards, and it's just getting more and more and more frequent. you can still do it, but it's annoying to already be kind of outdated when you build your new PC or buy your new GPU upgrade. Those of you who are more focused on uh esports titles rather than AAA single player games though will have less of an issue on the 8 GB cards. Uh so that's something to factor into your decision-making.
And the Nvidia competition is just terribly priced. The 5060Ti 16 gigabyte is a bit faster than the 9060 uh XT uh 16 gigabyte. Uh and it has the better Nvidia feature set, but it's coming in at $555. So it's basically the same price as the 9070. And the 9070 crushes the 5060 Ti 16 GB. Um so that's where that comes in um recommendation-wise.
Now, uh the other option though is to spend even less and drop to the 5060 Ti 8 gigabyte. Um and that's coming in at $370 plus because it's so close in price to the 960 XT 8 GB. Between the two 8 gigabyte cards, the 5060 is a slightly faster card. Gets you the Nvidia feature set. Uh so between the two I would recommend uh the 5060 Ti um 8 GB over the 960 XT 8 GB. Although the 960 XT 8 GB does give you of the full 16 PCIe lane. So when you're spilling over VRAM that can help. I would just say uh stay in your VRAM capacity on the 5060 Ti 8 GB and you'll get a slightly faster card with a slightly better feature set. Uh that's available like I said at $370 right now. Um, and so if you have to drop below $400, this is probably the best option.
Now, why is this the best option below $400 in the new market? Uh, well, because if you drop below this to like the 5060 non-TI, it doesn't save you very much money. It's $340 instead of $370 and it's noticeably faster. So, the 5060 Ti 8 GB is a better deal than the 5060 non-TI. And then the 5050 is still almost $300 and it's just not very fast. Um, if we look at the relative performance here uh on these kinds of cards, if you look at the 5050 uh compared to these other options, uh the 5060 uh Ti 8 GB is almost 50% faster than that 50/50. And the 50/50 is um not even saving you $100 to drop down to that. So, I mean, uh, I don't really recommend the 50/50. And then the 5060 non-TI compared to the 5060 Ti 8 GB. Um, the 5060 Ti 8 GB is about 15% faster, but it's not that much more money to get it. So, I I do think that that's still worth it. uh if you're having to buy in the new market because my honest answer for if you're having to spend less than $400 is that while this video is focused on the new market, I do think that starting to look into your local used market or even buying online from uh various online used markets. Uh you can sometimes get cards like the 3080 10 gigabyte or sometimes even find the 12 GB versions uh which are less common but do exist uh for a little over $300 on a used 3080. And while you're buying a card that's pretty old at this point if you're having to buy around $300 it's getting you more performance and more VRAM so you wouldn't be having to struggle with those 8 gigabyte cards. So, if you see like a card like a 5050 coming in at nearly $300 and then you compare it to a 3080 in terms of overall performance, if we set that 50/50 as the baseline uh and compare it to a 3080, there's a pretty big performance gap. The 3080 uh is actually faster than the 5060 Ti uh uh 8 and 16 GB versions. It's 65% faster than an RTX 5050. Now, it doesn't give you Nvidia's frame generation, although you could still use AMD's frame generation on the um uh Nvidia GPUs. It does still give you access to the newer upscaling models, which take a bit more of a performance hit on the 30 series cards compared to the 50 series cards, but still with this much performance advantage already, uh having to uh do less babysitting of VRAM, I think can be worth it. Although, keep in mind in the used market you are dealing with things like potential scams, out being out of warranty, all those kinds of things. So, that's why my videos generally focus on the new market. Um, but if you're going below $400 in uh in uh the current GPU landscape, you're really kind of uh in a hard place, right?
So, I think I've backed up all of the uh recommendations I made in this video. Hopefully, you found those recommendations useful. And as always, I want to remind you that if you're happy with your current GPU performance, or if upgrading your GPU isn't getting you a significant performance jump, like at least a 50% jump, you might want to consider just hanging on to what you already have. Although, if you're waiting for prices to go down, like I said, the current rumors and uh forecasts from analysts are not for prices to go down anytime soon. for them probably to actually continue to increase uh throughout at least the rest of this year, if not even the following year or two as well. Although nobody can actually for sure predict the future. Who knows? Maybe the whole AI thing goes bust and suddenly everything's discounted. But we can't know for sure that that will happen. And current analysts are predicting prices on anything with RAM in it to go up, not down over the next year or two.
All right, hopefully you guys uh found the video useful and/or interesting. Uh, don't forget to check out that awesome deal on ProtonVPN down below.