Idiotic tariffs, indifferent retailers, depraved flippers and AI mania are making the simple act of buying a graphics card the defining misery of PC gaming in 2025.
No, you’ve got that backwards. Standing in line at a brick-and-mortar store on launch day is the best strategy to reliably get a card at MSRP. Otherwise, you’re either having to constantly keep checking for months on end to snag a card during the brief windows when it’s in stock, or pay way over MSRP for the privilege of easy availability, or deal with all the risk and complexity associated with Craigslist/eBay sales of used stuff.
No, you’ve got that backwards. Standing in line at a brick-and-mortar store on launch day is the best strategy to reliably get a card at MSRP. Otherwise, you’re either having to constantly keep checking for months on end to snag a card during the brief windows when it’s in stock, or pay way over MSRP for the privilege of easy availability, or deal with all the risk and complexity associated with Craigslist/eBay sales of used stuff.
Also, in this particular case, (a) a $600 9070 XT is a much better value than a $700+ 7900 XT with similar performance, and (b) this generation has tangible feature improvements (namely, decent ray tracing) that you just can’t get at all going back a generation. Edit: and oh yeah, © there’s also the imminent threat of Trump tariffs inflating the price 25% if you don’t buy pretty much immediately.