3 reasons why I regret my new GPU purchase

There are few things more exciting to a PC hardware enthusiast than a shiny new GPU. Once every 4 or 5 years, the time comes when it’s time to replace my current GPU. Games get more demanding, and just by the nature of my job, it’s important I stay somewhat on the cutting edge. I want to be “up to date” as it were. But after the sheen of the new card wears off, and I’ve benchmarked all my games, it’s hard not to feel a little twinge of buyers’ remorse.

Just to be clear: I don’t feel a sense of immense regret to the point where I feel the need to resell it and throw my old GPU in my system. I’m happy with my purchase, as it also allowed me to free up a GPU for a system elsewhere in the house that needed one, but I’m not completely without regrets, either. These 3 things continue to float around in the back of my mind when I’m reminded of my last big GPU purchase.

3

Prices are still high

Definitely could’ve waited a bit longer

Buying a GPU in 2025 usually means overpaying at least a little bit over MSRP, but I paid a pretty hefty premium for my RX 9070 XT—just a touch over $1100 CAD. That’s just over $800 USD at the time of purchase, which, for the RX 9070 XT, is $200 over what was supposed to be the MSRP price.

To be fair to AMD, I did buy what was probably the highest-end model available. The Sapphire NITRO+ card has all the bells and whistles, which is exactly what I wanted. I have no complaints about the card and its functionality, as it runs extremely quiet and cool even under full load, but was it really worth $200 over what was supposed to be the starting price for these GPUs? I’m not so sure.

I think I could’ve gotten away with waiting awhile longer before buying a new card, not just because my old card was mostly fine (we’ll get there), but also because new cards still have the potential to come down in price. The RX 9070 XT specifically may not have much potential to come down in price, besides a mandated price from AMD, but it seems like the true price of these cards really is around $700-800 USD. It’s a far worse deal than the original $600, but as far as other cards go, the story is a lot different. While the RX 9060 XT is a cut below what I was looking for, price seems to be pretty true to MSRP, and specifically on the Green Team side of things, the RTX 50 series continues to drop in price precipitously as stock improves.

Could I have bought the Sapphire NITRO+ RX 9070 XT at a lower price? It’s unlikely, but I definitely could’ve found a different GPU with similar performance for a better price if I had been a bit more patient. I was pretty mentally locked into going with the Red Team for this generation, and I wasn’t going to be getting anything less than an RX 9070 XT though.

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2

Not much noticeable performance gain over my old card

It’ll be awhile before I can truly reap the benefits

There isn’t a huge variety in the games I play. It’s typically extraction shooters like Escape from Tarkov or tactical FPS titles like Counter-Strike 2, neither of which are greatly taxing on the GPU side of things. Still, when I do dabble in the occasional game outside those two, I want it to run well. I don’t like having to toy around with settings to squeeze out more frames, I like being able to set things to high and forget them.

My old RTX 3080 was still going mighty strong, even with recent releases. I didn’t play them all that often, but when I did, it ran most things quite well. If it didn’t, DLSS managed to do some of the lifting to make things playable. The RX 9070 XT is a pretty big upgrade from the RTX 3080, and I have seen significant performance increases in some titles, but overall, for my general day-to-day gaming and computing, I could’ve comfortably stuck with my RTX 3080 for at least another 6 months to 1 year. This upgrade might not be super noticeable right now, but in 1–2 years, the 16 GB of VRAM and extra horsepower will certainly come in handy.

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1

My monitor isn’t doing it justice

1440p is great, but I still have a lot of headroom

If you asked me about 4K gaming at any point in the last 5 years, I’d have the same exact perspective on it that I always have. GPUs have advertised 4K gaming capabilities since the GTX 10 series, which, at this point, was a long time ago. It’s always been a couple of years away, but now, in 2025, it really does seem feasible with the hardware that’s currently available. 4K-capable GPUs are not out of reach for as many people as they once were, and that includes me. The RX 9070 XT is fully capable at 4K, but there’s a problem: I don’t own a 4K display.

My 27-inch 1440p 180Hz Acer display has done me incredibly well over the last 2 years or so, and coming from a 24-inch 240hz display, the difference in visual fidelity was much more noticeable than the 60 extra hertz I was missing out on. That being said, my new display isn’t pushing this card to its limit by any means. My RTX 3080 could drive this display just fine, but at least now it’s no longer the limiting factor in a display upgrade. I could go with a 4K panel with a high refresh-rate and not have any issues with any of the games I play.

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I was going to upgrade anyway at some point

Really, all I was missing out on by waiting for an upgrade is a better price. I was always planning on swapping over to the Red Team, but I won’t be missing out on any better GPUs as AMD doesn’t seem terribly keen on re-entering the high-end GPU market, at least not any time soon. I’m overall satisfied with my purchase, but I do have a little bit of regret in not waiting a little bit longer.