Don't Buy a Graphics Card for More than $500 Right Now [tomshardware.com]

salian · Sep 12, 2022

If you're looking for a new, high-end graphics card that costs more than $500, hold your purchase.
Today's top cards — anything RTX 3070 or above — are likely to be displaced by faster models within the next two or three months.
Nvidia is expected to reveal the RTX 4090 at the very least on September 20. We could be looking at far more than a 50% improvement over the current fastest GPUs.
Even if the prices on the next-generation GPUs end up being more than you're willing to spend, the glut of current generation graphics cards in warehouses should lead to lower prices on existing cards.
Worst-case, you wait a month or two and end up saving a few bucks. Best-case, you end up with a 50% or more increase in performance without spending anything extra.

Potential Upcoming GPU Specifications Compared

Graphics Card	RTX 4090	RTX 3090 Ti	RX 7900 XT	RX 6950 XT	Arc A770
Architecture	AD102	GA102	Navi 31	Navi 21	ACM-G10
Process Technology	TSMC 4N	Samsung 8N	TSMC N5 + N6	TSMC N7	TSMC N6
Transistors (Billion)	?	28.3	?	26.8	21.7
Die size (mm^2)	?	628.4	308 + 228	519	406
SMs / CUs / Xe-Cores	128?	84	92?	80	32
GPU Shaders	16384?	10752	11776?	5120	4096
Tensor/XMX Units	512?	336	—?	—	512
Ray Tracing Units	128?	84	92?	80	32
Boost Clock (MHz)	2000?	1860	2500?	2310	2100
VRAM Speed (Gbps)	24?	21	18?	18	17.5
VRAM (GB)	24	24	24	16	16/8
VRAM Bus Width	384	384	384	256	256
Last Level Cache (MB)	96	6	192 / 96	128	16
ROPs	192?	112	192?	128	128
TMUs	512?	336	368?	320	256
TFLOPS FP32	65.5?	40.0	58.9?	23.7	17.2
TFLOPS FP16	262 (524)?	160 (320)	117.8?	47.4	138
Bandwidth (GBps)	1152?	1008	864?	576	560
TDP (watts)	450?	450	400?	335	225
Launch Date	Oct 2022?	Mar 2022	Nov 2022?	May 2022	Sep 2022?
Launch Price	$1,999?	$1,999	$1,499?	$1,099	$399?