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.
I stood in line at Microcenter Thursday morning to get a 9070 XT. I arrived at about 8AM (an hour before they opened), and the line was already wrapped around the side of the building. They let people in slowly after opening (apparently so as not to overwhelm the sales staff), and I got near the front door by about 10. They were handing out vouchers, and they actually still had quite a few left, with almost all the different models available when they got to me. After I got my card and left, I looked back at the store and the line still wrapped around the side of the building.
Frankly, from my perspective, I’d say the availability of cards was “surprisingly good.” It’s just that there was so much pent-up demand, even “surprisingly good” supply wasn’t good enough.
You want to know what the punchline is, though? Not expecting to have much choice in cards, and not having had time to research the differences between the ones made by different board partners, I ended up getting the “Gigabyte Gaming OC” version, which sounded good because it had a slightly higher max clock speed but was still $600. In retrospect, I should’ve gotten the PowerColor “Reaper” version because every other version is too wide to fit in my ITX computer case. [Womp, womp.] So now I have to decide between paying extra to replace a case that I otherwise like, or try to hope the cards actually do get restocked in a timely fashion (and still at MSRP) so I can attempt an exchange? I guess the moral of the story is, even if you “win” it’s still a fucking pain in the ass.
The last card I bought was a Radeon Vega 56, also on launch day (7.5 years ago!) and I was also damn lucky to get it. I cannot believe that the GPU market has been continuously fucked up since then!
Well if you are getting a new case, and are into modding, I adore my fractal design node 202. It’s tiny, fits a 420W 3090, and you can duct the cpu/gpu to its vents with like $5 of foam strips. I have no case fans, yet the cpu/gpu idle with their fans off and barely spin up because they only suck in outside air.
The newer fractal ridge is a bit bigger, but should work much better with no modding since it’s more “open”
Won’t fit. That case supports GPUs up to 310x145x47 mm, but the one I just bought is 288x132x56 mm. It’s that extra width beyond “2 slots” that’s the killer, both for your suggestion and my existing case.
fractal ridge
That one does fit the new GPU, but did I mention that I’m also still using a 3.5" drive and a full-size ATX PSU?
What I really want is something that has a layout similar to my old case, but literally just maybe half a centimeter wider:
The Silverstone Sugo SG09 and SG10 were awesome if you can find them. A bit bigger, but they support full PSUs, with the option for cheaper micro atx mobos. Cooling is good too.
I’ll probably end up with a cheap Cooler Master Q300L, or maybe one of those Fractal Design tower cases with the walnut strips on the front if I decide to spring for it.
The main thing is, though, that I didn’t want to have to buy a new case at all. I’m annoyed at having bought the wrong card because of the urgency of the situation and then not being able to easily fix my mistake.
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.
I stood in line at Microcenter Thursday morning to get a 9070 XT. I arrived at about 8AM (an hour before they opened), and the line was already wrapped around the side of the building. They let people in slowly after opening (apparently so as not to overwhelm the sales staff), and I got near the front door by about 10. They were handing out vouchers, and they actually still had quite a few left, with almost all the different models available when they got to me. After I got my card and left, I looked back at the store and the line still wrapped around the side of the building.
Frankly, from my perspective, I’d say the availability of cards was “surprisingly good.” It’s just that there was so much pent-up demand, even “surprisingly good” supply wasn’t good enough.
You want to know what the punchline is, though? Not expecting to have much choice in cards, and not having had time to research the differences between the ones made by different board partners, I ended up getting the “Gigabyte Gaming OC” version, which sounded good because it had a slightly higher max clock speed but was still $600. In retrospect, I should’ve gotten the PowerColor “Reaper” version because every other version is too wide to fit in my ITX computer case. [Womp, womp.] So now I have to decide between paying extra to replace a case that I otherwise like, or try to hope the cards actually do get restocked in a timely fashion (and still at MSRP) so I can attempt an exchange? I guess the moral of the story is, even if you “win” it’s still a fucking pain in the ass.
The last card I bought was a Radeon Vega 56, also on launch day (7.5 years ago!) and I was also damn lucky to get it. I cannot believe that the GPU market has been continuously fucked up since then!
Well if you are getting a new case, and are into modding, I adore my fractal design node 202. It’s tiny, fits a 420W 3090, and you can duct the cpu/gpu to its vents with like $5 of foam strips. I have no case fans, yet the cpu/gpu idle with their fans off and barely spin up because they only suck in outside air.
The newer fractal ridge is a bit bigger, but should work much better with no modding since it’s more “open”
Won’t fit. That case supports GPUs up to 310x145x47 mm, but the one I just bought is 288x132x56 mm. It’s that extra width beyond “2 slots” that’s the killer, both for your suggestion and my existing case.
That one does fit the new GPU, but did I mention that I’m also still using a 3.5" drive and a full-size ATX PSU?
What I really want is something that has a layout similar to my old case, but literally just maybe half a centimeter wider:
The Silverstone Sugo SG09 and SG10 were awesome if you can find them. A bit bigger, but they support full PSUs, with the option for cheaper micro atx mobos. Cooling is good too.
Also, the node 202 width restriction is a bit conservative, it fits my much larger/thicker ftw3: https://www.evga.com/products/specs/gpu.aspx?pn=E2763314-163F-4391-8935-EA2C5DFFD06B
But like you said, no full sized psu.
I’ll probably end up with a cheap Cooler Master Q300L, or maybe one of those Fractal Design tower cases with the walnut strips on the front if I decide to spring for it.
The main thing is, though, that I didn’t want to have to buy a new case at all. I’m annoyed at having bought the wrong card because of the urgency of the situation and then not being able to easily fix my mistake.
I mean this in the most polite way possible, but why did you need a new GPU so quickly? Did the old one conk out?
Maybe I’m lucky, but no used GPU I bought has ever died. Ironically, only a new 6850 I had ages ago was kinda funky.
7.5 years is “quickly?!” I’m replacing a Vega 56 from 2017!
If you mean why did I have to buy it on launch day, that’s obviously because that was my best shot of getting one at MSRP, or at all.
Then don’t buy on launch day? It pretty much always sucks, better just to go back a generation.
Again, not trying to be disrespectful, but launch GPUs just seem super unappealing to me.
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.