Jacob Fox, hardware writer
This week I have been: Trying out a new mouse that I’m really enjoying but can’t talk about yet 🤐Welcome to your daily dose of doomcore, and no, I’m not talking about that peculiar musical genre. I’m talking about the state of the PC gaming market. I don’t want to be too negative, Nelly, but things aren’t looking very good out there. You probably didn’t need me to tell you that, but since I’ve been tracking the best gaming PC deals week after week for the past few years, I thought I’d share some specific and bleak context.
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PC Gaming Market in 2026: A Bleak Outlook
Last September I highlighted an RTX 5060 Ti system priced at $1,000. Today the cheapest comparable rig costs about $1,200 at Newegg, and it still uses DDR4 memory instead of the faster DDR5. At the high end, the RTX 5070 Ti with a Ryzen 7 7800X3D, 32 GB DDR5 and 2 TB storage was listed for $1,900 back then. Now finding a similar configuration is difficult; the GPU is scarce and prices have climbed, with a comparable build now listed for $2,400 on Newegg or $2,099 at Walmart if you accept an RX 9070 XT.
An RTX 5070 Ti gaming PC listed at a pre-memory shortage price at Best Buy last October.
And now? I think you know the deal. The market is feeling the squeeze of a global memory shortage. System builders and manufacturers are raising prices to cover higher memory and storage costs, and GPU prices have followed suit. While a $1,500 RTX 5070 or a $1,200 RTX 5060 Ti once seemed like a bargain, they are now considered modest deals in this inflated market. Prospective gamers should adjust their expectations, as reasonable pricing appears to be a thing of the past.
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Lowest price per GPU
The lowest available prices for current generation GPUs have risen steadily since mid‑2025. The RTX 5080 now averages around $1,200, up from roughly $1,000 a year earlier. The RTX 5060 Ti 16 GB has moved from about $430 to just over $500, while the RTX 5060 sits near $300. AMD’s RX 9070 XT and other mid‑range cards have also climbed, often surpassing $600. This trend reflects ongoing supply constraints and the continued demand from AI‑driven workloads that hoard silicon.
Happy 2026 everyone. All our current recommendations
