5 reasons why you can safely skip Nvidia and AMD’s latest graphics cards

It’s a great time to be a PC gamer.

Both AMD and Nvidia have brought out the big guns this graphical generation with their Pascal and Polaris chips, and we can say with certainty they are awesome graphics cards.

But do we really need one right now?

These are five reasons why you can safely skip Nvidia and AMD’s latest graphics cards:

Pricing

It’s no secret that PC hardware has become increasingly expensive.

With the low-end Radeon RX 460 setting you back around R2,000, there’s no denying that these cards are a serious investment.

It doesn’t help that the Rand has weakened considerably since the last graphics generation, driving local prices higher.

Add to this the fact that the previous generation of cards’ pricing has just dropped through the floor and we can think of a couple of thousand reasons to hold off on this generation, not just five.

There’s better coming

As with every graphics card generation (and PC gaming as a whole), there will always be better cards on the horizon.

With AMD already planning to announce its new Vega cards as early as January 2017, it might actually be a smart approach to adopt a “wait and see” attitude.

Nvidia’s Volta cards will also supposedly follow not long after, with the first arriving some time around May 2017.

The old cards are still pretty good

Those of you who own a Geforce GTX 960/970/980 can attest that the cards are still incredible value for money.

If you are a gamer who’s already invested in a graphics card in the last two years (and maybe three at a stretch), there’s no shame in holding out a little while longer.

As mentioned in the above pricing segment, the previous generation of cards are now also available at a much more affordable rate, making them a genuine consideration for anyone looking to upgrade.

They still can’t play every game in 4K at 60 FPS

There’s no denying that the latest cards are graphical powerhouses and the longstanding benchmark of 1080p at 60 frames-per-second has long been blown out of the water.

However even Nvidia’s powerhouses have disappointed in giving us a consistent 6o frames-per-second in 4K titles.

The good news is next year’s cards will likely be the first to hit this benchmark consistently.

The bad news is that it’s probably wise to hold off if this is a standard you truly care about.

New Consoles

“But wait, this is an article about PC graphics cards and consoles suck and long-live PC Master Race…”

Hear me out – this is actually the best time to get into console gaming, with two new consoles on the horizon and a healthy catalogue of games to play them on.

You can finally check out all those console exclusives you wanted to, and chances are you can pick up a brand new PS4 or Xbox One for less than the price of a GTX 1070.