Don't Waste Your Money - These Graphics Cards Have The Worst Price-To-Performance Ratio

Picking from among the best graphics cards is no easy feat right now. As a PC hardware journalist and PC builder with nearly 20 years of experience, I always keep a watchful eye on the GPU market, and let me tell you: It's not easy out there. The latest GPUs often sell for far above their recommended list prices (MSRP), throwing one of the most important GPU-related metrics for a loop. I'm talking about price-to-performance, often referred to as performance-per-dollar.

When looking at graphics cards, and especially when reading reviews, it's easy to focus on just raw performance. Specs like cores, frequency, or video memory (VRAM) all determine the power of your GPU, and they directly translate to frame rates. The problem is that two GPUs with the same fps (frames per second) aren't necessarily equal. Outside of some variations in performance, we also have to account for the price.

Even the most powerful graphics cards, if overpriced, can be poor value. That doesn't necessarily make them bad GPUs; many are still fantastic. All it means is that their price and performance don't quite match up. Value is highly subjective, of course, but data can help us determine which GPUs are lagging in that regard.

With that in mind, which GPUs have the worst price-to-performance ratio? I'll walk you through some of them below. To support my claims, I'll be using data from the PassMark Videocard Value Chart and a cost-per-frame comparison released by the YouTube channel Hardware Unboxed.

Nvidia's RTX 5090 and RTX 5080, along with the RTX 5070 Ti, all perform well in benchmarks and beat their previous-gen siblings. However, the price tags they launched unveiled with ($1,999, $999, and $749) are now largely a thing of the past. A quick peek at Amazon shows that the RTX 5090 starts above $3,100, followed by over $1,300 for the RTX 5080, and over $900 for the RTX 5070 Ti. Like I said, it's rough out there, and data from PassMark and Hardware Unboxed reflects that.

PassMark's price-to-performance chart, based on benchmark results and current pricing pulled directly from retailers, chooses the RTX 5080 as one of the worst recent GPUs here. Apart from one AMD outlier, the RTX 5080 is the worst GPU from the last two generations, scoring 26.2 compared to the winner's 75.8. Although its PassMark score is impressive (36,100), it also retails for $1,378 on average according to the website. If we focus on the current generation, the next-worst card is the RTX 5070 Ti, scoring 36.5 points in PassMark's price-to-performance index. 

The RTX 5070 fares considerably better, but it's still not in a great position, scoring 47.9. Meanwhile, the data collected by Hardware Unboxed agrees with this, but only to an extent: The RTX 5070 Ti is the second-worst value GPU, while the RTX 5080 wasn't listed. The RTX 5070 does a lot better here, though, ranking third in terms of cost-per-frame. The RTX 5090 didn't feature in either chart.

AMD's RX 9070 XT received largely positive reviews from many publications. The AMD RX 9070 XT performed similarly to the Nvidia RTX 5070 Ti, but launched with a much tamer price tag of $599. Unfortunately, price increases have hit the RX 9070 XT and its non-XT variant hard, and its price-to-performance ratio turned out a lot worse within weeks of launch.

If we only look at recent generations (RX 9000 and RX 7000), the AMD GPU with the worst performance-per-dollar is the RX 7900 XTX, the last generation flagship. With a score of 24.2, it's just slightly worse than the RTX 5080 in that metric. Coming up next is the RX 9070 XT, with a score of 31.3. The RX 7900 XTX scores more points in the benchmark, but it's also more expensive (PassMark lists it at $1,289), which affects the ratio. 

The Radeon RX 9700 is a slightly better value than the XT version, scoring 36.7 on the PassMark chart. The best-value AMD GPU on the chart is from two generations ago, and it's the humble RX 6600. Hardware Unboxed doesn't offer data for the RX 9070 XT, but the RX 9070 lands around the middle of the pack. It outperforms many of the cards around it (such as the Intel Arc B580 or the AMD Radeon RX 6600), but it's also pricey.

It's important to note — once again — that these GPUs aren't inherently bad. They are some of the best ones we have right now. Unfortunately, price fluctuations mean their price-to-performance ratio is worse than expected, making it a good idea to wait if you're planning to buy a GPU.