Average Cost of a Graphics Card

The graphics card, or video card, is one of the most crucial components of a gaming PC. When it comes to build a PC, you have to balance a delicate budget along with the multitude of other components such as your motherboard, CPU and RAM. Understanding the price of graphics card and what you can get at each price point will be important when setting your budget. In this guide we walk you through the average cost of a graphics card.

How Much Does a Graphics Card Cost? : $220.90

Our “Get the Cost” bot found the average price on Amazon for a graphics card is $220.90.  Quite a bit goes into that average number however. Graphics cards may have one of the biggest price range of any type of electronic product. You can find a graphics card for as cheap as $70 or as expensive as $1,000.

As with anything, it all really comes down to what you need out of your graphics card and gaming PC overall. For most of you reading this, you are not going to want to cheap out on a video card, which means spending less than $100. On the other hand, most reading this will likely not need to shell out more than $600 to have a high quality card which can satisfy 99% of your gaming needs.

Average Cost of a Graphics Card by Brand:

A common misconception when it comes to graphics cards stems from who creates and distributes the cards. NVIDIA is the leading company which manufactures and creates the technology behind video cards while brands like MSI, EVGA, Gigabyte, XFX and ASUS create the actual cards that get distributed. Each brand offers the same model of graphics card, which is usually the GTX Geforce by NVIDIA. There are slight price differentiations between the different brands however. Our analysis found that EVGA cards tend to be costlier, costing upwards of $800 for the latest RTX 2080 (discussed more below). Gigabyte on the other hand tends to be a cheaper option.

Average Cost of Graphics Card by Model:

In 2019, the most popular and commonly used graphic cards are range from the GTX 1050 to the GTX 1080, with the most recently released RTX 2080 starting to encroach on the market share. The higher the model the number the more expensive the video card is going to be.

We personally do not think any average gamer is going to need to spend nearly $1,000 on a RTX 2080. The pinnacle of video cards should only be reserved for those planning on many hours of gaming per week, stream online via Twitch and Youtube or plan to compete in esports tournaments. A hobbyist who strives for perfection should be more than satisfied with a 1070 or 1080. Those just looking to break into PC gaming and want to be able to play modern games should be more than content with a 1050 or 1060.  

Average Cost of External Graphics Cards for Laptops

The average cost of an eGPU is roughly $350.80 – not including the cost of the graphics card itself which you need to buy separately and put in the external GPU. Though that price tag may seem high, there are numerous, quality models available which cost around $200. For those looking to hook up the latest model of graphics card, you will need to spend more on your eGPU. For example, the Gigabye Aorus, which is capable of running RTX 2070 level graphics, will run you over $600.