GPU Price vs. 1440p Gaming Performance

About This Chart

Data Visualization Method

• Data: Each point pairs one GPU's current US street price with its 1440p gaming performance from a published benchmark suite. Both values are used as published; no prices or frame rates were estimated.
• Benchmark conditions: 2560×1440 native resolution, rasterization only, with no upscaling and no frame generation. The FPS value is the geometric mean of 11 games, each run at its own high or ultra preset on a Ryzen 7 9800X3D test system. The benchmarks are dated June 24, 2026.
• Price snapshot: US street prices captured on October 5, 2026. For 13 models, prices reflect the lowest available listing from a reputable US retailer; the RTX 5090 uses a median street price reported separately. These are not launch MSRPs.
• Selection: 14 current-generation desktop GPUs: seven from NVIDIA (RTX 50 series), five from AMD (RX 9000 series) and two from Intel (Arc B series). The RTX 5050 was left out for legibility: at $310 and 45.2 FPS, its point would sit among the two Intel cards and overlap their labels. Mobile, workstation and unreleased GPUs were also excluded.
• Chart form: A static scatter plot. The horizontal axis is street price in US dollars and the vertical axis is average FPS at 1440p. Color marks the manufacturer. Points toward the upper left deliver more raster performance for their current price; points toward the lower right deliver less.

Creator's Note

GPU comparisons are usually anchored to launch prices, but buyers pay whatever the market asks on the day they buy. This chart places current US street prices against 1440p raster performance to show how much gaming performance a given budget buys right now.

In this snapshot, the RX 9070 XT and the RTX 5070 Ti sit at almost the same height, 116.5 and 116.8 FPS, while their street prices are about $390 apart. Several AMD cards occupy relatively favorable positions here, but that is a reading of one market moment, not a general rule about either manufacturer.

The chart is a market snapshot rather than a ranking of GPU quality. What it leaves open is how long any of these positions will hold once prices move again.

Data Sources

• Tom's Hardware, GPU Benchmarks Hierarchy — 1440p raster FPS for all 14 GPUs
• PC Gamer, Graphics Card Price Watch — lowest available US listings for 13 GPUs
• Tom's Hardware, Best GPUs — median US street price for the RTX 5090

Limitations

Prices are a single snapshot of the US market on October 5, 2026. Street prices shift with stock levels, retailer, promotions and supply, so a later purchase price may differ. Prices in other countries follow different taxes, distribution and supply conditions and should not be read from this chart.

Prices come from two outlets rather than one uniform retailer sweep, and they follow slightly different rules: the lowest available listing for 13 models and a median street price for the RTX 5090. A lowest listing can also reflect a single retailer's short-lived deal, so small price gaps between neighboring cards should not be over-read. Performance and price were also recorded about three months apart, and driver updates released after June 2026 are not reflected in the frame rates.

The FPS figure is a geometric mean of 11 games on one test system. Individual games can reorder these cards, and a different CPU or platform can produce different numbers. The chart is an independent visualization built from published results; it does not reproduce the source tables or database.

What This Chart Doesn't Show

The vertical axis measures raster frame rates at 1440p only. Ray tracing, DLSS and FSR upscaling, frame generation, content creation, AI and compute workloads, power efficiency and driver compatibility are all outside its scope.

Memory capacity is also invisible in an average frame rate. The two RTX 5060 Ti models differ by about 5 FPS here but by nearly $300 in street price; the chart cannot show the games or settings where the extra 8GB of VRAM matters.

A street price is not an official price, and an upper-left position does not make a card the best choice for every buyer. The RTX 5090's price also stretches the horizontal axis, which compresses the visual spacing between cards under $1,000.