How to find an affordable GPU during the great RAMageddon of 2026

If you're thinking about upgrading to a new graphics card this year, your window for doing so at MSRP has closed. When I first reported on this at the start of December, things were looking bleak but you could still find GPUs from both AMD and NVIDIA at close to their recommended prices. That changed last week when YouTube channel Hardware Unboxed reported that ASUS had stopped producing the RTX 5070 Ti and 5060 Ti 16GB due to ongoing memory shortages.

After Engadget published the news, NVIDIA disputed the report. “Demand for GeForce RTX GPUs is strong, and memory supply is constrained. We continue to ship all GeForce SKUs and are working closely with our suppliers to maximize memory availability,” a company spokesperson told us.

The next day, ASUS walked ...