Nvidia graphics cards, with their performance and durability, are truly at the peak of success even today, providing a huge benefit to the gaming and rendering industries with the help of the latest technologies. However, graphics card prices remain a pressing issue year after year, as they continue to rise. There are many reasons for this; in 2026, the growing dynamics of AI technologies have increased the demand for memory modules, which naturally affected graphics card prices. But it hasn't become more expensive solely because of this. Due to their popularity, Nvidia is actively raising the prices of its cards, thereby securing larger profits.
Because of these price hikes, buying a video card has become the most expensive and proportionally largest part of building a budget PC today. That is why many users, including myself, prefer the secondary market. Along with the risks, you can find high-quality branded video cards at a more acceptable price, as well as older models for less. One such card is the Asus version of the GTX 970, which I bought a few years ago. Today, I want to test its performance with you and show you the actual FPS results.
This video card is definitely outdated, and its performance falls far short of modern gaming demands. But let's say we need a card at a very low price just to play a few simple games—then it is definitely worth considering. Comparing today's prices, for the price of a 970, you can buy an RX 580, but the 4GB version. If you find a GTX 1060 with 6GB of memory, preference naturally goes to it, because it has more VRAM, which you'll agree is a huge plus given how demanding modern games are. The 970 I have is the Asus TUF version, and its price for today's budget is amazingly low at $30-$40. Even though its competitor, the RX 580, is the same price, I advise choosing the 970 only if the RX 580 is the 4GB model. A newer model with performance similar to the 970 is the GTX 1650, but its price is often double.
Despite this low price, let's take FIFA 26 as an example of a brand-new game, which we will test on normal graphics at Full HD resolution. You will see in the screenshots that the framerate averages around 40-50 FPS at the beginning of the game and during cutscenes, but during actual gameplay, it holds a stable 60 frames per second. Despite its age, this graphics card still manages to comfortably run this latest game. I can say the same for the 2018 Marvel's Spider-Man. You can play it on medium graphics at 60 FPS in the open-world city sections, and even higher indoors; as shown in the footage, the graphics card is not even fully maxed out.
The article on building this PC combo is already on our website, and you can view it here. If you still have a lot of games to play that came out between 2015 and 2020, buying this card for a budget setup is an excellent choice, which is exactly why I still have it. With the 970, you can easily play Forza, Need for Speed, GTA 5, Red Dead Redemption, and as you can see, the latest FIFA, which still gives this card a valid reason to be used today. However, if your main goal is to play the absolute newest titles, the vast majority of them already struggle even on a 1070 or 1080, demanding RTX technologies and much more memory.
And that is exactly why the prices of the newest cards are disastrously high. But is the latest gaming library diverse enough to justify this? Considering that GTA 6 is not coming out on PC yet and hasn't even been announced for it, and that Sony might no longer release its exclusives on PC in the future, we can say that upgrading to the newest card and spending huge amounts of money is simply not worth it for casual gaming.