To make things easier, we’ve rounded up the cheapest examples of every Nvidia 30-series graphics card sold in the UK, from the entry-level RTX 3050 to the previous flagship, the RTX 3090 Ti. This way, you can get a sense of the market and weigh up your options, and if you do decide to upgrade, grab a good deal too. (And we’ll be back to do the same for AMD’s RX 6000 graphics cards in a separate article later!) First, here’s a table with all the essential information - the cheapest version of each GPU, how much it costs and where to find it:
Cheapest RTX 3090 Ti: Zotac 24GB AMP Extreme Holo (£1049.99, Scan)
Zotac is one of the best value GPU makers, even right up to the tippy top of the RTX 30-series of cards, and that’s certainly evident with this being the cheapest RTX 3090 Ti right now over at Scan. It’s a good looking card with a dual fan setup and a fetching grey, blue and magenta shroud, while it also goes without saying how insanely powerful the 3090 Ti is, especially with its 24GB of VRAM. This RTX 3080 Ti at £819.99 is a good-looking model from PNY, with a robust triple-fan cooling solution, RGB lighting and a boost clock of 1665MHz. Altogether, a great deal for a card that nips at the heels of the RTX 3090.
Cheapest RTX 3080 (12GB): PNY GeForce RTX 3080 Revel Triple Fan LHR (£758.99, Overclockers)
The cheapest RTX 3080 (12GB) we could find is this PNY candidate from Overclockers for £758.99. It’s one of the more vibrant GPUs on this list by way of its clean RGB lighting, which is nicely offset by the grey and black shroud. Note that the 12GB version of the 3080 is actually a bit faster than the 10GB original, as this variant includes more CUDA cores and therefore better compute performance, as well as a little extra memory bandwidth to go along with the higher VRAM count.
Cheapest RTX 3080 (10GB): Palit GeForce RTX 3080 Game Rock 10GB LHR (£718.49, Box)
If it’s more of a standard RTX 3080 you’re after and you want to save a little more money, this Palit RTX 3080 10GB is £718.49 at Box at the moment. These Palit cards have always had, well, intriguing styling that isn’t like any other cards, and the 3080 on show here is no different. It provides this blue to green tint, which almost gives it an under-the-sea-type look, although if you don’t like it, ths Palit card comes with configurable aRGB lighting. Outside of the odd default RGB, it’s still a powerful RTX 3080 10GB which should be more than powerful enough for most people.
Cheapest RTX 3070 Ti : Zotac GeForce RTX 3070 Ti Trinity (£629.99, Scan)
Apart from sporadically available Founders Edition cards, the Zotac RTX 3070 Ti Trinity is the cheapest RTX 3070 Ti model available, costing £629.99 over at Scan. This triple-fan design offers good thermals and an RGB-illuminated logo. Alongside the similarly-priced RTX 3070, this is a great choice for gaming up to 4K, at a fraction of the price of higher tier models.
Cheapest RTX 3070 : Zotac GeForce RTX 3070 Twin Edge LHR (£519.99, Ebuyer)
The Zotac party continues with an RTX 3070 from Ebuyer for £519.99, the cheapest we could find on our hunting around. This card offers a dual fan setup with a relatively small shroud, and looks to be a smaller option than a lot of the triple-fanned GPUs above, and hopefully, it should bbe able to fit in your system no problem at all. The fact it also offers a clean grey look to it means it also provides a certain minimalistic quality and should blend in well if you’re going for a darker looking system.
Cheapest RTX 3060 Ti: Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 Ti Founders Edition (£369.00, Scan)
Another Founders Edition card that beats off the third-party competition is the Nvidia RTX 3060 Ti FE, available for a scant £369 at Scan. That’s an excellent price for the level of performance you’re getting here, with a card that delivers good results at 1440p and can even stretch to 4K. As before, this is a dual-fan card with a compact, well-built chassis.
Cheapest RTX 3060: Asus Phoenix GeForce RTX 3060 12GB V2 (£339.99, Box)
This Asus Phoenix RTX 3060 card is a compact model that should easily fit in smaller cases, making it a great universal choice. It costs £329.99 from Box, or the same from Scan.
Cheapest RTX 3050: MSI GeForce RTX 3050 8GB Ventus (£269.99, Ebuyer)
Just one more card to go folks, and it’s the cheapest of the lot! This low-cost MSI Ventus RTX 3050 is available to grab from Ebuyer for £269.99, and it carries similar styling to the other Ventus cards further up the chain with a black and silver shrod that looks rather stylish, as well as also being a rather handy choice for 1080p gaming in a more general sense too, as a 3050. Well, there you have it - the cheapest RTX 30-series cards we can find at the time of writing this article. If RTX 4000 is too expensive - and we expect it will be for most people! - then perhaps one of the graphics cards we’ve highlighted above is just right for you. Stay tuned to @dealsfoundry on Twitter for more PC deals as we find them, and to Eurogamer for our follow-up to this article where we look at the most affordable AMD Radeon RX 6000-series GPUs, from the RX 6400 all the way up to the RX 6950 XT. Find something cheaper? Let us know in the comments below or reach out on Twitter!
