Any PC gamer who doesn't have an unlimited amount of wealth will know the struggle of buying a graphics card in today's market. With shortages and scalpers hiking up the prices of both AMD and Nvidia cards alike, many are deciding to simply skip this generation of cards and see if they can keep an old GTX 980 running any longer. Lately, things have been getting slightly better for the market, as some GPUs are now only 12% above their MSRP, while other graphics cards are even being put on sale.Also, it seems that AMD is seeking to help those that don't have the budget for cards that can still be priced at well over $1000. The computing company has quietly launched a brand new card for entry-level machines recently. At a recommended price point of $159, the Radeon RX 6400 won't be running the latest games at 4K 120fps with ray tracing. However, it does appear to be an affordable and decent gaming card for any gamer looking to build an entry-level PC.This marks the second graphics card AMD has shown off this year so far, with the RX 6500 XT being unveiled in January. The RX 6400 shares some similar features to the RX 6500 XT, which is marked as a competitor to Nvidia's 3050 card. Both entry-level cards include a 6nm Navi 24 GPU. However, the RX 6400 is not touted as being as powerful as its 6500 XT counterpart. The RX 6400 is still marked as being a competitor to the GTX 1650 while using less power, meaning a PC containing it won't need as powerful of a PSU.
For playing games like CS:GO, Overwatch, and some other older titles, the RX 6400 will likely be a well performing card. There is the potential issue of bottlenecking with the 6400, especially when it is placed into older PCIe 2.0 systems. As the card will likely be used as a replacement for an obsolete or dead GPU in an older machine, this is something to watch out for. Currently, some PC gamers believe that the price point is slightly too high. Although with scalpers and miners having no reason to bulk buy this card, the price could fall rather quickly. As mentioned, the prices of other GPUs have been steadily falling as well, meaning that any gamer looking to upgrade their machine may find now to be a good time to do so.
Any gamer looking to strike a major deal on an RTX 30 series or Radeon 6000 card may want to wait a little while longer. If the predictions are to be believed, both major graphics card producers will have a new series of graphics cards releasing in 2022. When these will be announced is unknown, but it could see the price of current-gen graphics cards plummet even more.