GPU Value Index: dollars per frame
Every current-generation GPU we track, ranked by what a frame actually costs you: real street price divided by estimated FPS at your resolution. Updated with live prices; estimates from the same calibrated index behind our build planner. As of August 14, 2026.
What the data says right now
- The best frame-per-dollar card at 1440p is the Intel Arc B570 — $5.65 per estimated frame at $260.
- The flagship premium is 6.5× — a frame on the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 costs 6.5 times more than on the 1440p value pick. Halo performance has never been priced per frame.
- 4K changes the answer: the value pick at 4K is the Intel Arc B570 — budget cards fall off as resolution climbs, so the cheapest card and the best-value card are rarely the same thing.
- The table spans 16 GPUs from $260 to $4,200. Discontinued models are excluded — no new-retail price means no honest denominator.
The table
Sorted by $/frame at 1440p (best value first). Estimated FPS is the average across our 8-game calibration basket paired with a AMD Ryzen 5 7600 — the methodology explains why that pairing is fair.
| GPU | VRAM | Street price | FPS 1080p (est.) | FPS 1440p (est.) | FPS 4k (est.) | $/frame 1080p | $/frame 1440p | $/frame 4k |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Intel Arc B570BEST VALUE 1440p bottleneck check → | 10 GB | $260 | ~53 | ~46 | ~33 | $4.91 | $5.65 | $7.88 |
| NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5060 Ti bottleneck check → | 16 GB | $375 | ~73 | ~64 | ~46 | $5.14 | $5.86 | $8.15 |
| Intel Arc B580 bottleneck check → | 12 GB | $310 | ~60 | ~52 | ~38 | $5.17 | $5.96 | $8.16 |
| NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5060 bottleneck check → | 8 GB | $350 | ~66 | ~58 | ~42 | $5.30 | $6.03 | $8.33 |
| AMD Radeon RX 9070 bottleneck check → | 16 GB | $535 | ~92 | ~83 | ~60 | $5.82 | $6.45 | $8.92 |
| AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT bottleneck check → | 12 GB | $410 | ~70 | ~61 | ~44 | $5.86 | $6.72 | $9.32 |
| AMD Radeon RX 7600 bottleneck check → | 8 GB | $300 | ~51 | ~44 | ~32 | $5.88 | $6.82 | $9.37 |
| NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5050 bottleneck check → | 8 GB | $300 | ~49 | ~42 | ~31 | $6.12 | $7.14 | $9.68 |
| AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT bottleneck check → | 16 GB | $670 | ~102 | ~92 | ~69 | $6.57 | $7.28 | $9.71 |
| NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 bottleneck check → | 12 GB | $500 | ~75 | ~66 | ~48 | $6.67 | $7.58 | $10.42 |
| NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 bottleneck check → | 12 GB | $680 | ~93 | ~85 | ~61 | $7.31 | $8.00 | $11.15 |
| NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 Ti bottleneck check → | 16 GB | $880 | ~101 | ~92 | ~68 | $8.71 | $9.57 | $12.94 |
| AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX bottleneck check → | 24 GB | $930 | ~101 | ~92 | ~68 | $9.21 | $10.11 | $13.68 |
| NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 Ti bottleneck check → | 8 GB | $795 | ~65 | ~57 | ~41 | $12.23 | $13.95 | $19.39 |
| NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080 bottleneck check → | 16 GB | $1,500 | ~116 | ~106 | ~81 | $12.93 | $14.15 | $18.52 |
| NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 bottleneck check → | 32 GB | $4,200 | ~127 | ~115 | ~92 | $33.07 | $36.52 | $45.65 |
Prices are the cheapest sanity-checked live listing we track (retailer shown in the CSV), as of August 14, 2026. FPS figures are calibrated estimates from the BlueprintPC performance index — not measured runs. As community submissions to our benchmark leaderboard grow, measured columns will sit beside the estimates.
Methodology, in full
FPS: for each GPU we run our calibrated estimator across 8 released games (Cyberpunk 2077, Monster Hunter Wilds, Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024, DCS World, Path of Exile 2, Elden Ring Nightreign, Baldur’s Gate 3, Starfield) at each resolution, paired with a fixed AMD Ryzen 5 7600. That CPU is deliberately mid-range: a flagship X3D chip would flatter every card equally, a budget chip would cap the strong ones. The published figure is the basket average, rounded.
Prices:the cheapest live listing across the retailer feeds we ingest, with two honesty gates — an outlier guard (a lone listing far below the model’s median is a broken or misattributed listing, not a price) and a discontinued-model exclusion (no new-retail availability means no honest street price).
$/frame: street price ÷ the displayed FPS estimate — every figure reproduces from the CSV with a calculator. Affiliate relationships never touch these numbers: prices and scores come from the same pipeline whether or not a retailer pays us commissions (disclosure).
Frequently asked questions
What is the best value GPU right now?
By dollars per frame at 1440p, the Intel Arc B570 currently leads our table at $260 — about $5.65 per estimated frame. At 4K the value pick is the Intel Arc B570. Figures update with street prices; see the table for the full ranking as of August 14, 2026.
How is dollars-per-frame calculated?
Street price (the cheapest sanity-checked live listing we track) divided by the GPU's average estimated FPS across our 8-game calibration basket at that resolution, paired with a AMD Ryzen 5 7600 so the CPU never flatters or caps the comparison. FPS figures are calibrated estimates from our performance index — not measured runs — and every number in the table reproduces from the free CSV.
Can I use this data in my own article or video?
Yes — the dataset is CC BY 4.0. Use it freely with attribution to BlueprintPC (a link to this page). The CSV download carries the same columns as the table, with an as-of date per row.