Oh, please let it end. Please. I was so excited to start writing these features. The plan was simple enough. Every other month, I pitch a new and exciting PC build with the latest and greatest hardware available, do an in-depth guide, cover the part selection, take some lovely amateur photography, and everyone's happy—at least that was the theory. Then Nvidia "launched" its RTX 50-series, and the whole market went to hell in a handcart. Graphics card? In stock? What's that? It's basically impossible to find anything at its retail price at this point, and you know, available. You have to sit on lottery lists, Discord stock channels, and pre-order promises to even be in with a whiff of a chance of picking up a graphics card at its retail listing.
When AMD's RX 9070 XT launched, I was super pumped. An affordable graphics card that delivered on its promises with a ton of stock straight out of the gate and a retail listing of $600. Yes, AMD, yes. Let's go. Honestly, it sounded incredible, and for a few weeks it was true. So, as I did, I priced up a build, requested in the parts, and then, three weeks later, no stock, price bump, and it's almost twice the cost. Nice.
