Grab a decent GPU deal now — or wait for Black Friday 2026? Here’s why this year’s big sale is a red herring for graphics cards
Normally we get to this time of year and the typical advice is to hold fire on any potential tech purchases. This is because Black Friday is just a couple of months away, and so it always seems prudent to think about being patient, and the bargain you might just secure in the biggest tech sale of the year.
Not this year, though, when it comes to GPUs – at least in my opinion.
During Black Friday 2025, we did see some decent deals on graphics cards. Not many, mind, but there was a scattering of them. I’ve noticed on Reddit that there are some gamers who have found a GPU with a decent price tag, but they’re wondering whether to hold off and wait for something better on Black Friday. They are perhaps remembering some of the discounts that happened last year (thin on the ground as they were).
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For example, this US-based Redditor asks: “Buy an open box [Nvidia RTX] 5070 now or wait until Black Friday?” They add: “I see a few open box deals for $745. What do people think about snagging this now at such an inflated price, or waiting until Black Friday to try and snag under $700?”
If you’re in a similar quandary, my advice is this: absolutely do not wait for Black Friday. Just buy that graphics card now.
Let’s break down the reasons why this isn’t a ‘waiters’ market (by which I mean those biding their time, not the lovely people who serve us food and drinks).
Reasons to be fearful
For starters, as a legion of cynical Redditors are quick to point out, Black Friday isn’t the best for graphics card deals anyway – it has never been the strongest suit for this sale in terms of PC components.
As noted, there have been bargains in the past though. Despite those Redditors who insist that GPUs just have their prices quietly upped in October so they can be artificially ‘discounted’ for Black Friday, there are actually some genuinely decent deals – or there have been.
However, things have just gone crazy this year, and as the second half of 2026 has rolled around, the RAM crisis has reached another tiring peak of frenzied hiking.
There were more rumors of imminent GPU hikes just a couple of weeks ago (following last month’s negative chatter), and at retailers in the US we’ve already seen graphics card prices rising considerably over the past month. Compounding this are even more negative predictions about the memory shortage in general – which inevitably affects video RAM as well as system memory – and DDR5 prices which are spiking in a ridiculous manner right now. So you’ve got a recipe for a tumultuous rest of the year.
In short, I can’t see 2026 panning out any other way than seeing more GPU price increases – so why wouldn’t you buy now? At least from the perspective of whether Black Friday might somehow bring some bargains around – it surely won’t.
I’m pretty convinced of that, and there are nuances here in terms of what kind of graphics card you’re looking to buy. I’m talking about mainstream GPUs, the mid-range or lower tiers of the market, and not the higher-end graphics cards.
The beefiest GPUs like Nvidia’s RTX 5080 (don’t even mention the RTX 5090) are already exceptionally pricey, and while I don’t think they’ll get any cheaper – and indeed I reckon they’ll probably still creep up in price – the cost of those products is already a very bitter pill to swallow.
I don’t blame you if you don’t want to pay out that much cash for a graphics card, because over $1,500 for an RTX 5080 (in the US) is a pricing nightmare. But you’ll have to accept that you’ll likely be in for a long wait for better prices, maybe not until 2028. A compromise might be to buy a card like an RTX 5070 to tide you over, or maybe an AMD RX 9070 XT (it’s a touch less expensive in the US at the time of writing), then sell that second-hand later on when the RTX 5080 comes down.
The trouble is, there are no good options here… not for the pricier GPUs anyway.
Red Friday
I think that this year, Black Friday should be renamed Red Friday for its Herring-like nature, at least when it comes to graphics cards. Don’t be swayed by the temptation of waiting for a deal, and if you see a reasonable price on the GPU you’re considering, grab it now.
A $750 (open box) deal on an RTX 5070, the dilemma of the aforementioned Redditor, seems a sound enough proposition, even though that’s a depressing reality considering this GPU was still going for around $650 just two months ago – because you’re now looking at $850 or so (going by Newegg US pricing).
You can pick up an RTX 5060 Ti 8GB for only 10% more than this GPU was priced at in June (again, going by Newegg US), and I think there’s an even stronger case to snag something like this if you’re looking at the more affordable end of the market.
Obviously, do your own research based on the regional pricing for the GPU you’re thinking about, but whatever the case, I’d still urge you not to be fooled into waiting for Black Friday, as I really think that’d be a mistake.
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