Nvidia's GTX 1660 Ti is expected to drop later today, but AMD may have beaten Nvidia to the punch with a big graphics card announcement of its own. It's not a new GPU, but it is a new price tag on a pretty solid one. The Vega 56, AMD's GTX 1070 counter from 2017, has had its price dropped to just $300 and even $280 at some outlets. That's a huge saving on a still very capable graphics card, but it does place it in an interesting price point.
The Vega 56 offers performance somewhere between a GTX 1070 and 1080, so at around $300 it's an absolute steal. It should be much more capable than an RTX 2060 in some tests and that makes things problematic for Nvidia, considering its 1660 Ti should be blown out of the water by such a card at a similar price point.
But then the Vega 56 is also much more capable than AMD's own RX 590 which is priced at $280 and hasn't even been available for that long. Especially if you factor in the amazing overclocking results you can achieve with a Vega 56 if you push the power envelope and undervolt it to keep temperatures down. Some have reported even pushing it to RTX 2070 speeds, although in those cases the card is unlikely to last long considering how much extra power it draws.
All of this is only designed to keep AMD relevant until Navi launches this summer anyway, so it may still not be worth upgrading just yet. At least until we see what Navi can do.
That said, if you're looking to upgrade for a new game, the Vega 56 is suddenly relevant again and you get three brand new games with it too, so it's a great buy if you can find any left at around $300.
