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RTX 60 Slips to 2028, RAM Goes Vertical, and the 9800X3D Is Somehow the Deal of the Year — nxpc Saturday Weekly Recap

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RTX 60 Slips to 2028, RAM Goes Vertical, and the 9800X3D Is Somehow the Deal of the Year — nxpc Saturday Weekly Recap

RTX 60 Slips to 2028, RAM Goes Vertical, and the 9800X3D Is Somehow the Deal of the Year — nxpc Saturday Weekly Recap

Saturday, September 26, 2026 — your week in PC hardware, distilled.

Picture this: you finally save up for a next-gen GPU, and the industry responds by pushing that GPU two whole years down the road — while simultaneously charging you rent-money prices for 32GB of DDR5. That was this week. But buried under the chaos is a genuinely great story: the best gaming CPU on the planet is getting cheaper while everything around it melts. Let's hit the quick hits.

🔥 The Big Story: Next-Gen GPUs Just Slipped to 2028

The rumor mill landed a one-two punch this week. Leaker kopite7kimi — who previously pointed at the second half of 2027 — has now pushed his own estimate for Nvidia's next-gen cards back a full year to 2028. A second leaker, Kepler, told TechSpot the same thing: both Nvidia's RTX 6000 (Rubin Client) family and AMD's RDNA 5-based Radeon 10000 series are now tracking for 2028, not 2027.

  • Translation: your RTX 50 / RX 9000 card just became a longer-term roommate. The refresh cycle is stretching because data center money (Rubin servers, AI accelerators) is eating the roadmap.
  • AMD fans got a crumb of good news: AMD's September 21 Linux driver patch quietly added GDDR7 support, pointing at 32Gbps GDDR7 memory for RDNA 5 — a real bandwidth jump over RDNA 4. The silicon is coming; it's just coming in 2028.
  • If you were waiting for next-gen to make current-gen cheap... the market had other plans. More on that below.

💸 Quick Hits: The GPU Market Has Fully Lost the Plot

  • Walmart GeForce Week briefly listed an MSI RTX 5090 for $4,299 (Sept 22) — a "rare deal," which tells you everything about 2026 pricing. The 5090 launched at $1,999 MSRP, friends.
  • Meanwhile, on Amazon right now: ASUS TUF RTX 5090 at $6,795, Gigabyte AORUS Infinity at $7,197.68, and an Inno3D X3 OC at a truly unhinged $11,565. Scalper-verse is fully operational.
  • The funniest line item of the week: a CyberPowerPC prebuilt with an actual RTX 5090 Founders Edition inside, selling at Walmart for $2,400 less than a standalone 5090 costs elsewhere. Prebuilts are now the arbitrage play. I hate it here.
  • A lucky 3D artist bought a Jensen Huang-signed RTX 5090 (unused ASUS ROG Astra White OC) off a used marketplace and sent it to Bonhams auction house — estimated at up to $15,000. Graffiti on silicon, apparently.
  • Gamers Nexus summed the vibe with their Sept 19 video, "NVIDIA Has GPUs If You Have Coin." Poetic. Accurate.

🧠 The RAM Crisis Went Vertical

  • Tom's Hardware reported DDR5 laptop memory prices surged 6X in 12 months, with system maker Schenker raising laptop prices and warning the shortage lasts through 2027. Yes — 2027.
  • Their broader index shows memory prices up 500% in 12 months, with 128GB DDR5 kits now $3,399 — ten times the lowest price they've ever tracked.
  • The bleakest stat: as of Sept 22, memory dies are now more expensive per unit area than leading-edge compute silicon. The RAM chips on your board are literally worth more than the CPU next to them, per square millimeter.
  • TrendForce data pegs consumer DRAM contract prices up as much as 89% in a single quarter this year, and 64GB DDR5 kits have jumped 485% to $1,118.
  • And it's spreading to VRAM: Micron is discontinuing 2GB GDDR7 chips for gaming GPUs (Sept 24) as it pivots to higher-margin 3GB silicon for AI cards. Future gaming GPUs just lost a cheap capacity option.

🏆 CPU Corner: The One Aisle With Sanity Left

While GPUs and RAM moonshot, CPUs are quietly in a buyer's-market golden age:

  • Ryzen 7 9800X3D sits at $449 on Amazon US right now (list $479, third-party offers from $422.28), with Newegg at $439.99 and reports of a $419.95 record low with a free Crimson Desert code earlier this month. That's the fastest gaming CPU money can buy, flirting with the price of a mid-ranger.
  • The newer Ryzen 7 9850X3D — factory-binned, ~8% faster — is at $484 on Amazon (offers from $455.20), which is below the 9800X3D's original $479 MSRP. AMD's halo chip is discounting into its predecessor's launch price. Wild.
  • Newegg's Sept 24 combo is the sleeper deal: 9800X3D + 32GB Corsair DDR5 + ASUS TUF Gaming X870E-Plus motherboard + free 240mm AIO + game bundle for $1,050 (a $150 saving). In a world where a 32GB kit alone runs ~$470-500, that bundle is basically paying you to build.

🗞️ More Quick Hits From Around the Week

  • Noctua is exploring 2,000W micro-channel air cooling, partnering with Forced Physics on "vacuum pump-level airflow" for desktops. 2,000 watts. Through air. I need to see this bench.
  • Nvidia's DLSS 5 was measured drawing 647W, with the 16-pin power connector running hotter than the GPU die itself. Frame generation with a side of flame temps.
  • Nvidia also announced RTX Mega Geometry 2.0 (Nanite-inspired on-demand ray-tracing geometry streaming into VRAM) and patented an AI chatbot for plain-English game optimization. "Make Cyberpunk run better" — please.
  • Intel expects its 14A node to land within 5% of TSMC's A14 — a conservative claim that contrasts with 18A's frequency lead. The foundry race stays spicy.
  • China's "RTX 4060 rival," the LX 7G100, trails the RTX 2060 by 35% and barely edges a nine-year-old RX 580. The export-control wall is real.
  • A $1,999 Wi-Fi 7 external GPU enclosure with a built-in 4TB SSD for local AI showed up — your GPU now lives in another room, over Wi-Fi. Sure, why not.
  • GMKtec's Evo-X3 (Strix Halo mini PC) hit reviews — mini PC nation keeps eating the SFF lunch.
  • Heads up for shoppers: ASUS confirmed an eShop data breach exposing customer order records and contact details (payment data safe). Watch for phishing.

💰 Price Check — USD & CAD (Live, Sept 26, 2026)

Same-ASIN dual-market pricing, pulled today from Amazon US and Amazon CA:

Product 🇺🇸 Amazon US 🇨🇦 Amazon CA
AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D $449.00 (3rd-party from $422.28; list $479.00) $619.98
AMD Ryzen 7 9850X3D $484.00 (from $455.20) $679.98
Patriot Viper Venom 32GB (2x16GB) DDR5-6000 CL30 $479.99 $649.99
Corsair Vengeance RS 32GB (2x16GB) DDR5-6000 $469.99 $659.99
ASUS TUF Gaming RTX 5090 32GB $6,795.00 $9,088.85
ASUS Prime RTX 5070 12GB $856.99 (was $909.99) $1,269.97
ASUS Prime Radeon RX 9070 XT 16GB $829.99 $1,159.99

AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D boxed CPU — the week's best-value silicon

Look at that table and do the math I did: a 9800X3D costs less than a 32GB DDR5 kit in the US ($449 vs $479.99). A CPU is cheaper than RAM. 2026, everybody.

Also of note for Canadian readers: the US-CA gap on identical SKUs is running 35-48%, which is well above the usual FX-and-tax delta. Between the DRAM shortage and regional stocking, cross-border shopping math has never been messier.

📺 Watch of the Week

🎯 The Verdict: What This Week Means for Your Wallet

  • Buying a CPU? Best week in months. The 9800X3D at $449 US / $619.98 CA is a stone-cold no-brainer for a gaming build, and the 9850X3D undercuts its own launch economics. Pair it with a Newegg-style bundle and you dodge the worst of the RAM tax.
  • Buying RAM? Yesterday was cheaper than today, and tomorrow will be worse. If a build is imminent, buy the kit now — TrendForce and Schenker both say this runs into 2027. If you can wait until 2027+, wait.
  • Buying a GPU? The 2028 delay means RTX 50 / RX 9000 is the last dance for a long while — but with 5090s at $6,795+ and scalped SKUs hitting five digits, value lives in the RTX 5070 ($856.99 US) and RX 9070 XT ($829.99 US) tier, or in sneaky-good prebuilts (the Walmart 5090 CyberPowerPC arbitrage is real).
  • Waiting for next-gen? Set a calendar reminder for 2028. Maybe 2029. Pack a lunch.

That's the week. The memory crisis is the story that keeps on giving (badly), the GPU market is a casino, and CPUs are the lone clearance aisle in an otherwise burning store. See you Monday for Mini PC vs Mac Mini — bring a fire extinguisher for your wallet.

Sources

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