During the tail-end of 2017 and for much of 2018 so far one of the more frustrating aspects of building PCs has been GPU pricing. Whether it be a upgrade for yourself, advice for friends and family, or indeed component reviews, the Crypto-currency induced unaffordability of graphics cards and almost 'life-support' stock levels has been a downer for everyone.

Frankly, that's been doubly the case for AMD RX-Series GPUs. While at MSRP they've been priced exceptionally competitively for their performance, their absurd suitability to the workloads involved in crypto mining (namely raw compute power) has meant particularly strong demand for their cards, even outside of the top-end. This has occurred at a time when their drivers are better than they've probably ever been, and FreeSync monitors running at up to 144Hz are wonderfully affordable. Not to mention FreeSync 2 with HDR support, an upcoming technology which only AMD will be able to exploit for the foreseeable future.

So it's with some relief that stock levels in the UK for all AMD GPUs are returning to normal. Across multiple retailers some of the sting in the tail is being wiped away, with the Radeon RX Vega64 dropping blow £540, RX Vega 56 hitting sub-£470, and RX 580 closing in on £250. Some of the current UK retailer listings are:



As we've stated in the past, FreeSync really is AMD's killer app in the mainstream gaming space; Microsoft adopting it for XBOX is testament to that fact. All the current generation of AMD GPUs support it, and 144Hz 1080p panels can now be purchased for less than £150 regularly. As a combo, that's a value package which can go toe-to-toe with any from the competition; so long, that is, the Radeon GPU pricing remains under control.

But FreeSync is far from their only exclusive technology. Rapid Packed Math is a Vega-specific feature that's exploits the architecture to accelerate physics and similar compute calculations, and was debuted in Far Cry 5 earlier this year. Shader Intrinsics are a promising technology that allows direct game to hardware access on Radeon RX cards, pushing the GPU further. And of course Radeon ReLive and Chill are now key features of the much-improved Radeon ReLive Adrenalin Edition drivers.

So, after the woes of recent months, there's finally an excuse for some positivity. We've also heard from AMD that they're working with retailers to improve Radeon GPU availability still further in the coming weeks and months. So keep an eye out, in the near future a new AMD Radeon-powered gaming system might be even more affordable than you thought.