During the pandemic, there was no such thing as a mainstream graphics card. Nvidia's (NVDA 6.18%) RTX 3060, launched in February 2021, was already on the pricey side for a mainstream card with a launch price of $329. For comparison, the GTX 1060, which launched back in 2016, went for $249. The GTX 1660 Super from 2019 went for a budget-friendly $229.

That launch price meant little in the crazy graphics card market of the pandemic. Sky-high demand from gamers and cryptocurrency miners pushed up graphics card prices dramatically in 2021.

If you could even find one at retail, an RTX 3060 would cost you many hundreds of dollars more than the manufacturer's suggested retail price (MSRP). Prices finally started to cool in 2022, and now, the pricing situation is much closer to normal.

Breaking below $300

Nvidia unveiled three new RTX 4000 series graphics cards on Thursday. Notably, the cheapest one will sell for just $299, the lowest launch price for this level of graphics card in a few product generations. Unlike in 2021, demand for these cards will be a much stronger function of price.

The $299 RTX 4060 will be available in July. While this card has some limitations -- notably just 8GB of VRAM -- it may be the most important product that Nvidia is announcing.

There's a huge install base of pre-pandemic mainstream graphics cards, and those gamers were largely unable to upgrade while prices were in the stratosphere. According to Steam's hardware and software survey, the GTX 1650 and GTX 1060 were the top two graphics cards in use in April. The latter is nearly 7 years old.

Going up in price, the RTX 4060 Ti will come in 8GB and 16GB variants. The first will be available later this month for $399, while the second will join the cheaper RTX 4060 for a July launch at $499. Given the state of the graphics card industry today, retail pricing shouldn't be all that different than these MSRPs.

Nvidia provided some details on performance, but we'll need to wait for third-party reviews to see the full story. In games that work with DLSS 3, Nvidia's artificial intelligence (AI)-powered frame generation tech, the RTX 4060 Ti can provide 1.7 times the performance of the RTX 3060 Ti and 2.6 times the performance of the RTX 2060 SUPER. In games without DLSS 3, the company still claims a 1.6x performance boost over the RTX 2060 SUPER.

Mainstream competition

With Intel jumping into the graphics card market last year, there's plenty of competition around the $300 mark. Intel's Arc A770 sells for $329 or $349, depending on the amount of memory, and it beats Nvidia's RTX 3060, on average, by a significant margin, according to Tom's Hardware.

Advanced Micro Devices also offers budget options, with the company's last-gen RX 6000 series cards falling in price. The RX 6700 XT, for example, can be found for as low as $329 and beats Nvidia's RTX 3060 and RTX 3060 Ti. Nvidia still has an edge in games that support ray tracing, but that matters less in the mainstream portion of the market.

Both AMD and Intel will likely be launching new mainstream cards in the coming months. A mainstream RX 7600 graphics card is likely in the works from AMD, and Intel is expected to refresh its graphics card lineup later this year, with next-gen versions slated for early 2024. While the RTX 4060 will be an enticing option, gamers will be spoiled with choices in the mainstream portion of the market.

Nvidia's affordable mainstream cards have the potential to trigger an upgrade cycle and help its gaming segment recover in the second half of the year. Priced at $299, the RTX 4060 could be a big winner.