Graphics card shake-up in South Africa

Nvidia may no longer be as dominant in GPU sales in South Africa as in the past, according to feedback from several major PC hardware retailers in South Africa.

MyBroadband recently asked Dreamware Tech, Evetech, Progenix, Rebel Tech, Tech.co.za, and Wootware about their top-selling GPUs and market trends in the first five months of the year.

Their feedback showed that South African online shoppers are primarily buying mid-range and budget graphics cards priced under R20,000.

Overall, the most frequently featured models in their top three were the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 and 4070.

At Evetech, the best-selling model was the RTX 4060, followed by the RTX 4070 and the RTX 3050.

The two former cards are geared towards 1080p and 1440p gaming, respectively, while the latter is a much more affordable entry-level option.

Evetech said its overall GPU unit sales were up by 10% to 15% compared to the same period in 2024. “This growth is largely volume-driven in the mainstream and upper-mid segments,” the retailer said.

Two noteworthy trends it had observed in the market in the year-to-date were that gamers were prioritising price-to-performance and ray-tracing-capable cards were proving highly popular.

These cards accounted for well over 80% of Evetech’s GPU sales, suggesting the technology is firmly mainstream in SA.

Progenix also said that its GPU sales volumes and average values had increased by roughly 10% and 20% year-on-year, respectively.

However, its top three consisted of completely different cards: the AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT, AMD Radeon RX 9070, and the Intel Arc B580.

Progenix believes that Nvidia has completely lost touch with gamers and the everyday man when it comes to offering good value cards.

“AMD is filling much of the R15,000 to R20,000 market and Intel is dominating in the sub-R10,000 market,” the retailer said.

“Nvidia has gone from the top choice if you have the money for it and in terms of reliability and driver stability, to the last choice for a lot of people unless they’re looking at the top-end,” said Progenix.

AMD stepping up its game

Although Dreamware Tech’s top-selling graphics accelerators were also all Nvidia cards, it shared Progenix’s view on a shift in the market towards the other two brands.

“For the past few generations, Nvidia has maintained a strong dominance in the GPU market and was the preferred choice for most South African consumers,” Dreamware Tech said.

“However, this trend appears to be changing with the launch of the Radeon RX 9000 series.”

The retailer said AMD’s cards offer a competitive edge over the competing RTX 5060 series and have received positive feedback worldwide for their performance.

“There is a prevailing belief that AMD’s lower-end models might still have significant potential, which could disrupt the market dynamics,” the retailer said.

“It will be interesting to observe how the market evolves for the remainder of the year.”

Dreamware Tech’s overall sales have also improved compared to the previous year.

Tech.co.za’s sales data showed that demand for lower-end graphics cards continued to remain high.

“While newer models always outsell older ones, 2GB graphics cards have consistently ranked among the top five GPUs sold in our store for as long as we can remember,” the retailer said.

Rebel Tech said the only noticeable trend it had observed was that shoppers were primarily looking for a good balance of price and performance.

The table below outlines the top-selling graphics cards in South Africa for the year-to-date. Models that featured with at least two retailers have been bolded.