Enlarge / At this rate, it might be the only graphics card you'll ever need?
When Dragon Age: Inquisition came out nearly 10 years ago, PC players could have invested $329 (~$435 in today's dollars) in a brand-new GTX 970 graphics card to make the game look as good as possible on their high-end gaming rig. Surprisingly enough, that very same 2014 graphics card will still be able to run follow-up Dragon Age: The Veilguard (previously known as Dreadwolf) when it launches on October 31. If you're using AMD cards, an even older Radeon R9 that you purchased back in 2013 will be able to run the game.
Veilguard's minimum specs are just the latest to show the workmanlike endurance of the humble GTX 970, which is currently available used on Newegg for as low as $140. Relatively recent big-budget PC releases like Baldur's Gate 3 and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 both use the old card (or the less powerful follow-up variant, the GTX 960) as their "minimum requirement" benchmark.
Not every big-budget PC game these days is so forgiving with its minimum specs, though. When Cyberpunk 2077 and Doom: Eternal launched in 2020, they both asked players to be sporting at least a GTX 1060, which had come out around four years prior.
