Honestly, i wouldnt hold my breath for a massive discount on a card like that even two years out. If we look at how things went with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 24GB Founders Edition, those prices basically stayed glued to MSRP or higher because of the insane demand for AI work and rendering. By Black Friday 2026, the 5090 is still gonna be the king of the hill, and NVIDIA knows it. You might see maybe fifty or a hundred bucks off on a random AIB model, but hitting that $1700 target feels like a major stretch if the launch price is as high as people are whispering. I would suggest being really careful with your planning tho. VR sim racing eats VRAM for breakfast and the power spikes on these new cards are getting ridiculous. Make sure youve got something like a Corsair RM1200x Shift 80 PLUS Gold Fully Modular ATX Power Supply ready to handle it because my old PSU almost fried when i jumped generations last time. Also, just a quick tip... keep an eye on the B-stock or open-box deals at Micro Center if you have one nearby. Those are usually the only way to actually get a high-end card below the official price floor. Just stay patient and maybe tuck away an extra $200 just in case the sale ends up being a total bust. Flagships rarely follow the normal rules of holiday sales lately, so dont count on a miracle.

Doubtful that the 5090 is gonna hit that price point. i've been super satisfied skipping those halo cards lately.

• ASUS TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 4080 Super 16GB GDDR6X: works well for VR and runs quiet.
• MSI GeForce RTX 4070 Ti Super 16GB Ventus 3X: no complaints with Blender renders and saves a ton. Sticking to the 80-series just works. Saves cash, less heat, still fast.

To add to the point above: i think expecting a discount on a 90-class card is a recipe for disappointment. Sadly, i tried this exact same strategy with the previous gen launch and it was a total disaster. I held onto my old rig until the fans were literally screaming, thinking i could snag a deal if i just waited long enough. By the time black friday rolled around, prices actually increased because of some random supply chain issue and the ai craze taking off. I learned a few hard lessons from that mess:

• Flagship cards arent consumer products anymore, they are basically prosumer tools now.
• Waiting for sales on the top tier usually just means you miss out on two years of better performance for no actual savings.
• The heat management on these massive cards is a nightmare. my current setup needs way more airflow than i anticipated, and i had to redo my entire cooling situation just to keep it from throttling during long blender renders. Honestly, if your 3090 is artifacting now, waiting until late 2026 is risky. My old card eventually just black screened mid-project and i lost a whole days work because i was stubborn about waiting for a sale that never came. If you really want to stay under $1700, you might have to look at the second-tier cards or maybe consider a used workstation card if vram is your main concern for blender work. Its not as good as we want it to be, but nvidias pricing strategy is just getting more aggressive every year and it sucks for us enthusiasts.