I’m consistently surprised just how good the RX580 really is. It can handle most games on medium at 1440p, but I tend to just chill on ultra at 1080p. Plus I play on TV, so the smaller resolution is actually better from where I’m sitting

RDNA2 (particularly, the narrower range from 6600 to 6800), is a huge step up in performance per watt. The lowest end one in there, 6600, is faster than a vega64 (which is much faster than rx580), yet uses less than half the power.

RDNA3's lower end chips, once they hit the market, are expected to further improve on this.

Most gamers won't upgrade to the current RDNA3 chips, because the current RDNA3 chips are top of the line, expensive, ~300w monsters.

Amen to that. The need for gamers to be on the hardware treadmill is no longer relevant. Five+ year old hardware can still run basically anything, albeit at reduced fidelity.

I keep eyeing a new build, but realistically, I know it’s just a vanity project because so few games will take full advantage of the better hardware. My favorite games in the past years could have run on ten year old hardware.

I think "service" is the key word here: I have an RX 580, and while it's kind of an incredible card in its longevity, it's really creaky at 1440p even with older games.

Performance per watt has really come a long way since GCN.