I'm in the same boat.

In general, there's just no way I could ever justify buying a Nvidia card in terms of cost per buck, it's absolutely ridiculous.

I'll fork over 4 digits for a gfx when salaries go up by a digit as well.

I just picked up a used RX 6800 XT after doing some research and comparing prices.

The fact that a gpu this old can outperform or match most newer cards at a fraction of the price is insane, but I'm very happy with my purchase. Solid upgrade from my 1070 Ti

Not to mention the cards have gotten huge and you just about need a nuclear reactor to power them. Melting cables and all.

I have a 6700xt and 5700x and my pc can do vr and play star citizen, they are the most demanding things I do on my pc, why should I spend almost £1000 to get a 5070 or 9070 and an am5 board+processor?

Well that depends on your definition of significant. Don't get me wrong, the state of the GPU market is not consumer friendly, but even an RX 9070 provides over a 50% performance uplift over the RX 6800.