GPUs & CPUs & Enthusiast hardware: Questions, Discussion and fanboy slap-fights - Nvidia & AMD & Intel - Separe but Equal. Intel rides in the back of the bus.

Scale Smerch said:
It's kind of nice the GPU market is reverting to some semblance of normality. Managed to finally snag 3080 in a 12BG Ventus 3X for ~$1200 CAD which is probably $200 more than it's worth (especially given the cooling), but I'm just happy knowing I'm now future-proofed for the next ~5 years. Fully expecting the RTX 4000 series to play out exactly as the RTX 3000 series release went.
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You could have just bought a 400$ card now and a new 400$ card in 2-3 years and saved 400$.
I don't know why people insist on "future-proofing" in a market where the high-end becomes midrange in no time.
 
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byuu said:
You could have just bought a 400$ card now and a new 400$ card in 2-3 years and saved 400$.
I don't know why people insist on "future-proofing" in a market where the high-end becomes midrange in no time.
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Because the market isn't really like that any more. For reference: The R9 390 came out in 2015, so your upgrade cycle would be 2017-18. In 2017 GPUs were practically non-existent and that remained the same until late 2018 when the GPU market dipped. Same holds true for GPUs bought in 2018 or 2019, it also doesn't help that the baseline for performance of the 400 price bracket is the 1080ti, which is now 4 year old card. This screenshot says it all: Screenshot_20220421-072627.jpg
These are all cards are with msrp of 470 and up, and let's not even get into scalping prices at the time.
 
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CreamyHerman’s said:
Because the market isn't really like that any more. For reference: The R9 390 came out in 2015, so your upgrade cycle would be 2017-18. In 2017 GPUs were practically non-existent and that remained the same until late 2018 when the GPU market dipped. Same holds true for GPUs bought in 2018 or 2019, it also doesn't help that the baseline for performance of the 400 price bracket is the 1080ti, which is now 4 year old card. This screenshot says it all:View attachment 3201986
These are all cards are with msrp of 470 and up, and let's not even get into scalping prices at the time.
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All the more reason not to invest a lot of money right now.
 
The Mass Shooter Ron Soye said:
We're nearing the MSRPs which were already high. Progress!

So what are the lowest cards that qualify as mid-range for you or boost performance over your current GPU? RX 6600 and the RTX 3060 both have a $329 MSRP. The 12 GB of VRAM on the 3060 might prevent it from dipping below that anytime soon though.
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I have a GTX 1660 which used is selling for around 325-400 (I can recoup the cost but need a replacement first). I want to switch to Radeon, and something at least a tad bit better than what I have now..
 
BootlegPopeye said:
200 and $300
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considering what calls itself videogame these days and people still playing stuff like skyrim says everything about the market that can be said and it's just incredibly hard to justify paying more than that if you don't have some very specific and individual use case.

My bet is dedicated graphics cards becoming a niche enthusiast thing and the rest all running on iGPUs. I have a 4650G and it's basically almost there running every game I still bother to play just fine.
 
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byuu said:
All the more reason not to invest a lot of money right now.
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Honestly then why invest? The market has stated that this is what these cards should be priced and whereas things are now on the downturn, the market is fucked for at least 5 years unless the boom/bust cycle of crypto becomes a thing of the past. I like to think that one day we will get a similar generation of video cards like the RX 480 and the 1060, but I doubt it.
JoseRaulChupacabra said:
It's really fucked up. I got into PC Building shit just over 12 years ago and back then, $400 was already the top card and the ridiculous prices you see right now were reserved for gamer branded shit.
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Blame it on the fanboys for all sides of the aisle, because AMD/Nvidia/Intel has long figured out the gachta game before anybody else
 
AmpleApricots said:
considering what calls itself videogame these days and people still playing stuff like skyrim says everything about the market that can be said and it's just incredibly hard to justify paying more than that if you don't have some very specific and individual use case.

My bet is dedicated graphics cards becoming a niche enthusiast thing and the rest all running on iGPUs. I have a 4650G and it's basically almost there running every game I still bother to play just fine.
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About 10 years ago Nvidia used to take the last gen's mid range cards and re-release a lower end card with the same specs on the same number system of whatever is current . I miss that market segment and wish it would come back. I only lightly game these days (getting older, less interests me) so I don't need what I used to. I dislike my current card's fans and really want to make a jump to Radeon (linux friendly drivers, I don't dual boot anymore), otherwise I may not have changed cards.
 
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byuu said:
I don't know why people insist on "future-proofing" in a market where the high-end becomes midrange in no time.
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There are a few reasons.

First is that you're bottlenecked by your slowest part. I could buy a 3080 for my current machine, but there's no point on a system with an i5 from 2014 and 8gb of RAM.

Second, crypto might be coming back. Etherium keeps avoiding proof of stake. People don't want to be stuck with a 1060 for another decade.

Then there's laziness. Since a GPU is now a big ticket purchase, buying a new GPU every few years doesn't make sense. Especially since you're likely going to bottlenecked by something else like CPU or memory speed anyway. Better lay out double the price now, enjoy high end today and mid range tomorrow. At least that way you don't have to mess around swapping parts and messing with drivers.

Then there's no cheap cards worth bothering with. Tech reviewers aren't helping by testing the latest games on Ultra. Back in the day when I had a geforce 5500, I used to buy a £40 card every few years. Such cards don't really exist any more.
Recently the Radeon 6400 came out, intended as a small form factor card good for people who buy old work stations and retrofit them into cheap gaming PCs or small form factor builds. Tech media has complained about the card for not matching up to desktop cards like the 3050 or 6600.
And as @AmpleApricots said, IGPU/APUs have got to the point where they can play most AAA games at 1080p medium comfortably if you want to go super cheap.

To power level a bit. Pre-pandemic, a family member asked for my advice on buying a pre-built PC. It was a good deal all told, but I advised against getting paying the extra for the "gaming" version with a 1030. They ignored me, and complained afterwards that this "gaming" PC wasn't very good at playing games.

Finally, I want to mention building a PC, any PC, is like buying a new car. When a new car rolls off the lot, it's value halves. A PC will be "obsolete" in 6 months. There's always some new GPU or CPU or storage improvement.
 
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CreamyHerman’s said:
Blame it on the fanboys for all sides of the aisle, because AMD/Nvidia/Intel has long figured out the gachta game before anybody else
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There's also the part where AMD was completely buck broken for a few years on two fronts. Nvidia and Intel reigned free.

I get that there's also the crypto market, but why does it seem that GPU's don't get their own Zen Moment when AMD forced the issue on CPU side.
 
Got a 5700 XT at MSRP (about 400.00 bucks). And haven't found a game that it doesn't murder at 1440p. Even though I feel even at MSRP mid range graphics cards are not a good purchase.

One big issue about gamers is that sometimes we spend way too much on the specs, and way too little on the outputs. If you have a 400 dollar graphics card, please don't buy a 150 dollar monitor.

Read the specs and maximal output the display you plan to purchase, and buy a graphics card that has a similar or inferior output (on resolution and refresh rate). Also, if you prefer single player games, avoid TN monitors. IPS monitors are generally cheaper and have a more accurate and vibrant color pallette (although have worst refresh rates). Another thing is that "gaming" monitors are a mostly a scam, so, when reading the specs of said monitors compare it to bussiness or regularly marketed monitors around the same and lower price ranges and see that sometimes 50hz are not worth a 150 dollar premium.

Finally, the most important thing is to be honest with yourself, if you don't need it, DON'T buy it, entertainment is not worth your financial stability even in the short term.
 
BrownPhillip said:
Got a 5700 XT at MSRP (about 400.00 bucks). And haven't found a game that it doesn't murder at 1440p. Even though I feel even at MSRP mid range graphics cards are not a good purchase.

One big issue about gamers is that sometimes we spend way too much on the specs, and way too little on the outputs. If you have a 400 dollar graphics card, please don't buy a 150 dollar monitor.

Read the specs and maximal output the display you plan to purchase, and buy a graphics card that has a similar or inferior output (on resolution and refresh rate). Also, if you prefer single player games, avoid TN monitors. IPS monitors are generally cheaper and have a more accurate and vibrant color pallette (although have worst refresh rates). Another thing is that "gaming" monitors are a mostly a scam, so, when reading the specs of said monitors compare it to bussiness or regularly marketed monitors around the same and lower price ranges and see that sometimes 50hz are not worth a 150 dollar premium.

Finally, the most important thing is to be honest with yourself, if you don't need it, DON'T buy it, entertainment is not worth your financial stability even in the short term.
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Part of the problem with the whole "gamer tax" on parts is that the enthusiast market I think is primarily gaming-focused these days, or at least that's what manufacturers think because mainstream PC buyers are more likely to buy a laptop or an all-in-one PC. The only people I ever see who buy non-gaming PC towers are boomers for the most part and even then a lot of them opt for the AIO PCs more these days for the sake of convenience.

What I mean to say is that it's hard to find higher-end stuff that isn't gamer-branded, at least from the bigger brands.
 
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BootlegPopeye said:
I won't believe that the market is back to normal until I can get a mid-range card for between 200 and $300. That's what I used to always do before this shit started. I never wanted high-end shit, just a competent card. Now I'm stuck on some 6-year-old piece of shit because there literally is nothing else affordable without paying 750 or more, or accepting a downgrade.
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You and most people.

It sucks, but be patient. A ton of cards over the past 2 years were made and most were bought by miners. There will be a glut of them available in the near future. Prices may not be bargain basement like they got in 2018-19, but there will be a lot out there at some point.
 
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The problem with those miner preowned cards is that alot of them are run into the ground and/or have custom miner bioses on them. To me, they are pretty much worthless once a miner gets his grubbies on them.
 
BootlegPopeye said:
The problem with those miner preowned cards is that alot of them are run into the ground and/or have custom miner bioses on them. To me, they are pretty much worthless once a miner gets his grubbies on them.
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At worst I'd imagine the cooler might need to be replaced or the thermal grease reapplied but either of those are quite doable for anyone who's comfortable taking apart a PC. Things like GPUs, RAM or the VRM don't generally fail unless the thing overheated for extended periods or got fed way more voltage than they can handle but as mentioned, they're more likely to be undervolted because you still generally get decent performance for potentially way less power draw (and heat).
 
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Judge Dredd said:
Recently the Radeon 6400 came out, intended as a small form factor card good for people who buy old work stations and retrofit them into cheap gaming PCs or small form factor builds. Tech media has complained about the card for not matching up to desktop cards like the 3050 or 6600.
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The complaints are mostly the same as the 6500 XT. It has design compromises from being a laptop-focused die, chiefly the 4x PCIe lanes which hurt performance at PCIe 3.0, and the garbage video decode/encode compared to the other RDNA 2 GPUs. Then it has less performance than the 6500 XT from 25% of the die being cut. All this for $160 or higher.

Folx should have realistic expectations for a small form factor GPU under 75W. But Intel could come in and do it better with their low-end Alchemist GPUs.

Judge Dredd said:
And as @AmpleApricots said, IGPU/APUs have got to the point where they can play most AAA games at 1080p medium comfortably if you want to go super cheap.
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The Rembrandt 680M should be considered that point, as it will boost a lot of games into the 30-60 FPS range specifically at 1080p medium. Vega 8 does not quite make the cut:


That's unreleased on desktop, so we're arguably not there yet until it comes out.
 
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