this post was submitted on 08 Mar 2025
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Yep, this basically sums up my experiences a couple months ago. I've been telling myself since about 2016 that I would save up to go all in and build a solid gaming desktop.
But then there were floods in southeast Asia hindering supplies where I lived. No biggie, they'd recover quick.
Then crypto took off and GPUs and some other hardware tripled or quadrupled in price. No biggie, it's a fad that will go away quick.
Then COVID destroyed production and distribution of computer hardware. No biggie, gives me time to save up more to afford these new crazy prices.
Then everyone needs GPUs for the AI craze, and prices went up even more. No biggie, I'll just...cope?
Finally, I was at the point of "Fuck it, I'm tired of waiting. I'm buying a 5080, even if it costs as much as 2 PS5s."
So I planned it out, made sure I had everything lined up to immediately snag one once they were available. And then day of:
Nvidia's store: Never had any in stock at any point.
Microcenter: In-store purchases only, and stores were given single-digit stock while hundreds of people queued up for days.
Newegg: Never loaded until their stock was all gone.
Best Buy: Had a very attractive "Add to Cart" button display for a period of about 10 minutes at random intervals throughout the day, which placed me into queues that all ended with me getting kicked out after a few minutes.
Amazon: Well, fuck Amazon, but they didn't have any either.
So then I thought, forget Nvidia. Just because their cards are dropping earlier in the year doesn't mean it's them or nothing. I'll just get an AMD card if Nvidia doesn't have stock by then.
And, well...here we are in this article.
PC gaming is the best deal, eh?
Consider buying a previous generation card. You can sometimes find good deals on used ones.
Yeah. I bought a 3060 on eBay for $240 a few weeks ago. Works great.
Brand new Intel ARC B580 puts up numbers in the 4060 range and only costs around $250
I usually buy AMD for their open-source support. I wanted nvidia this time around to fiddle with AI stuff, which is better-supported on nvidia right now.
I.e. one of the same things that causing gouging on GPUs and the market to be pushed out of gamers hands.
This person is a consumer, just like you. Your gaming is no more important than their fiddling. Your angst is pointed in the wrong direction.
People at home using their gpus for a mix of gaming and local ai are not really the source of that issue
I was upgrading anyway. My RX 580 wasn't cutting it for games any more.
For years now the prices on this year’s latest cards are so high that I don’t know who buys them. I can afford to spend $1000 but I never would when I can probably get 85% of the performance for $250.
Out of curiosity, what GPU is getting 85% of a 5080's performance at $250? Genuine question.
That was genuinely pulled out of my ass. Not a benchmark comparison. It's just my perception that cards only get incrementally better each year, but "this year's card" is always proportionally much more expensive for what you get. Few games actually demand the very latest and greatest, so I don't know why people would ever pay the premium for the latest and greatest.
Ah, gotcha. I haven't been looking for GPUs for a few years now, so I was low-key excited that there was actually a deal that good.
But yeah, I agree that the last couple gens of flagship GPUs are vastly overkill for 95% of games.
What games are the 5% that need a 5090 to enjoy? I can run any game on the market right now at a minimum 1080p 60fps on my 3060.
I didn't say you "need a 5090 enjoy the other 5% of games," the implication is performance. And no, I highly doubt your 3060 is not doing that. With lowered settings and no ray tracing on some games, sure. When we're talking about flagship GPUs, the idea is that people buy them to be able to run at 1440p/4k, higher graphics settings, and maintain at least stable 60+fps.
There's games right now that even a 4090 struggles to run on maxed settings at 4k and stay above 60fps at all times. However, DLSS 3+ and similar tech saves the day with frame gen and upscaling. Developers just need to optimize their shit.
And if you don't care about graphics at all, then of course this is all irrelevant and participating in this discussion is completely pointless.
If somebody doesn't need to play at 4k 60fps doesn't mean they don't care about graphics at all.
There are graphics settings in between maxed out and bare minimum for a reason. I guess whatever floats your boat. I couldn't justify spending 2000 on GPU plus another 1000 on a CPU + monitor just so I can go from 1080p to 4k. Does that mean I don't care about graphics? No, it just means I don't value 4k over 1080p at a $3000 price tag. I'm "fortunate" (if that's what you call wage labor) enough that I could afford it, but it's just not a priority for me.
And the same applies to smartphones since a while ago.
This is what I got from the article as well. Jesus, buy a previous gen GPU and fiddle a bit with your graphic settings, it’s just games, not life or death.
I actually had thought of that too, but see my reply to someone else further below:
https://lemmy.world/comment/15537041
Good luck finding a used one that isn't barely on its last legs from being poorly OC'd/cooled, or is just an outright brick that burned out in a crypto mining farm and is now being resold by a shell entity of a shell entity of a shell entity on Amazon or Ebay.