So far we are seeing significant price increases/low availability in:
- RAM
- SSDs/hard drives
- some microcontrollers
- phones
- and now GPUs
I think we are nearing a bit of a technological winter for the consumer market.
this post was submitted on 17 Dec 2025
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And all that while we get more and more dependent on technology...
As someone from the third world, I'm really scared
Getting repairable tech will be even more important now than ever. Making your current devices last is important, but even more important in a couple of years (in my opinion).
I just dont see the price going down.
I really want your conclusion to be wrong but all the logic left in me agrees with it.
Honestly, it’s a culture I can get behind. Lower ewaste, reduce the product cycle to something greater than a year, encourage more hobbies and less consumerism, … people will flock toward things that last, which is a market that can use some love.
Tbf, GPU were already part of a significant price increase. It just stuck around and got the new normal.
Interesting project
Two ways to read this and I think both are somewhat true.
Option one; They're OPEC now. They set the supply, and you bring the demand because you have no other choice. This lets them push prices up, which pushes margins up, and that hopefully props up their insanely inflated share price a little longer.
Option two; They're well aware that demand is going to fall off a cliff soon. We're already at "Nvidia is paying people to buy their GPUs" and have been for a while. The AI industry can't afford to keep this train running, and even financial chicanery and circular dealing will only get them so far. Companies are building out data centres with zero plan for how to make any profit from them. When the GPUs they have age out, they're not gonna buy more, they're gonna go bankrupt (allowing the banks to sieze the mountain of now worthless three year old burned out GPUs that they used as collateral). And there's not enough venture capital left for new data centre builds. The genAI financial engine is reaching its peak, and Nvidia doesn't want to be stuck with a mountain of production that no one wants to buy.
Let's not forget AAA games are the games that use gpus the hardest gaming wise and they are bombing at record levels because they are deritive garbage and AA games are doing more with less.
Add that to the AI bubble bullshit and it's just a perfect storm.
Example: On my pc (3060rtx), Spider Man 2 ran like shit without some significant tweaks while Expedition 33 runs like butter despite using Unreal 4 or 5.
I really would like to know if AAA games are bombing because they are overpriced microtransaction hell or if they are bombing because many people haven't been able to buy their new gaming PC because of those GPU prices in the last 5 years and now we do not have the install base to run them
The micro transactions and shittiness mainly.
This! My steam deck with an igpu has been running all the new games fine. Granted not like 120+fps fine, but my desktop has a two generation old card and god only knows about the CPU and it's hitting 120 easy on the games I play. Which of the games I play, cyberpunk is the most resource intensive.
That people keep buying into... so the cycle continues.
That people keep buying into… so the cycle continues.
More's the shame. Our last console was a PS3, it was such a non-fun waste of time that we never bought into the 4 or 5. I used to buy a new PC title a year or so before than, really none new since StarCraft II.
There's some great games out there, they are just not the big ones.
For a while now games are sold without a lot of optimization, expecting the customers to just buy more powerful hardware.
Any GPU from the last few generations should be able to run any game without any problems. A lot of games are just made like complete ass unfortunately, you know because of profits ultimately.
Definitely the former. Most people have just hung onto their PCs for longer. Steam's userbase keeps climbing.
My bet is microtransactions and a lot of them not being great lol games. You don't need a 5090 to play a AAA game unless you're maxing out the visuals.
Nah gaming doesn't even make a dent in their revenue. Gaming demand means nothing to their supply, demand and pricing.
Option two is not correct, option one is correct. This announcement is specifically for consumer gaming GPU's only, it does not affect institutional datacenter customers.
This is Nvidia saying "thanks small fry, you were useful, but we're leaving you behind now. Fight for the scraps." Complete cartel behavior.
Then just buy AMD.
AMD is a puppydog that follows Nvidia around on the open market with 10% or less market share. If Nvidia constricts supply and causes a massive price jump and shortages, AMD will just follow the pricing curve and we will still get no GPU's.
AMD is also 100% reliant on TSMC and VRAM suppliers, the same exact supply pressures causing Nvidia to turn off the consumer tap will come for AMD too.
If this is about supply pressures, it's not Nvidia acting as a cartel, is it?
AMD has, as far as I understand, been outcompeting Nvidia on value for a good while. If this is Nvidia just being anti-consumer, I'd expect that to continue
When their only competition just hiked prices, why would they keep theirs low? That's free money.
They'll still undercut, just as they are doing.
I just don't think moaning about the companies makes any sense. If you imagine the most utopian scenario you think of, with communal ownership of all production, how do you think the commune is going to allocate GPUs? It's going to stick a load in hyped AI products and gamers will be last in line, just like now.
They'll have to come crawling back when the business customers stop buying. AI winter is coming.
I think it is just plain greed. The AI bubble has made NVIDIA mountains of money but they still want more. So they focus production on higher tier consumer GPU'S and their Pro series and give a middle finger to budget conscience consumers.
My theory is its easier to produce a product for a small number of big investors in AI than millions of consumers looking to build hobby computers. Plus the AI companies are flush with cash, MUCH more than the average consumer. So they are getting the cash now and worrying about the fallout later, just like everyone else.
That's every sector right now. They're all aiming for the top 10% who earn as much as the bottom 90% put together. For computer hardware, that number is probably a lot worse.
Pretty astute. Maybe I can buy a half cooked gpu on firesale in a few years for a budget build… one can dream!
Unfortunately the ones used in AI data centers aren't useful for gaming. So yeah, probably could buy one for ⅓ the price of new, but couldn't use it for gaming and likely still wouldn't be able to afford it because of:
NVIDIA H200 (Blackwell architecture) – The latest flagship (late 2023), with upgraded ~141 GB HBM3e and other Hopper improvements. It provides ~50% performance uplift over H100 in many tasks on the same power envelope. Pricing is said to be only modestly above H100. For instance, a 4-GPU H200 SXM board is listed at about $170K (versus $110K for 4×H100) ([2]) ([20]). A single H200 (NVL version) is quoted at around $31,000–32,000 ([21]). NVIDIA’s data center system NVDIMMs for H200 (DGX B200) reflect these prices, though bulk deals may apply.
Data centre GPUs tend not to have video outputs, and have power (and active cooling!) requirements in the "several kW" range. You might be able to snag one for work, if you work at a university or at somewhere that does a lot of 3D rendering - I'm thinking someone like Pixar. They are not the most convenient or useful things for a home build.
When the bubble bursts, they will mostly be used for creating a small mountain of e-waste, since the infrastructure to even switch them on costs more than the value they could ever bring.
Bummer. Ill add it to my pile of shattered 2025 dreams
The optimist in me has hope that this does fuel an explosion cheap hardware for businesses to build cheap+useful+private AI stuff on.
And sadly none of this hardware will be viable for consumers to use, even bought used.
Remember ever company that cuts consumer production over private ai production. When the bubble pops stick with the companies that remembered consumers are the longterm profit. For the rest, let their shareholders eat them alive as they sell every share from beneath them.
I think the pop has already begun. Look at the silver and gold prices. 2026 is going to be a stock market massacre.
Gamers, I think it is time that we do the unthinkable.
We must actually play our backlog of games.
Hey, with no hardware purchases we can buy more heavily discounted games that we will never play.
Fuck AI
The Bubble hungers...
Please please please... please Nvidia? Can regular people please still have computers?
...
Meh, nevermind. AMD and Intel can have your consumer business, I'm fine with that too. Surely this AI trend isn't a bubble, and there's absolutely no way you'll regret this later. Best of luck.
I wouldn't go intel. That place is a shitshow. Also, I am not so sure the AI bubble will burst. World governments see it as sn arms race. So they will keep that industry propped up.
Propped up by what, though? They’ll just continue to dilute the name of AI with underperforming technology and yield more backlash from the public while making an oligarchy out of their richest tech influencers.
People will stop complaining about graphics cards when they and/or their kids are sent to die in a stupid unending war