alessandro
PC GamingThis will be The Year of Optimization (copium)
Every PC gamer in my circle did an emergency purchase of a new PC this year because as bad as it's now, we all know it's going to get a hell of a lot worse and probably won't go down in at least 4 years if ever. Even my broke ass bought a 5080 and a 5800X3D (because I had 96GB DDR4 RAM already). Even my wife agreed better do it now than having to buy during peak AI price stupidity.
The second hand market is the saviour of all
If you're planning to buy a GPU in the 2020s it's probably best to aim for late 2023.
A used 1080ti is half the price of a 3060 and has more vram
Also is on life support drivers, does not support compute shaders and is not supported by modern Linux at all.
Life support drivers yes, not supported by modern Linux is a blatant lie.
Ah so the price hike is finally here after years of price stability...
Waiting on China to pick up the pace, I can wait...
The GPU price hike is here and you should avoid any Nvidia card
Fixed the headline. You're welcome.
Unironically yes, for now at least, 9070 and 9070XT are well around their MSRP prices still.
Ah yes “Go for the 8GB card” you know, the same one we’ve been telling for years to avoid because of its limited vram capacity.
Just avoid nvidia. AMDs RX 9070 XT is still a solid deal. I bought one two weeks ago for under $700. This thing is fantastic, plays everything Ive tried and the open source drivers on Linux are a breath of fresh air compared to the nightmare of nvidias drivers
I've got one in my living room PC I use as a home theater PC and couch gaming system running Mint. It runs every game I've tried at 4K60 no problem. Definitely recommend as well. I think I paid $650~ at Microcenter for it.
If one is on Linux I’d urge to avoid NVidia like the plague. Replaced my 4070 Super with an AMD card and I’ve had zero problems since.
You should be avoiding NVIDIA anyway, AI boom or not.
I'm avoiding computing I guess.. I won't pay those absurd prices, and I will not every pay for cloud bullshit.
I'll abandon computing and the internet if it comes to it.
That's pretty much the point I arrived at a couple years ago when prices never really did come down after the crypto bullshit tailed off.
The latest hardware I bought was a 16 GB kit of DDR3 for my spare parts server.
I bought a 1080 for every computer in the house when all that really went stupid. They paid for themselves in 3 months of mining at night. I eventually stopped because I wanted the cards to last. They all still run.
I wish I could point and click new GPUs at AI and get them for free.
A B580 has 12 gigs, sips power, and is cheap as hell. Not everybody needs a flagship Nvidia guys.
The rising tide lifts all boats or some shit. Arc is rising in price too. Newegg has them at $310 if they're available. Ebay is $325+S&H. Any listing that's under $300 has $20+S&H fees in small print under the cost. Amazon has some models that are pushing $400 which is insane for this card regardless of what extras third party manufacturers are throwing at it. The market is extremely fucked right now.
Not to mention Intel provides probably the best Linux support out of the "Big 3"
https://linuxvox.com/blog/intel-arc-linux-drivers/
AMD has the best Linux support GPU wise but Intel is getting better every day. NVIDIA has a reputation for a reason.
Isn’t linuxvox AI slop?
NVIDIA has a reputation for a reason.
More like they're infamous for their historical poor support/performance, but yeah.
That’s the reputation I was referring to. Linus Torvalds made waves when he told them to quite literally fuck off.
Isn’t linuxvox AI slop?
Oh it is? Never really paid too much attention, tbh - they seem to have concise "recipes" to accomplish certain tasks.....but now that you said it......
If you want Linux recipes, check out the arch Linux docs.
Just like ma used to make…
To be fair, people need to set their priorities straight. Even though these are marketed as 'gaming' hardware, are they actually?
I have an RTX 4060 8GB VRAM that seems to have people hating all over it, but I don't see the point, currently, to buy another GPU. It runs smoothly enough every single game I've attempted to run it, including stuff like Alan Wake 2. There's also the fact that most AAA games that demand a strong hardware are barely worth playing.
But as long as 'gamers' keep fixating on the idea that gaming can only be enjoyable when they own the best hardware to run things on 4k, 120fps, almost zero input delay, and whatever the fuck else the market sells as essential for a 'true gaming experience', that's what you get: extremely overpriced hardware, that will never feel enough.
I'm still getting by on just a Steamdeck. I don't own a computer otherwise, and my console really just plays a game or two.
Same experience with my 3070, and expect it to be the situation for a good while still.
Considering where I'm posting this, maybe it's sacrilege, but I just don't think it makes business sense to develop a triple A game that can't run on the consoles - and console cycles have gotten really long.
First crypto now AI, can the users just asking for a decent GPU catch a break here?
Crypto was limited bad since it only targeted GPU performance. AI targeting DRAM affects EVERYTHING. Phones, TVs, monitors, your router, smartwatches, ANYTHING that runs even a semblance of OS...
Microcontrollers are mostly safe as they use a different structure of RAM (500kB-8MB RAM doesn't need multi-thousand MT/s, so older tech is useful there).
But everything else is fucked.
The RAM shortage is going to make them a lot of money. Aside from the price hike now, when RAM becomes sane again they can release 16GB versions of the same cards so they don't even have to come up with new chips.
