Idiotic tariffs, indifferent retailers, depraved flippers and AI mania are making the simple act of buying a graphics card the defining misery of PC gaming in 2025.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I was upgrading anyway. My RX 580 wasn’t cutting it for games any more.
People at home using their gpus for a mix of gaming and local ai are not really the source of that issue
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.
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.