[X] My Assistant

Therefore I choose RTX2080ti 22g version. Even if it looks like a female knight just out of goblin's cave,she also can do a lot of job about AI.

The best game with consuming GPU's is not to play.

The best game is just to buy the damn thing and enjoy your games.

Honestly it's kinda baffling how many people will endlessly compare and debate and look up graphs and tests for products of a measly $500 - $1500. Same applies to consoles and other PC hardware. At the end of the day that's chump change compared to most hobbies or any real significant purchases like houses and vehicles etc. How many hours of vidya do you get out of a $1000 GPU? 10,000? 100,000? Does it REALLY matter if you "waste" $200 buying an "overpriced GPU" if it works out to be like 2c per hour more?

If the people always complaining about GPU prices spent all the time they're watching GPU news and GPU tech talk online working minimum wage McD jobs they could afford any GPU they wanted.

not everyone has your level of income perhaps.
at least, that's the first thing that pops into my mind.

not everyone has your level of income perhaps.
at least, that's the first thing that pops into my mind.

If a few hundred dollar purchase that lasts 5+ years makes a significant dent in your budget, the last thing you should do is waste your time playing video games or looking up computer parts on the internet.

I bought my first "proper" GPU (6600GT) delivering newspapers as a 13-year-old. Even without inflation it cost the same as a 5060 does now.

If a few hundred dollar purchase that lasts 5+ years makes a significant dent in your budget, the last thing you should do is waste your time playing video games or looking up computer parts on the internet.

I bought my first "proper" GPU (6600GT) delivering newspapers as a 13-year-old. Even without inflation it cost the same as a 5060 does now.

I bought the same 6600GT with part time work as well, however I did not have to pay rent or mortgage at that stage.
I could buy a new high end graphics card every month with the difference between how much I pay now compared to how much I paid before covid19.

Cost of living is no joke, we have working homeless now here. People that are working jobs but can't make rent and we have one of the highest minimum wages on the planet.


6600GT adjusted for inflation would be $400 here, 5060 is $599 here. The problem is that it is only 8GB vram, which is too low for newer games and causes performance issues.

Minimum cards I'd recommend would be Radeon 9060xt 16gb, Intel Arc B770 Battlemage 16gb (TBC), and 5070 12gb.

I bought the same 6600GT with part time work as well, however I did not have to pay rent or mortgage at that stage.
I could buy a new high end graphics card every month with the difference between how much I pay now compared to how much I paid before covid19.

Cost of living is no joke, we have working homeless now here. People that are working jobs but can't make rent and we have one of the highest minimum wages on the planet.
6600GT adjusted for inflation would be $400 here, 5060 is $599 here. The problem is that it is only 8GB vram, which is too low for newer games and causes performance issues.

Minimum cards I'd recommend would be Radeon 9060xt 16gb, Intel Arc B770 Battlemage 16gb (TBC), and 5070 12gb.

5060 is 329€, which is about the same as I paid for my 6600GT (256MB).

The cost of living crisis is definitely real. I just don't think "minimum wage workers can't afford a new top-of-the line GPU every generation that can max out the latest AAA games at 4K 120Hz" is a good example of that.

Even with gimped VRAM the budget cards now are immensely powerful. People have this warped perception because cards like the 970 or 1070 before the mining boom were reasonable in price and close to the best of their generation (980 Ti, Titan X). Forgetting that a 970 could only really run new games at the time at 1080p 60fps and you might still need to turn down some graphics settings or SLI two of them together for a stable 60fps in the most demanding games. Any 350€ budget card can do that now. The only difference is there also exists an option to pay 3000€ for people with nothing better to spend their money on, so instead of enjoying what they can afford poor people are sulking over what they can't. Not everyone, but a certain type of person predisposed to complaining.

5060 is 329€, which is about the same as I paid for my 6600GT (256MB).

The cost of living crisis is definitely real. I just don't think "minimum wage workers can't afford a new top-of-the line GPU every generation that can max out the latest AAA games at 4K 120Hz" is a good example of that.

Even with gimped VRAM the budget cards now are immensely powerful. People have this warped perception because cards like the 970 or 1070 before the mining boom were reasonable in price and close to the best of their generation (980 Ti, Titan X). Forgetting that a 970 could only really run new games at the time at 1080p 60fps and you might still need to turn down some graphics settings or SLI two of them together for a stable 60fps in the most demanding games. Any 350€ budget card can do that now. The only difference is there also exists an option to pay 3000€ for people with nothing better to spend their money on, so instead of enjoying what they can afford poor people are sulking over what they can't. Not everyone, but a certain type of person predisposed to complaining.

Everything above the #060 tier has gotten relatively more expensive. In part because AMD lost so much market share, and the mining and now AI boom.

The cards I have bought:

Geforce2 MX $90
Geforce 6600 GT $270
Radeon HD 4870 $299
Radeon HD 5870 $379
Radeon HD 6970 $370
Radeon HD 7970 $500
Radeon R9 295X2 $1200 (equivalent 600 each for 2 290)
GTX 1080 x 2 ($600 each)
GTX 3080 $1400

Now looking at current gen 5080 would be $2899 after the price drop.


So the near top end card were relatively stable, growing at inflation, then the price has started doubling every two generations. My goal is to keep my current card for another 5 years?

The other issue is that cards are holding their value for much longer. It used to be a decent strategy to buy the flag ship of the previous generation or below that for a decent price. Now everything is holding onto its value.

Everything above the #060 tier has gotten relatively more expensive. In part because AMD lost so much market share, and the mining and now AI boom.

The cards I have bought:

Geforce2 MX $90
Geforce 6600 GT $270
Radeon HD 4870 $299
Radeon HD 5870 $379
Radeon HD 6970 $370
Radeon HD 7970 $500
Radeon R9 295X2 $1200 (equivalent 600 each for 2 290)
GTX 1080 x 2 ($600 each)
GTX 3080 $1400

Now looking at current gen 5080 would be $2899 after the price drop.
So the near top end card were relatively stable, growing at inflation, then the price has started doubling every two generations. My goal is to keep my current card for another 5 years?

Yeah but the point is that the -60 tier is still totally adequate for that "new games at 1080p" performance. If anything they've gotten better with the advancement of DLSS etc. allowing -60 cards to even get above 60fps at 1440p or 4K in some games. That's a great deal for 350€.

I don't see the point in comparing what the most expensive cards each generation cost, when what the cards offer is not comparable. It's like if a car dealership used to only sell 2005 Volkswagen Golfs and Passats, and now they sell 2025 Volkswagen Golfs and Passats AND Bugatti Veyrons, and then complaining that the price of the Veyron is higher than what the most expensive car in the store used to cost.

The other issue is that cards are holding their value for much longer. It used to be a decent strategy to buy the flag ship of the previous generation or below that for a decent price. Now everything is holding onto its value.

Is that really a problem? They're holding value because they're still fulfilling their purpose. That's a good thing. I'd rather buy stuff that holds its value.

There's also the second-hand market to consider. I could find a bunch of 3090/4070Ti going for $800 and 2080Ti for under $300.

They still work well even if they were probably used for mining. It is the smart option for a price conscious buyer when comparing original MSRP and performance.

Yeah but the point is that the -60 tier is still totally adequate for that "new games at 1080p" performance. If anything they've gotten better with the advancement of DLSS etc. allowing -60 cards to even get above 60fps at 1440p or 4K in some games. That's a great deal for 350€.

You are right in many ways, however from my perspective the issue is that going one step higher and the value per dollar declines exponentially, and going one step lower and its a waste of sand. What happened to 30, 40 and 50 series? The value is now classed as e-waste. 60 series is priced as mid tier but is entry level, and its artificially gimped by lack of vram. The 8GB vram is constraining its performance artificially in a host of new games.


For relative perspective, for older games pre-2018, @1080p my 1060 is still going great.

Is that really a problem? They're holding value because they're still fulfilling their purpose. That's a good thing. I'd rather buy stuff that holds its value.

It was stupid for people to yeet one previous generation of hardware into the e-waste bin, but its mining and AI not gaming that is keeping the prices high. Rather than new economies of scale, the lack of new foundries is constraining demand and driving prices to the moon. The Korean foundries are struggling, the Chinese foundries keep flopping, and the new US foundries will take 100 years to complete. Also intel's existing foundries are collapsing because they put marketing in charge of the company.

50 Series Super cards have been leaked. Not official or confirmed, but the leaker has been known for very good accuracy. Pretty glad that I decided to wait instead of building a PC right now because the 5070 Super looks like a really good option for me compared to the 5060 Ti 16GB I was going to go for. 18GB of VRAM with a higher bandwidth and memory bus will be a big help in running AI stuff compared to 12GB, while also being stronger in 1440p.

The 5070 Ti Super with 24GB would be even better and basically a replacement for the usual LLM go-to of used 3090s, but looking at the current prices of the 5070 Ti where I live, I think the Ti Super will be priced out of my reach unless I bite the bullet and increase the budget.

Welp, -50 series cards are still being made, but they're purely laptop models.

I heard that standalone 5050s were on par with 3060 in pure rasterization with Gamers Nexus kinda confirming that. It would've been salvageable if it didn't require an 8-pin power connector to fulfill the office PC upgrade niche.

The biggest problem imo is the inclusion of Ray Tracing low-end GPUs. They're simply not playable with RTX enabled and require DLSS to output decent framerates at the cost massive input lag. Removing Ray Tracing cores would allow more Tensor/Rasterization space. That is highly unlikely as they'd need to develop another architecture to not utilize RTX, and they'd already invested too much into the technology.

I heard that standalone 5050s were on par with 3060 in pure rasterization with Gamers Nexus kinda confirming that. It would've been salvageable if it didn't require an 8-pin power connector to fulfill the office PC upgrade niche.

8 pin superior. Maybe version 4 of the 12VHPWR will resolve the problems that are baked into its design.

So far basic load balancing eludes the 12VHPWR standard.




Edit: Is anyone an expert on laptop graphics? In a couple of years I might buy a laptop though it looks like Nvidia is up to their old tricks.

Even with the same graphics part there can be a huge difference in implementation due to power and heat.

The best 1080 SLI laptop is within 18% of raw performance (non-DLSS / MFG) of the average 5080 laptop graphics. The thermals and power limit have limited the rate of laptop graphics performance growth.

The variance between laptops with the same graphics card is super annoying. I would have to do extensive research, as some laptops have 1/3 the power limit for the same card. The laptop variants also seem to be even more vram restricted.

On reddit people seem to fall for the trick claiming that the 5070ti laptop card is amazing because they think it can deliver 20% more performance than the 4070ti for only 100W (vs 180w) when in reality you can either have the performance increase OR the decrease in power. Not both, and on average you only get 1-3% more performance.

The issue is that I I would want a 15 inch laptop if I get one and the variance is wild at that size.

This post has been edited by EsotericSatire: Jul 6 2025, 01:34

If a few hundred dollar purchase that lasts 5+ years makes a significant dent in your budget, the last thing you should do is waste your time playing video games or looking up computer parts on the internet.

I bought my first "proper" GPU (6600GT) delivering newspapers as a 13-year-old. Even without inflation it cost the same as a 5060 does now.

i'd rather save money for my planned relocating in the future than waste money on GPU upgrades I don't need.

Thanks people for the input. Seems even the top end current laptops I was looking at match or have lower performance than my current PC... I would need to wait 2-3 more generations to be worthwhile to switch to a laptop.

i'd rather save money for my planned relocating in the future than waste money on GPU upgrades I don't need.

With laptops, this is part of the problem. A lot of them are coming with 4k screens high refresh screens that have hardware that barely supports 4k. If they were 1080p screens though I guess people would have no need to upgrade.


4k screens with Nvidia graphics with nerfed vram is really stupid. I guess people just see the marketing i7 or i9, 4k, and 50 series.