Question are video card prices headed down yet?

[igor_kavinski]

I don't know anyone IRL with a hobby that is as inexpensive as my PC hobby. Boats, cars, motorcycles, guns, extravagant vacationing. I am certain some here dine out so often it is a hobby. Or if not, know others that do. Hell, I spent more every year on MMA gyms, and the medical expenses incurred, than I ever will on PC parts. About the only hobby I have cheaper than this one, is surfing. And that's only because once you have a quiver built up, you can use them for decades. Even then I have a friend that collects classic longboards. I assure you that ain't cheap.

Yeah, all this belly aching is melodrama. I could happily game, indefinitely, on a Ryzen APU if that's all I could afford. Most of the complaints also lack any sense of history. I was looking at a sales flyer from Best Buy from 1998 and there were video games that cost $69.99. I paid a couple of grand for my first Packard Bell Pentium PC. After Amiga stopped getting any relevant game releases. PC parts were uber expensive back then in adjusted dollars. Most parts are cheaper using that metric. The first 1GHz CPUs were $1000, now you can get a 16 core CPU for significantly less even without factoring inflation. Don't get me started on ram. The collusion that went on for years, and the prices we paid was literally criminal. Storage keeps getting cheaper and faster. Mainboards and GPUs are the parts significantly climbing in price now every gen.

If that is too much money for you, bail out, or better yet join the ultra budget PC gaming scene. After a week or two, you will forget what you were complaining about. I'd tell some of you to go outside and commune with nature, since some of these posts read like they are from basement dwellers. But where many live, doing that at the moment would leave you like this -

Another awesome post!

It had me agreeing with you and laughing at the same time!

 

[igor_kavinski]

7900 XT is going to turn out to be a loss making product for AMD. It's available even on Amazon for sale and people don't seem to be eating it up. We could soon see this SKU on firesale, which is good news for anyone that wants an AMD card but doesn't want the 6900/6950XT.

The 7900 cards also have a weird minimum FPS problem seen here:



This is also going to make them undesirable for anyone who goes over benchmarks with a fine toothed comb, dropping their value even further because these are the people who are most vocal about spreading the word about a product's shortcomings.

Now if Nvidia fixes the 4080 sales problem by dropping it to $999 and introducing a 4080 Ti 20GB at $1199, that will really mess up AMD's pricing strategy.

 

[lopri]

It is not just me but also about new generation of enthusiasts. I have no idea how students can afford these cards. I do not want this hobby to be rich kid exclusive thing, and I will do what I can (e.g. boycott) as a consumer. Corporations will not stop. If you accept the current pricing structure, they will test even higher waters next time.

Thankfully I do not go crazy with graphics settings these days. Back in the days I had to max out everything. Haha.

 

[CP5670]

The 7900 cards also have a weird minimum FPS problem seen here:

That looks like a driver problem, I would expect them to fix it at some point. Although I do think AMD tends to have more of these kind of issues, particularly in niche uses like VR. They are competitive for mainstream games that most people play though.

 

[Insert_Nickname]

I do not want this hobby to be rich kid exclusive thing, and I will do what I can (e.g. boycott) as a consumer.

If anything PC gaming has become far more mainstream today compared to 10-20 years ago. What a lot of enthusiasts fail to realize is that current gen APUs are plenty enough if you dial down settings. The newer DDR5-powered ones will be even better. You don't absolutely -need- a card to partake in this hobby like you did once upon a time.

Even a modest card like the 6600 is more then enough to run most (all) titles at 1080p, and is more powerful then many older top-end cards. You only need something like a 4090 if you game at 4K and more then 60Hz. If you do, that's fine, but it is pretty niche. (and before anyone comments, yes, I can easily afford two of those. I just choose not to buy even one.)

 

[CP5670]

It's like cars, high end audio, etc. There is a market for the ultra high end, but it doesn't matter as long as there are good options in the mainstream price range too.

 

[Saylick]

It is not just me but also about new generation of enthusiasts. I have no idea how students can afford these cards. I do not want this hobby to be rich kid exclusive thing, and I will do what I can (e.g. boycott) as a consumer. Corporations will not stop. If you accept the current pricing structure, they will test even higher waters next time.

Thankfully I do not go crazy with graphics settings these days. Back in the days I had to max out everything. Haha.

Students won't be able to, but do they need to? They're students for crying out loud. Not that I think students deserve to be broke or something, but I believe students should have more important priorities in their life instead of worrying about not being able to play video games at maxed out 4K settings.

Regardless, @Insert_Nickname is right in that gaming in general has become more accessible than ever before. 1080p high refresh monitors rate are dirt cheap and widely available, and if you want to play the most demanding games at the monitor's refresh rate cap, all it takes is a $400 graphics card (e.g. used RTX 3070/RX 6700XT). The same GPU will likely do 60-90 fps at 1440p, which is still a solid gaming experience. A solid gaming PC can be had for under $1000, which is affordable for most people if they consciously save up for it.

If gaming PCs are too expensive, nothing really beats the perf/$ of a $399 Digital Edition PS5.

 

[blckgrffn]

If anything PC gaming has become far more mainstream today compared to 10-20 years ago. What a lot of enthusiasts fail to realize is that current gen APUs are plenty enough if you dial down settings. The newer DDR5-powered ones will be even better. You don't absolutely -need- a card to partake in this hobby like you did once upon a time.

Even a modest card like the 6600 is more then enough to run most (all) titles at 1080p, and is more powerful then many older top-end cards. You only need something like a 4090 if you game at 4K and more then 60Hz. If you do, that's fine, but it is pretty niche. (and before anyone comments, yes, I can easily afford two of those. I just choose not to buy even one.)

Beyond that, there are even perfectly adequate used cards available for those truly on a budget.

10xx cards are falling well south of $200, there is a 1070ti parked in our very own FS/FT forums right now for $130. You can play every game out there right now on these cards.

Older cards like GTX 980s and the like are also very 1080p competent and available.

Yeah, they are old. But they are cheap, and not nearly the gamble of buying a used car or something.

Despite very good reponses to him, I think @VirtualLarry has an argument in that WHERE ARE ALL THE AMPERE MINING CARDS. When it comes to prices being propped up, these are what I am thinking off. Since there seems to have been multiple mining cards sold per actual gaming cards if the fuss was to be believed, where are they? They should be devastating the used card market. While they are easily available near me, they are all listed at near MSRP prices I could get online. One time I saw 3x 3070's for $900 and that is just starting to get things where I think they should be if we are really post mining boom. Polaris was so darn cheap and easy to find after the first crash...

 

[MrPickins]

IIRC AMD's market share is in the tank. Is that not so?

Total market share isn't defined by sales of flagship GPUs.

By far, the vast majority are midrange GPUs.

 

[MrPickins]

If gaming PCs are too expensive, nothing really beats the perf/$ of a $399 Digital Edition PS5.

I really dislike this argument.

It totally ignores that most of us have well fleshed out Steam libraries, games that either don't exist on console, or would need to be purchased again. Not to mention controllers/peripherals and yearly subscriptions to PS+ if you want to play any multiplayer.

Personally, most of the genres I play either don't exist on console, or are dumbed down a lot.

 

[Saylick]

Despite very good reponses to him, I think @VirtualLarry has an argument in that WHERE ARE ALL THE AMPERE MINING CARDS. When it comes to prices being propped up, these are what I am thinking off. Since there seems to have been multiple mining cards sold per actual gaming cards if the fuss was to be believed, where are they? They should be devastating the used card market. While they are easily available near me, they are all listed at near MSRP prices I could get online. One time I saw 3x 3070's for $900 and that is just starting to get things where I think they should be if we are really post mining boom. Polaris was so darn cheap and easy to find after the first crash...

I haven't been following this thread as actively as I should, so someone probably mentioned this before, but I think the used GPU tsunami was less of a tsunami and more like a rising tide... Once Nvidia unveiled Lovelace with a higher-than-typical launch price, it dawned on people that used GPUs had no downward pressure from new inventory and that if you had a used GPU to sell, you didn't have as much pressure to sell it for cheap. It also does not help that AMD's RDNA 3 launch fell flat on its face.

In looking at Tom's Hardware's used GPU price history, the price of used GPUs bottomed out in November, which lines up with the launch of Lovelace. The same trend was corroborated by Hardware Unboxed.

I think people are buying used cards in droves already, which props up the price. Mining cards are clearly part of those used GPU sales too because if you see a seller posting multiple GPUs up for sale, it generally is a miner or someone who flips PC hardware. On the r/hardwareswap subreddit, people are generally more open about how they used their GPU, and I've seen plenty of people say they used their GPU for mining.

 

[Saylick]

I really dislike this argument.

It totally ignores that most of us have well fleshed out Steam libraries, games that either don't exist on console, or would need to be purchased again. Not to mention controllers/peripherals and yearly subscriptions to PS+ if you want to play any multiplayer.

Personally, most of the genres I play either don't exist on console, or are dumbed down a lot.

I was making the argument purely from the point of view of someone who is getting into gaming, is on a budget, and wants the best graphics for their dollar. Obviously, if you have a Steam library then you'd be hard pressed to leave it behind by going to console-only, hence why most PC gamers don't leave PC gaming entirely when they get a console.

I still think a PS5 is one of the most bang-per-buck options when it comes to getting into gaming, even if you account for the cost of a PS+ for multiplayer access. If you don't play multiplayer games, then you don't have to pay for PS+. Peripherals cost money on both PC and consoles, just in different forms, so that argument is kind of moot. Gaming keyboards and mice aren't cheap. Plus, the cost of a controller is already built into the price of the console itself.

Personally, most of the genres I play either don't exist on console, or are dumbed down a lot.

That's a fair argument. If consoles can't give you what you want then it doesn't matter how cheap it is. For the same reason why you don't play on consoles, I don't play on PC. My PS5 serves me plenty fine for the amount and type of videogaming I do, which is mostly AAA single player games, so I have no desire or need to build an awesome 4K gaming rig. Any PC hardware purchases I do these days are for friends and family, who are predominantly PC gamers.

 

[Aapje]

Wasn't there something like 200.000 units of 7900-series available for launch? Selling out those already is pretty well done in my book.

It totally unclear to what extent those units have already been made available or if many of those have just been shipped to AIBs and haven't made it to customers yet & to what extent the reference cards are still trickling out. AMD seems to be doing daily drops, but the card shipments aren't actually daily, so they seem to be spacing them out.

 

[Leeea]

7900 XT is going to turn out to be a loss making product for AMD. It's available even on Amazon for sale and people don't seem to be eating it up. We could soon see this SKU on firesale, which is good news for anyone that wants an AMD card but doesn't want the 6900/6950XT.

The 7900 cards also have a weird minimum FPS problem seen here:

View attachment 73312

This is also going to make them undesirable for anyone who goes over benchmarks with a fine toothed comb, dropping their value even further because these are the people who are most vocal about spreading the word about a product's shortcomings.

Now if Nvidia fixes the 4080 sales problem by dropping it to $999 and introducing a 4080 Ti 20GB at $1199, that will really mess up AMD's pricing strategy.

I went and double checked.

Other reviewers like hardware unboxed did not se lows like that in cyberpunk. Specifically, hardware unboxed saw 118 avg and 107 fps 1% low at 1440p.


That is something with that guys config. Considering it is all AMD, that is still going to be an AMD problem.

 

[kschendel]

I don't know anyone IRL with a hobby that is as inexpensive as my PC hobby.

I have to agree. The closest I can think of is back a few years when I was running; maybe $500/year on shoes plus a bit on random gear and stuff. Then a knee got all pissy and I switched to swimming, which is way more expensive unless you are very lucky with your local pool resources.

 

[blckgrffn]

I have to agree. The closest I can think of is back a few years when I was running; maybe $500/year on shoes plus a bit on random gear and stuff. Then a knee got all pissy and I switched to swimming, which is way more expensive unless you are very lucky with your local pool resources.

Oh man, pool swimming was like my cheapest form of Tri training. Local gym is $9.95 per month for indoor pool access. Jammers last forever, and even my headphones seemed sorta expensive until I figured out how much I was saving on shoes in comparison. Goggles? Mine last for quite a while.

 

[igor_kavinski]

Not that I think students deserve to be broke or something, but I believe students should have more important priorities in their life instead of worrying about not being able to play video games at maxed out 4K settings.

You must have been a stellar bookworm in your student years.

Many students like me know that life is short. If you don't play a game today and die tomorrow, the last thing on your mind when your soul is getting squeezed out of the pores of your skin will be, I wish I had played that game. Most gamer students care about playing games today. The student gamer of today will be the diehard 40+ y.o gamer of tomorrow. These idiot GPU companies need to realize that and at least make 1080p 60 fps cards affordable at the $100 max price point.

I have to say that I was very lucky. There were kids around me who couldn't afford to game but loved the idea of gaming. Some of them may have bought PC hardware when they got their first paycheck. Others may have just gone on with life, married, had kids and just forgot about gaming. That's a loss of sales for the PC industry.

 

[igor_kavinski]

If gaming PCs are too expensive, nothing really beats the perf/$ of a $399 Digital Edition PS5.

Try telling that to kids whose parents refuse to allow gaming under their roof coz "it's a waste of time". With a PC, at least you can sneak a dGPU into your home and game in secret, in your room while your parents think that their genius kid is doing his homework on the PC. I wrote his, not her. Girls are not as mad about gaming as guys to want to game in secret (not that I know of).

 

[igor_kavinski]

Polaris was so darn cheap and easy to find after the first crash...

So true. I couldn't believe my luck when I got the RX 580 8GB for the same price as a Geforce 1060 3GB.

 

[GodisanAtheist]

@Saylick more or less hit the nail on the head I think.

If I were to add any one thing, its that the initial sale price of a card does absolutely limit how much someone is willing to part with it for.

When shopping my my 6800XT, I put in a lot of offers on all kinds of cards and when I'd lowball hard I'd more frequently than not get something along the lines of "Dude I paid $1200 for this thing a year ago, lowest I'll go is $600".

I even saw some of those cards sit (thanks to having them saved) for months because the seller just would not let the card go at 75% off the new price even if new cards were already 40-50% off the price he paid for it.

I think the same psychological effect motivates buyers too, where they see a card that was $650 MSRP spike to $1200 on the shelf, then go used for $700, they're not thinking "I'm spending $50 more than MSRP on used" they're thinking "I'm saving $500 off of what this card was selling for a few months ago". It looks like a good deal to them.

Throw on new gen pricing (which I think shocked everyone a bit given we all saw crypto collapse in front of our eyes) and a perpetually harped on "real recession" that seems to be eluding everyone and bingo-bango you have the current topsey-turvey market.

 

[Saylick]

You must have been a stellar bookworm in your student years.

Many students like me know that life is short. If you don't play a game today and die tomorrow, the last thing on your mind when your soul is getting squeezed out of the pores of your skin will be, I wish I had played that game. Most gamer students care about playing games today. The student gamer of today will be the diehard 40+ y.o gamer of tomorrow. These idiot GPU companies need to realize that and at least make 1080p 60 fps cards affordable at the $100 max price point.

I have to say that I was very lucky. There were kids around me who couldn't afford to game but loved the idea of gaming. Some of them may have bought PC hardware when they got their first paycheck. Others may have just gone on with life, married, had kids and just forgot about gaming. That's a loss of sales for the PC industry.

Alright alright, you got me there. But it was more work hard/play hard. I had a crappy PC throughout middle and high school (like a 1.8 GHz Sempron and an even crappier Nvidia FX5200) but played WoW almost religiously for a few years by using the $50/month lunch stipend my parents gave me to instead purchase WoW time cards. In high school, I went cold turkey off of Wowcrack and played TF2 and the Orange Box instead. In college, I used tuition money to buy myself a proper gaming PC for under $1000, which was a Lynnfield i5-750 and HD5770 system. That beauty got me through college, grad school, and even for a few years after that. By that point, life moved on and I gamed a lot less. Now as a working professional, money ain't a problem but the lack of time is.

Tis a shame, really. When you're young you trade time for money, and when you're old you trade money for time.

 

[igor_kavinski]

Alright alright, you got me there. But it was more work hard/play hard. I had a crappy PC throughout middle and high school (like a 1.8 GHz Sempron and an even crappier Nvidia FX5200) but played WoW almost religiously for a few years by using the $50/month lunch stipend my parents gave me to instead purchase WoW time cards. In high school, I went cold turkey off of Wowcrack and played TF2 and the Orange Box instead. In college, I used tuition money to buy myself a proper gaming PC for under $1000, which was a Lynnfield i5-750 and HD5770 system. That beauty got me through college, grad school, and even for a few years after that. By that point, life moved on and I gamed a lot less. Now as a working professional, money ain't a problem but the lack of time is.

Tis a shame, really. When you're young you trade time for money, and when you're old you trade money for time.

You sound a lot like me, except I hated working hard

And I wasn't addicted to any one game. I had that disease where I had to try every game I could find, at least once. Not so different from a drug addict wanting to try a new formula

 

[Saylick]

You sound a lot like me, except I hated working hard

Oh, don't get me wrong, I hate working hard too. But I got good at working smart.

 

[igor_kavinski]

Oh, don't get me wrong, I hate working hard too. But I got good at working smart.

Definitely smarter than me

 

[moonbogg]

I'll be gaming at 70+ years old and still wrecking your clumsy noob asses.