Info Found an old hardware price sheet from ?? (2001 ??) You won't believe it. The CPU prices especially !

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Markfw

Moderator Emeritus, Elite Member
May 16, 2002
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So, first, looking here: https://www.inflationtool.com/us-dollar/2001-to-present-value

If something cost $100 then, it would be $147 today Now for the prices (I don't want to scan the image, in case thats not legal). These are from a local PC parts place that in its era was very inexpensive.

Video
ATI Radeon 7500 64 meg w/tv $147 or now $216
ASUS 8200 T5 Deluxe 64 meg $415 or $610 today

CDROM
ASUS 52x IDE $39 today $57.33

Motherboard

Abit KR7A raid socket A $186 or today... $372
ASUS P4T-E socket 478 $177 or today .... $354

CPU's
AMD K7 950 Tbird $70 or today, $103
AMD XP1900 $286 or today.... $420

Intel P4-2000 $527... or today $775 !!!!!

Memory
512 meg PC133 $69 or today...$101.

And you guys think the new AMD CPUs are expensive ?????

Hard drives
Maxtor 40 gig $91 or today ... $134

Monitor

19 inch CRT $334 today... $491
15 in LCD flat panel $450 ... today $662 !!

I estimated the year looking at the release date of the xp1900 Nov 2001.

Edit: found it, ad date 12/07/2001

If you want some other item let me know, but I don't have time to convert 200-300 prices.
 
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CP5670

Diamond Member
Jun 24, 2004
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One thing is that the desktop PC itself has become a niche product, mainly used by gamers and content creators. I would expect the prices of hardware to go up if the market for desktops (and especially custom builds) is shrinking.

I too, have a PC in a HTPC type arrangement with a 4K TV but am not as productive on it. The question of using a 55" (really any larger than roughly 42", IMO) TV is more about other ergonomics. It's too big to sit directly behind at a desk, and productivity (at least for me) tends to tank if I'm sitting on a couch with a keyboard, at a normal distance at which you'd use a 55" TV, which is a bit too far away to see minute details that I often work with.

I suppose you could build a custom cockpit sort of arrangement that makes everything be where it should for productivity but then it is not as good a setup for normal HTPC use.

I have had a 55" TV on a larger desk at about 4' away, and find it comfortable for both games and productivity. I'm in the process of moving to a 77" model on a mobile stand and use it from 7-8' away. I find a couch or recliner with a small table for the mouse/KB (which has casters and can be moved out of the way as needed) more comfortable than a traditional desk, especially after sitting at a desk at work all day.
 

chrisjames61

Senior member
Dec 31, 2013
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The premise of this thread leaves me massively underwhelmed.

Pretty sure 1 euro today feels like 1 euro 20 years ago, and yes you can buy more with your income today, that's called progress (and yes I'm familiar with the concept of inflation but it doesnt work like that 1:1).

Anyhow I bought my first PC in 1996 for ~1400 euro (3000 guilder) incl monitor and keyboard/mouse so I guess the PC cost me about 1000 euro. Guess what most people's budget for their desktop rig would be today?

Fact of the matter is absolute (and subjective/instinctive) prices have remained pretty constant, not taking inflation into account.

Maybe you didn't read the whole thread. 8 Megabytes of ram cost $230 in 1993. For a HIGH quality enthusiast pc in the early 90's you could easily spend multiple thousands.
 

lenjack

Platinum Member
Oct 10, 1999
2,704
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I would believe it. The newest, bleeding edge technology, is always the most expensive. Example...The first home vcrs, around 1974, were around $1500 (1970 dollars), and had no remote, no timers, and only 1 hour recording time. By the time they disappeared, you could buy one with all these features, for $65.
 

Thunder 57

Platinum Member
Aug 19, 2007
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I remember when a website - SharkeyExtreme maybe? - used to carry a table, updated daily, showing the changing (falling) prices of different CPUs. And remember checking that table regularly to judge if I could afford an upgrade yet.
(I've had my current CPU for 7 years now and cant' be bothered even thinking about upgrades).

That was Sharkyextreme. They did one for memory every week as well. They used to have a thriving forums section too. Sadly forums aren't as popular as they once were.
 

BUTCH1

Lifer
Jul 15, 2000
20,433
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And this is my take... back then Intel was JUST a little ahead, but AMD was way cheaper. Then Athlon 64 came out, and it was all over for me, AMD. Then Conroe came out, and again it was all over, Intel... Then Ryzen came out and it was back to AMD... Am I bipolar ? No, I just go for whats best at the time. I wish some people would recognize that.
Yup, same here, I was still running a Xeon E5450 until about eight months ago when I bought a Ryzen 5 1600
from someone here for $50, that's damm cheap for 6 cores/12 threads of lovin!. Like many here I was brought
to AT by the Celeron 300A overclock, the "mother of all overclocks", you got the performance of a Pentium @ 450Mhz
for 30% of the price. Ah, the days of setting up jumpers for all CPU parameters, I remember going over my MOBO
again and again to ensure I didn't attempt to start it with a jumper set to ruin anything!.
 
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Panino Manino

Senior member
Jan 28, 2017
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Old Computer Shopper Magazines are a blast to look through. Here are CPU prices from July 2000:

People that think CPU prices are high now, just don't know what CPU prices used to be like. CPU prices now are so low that the CPU price doesn't even come into consideration a lot of the time.

View attachment 31593

Oh Nvidia, never changes...
 
Nov 20, 2009
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So I used the calculator to punch in the mount of money and year my wife borrowed $1500 for a PC to write her PhD dissertation and today it would be $2600. And here I thought spending $2K too much for everything but the monitor. Either I have grown cheap or my financial responsibility had grown significantly.
 

UsandThem

Elite Member
May 4, 2000
16,068
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I just looked at my Newegg purchase history. The most expensive CPU I've purchased in 10 years was a i5-2500k for $224.99 in 2011.

I'm all about buying those "old" CPUs when they've been replaced by the latest and greatest.
 
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Aikouka

Lifer
Nov 27, 2001
30,383
912
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And everybody is whineing about a $50 increase. And if you don;t like it, you can still get a 3700x for about $325 or so.

I think people generally expect mild jumps to not see an increases in price. Now, Zen 3 is arguably more than a mild jump over Zen 2, but it’s a mild jump compared to 10th generation Intel. Although, what I’m curious about is how good the $300 CPU will be for average users as I‘m sure most people won’t care a ton about $500 CPUs.
 
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UsandThem

Elite Member
May 4, 2000
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I think people generally expect mild jumps to not see an increases in price. Now, Zen 3 is arguably more than a mild jump over Zen 2, but it’s a mild jump compared to 10th generation Intel. Although, what I’m curious about is how good the $300 CPU will be for average users as I‘m sure most people won’t care a ton about $500 CPUs.
Based on their their reputation and (deservedly) irrelevance for roughly a decade, they had to be aggressive in pricing.

They have largely repaired their image since Ryzen first launched, now they don't have to do that near as much.

We will have to wait for reviews to hit to see the actual performance increase, but it at least appears now that they should offer a bigger performance jump than what we have seen so far from one generation to the next. But until legit reviews appear, it's speculation.
 
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Ranulf

Platinum Member
Jul 18, 2001
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And everybody is whineing about a $50 increase. And if you don;t like it, you can still get a 3700x for about $325 or so.

Which is inflated back to msrp because of demand, possibly low supply and the fact that there is no new 5700x to replace it at $329 or even $350-400. The only argument you have is that 19-20% IPC is better than what Intel has been delievering for the past 5-6 years so like its totally ok to charge more. Well, that and total system cost with AMD mobo's being cheaper.

If I'm going to complain about Intel's $50+ increases during Skylake and beyond, I'm going to complain about AMD's. Most especially so if they just cut out the low end variants in the 5600 and 5700x. If you want the new 6core cpu, its a $100 not $50 increase. The 8core 5800X is $50 to $120 more. The 6core and 8core 3000 X/XT models were never a good buy for most people.
 
Nov 20, 2009
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What is amusing is that Microcenter for the past few months had been selling the 3900 for $400 before the X versions came out. This is Amazon Prime week and their idea of a deal is to sell the 3900 for $429. But I am not sure I pay attention enough to spend $549 for the 5900X over the 3900/X.
 

Insert_Nickname

Diamond Member
May 6, 2012
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The Voodoo 3 3000 was still a great choice at $100. That's what I had back then, and it excelled at all the games designed around Glide back then.

A few years back, I realised that even the extremely basic HD500 graphics in my laptop is at least an order of magnitude faster then top-end cards from back then.

How far we've come.
 

Shivansps

Diamond Member
Sep 11, 2013
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And everybody is whineing about a $50 increase. And if you don;t like it, you can still get a 3700x for about $325 or so.
People complain about a $300 6C/12T CPU in 2021 and with the missing 5700X the jump to 8C is very very large and dont reply with a "but Intel" because i dont care. This is supporting PC gaming as AMD said to you?

You need to stop trying to justify wharever AMD do at every step, they do good things and bad things at the same time.
 
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SKORPI0

Lifer
Jan 18, 2000
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e02a564bdbee21f8468bc3b53e3b309a.jpg
 
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