You want to buy a GPU?

[Seajay]

Keep waiting.

Prices are slowly dropping, as store inventory increases. Next gen hardware is expected towards the end of the year too which should drive prices down more.
Reasonable prices are getting closer... keep waiting.

I'm sticking with this now ancient GTX980 until Nvidia RTX4 and AMD7 series release. If you believe the Nvidia leaks performance should be exceptional.

[the_matrix_guy]

PC Gamer reported that Nvidia’s RTX 3090 Ti will reportedly launch on March 29th, but 80-90% of the market hasnt been able to purchase a 3080 or 3080ti from retail since they were released almost
two years ago and the 40xx series are just around the corner. The GPU market be fucked. Read the comments on the article, they’re hilarious:

https://www.pcgamer.com/nvidias-rtx-...on-march-29th/

So yeah, looks like I’ll be riding my 1080ti till the proverbial wheels fall off. Havent been inclined to pay a $800-1000 markup 1) given how little I’ve gamed this past year, and 2) given how well my Strix 1080ti still runs the games I’ve been playing (at 1440p)

Edit: I hope availability gets better, but so far it doesn’t look like it will anytime soon: 1) the semiconductor shortage persists, 2) logistics inefficiencies in the supply chain persist, 3) and unprecedented demand hasn’t let up. And if there’s any kind of military adventure by China into Taiwan — forget it — we’ll never see the 40xx in any store either 😢

[chrislognshot]

well i need graphic card and will get one around 1.4

[gabe]

https://www.pcgamer.com/nvidias-rtx-...on-march-29th/

So yeah, looks like I’ll be riding my 1080ti till the proverbial wheels fall off. Havent been inclined to pay a $800-1000 markup 1) given how little I’ve gamed this past year, and 2) given how well my Strix 1080ti still runs the games I’ve been playing (at 1440p)

That's exactly it. Nvidia has been playing this game where they have a card for every $50 step in price level but none of them have even been available. In 2 years we've gone from the 1080 series to the 4k series but very very few have been able to buy any of them. Aside from that the performance specs aren't enough better to even justify it. The leap from the 980 to the 1080 series was a massive step but from the 1080 to 2080 was basically just a little more RAM and RTX cores. Now the 3080 is a step up but with how quickly they went from the 3080Ti to 3080 super then the 3090 it seems pointless to chase the best when it will be replaced in a few months and a new one a few months after that.

I'll keep running my 1070ti as it covers all my needs. If a great game comes out that I can't max the settings on I'll just start overclocking.

[the_matrix_guy]

Yeah, where the new cards really shine is in 4k resolution and Ray Tracing but there arent even that many games out that use it, so even though I want a 3080 or 3080 ti (at MSRP) — I dont feel like I’m missing out on a whole lot right now. Especially given that I’m happy on my Alienware @ 1440p. I dont even think 4k works all that well for desktops. And the fidelity increase is minimal compared to the performance hit from 1440 to 4K resolution.

[Chuck E Ducky]

I got a 3080 at MSRP but I had to buy a complete built PC to do it. Still waited 4months to get it.

[the_matrix_guy]

gabe Chuck E Ducky — Speaking of real-time ray tracing, it’ll definitely be worth it in the not-so-distant future. By not so distant future I mean maybe in the next 3-5 years, so we still got plenty time to weather the hardware shortage, let technologies mature even more, and let more titles come out that would actually require 30xx+ level hardware. But we’re already at the point where the current-gen hardware can use it effectively without a noticeable performance hit, even the HW present on the PS5 can do it effectively. The problem is game development is a very slow process that takes years, and made even worse by the pandemic and geopolitical events i.e. warfare in the case of Ukraine and Stalker 2 developer GSC, Stalker 2 game development has crawled to halt now (obviously.)

Edit: But check out this article on the new-ish Unreal Engine 5 demo. The demo is about a year old but we only get a new UE engine demo every 5-10 years. The PC Gamer article is only a few days old though:


PC Gamer: What we know about the first Unreal Engine 5 games in development:

https://www.pcgamer.com/unreal-engin...n-development/

And another exciting factor about ray tracing technologies being embedded in the engine's framework is that game developers will be able to import and embed design and assets with minimal effort and “writing” so game development will be much more efficient going forward. Lighting alone is something that takes time to render especially in dynamic environments. UE5 does all the real time lighting and ray tracing automatically even in dynamic/ changing environments.

[Chuck E Ducky]

Wow that’s cool!

[martix_agent]

my RTX 970 with 8g ram may not be a mighty mid-tier like it once was, but it did halo infinite pretty ok. Even at MSRP prices, I'll have to hope it never dies. I'm really happy I chose the 8g option now that I realize I'll be using it at least a few more years.

[gabe]

The ray tracing is definitely something I've started to feel I'm missing out on although it's definitely just a few games. Mainly was looking forward to Stalker 2 with RTX and planning around a card purchase before it's released.

I guess my main gripe with Nvidia is that they just keep pumping out cards that are only 5-10% better per "generation" which has been pushed up to every 6 months or even less. Just like with game developers instead of pushing out repeated releases they should do a big one every 1-3 years and maybe a special edition or a factory overclock every 6mos to a year. Instead we get a marketplace littered with cards that overlap in performance. The real downside is they have to run parallel production of 6-8 cards at any given time. On the other hand if they had a stable of 3-4 cards like they used to they could produce more of a given card with the limited resources available.

[the_matrix_guy]

You make good points. The jump from the 2000 series to the 3000 series was pretty substantial though as you pointed out in your earlier post. Even for 1080p & 1440p non-ray tracing games. Also the semiconductor shortage is being exacerbated by both miners and scalpers. They need to do a better job of limiting purchases to one per household upon release. The use of script bots to purchase multiple upon release is a prevalent practice, unfortunately.

I was actually pretty excited after seeing Nvidia’s presentation on the 3080 and even more so after finding out how well it performs versus the 20xx series, whooping the 2080ti’s ass in every possible regard by a substantial margin, plus that it was to have an msrp of $799 versus the 2080ti’s $1400. But obviously that excitement was very short lived after we saw how poorly they stocked shelves. And the few that were sold, mostly went to miners and resellers.

[the_matrix_guy]

Microcenter has been doing it right for a while by limiting one card per household for 30 days, they require ID to purchase a high end GPU and only the person in the ID can make the purchase - no straw purchasers.

[nadrepadre]

I have a 1080ti that I recently acquired. Went up from a 980ti. Both cards performed really well, but was able to get a bit more fps on highly demanding games with the 1080. I can't see how throwing another $600+ down to gain maybe 10-15 fps is worth it.

[the_matrix_guy]

Did you guys see this? Best Buy forced people to pay a $200 TotalTech membership/warranty for the GPU’s to be able to purchase them, and in many cases, they were pre-orders and weren’t even able to fill the orders. I never liked BB but this is insanity.

And as the article points out, it only helped scalpers
and not gamers. They only enforce the same SKU, unlike Microcenter which limits the purchase to one GPU per household/ID regardless of SKU.

Best Buy's $200 GPU Paywall Helped Scalpers, Not Gamers

[Seajay]

Did you guys see this? Best buy forced people to pay a $200 warranty for the GPU’s to be able to purchase them, and in many cases, they were pre-orders and weren’t even able to fill the orders. I never liked BB but this is insanity.

Best Buy's $200 GPU Paywall Helped Scalpers, Not Gamers

Corporate greed out in the open. You want something, pay admission for a CHANCE at it

My nearest Micro-center has 24 RTX 3070ti in stock at the moment. Prices are down %3 last I checked. A RTX 3080ti is almost under $1800.
It's been a very long patience game... but I can continue to be patient.

I think a 3070ti under $700 is worth a purchase, but with new cards out soonish and the whole point of these cards are Ray Tracing and 4k performance it is best to wait for the next gen.

[the_matrix_guy]

Yeah, definitely. It also depends on the monitor youre running. If you have an ultrawide 4K resolution then yeah, you need a 3070ti minimally. I’m running an Alienware 34” (AW3418DW) (semi) ultra wide at 3440x1440p and I’m happy with it so I can wait until more games have ray tracing to warrant the upgrade to an OLED 4K monitor and a 3080+ GPU

[Cunha]

It seems like best buy was trying to keep the scalpers away.

Most of the manufacturers don't care if their entire production run gets bought by robot auto buyers and scalped. Its pretty despicable.

I buy from best buy whenever I can, since they have retail stores which are convenient.

I avoid buying from amazon whenever possible.

Favorite electronics retailer online is BH photo video.

For video cards..sometimes the manufacturer website has releases and you just hope for the best.

Practically the entire gaming community is using a 1060-1080 series which was the last time you could pay retail and it was only 100 dollars more than it should be (1060 was $300 versus previous 960 at 200 or so) its horrible.

[the_matrix_guy]

Yeah, but it inadvertently helped scalpers because they don’t care about a $200 paywall, they just pass it on to the buyers. They should’ve limited to
one GPU per buyer/household regardless of SKU.

Thats how my buddy bought his 3080ti about a month ago, he used a stock alert app and got a hit for 3080ti’s directly off the EVGA site. He also recommends registering with www.nowinstock.net, that one is 100% free. Definitely doing all of it for when the 4000 series comes out in around 6 months.

Ive been putting off watercooling my PC with a full dedicated loop simply cause I dont want to spend $100-150 on a 1080ti water block to then have to re-do the whole loop and buy a new block for a 3000 or 4000 series. Plus I’m doing it for shits n giggles, truthfully my computer runs fine air cooled.

I’ve gotten amazing deals on home theatre speakers and studio monitors on both BH Photo and Adorama. Thats a good reminder. You never think about them for PC HW but yeah you never know

[Tracker]

the only reason i was able to get my 3080 was sheer dumb luck.. i signed up for the notification thing from EVGA when the cards went on the site so i could get an email when they became available. the idea to make that "the que" was arrived at later..

i had a pretty early seat at the table

[the_matrix_guy]

More news of prices normalizing? Yes, please . This article is only a couple of hours old:

”Graphics card prices continue to fall, and it looks like the declines are accelerating. If the trend continues, GPUs will soon be available at their RRPs and we’ll be able to declare the end of the GPU crisis. We’re not quite there yet, but there are promising signs. If pricing in the Australian market is any indicator, those signs are looking better than ever.”

”Our sister site, Tom's Hardware Guide, has posted an analysis based on eBay price data. It’s always interesting to look at the private market which includes wannabe scalper prices. According to Tom’s, overall GPU pricing is down a whopping 9% in the first half of March alone. It’s about time gamers had some good news after a bleak couple of years.”

PC Gamer: Asus fires huge salvo in GPU price wars – slashes 25% from RTX 30-series in Australia

https://www.pcgamer.com/asus-fires-h...-in-australia/

[Seajay]

It's gonna still be a bit weird it looks like. Nvidia 4080 / 4090 cards are looking to have very high power requirements. 400-800 watts... which is a bit insane. Kinda backs up the performance increase over the 30 series to some extent. However what it means is we might as "gamers" be looking at a 4070 as the high end card simply from a watt per dollar view.

Cooling a 600 watt card in order to get 144 fps on a 144hz 4k display, is not nothing. If the cards are over 600 watts then you can throw out you room heater for good and just use your GPU. Good luck cooling that much heat on Air alone.

I'm excited for the GPU wars to start again.

[the_matrix_guy]

Seajay I heard that on overclock.net that’s crazy if its true. But I’ll wait until the cards come out to verify, that TDP is nuts. And my electricity bill is already so high 😅 I run A/C 24/7.

What is for certain and confirmed by the industry,
however, is that we’re getting a new power supply/ PSU standard, specifically a new PSU GPU connection standard (12+4). Chances are it’s gonna to be a whole new build at the rate its going 😅

[Seajay]

Uhh I hope not, my 850w PSU has barely aged at all. Plenty of open rails, so adapters it will most likely be for me. There might be a cable for it, as it is fully modular, which would be nice.