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Comment on We all deserve better than this

Yep, this basically sums up my experiences a couple months ago. I’ve been telling myself since about 2016 that I would save up to go all in and build a solid gaming desktop.

But then there were floods in southeast Asia hindering supplies where I lived. No biggie, they’d recover quick.

Then crypto took off and GPUs and some other hardware tripled or quadrupled in price. No biggie, it’s a fad that will go away quick.

Then COVID destroyed production and supply of computer hardware. No biggie, gives me time to save up more to afford these new crazy prices.

Finally, I was at the point of “Fuck it, I’m tired of waiting. I’m buying a 5080, even if it costs as much as 2 PS5s.”

So I planned it out, made sure I had everything lined up to immediately snag one once they were available. And then day of…

Nvidia’s store: Never had any in stock at any point.
Microcenter: In-store purchases only, and stores were given single-digit stock while hundreds of people queued up for days.
Newegg: Never loaded until their stock was all gone.
Best Buy: Had a very attractive “Add to Cart” button display for a period of about 10 minutes at random intervals throughout the day, which places me into a queue that ended with me just being kicked out every single time.

So then I thought "Well, forget Nvidia, just because their cards are dropping earlier in the year doesn’t mean I need to keep waiting for them. I’ll just get an AMD card if Nvidia doesn’t have stock by then.

And, well…here we are in this article.

PC gaming is the best deal, eh?

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CubitOom@infosec.pub ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
Consider buying a previous generation card. You can sometimes find good deals on used ones.

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- catloaf@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  Yeah. I bought a 3060 on eBay for $240 a few weeks ago. Works great.
  
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  - ramble81@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
    Brand new Intel ARC B570 puts up numbers in the 4060 range and only costs around $250
    
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    catloaf@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
    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.
    
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- scarabic@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  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.
  
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  - bassomitron@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
    Out of curiosity, what GPU is getting 85% of a 5080’s performance at $250? Genuine question.
    
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    scarabic@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
    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 wildly expensive. 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.
    
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- TeamAssimilation@infosec.pub ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  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.
  
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- Stovetop@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  I actually had thought of that too, but see my reply to someone else further below:
  
  lemmy.world/comment/15537041
  
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- sp3tr4l@lemmy.zip ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  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.
  
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lorty@lemmy.ml ⁨10⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
There was a window where the AMD 6000 series were cheap and readily available, which was probably your best bet. Now we have to wait the AI bubble to burst. Hopefully.

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Redredme@lemmy.world ⁨14⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
I was in the same boat. Then I decided that the 50x0 was a paper launch and the leaks told me that the 9070XT would lower or have the same performance as the 7900xtx.

Then the 7900xtx dropped in price, clearing the channel for the new gen.

Then I bought that.

Ever since I’ve been wondering… Why didn’t I buy this thing earlier?

It’s more then fast enough. The RT performance is above the 3080.

Every 9070XT I can buy now is almost 200 euro more then what i payed for the 7900xtx.

What I learned? Buy previous gen in it’s “dying” weeks.

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- CatZoomies@lemmy.world ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  Same strategy here. I’m in the U.S. and tariffs were my big concern. In December, I waited for the Sapphire Nitro+ 7900 XTX to go on sale and I paid less than MSRP for it brand new. Having experienced both the disasters of the previous two GPU gens, I had the foresight that the launch of the next gen cards would also be a disaster, and here we are.
  
  PC Gaming has become a rich person’s hobby.
  
  Buy current gen right before the next gen launches, and you’ll be set. I expect to get 10 years out of my card, with the incredible performance, build quality, and 24 GB VRAM.
  
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tal@lemmy.today ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

I’ve been telling myself since about 2016 that I would save up to go all in and build a solid gaming desktop.

Finally, I was at the point of “Fuck it, I’m tired of waiting. I’m buying a 5080, even if it costs as much as 2 PS5s.”

I assume that whatever you’re running right now isn’t terribly new.

The 5080 is a 16GB card. A quick skim on Amazon suggests that 16GB Nvidia cards are in short supply, but that you can get a 16GB AMD GPU without problems.

videocardbenchmark.net/…/Radeon-RX-7600-XT-vs-GeF…

They aren’t quite as fast on the Passmark benchmark as the 5080, but they also cost a lot less, and I assume that they’d be a lot faster than whatever you’re running now. And they cost a lot less than the 5080, if one were available.

Could go with that (or something less-fancy) and then if you felt that you wanted to spend more for more performance, do so when GPUs become available.

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- Stovetop@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  To add a bit to the story, I did spring for a gaming laptop in 2022 because my 2013 MacBook was starting to show its age, and the model I bought came with a 2070 mobile GPU which has been fine playing newer games at modest settings at 1080p.
  
  Laptops and prebuilts were basically the only affordable option in the pandemic, and I had a laptop need at the time. But for a while now it has still been a goal of mine to put together a good desktop. The last desktop I built was in 2010 (I snagged a GTX 580 GPU and felt like such hot shit then).
  
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  - PalmTreeIsBestTree@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
    I’m so glad I built a high end computer last fall because I was lucky to afford it. Now my 4080 used is now worth 600 dollars more than what I paid for it…
    
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WhyJiffie@sh.itjust.works ⁨16⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
if you have been waiting since 2016, why do you want an 5080, though? 2-3 gens earlier will be a large improvement too, with half or even lower a price.

I did the same, but with AMD. I’m going Linux, and everything is good except nvidia’s utterly broken drivers. I mean, they always improve, today it’s usable if you don’t want to sleep/hibernate your PC, if you are sure you won’t run out of video memory (nvidia drivers are the only one in linux that can’t transfer some memory to system ram when it’s really needed), if you don’t need gamescope, and so on…

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- Stovetop@lemmy.world ⁨14⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  I expanded elsewhere in this post, but basically it’s a combination of:
  
  I do own a laptop I bought in the pandemic which has a 2070 mobile GPU, and between that and my PS5, I am not truly in a rush.
  
  Older hardware is also being price gouged. If I do buy something, I don’t want it to be more than 1 gen old, but at current prices I’d be paying more than the new stuff goes for at MSRP.
  
  I budgeted to be able to buy something good, not just good enough. Since I’m not in a rush, I’m willing to wait and keep trying to buy something closer to top-of-the-line. I can afford scalper prices, but I just refuse to support scalping out of principle.
  
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  - Mondez@lemdro.id ⁨13⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    Aren’t you letting perfect be the enemy of good here? You are looking for a unicorn and likely will never find it.
    
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    Stovetop@lemmy.world ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    I mean, I already have good. I just don’t need to waste money on something I don’t need if it’s not worth it.
    
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umbrella@lemmy.ml ⁨21⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
get an used one or go AMD

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- Stovetop@lemmy.world ⁨14⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  Previous gen is going for 1.5-2x as much as current gen due to shortages, even for used cards. They are at least available if someone has a dire need for a replacement GPU, but I am patient, not willing to pay current gen prices for older hardware, and not willing to pay more than MSRP at that.
  
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  - umbrella@lemmy.ml ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    holy shit the situation is dire, i just looked at the price of my card and it costs just as much as it did a few years ago when i bought it. i guess GPUs are not for us anymore, its for AI slop and surveillance now.
    
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