Tech Gaming Hardware discussion (& Hardware Sales) thread

[Blayt7hh]

Would you guys have been happier if launch was 3 months from now in exchange for better stock in the US?

Yes. I understand that they may have done it for a good reason and makes sense, but from a personal standpoint it does none of the consumers any good if they “release” it but don’t really sell any

 

[avenue94]

I don't get it. Scalpers don't help them. Why don't they have adequate supply? Do they hate money or something?

I would guess Nvidia is waiting for memory prices to come down a bit in 2025 since that's what most of the industry expects compared to H2 2024 (when you'd purchased VRAM for Q1 2025). SI's and OEMs are also stockpiling components like crazy, so I also wouldn't be surprised if their allocation is up compared to DIY this year.

 

[avenue94]

Yes. I understand that they may have done it for a good reason and makes sense, but from a personal standpoint it does none of the consumers any good if they “release” it but don’t really sell any

Fair enough. There's plenty of reasons to dislike Nvidia, but I imagine with either approach (slow launch and ramp versus waiting until you have a stockpile to launch) ends up in the same place for end consumers pretty much. I'd also feel worse if it was a mainstream card with low stock, but 90 and 80 cards are so low volume I don't get as invested as much in slow ramps for those.

I actually don't really know why Nvidia is running behind schedule this generation, it's probably just because gaming is a lower priority for the company atm. But who knows.

Also FYI for the other guy Nvidia doesn't sell into Microcenter. They don't even spend much comarketing money there. You can blame Nvidia for slow production ramp but they don't get any say on how many units MC gets.

 

[WhiteMousse]

I would guess Nvidia is waiting for memory prices to come down a bit in 2025 since that's what most of the industry expects compared to H2 2024 (when you'd purchased VRAM for Q1 2025). SI's and OEMs are also stockpiling components like crazy, so I also wouldn't be surprised if their allocation is up compared to DIY this year.

Well I guess I'm going to do what I did for the 3080 Ti. StockX with my bid at MSRP. Believe it or not it does happen. Not at first but as the months go by there's always some seller panic.

Otherwise I'll just hope Best Buy contacts me like they say they will. Ha ha ha.

 

[idrankyourbeer]

i check nowinstock.net and of course the 5090's are all sold out, except "stock available" on ebay, so wanting to see how much scalpers are asking for, one of the things that caught my eye was this:

RTX 5090(read description)​

Condition: used
US $1,800.00

Item description from the seller​

Attention all human shoppers!!!!
To be perfectly clear, I am not selling a graphics card, I am selling a piece of paper with a picture of a graphics card, so unless you are a robot, do not buy this.

RTX 5090(read description) | eBay

The RTX 5090 is a high-end graphics/video card designed for demanding computing tasks such as gaming, content creation, and AI processing. BY PURCHASING YOU UNDERSTAND AND AGREE.

www.ebay.com

these scammers have no shame in their game. and you know damn well some idiot is going to bite.

 

[KaNesDeath]

Would you guys have been happier if launch was 3 months from now in exchange for better stock in the US?

Consumer stock is intentionally being kept low to drive up price so they can fully fulfill enterprise demand. While also discontinuing production of previous generations.

Specs wise the 5080 should be a 5070. Covid era of Nvidia price gouging should place it in the ~700 dollar range. Pre-covid this would be around $400.

 

[avenue94]

Consumer stock is intentionally being kept low to drive up price so they can fully fulfill enterprise demand. While also discontinuing production of previous generations.

Like I told the other guy, there's plenty you can criticize about Nvidia but the complaints are trending overboard. Nvidia doesn't set retail prices over MSRP, that's up to retailers and board partners. If you want to criticize Nvidia for charging board partners too much, fine, but that's different than the price of cards going up after Nvidia sells them to partners. (You also seemed unaware that Nvidia doesn't sell gaming into MicroCenter...like at all.) At that point, money doesn't change hands for Nvidia anymore unless it's co-0marketing or a glut and rebates are needed.

Specs wise the 5080 should be a 5070. Covid era of Nvidia price gouging should place it in the ~700 dollar range. Pre-covid this would be around $400.

Some truth to it but AMD and Intel aren't keeping up yet. So the market is going to set prices unfortunately. Also -70 tier cards have not stayed been under $400 inflation adjusted in like...15 years. Doesn't mean Nvidia hasn't successfully moved cards up the stack on paper, but the nostalgia is a bit much on pricing.

 

[560ti]

I admire the degree of obsessiveness to have the latest and best no matter how outrageous the cost.

you in the market for a kidney bro?

Starter houses in most cities are over 3k a month and nationally the average new car payment is like $700 a month.

I think the bigger issue I have is facing the reality that unfortunately spending $1-2k on a video card is no longer considered big or outrageous money in 2025

 

[avenue94]

Starter houses in most cities are over 3k a month and nationally the average new car payment is like $700 a month.

I think the bigger issue I have is facing the reality that unfortunately spending $1-2k on a video card is no longer considered big or outrageous money in 2025

That's still considered very unusual, even within PC gaming. Most people will never buy above a base 70 series card. You are for what it's worth highlighting that the price of "luxuries" has gone down or not risen as fast as staples in recent years.

 

[Blayt7hh]

Fair enough. There's plenty of reasons to dislike Nvidia, but I imagine with either approach (slow launch and ramp versus waiting until you have a stockpile to launch) ends up in the same place for end consumers pretty much. I'd also feel worse if it was a mainstream card with low stock, but 90 and 80 cards are so low volume I don't get as invested as much in slow ramps for those.

I actually don't really know why Nvidia is running behind schedule this generation, it's probably just because gaming is a lower priority for the company atm. But who knows.

Also FYI for the other guy Nvidia doesn't sell into Microcenter. They don't even spend much comarketing money there. You can blame Nvidia for slow production ramp but they don't get any say on how many units MC gets.

The Gamers Nexus video had some theories as to why.

Fair enough. There's plenty of reasons to dislike Nvidia, but I imagine with either approach (slow launch and ramp versus waiting until you have a stockpile to launch) ends up in the same place for end consumers pretty much. I'd also feel worse if it was a mainstream card with low stock, but 90 and 80 cards are so low volume I don't get as invested as much in slow ramps for those.

I actually don't really know why Nvidia is running behind schedule this generation, it's probably just because gaming is a lower priority for the company atm. But who knows.

Also FYI for the other guy Nvidia doesn't sell into Microcenter. They don't even spend much comarketing money there. You can blame Nvidia for slow production ramp but they don't get any say on how many units MC gets.

Regardless of the reasons making sense to nvidia, they’re coming at expense of the customers. It’s not like we the customer owes it to them to excuse this behavior.

And truthfully, NVIDIA has not treated their customer base well these last three launches now. They get to enjoy being a near monopoly in their market space, and it’s showing. I also get that they are more concerned with AI sales, but that doesn’t mean that I have to excuse it.

It’s really unfortunate that AMD isn’t pushing a high end card this cycle. This is a great opportunity for them to flip the script in the last decade of nvidia dominance in the high end market. I think I would go back to team red if they released a near peer to the 5080 with 24+ gb of ram

 

[Madmick]

GPU	RTX 5070	RTX 4070	RTX 3070	RTX 2070	GTX 1070	GTX 970	GTX 770	GTX 670	GTX 570	GTX 470
Release Date	Feb-2025	Apr-2023	Sep-2020	Oct-2018	Jun-2016	Sep-2014	May-2013	May-2012	Dec-2010	Mar-2010
MSRP	$549	$599	$499	$499	$379	$329	$399	$399	$349	$349
MSRP (Inflation-Adjusted)	$549	$623	$605	$623	$496	$436	$539	$548	$503	$506
PriceΔ	-12%	+3%	-3%	+26%	+14%	-19%	-2%	+9%	-1%	N/A
Avg Game FPSΔ	??	+28%	+39%	+33%	+67%	+42%	+11%	+33%	+27%	N/A
VRAM CapacityΔ	+0%	+50%	+0%	+0%	+100%	+100%	+0%	+56%	+0%	N/A

Average game FPS is drawn from the relative performance summaries upon release by Techpowerup. Of course this varies based on a slew of circumstances, but this gives a rough idea of real-world raster performance. The deltas showing the increases (or decreases) you see in the bottom three rows are always relative to the immediately preceding card.

The GTX 970 and GTX 1070 stand head and shoulders above the rest in terms of historical value. The RTX 2070 is easily the worst. This is not surprising considering the GTX 10 series is widely regarded as the greatest value generation in NVIDIA's history, and the RTX 20 series the worst. That RTX 20 series introduced a price hike to the xx70 cards that has persisted, and all the RTX variants offer inferior rasterization values than any of the prior GTX cards because of this. I think most would maintain this view despite additional considerations of discrete hardware cores for ray-tracing or dynamic upscaling (i.e. Tensor cores for DLSS).

The RTX 5070 may look like a step in the right direction with the price drop, but it doesn't increase the VRAM, it offers a pitiful increase to ray-tracing and Tensor cores versus predecessor RTX cards' gradations, and while we are still waiting to see its performance, looking at the raster pipelines, don't expect much, because the increases there are pitiful, too, with the only meaningul improvement to VRAM bandwidth. The improvements to the pixel fill rate, texture fill rate, and FLOPS are collectively the worst in the history of the xx70 cards by far. In particular, the pixel fill is yet again inferior to the RTX 3070.

 

[avenue94]

Regardless of the reasons making sense to nvidia, they’re coming at expense of the customers. It’s not like we the customer owes it to them to excuse this behavior.

And truthfully, NVIDIA has not treated their customer base well these last three launches now. They get to enjoy being a near monopoly in their market space, and it’s showing. I also get that they are more concerned with AI sales, but that doesn’t mean that I have to excuse it.

You aren't wrong about Nvidia's pricing pushes the last 5 or so years. The thing is I doubt there's actual more 5090 production to squeeze out right now given the die size and how small the market is for halo products, combined with enterprise just be willing to pay way more than gamers for GPUs.

It’s really unfortunate that AMD isn’t pushing a high end card this cycle. This is a great opportunity for them to flip the script in the last decade of nvidia dominance in the high end market. I think I would go back to team red if they released a near peer to the 5080 with 24+ gb of ram

Yeah, unfortunately the chiplet approach didn't scale well enough for AMD on a financial level, so it's back to the drawing board for high-end GPUs.

The Gamers Nexus video had some theories as to why.

My two cents:
Tariffs: So so, most GPU stock isn't FE and importing those units is up to AIBs. I doubt Nvidia pushed up launch for the sake of its partners.
CES Timing: More likely, Computex isn't as big for the US.
March Window: I'm pretty sure they'll announce some new mobile SKUs and maybe midrange desktop at their March event.

 

[My Spot]

You can't blame Nvidia for the pricing after seeing how much marks paid for GPUs during Covid. A shame that the 5080 is inferior to the 4090 though (just like the 4060 was to the 3070).

 

[My Spot]

GPU	RTX 5070	RTX 4070	RTX 3070	RTX 2070	GTX 1070	GTX 970	GTX 770	GTX 670	GTX 570	GTX 470
Release Date	Feb-2025	Apr-2023	Sep-2020	Oct-2018	Jun-2016	Sep-2014	May-2013	May-2012	Dec-2010	Mar-2010
MSRP	$549	$599	$499	$499	$379	$329	$399	$399	$349	$349
MSRP (Inflation-Adjusted)	$549	$623	$605	$623	$496	$436	$539	$548	$503	$506
PriceΔ	-12%	+3%	-3%	+26%	+14%	-19%	-2%	+9%	-1%	N/A
Avg Game FPSΔ	??	+28%	+39%	+33%	+67%	+42%	+11%	+33%	+27%	N/A
VRAM CapacityΔ	+0%	+50%	+0%	+0%	+100%	+100%	+0%	+56%	+0%	N/A

Average game FPS is drawn from the relative performance summaries upon release by Techpowerup. Of course this varies based on a slew of circumstances, but this gives a rough idea of real-world raster performance. The deltas showing the increases (or decreases) you see in the bottom three rows are always relative to the immediately preceding card.

The GTX 970 and GTX 1070 stand head and shoulders above the rest in terms of historical value. The RTX 2070 is easily the worst. This is not surprising considering the GTX 10 series is widely regarded as the greatest value generation in NVIDIA's history, and the RTX 20 series the worst. That RTX 20 series introduced a price hike to the xx70 cards that has persisted, and all the RTX variants offer inferior rasterization values than any of the prior GTX cards because of this. I think most would maintain this view despite additional considerations of discrete hardware cores for ray-tracing or dynamic upscaling (i.e. Tensor cores for DLSS).

The RTX 5070 may look like a step in the right direction with the price drop, but it doesn't increase the VRAM, it offers a pitiful increase to ray-tracing and Tensor cores versus predecessor RTX cards' gradations, and while we are still waiting to see its performance, looking at the raster pipelines, don't expect much, because the increases there are pitiful, too, with the only meaningul improvement to VRAM bandwidth. The improvements to the pixel fill rate, texture fill rate, and FLOPS are collectively the worst in the history of the xx70 cards by far. In particular, the pixel fill is yet again inferior to the RTX 3070.

"Our GTX 10 series was too good, we won't make the same mistake again." - probably what Nvidia told shareholders
The ray tracing premium sucked for the 20 series but at least the cards were better than the next up from the prior gen.

2060 vs 1070
1080p: +15%
1440p: +15%
2160p: +16%

2070 vs 1080
1080p: +11%
1440p: +13%
2160p: +16%

2080 vs 1080 Ti
1080p: +8%
1440p: +8%
2160p: +8%

 

[avenue94]

"Our GTX 10 series was too good, we won't make the same mistake again." - probably what Nvidia told shareholders
The ray tracing premium sucked for the 20 series but at least the cards were better than the next up from the prior gen.

2060 vs 1070
1080p: +15%
1440p: +15%
2160p: +16%

2070 vs 1080
1080p: +11%
1440p: +13%
2160p: +16%

2080 vs 1080 Ti
1080p: +8%
1440p: +8%
2160p: +8%

RTX 20 was really the coffin nail in this run of AMD's GPUs. It performed alright in sales, but more importantly set the stage for the shift to raytracing and what OEMs and SI's expect from a GPU provider.

 

[My Spot]

RTX 20 was really the coffin nail in this run of AMD's GPUs. It performed alright in sales, but more importantly set the stage for the shift to raytracing and what OEMs and SI's expect from a GPU provider.

I really wanted to get an AMD card this go around but I was looking for the most efficient combo and Radeon just pales in comparison (I got a 4070 Super instead).
And I gotta give props to Nvidia for DLSS 4 too, it's a pretty noticeable difference vs DLSS 3 and of course FSR.

 

[PEB]

The RTX5090 launch was very possibly the worst launch in hardware history nevermind PS4 with people sleeping in front of stores for 3 days in a tent with a pee bag no this is really the shittiest launch in history. One store I am not sure who showed they had just 8 of them and there was like 200 people outside to buy it no one thought I telling these poor souls? What was the first 8 going to do scalp them as they walked out of the story? But don't worry the biggest PC sellers got plenty of them apparently? And Taiwanese retailers likely got stacks of them. I cannot wait for the big Taiwanese stores to share photos of a hundred of them stacked on top of each other lol that 4090 launch with their Taiwanese retail outlets having stacks of them all over the internet cannot wait for another round.

 

[jefferz]

I really wanted to get an AMD card this go around but I was looking for the most efficient combo and Radeon just pales in comparison (I got a 4070 Super instead).
And I gotta give props to Nvidia for DLSS 4 too, it's a pretty noticeable difference vs DLSS 3 and of course FSR.

At the high end, Nvidia smacks AMD around.
But once you get down to the 4060 price range, AMD starts to become a better option. Nvidia just doesn't compete on the low end anymore.

When I was looking to upgrade, the options for my price range were the 4060, and the 7700xt. The games I play don't support DLSS, so the 7700xt was the better value.
I got lucky, and found an open box 7800xt for the price of the 7700xt.

 

[My Spot]

At the high end, Nvidia smacks AMD around.
But once you get down to the 4060 price range, AMD starts to become a better option. Nvidia just doesn't compete on the low end anymore.

When I was looking to upgrade, the options for my price range were the 4060, and the 7700xt. The games I play don't support DLSS, so the 7700xt was the better value.
I got lucky, and found an open box 7800xt for the price of the 7700xt.

The 4060 Ti is the competitor to the 7700 XT.

 

[jefferz]

The 4060 Ti is the competitor to the 7700 XT.

And the 7700xt is the better card