Tech Gaming Hardware discussion (& Hardware Sales) thread

[My Spot]

Microcenter here has almost 150 5090s in stock (and they've had stock for awhile now) yet the cheapest one is still $600 above MSRP.

 

[Madmick]

Microcenter here has almost 150 5090s in stock (and they've had stock for awhile now) yet the cheapest one is still $600 above MSRP.

 

[My Spot]

I guess I could buy one just to mess around with power limiting and then return it a couple of weeks later but I'd rather not do that.

 

[KaNesDeath]

What about this isn't sinking in?

Im not the one persistently running defense here for these "MSRP ratios" from one or all companies as a acceptable business practice since 2020.

Wont act emphatetic or giddy for AMD when they fix their performance months after launch, again. To beat the product it was designed to compete against that is equally overpriced.

 

[My Spot]

Also these refurbished cards don't exactly look like good deals.

6950 XT $500 (I assume AMD's version of FE)
FE 4070 $500
Asus ROG Strix 3080 $440
Asus ROG Strix 3080 Ti $540
Powercolor 7900 XT $630
MSI Gaming X 3090 $830
EVGA 3090 Ti $880
FE 4080 $990

 

[Madmick]

Im not the one persistently running defense here for these "MSRP ratios" from one or all companies as a acceptable business practice since 2020.

Nobody said anything about "acceptable business practice". It's a market reality. And as @My Spot just highlighted, it isn't entirely clear to us what portion of GPU pricing's inflation is enjoyed by the retailers. Sure looks like they've got their hand in the cookie jar, too.

The thrust of the point was to demonstrate that even accounting for inflation the ratio of MSRPs as set by the two companies is roughly maintained. As AMD was cheered for their more consumer-friendly MSRP, that means they are still deserving of whatever praise they got for that, even if one still objects to the baseline inflation of the MSRPs. However, at least one can muster some defense for AMD and NVIDIA's increased MSRP based on the increased cost of manufacturing, and the fact the products are offering a greater value than ever before respective to cheaper predecessors, as I laid out in a past post.

Wont act emphatetic or giddy for AMD when they fix their performance months after launch, again. To beat the product it was designed to compete against that is equally overpriced.

 

[KaNesDeath]

X070 ti retailing for $800+ is laughable.

 

[My Spot]

 

[My Spot]

7800X3D and 9800X3D are $300 and $400 through the 11th at MC and I think Best Buy will price match for anyone wondering.

 

[Madmick]

7800X3D and 9800X3D are $300 and $400 through the 11th at MC and I think Best Buy will price match for anyone wondering.

I do my best to avoid any political traps when discussing electronics, but I was pretty terrified of the prices we were led to believe the tariffs would impose. Not only has the stock market defied all the predictions of those "expert" economists, yet again, it looks like the same is also true for the PC building market.

CPU prices seem as good as ever. 7 heat-pipe dual-120mm fan CPU coolers are $35 (crazy). RAM prices are fantastic. NVMe prices are as good as RAM. PSU prices appear to be at least as good as they've been at any time since COVID hit. Even cases-- you can get superb cases for $60 or less. Adjusting for inflation, that's at least as good as it has ever been.

I even noticed that motherboards have seemingly undergone the same revolution we saw with cases if you just ignore the cheaper chipsets. Look at the B850 motherboards. They're all good now. There's no bad choices. For example, ASRock puts the same monster VRM configuration into every one of their B850 boards. So even the cheapest of the bunch will handle a 9800X3D will no thermal issues. The PCIe lanes, expansion/SATA slot totals, USB standards, USB port totals, and fan headers all have parity. You'll scratch your head looking for differences. The onboard soundcard sees an upgrade halfway up their inventory, and there are better I/O backplates, but cutting through these minor differences, really, it looks like the most significant differentiator is the WiFi card. So if you hardwire in...who cares? And this is under $150.

Finally, despite our grumbling, when you look at GPUs, the mid-tier cards that actually sell the most are selling at their MSRPs, or even below the MSRP:

• RX 9060 XT 8GB (-$30, $270)
• RTX 5060 (-$20, $280)
• RTX 5060 Ti 8GB (-$30, $350)
• RX 9060 XT 16GB (+$10, $360)
• RTX 5060 Ti 16GB (+$0, $430)

>> You could build a R5-9600X + 9060 XT + 1TB NVME 5.0 + 32GB DDR5 RAM with very good component quality for less than $950 (no OS). Adjusting for inflation, that would have been less than $700 a decade ago.
>> You could build a R7-9800X3D + 5060 Ti 16GB + 2TB NVME 5.0 + 64GB DDR5 RAM with very good component quality for less than $1500. That's less than $1100 a decade ago.

It's actually as swell a time to build a PC as it has ever been.

 

[avenue94]

I do my best to avoid any political traps when discussing electronics, but I was pretty terrified of the prices we were led to believe the tariffs would impose. Not only has the stock market defied all the predictions of those "expert" economists, yet again, it looks like the same is also true for the PC building market.

It's actually as swell a time to build a PC as it has ever been.

It's a good time to build right now but that's mostly due to tariffs being paused (both the latest batch and Sec 501 got delayed) and inventory stockpiling. The IDC numbers for Q2 are a huge warning sign and pretty bad. You can only keep kicking the tariff can down the road so many times before you rack up higher costs for complying and adapting.

 

[jefferz]

5800xt for $134 on Amazon.

 

[Blayt7hh]

Microcenter here has almost 150 5090s in stock (and they've had stock for awhile now) yet the cheapest one is still $600 above MSRP.

I can’t believe they managed to sell the fucking things to begin with. For a while they were double MSRP. Prices have gotten so bad because gamers have gotten retarded about what they’ll pay

 

[KaNesDeath]

I do my best to avoid any political traps when discussing electronics, but I was pretty terrified of the prices we were led to believe the tariffs would impose. Not only has the stock market defied all the predictions of those "expert" economists, yet again, it looks like the same is also true for the PC building market.

It's a good time to build right now but that's mostly due to tariffs being paused (both the latest batch and Sec 501 got delayed) and inventory stockpiling. The IDC numbers for Q2 are a huge warning sign and pretty bad. You can only keep kicking the tariff can down the road so many times before you rack up higher costs for complying and adapting.

7800X3D hit that retail price in Q4 2023 till Q1 2024 at Microcenter. Now that AMD has mostly fixed AM5 X3D chips and the 8+ core AM5 X3D chips are beating their 8 core AM5 X3D variant. Prices must start coming down to make room for their new AM5 line.

 

[My Spot]

I can’t believe they managed to sell the fucking things to begin with. For a while they were double MSRP. Prices have gotten so bad because gamers have gotten retarded about what they’ll pay

Ever since marks went full retard during Covid when the 3000 series came out.

 

[KaNesDeath]

Ever since marks went full retard during Covid when the 3000 series came out.

That was caused by four factors colliding. 2000 series basically flopping, scalper/crypto miner interest and initial then second quarantine increasing demand.

Today the reasoning is more nefarious. Nvidia/AMD intentionally keeping consumer high end GPU product stock low to push entry level products. This allows them to leverage prices higher beyond whats acceptable. An what we've learned over the past week with Nvidia is that their Pc gamer GPU sales no longer matter.

 

[avenue94]

That was caused by four factors colliding. 2000 series basically flopping, scalper/crypto miner interest and initial then second quarantine increasing demand.

I don't know why people keep saying RTX 20 flopped. Sell out was fine, 2060 beat 1660 and feel behind against anything higher on GTX. High end volume was pretty encouraging too for what RTX was: the last huge marketing win and shift for the PC space.

Today the reasoning is more nefarious. Nvidia/AMD intentionally keeping consumer high end GPU product stock low to push entry level products. This allows them to leverage prices higher beyond whats acceptable. An what we've learned over the past week with Nvidia is that their Pc gamer GPU sales no longer matter.

Nvidia and AMD are funneling all the capacity they currently have, and high end GPU margins are better. IDK where you're getting this idea that Nvidia and AMD would prefer customers by entry-level products instead of premium. Gaming hasn't mattered for Nvidia in years, it's a mature market, datacenter isn't.

 

[KaNesDeath]

I don't know why people keep saying RTX 20 flopped.

At release it did. Wasnt until quarantines that they started to move these units from 3000 series increased retail pricing and low availability.

Margins are better at the higher end. But like we've both stated, Nvidias business is no longer in gaming. An when a new series is about to launch Nvidia intentionally reduces then stops current series mid to high end production. To emphasize previous series low end cards as the new entry.

When the 5080 launched its great for hardware reviewers to use the 4080 as a comparison. When as a consumer the 4080 is a unavailable product. Ones available for purchase were 4060's and 4050's. Nvidia has done this twice now with their 4000 and 5000 series launch. Something theyll mimic again come 6000 launch.

 

[avenue94]

Margins are better at the higher end. But like we've both stated, Nvidias business is no longer in gaming. An when a new series is about to launch Nvidia intentionally reduces then stops current series mid to high end production. To emphasize previous series low end cards as the new entry.

RTX 20's best year was 2020 by a substantial amount, which tracked with previous cycles aside from higher than normal seasonality midyear (covid) and the super refresh (it takes a while to get stock into the channel for prebuilds).

Most of the difference in volume between RTX 30 and RTX 20 is just that Nvidia simply made way more of the former.

Margins are better at the higher end. But like we've both stated, Nvidias business is no longer in gaming. An when a new series is about to launch Nvidia intentionally reduces then stops current series mid to high end production. To emphasize previous series low end cards as the new entry.

You're giving Nvidia a little too much credit here. There's no point producing two generations of cards at once. It was more incompetence than malice, they screwed up on Blackwell datacenter and had to pull out all the stops and strip resources from gaming to get it back on track. Nvidia was about a quarter and a half behind on RTX 50 when it finally came outt.

TLDR: Nvidia would have made more money if they had launched in Q4 as originally planned.

When the 5080 launched its great for hardware reviewers to use the 4080 as a comparison. When as a consumer the 4080 is a unavailable product. Ones available for purchase were 4060's and 4050's. Nvidia has done this twice now with their 4000 and 5000 series launch. Something theyll mimic again come 6000 launch.

This is their first real big miss on bridging generations. RTX 30 had a ridiculous amount of stock and RTX 40 didn't really hit huge volumes for sell out until H2 2024. You don't seem to understand how much excess RTX 30 was floating around during RTX 40's life cycle.

Again, having a supply shortage between generations doesn't make you extra money. The goal is to get as close as possible to having stock on shelf at all times and the transition being as fast as possible.

I don't know why you are so strongly confident in your views despite not basing them remotely on anything concrete.

 

[KaNesDeath]

Again, having a supply shortage between generations doesn't make you extra money. The goal is to get as close as possible to having stock on shelf at all times and the transition being as fast as possible.

I don't know why you are so strongly confident in your views despite not basing them remotely on anything concrete.

Whats the joke about a 1 billion dollar company acting like this. "Now you know why we are a 1.1 billion dollar company".

Its such a small sector of Nvidias overall business that they are penny pinching to this degree. Last thing they want is sending out vouchers to retailers warehousing high quantities of previous generation stock that is in essence a competitor to their current release. Theyve even taken it a step further starting in the 4000 series. By reducing the specs of their X070 and lower cards.