State of the industry: MSI offered a chance to win the ability to buy a GPU

MSI: Win a change to give me you money.
ME: No thanks.

I thought that companies wanted to sell as much as possible, not as less as possible.

I thought we were over this bullshit?

But given how the availability of the 4080 is looking, i truly believe (even more than at the beginning) that nvidia is either having pretty bad yield issues on the full Ada chips (somewhat unlikely given the state of quadro) or purposely limiting supplies of the 4090 to make the impression that 'most people are willing to shell out such absurd amounts of money' and further try to normalize the rip off. And perhaps even 'convince' people that are hesitant (read: sane) until now that their resistance is futile....

MSI: We can combat scalpers with a lottery system!
Scalpers: DDoS'es the lottery

The current state of the GPU market will crash the PC gaming market if this goes on another generation or so.. Nvidia, AMD and all the board partners need to get their act together to be frank

Isn't that pretty much what Sony had been doing regularly throughout the PS5 shortage? You entered with your PSN account and then they sent out invitations to buy one to a few chosen ones. Similarly, in the AMD GPU drops you went to their store at a predetermined time and everyone got a random place in a queue that would or would not enable you to buy one. I'm not surprised, that it exists. Only that it's still the case apparently.

I thought that the ship shortage is over and the prices are getting back to normal. This is a nasty surprise for me.

With this it's the third year in a row with PC gaming being non affordable. They continue like that again and by 2025 there won't be PC gamers anymore.

Perhaps Valve should start designing GPUs and save PC gaming yet again?

The state of the GPU industry is good for the environment though; people stick with their existing GPUs for much longer.

I wish this happened to phones, so people wouldn't be literally changing phones every 2 years. 'this' being shortage, not lottery of course.


Last edited by ShabbyX on 16 January 2023 at 2:58 pm UTC

I'll wait until the one I want is available for purchase at MSRP. I'll wait. Also, F scalpers too.

Those companies mastered the game of playing with the vanity of the typical PC gamer. "I must play with all the settings on the Max, at the highest resolution available".

If you manage to take your head out of manufacturer's distorted-reality bubble, you will realize you can play any modern AAA game, with a image quality superior to what the average PC gamer had a mere decade ago, using only the iGPU on a modern AMD processor.

Granted, is not the same experience as playing it on a 1000 dollar discrete card, but is the same game. It IS the same game. Vanity pushes us out of our senses, to make us spend a lot of money on a system just to play a game "better than in the peasant consoles".

Now, I can hear you say that I'm making excuses because I'm poor and cannot afford a 1000 dollar card. But that is a mistake. I'm a adult. I'm employed in the same place for a decade now. But as a full-grown adult, I don't have the luxury of making bad financial decisions anymore. My parents will not bail me out of financial trouble.

I also play games for 30 years. Started in the 8bit generation. I had some of the best gaming experiences of my life on a N64, playing games under 20fps (yeah, twenty!) at resolutions that look ridiculous by today's standards. So you tell me that I cannot have a great gaming experience at 60fps/1080p, just because 4k/120fps is the new hotness? Give me a break. The Steam Deck is out there proving that gaming is more than bragging rights on the internet.

using only the iGPU on a modern AMD processor

iGPU on a modern AMD CPU, sounds familiar...
I don't think you can run all games @ 1080p 60 FPS though, even at low (fine for me) settings.

Granted, is not the same experience as playing it on a 1000 dollar discrete card, but is the same game. It IS the same game. Vanity pushes us out of our senses, to make us spend a lot of money on a system just to play a game "better than in the peasant consoles".

But consoles have historically always been a comparable "value for the money" proposition with PC. They had (and still have) super competitive entry price but then once you're they slowly and stedily siphon the flesh and the soul out of your wallet. PC had always had a steeper entry price (the hardware cost) but then it would repay itself in a few months thanks to better game prices and services. And the better performance and freedom of use would close the deal.

Now the entry prices for PC gaming are just a no no. Once you put some math on it in there is no way one can recover from that initial investment. PCs have just become the equivalent of the electric cars. A vanity luxury item just to show your status and play to be superior.

Just to be clear it's not a product issue. Both NVIDIA 4000 serie and AMD 7000 serie are awesome hardware. It's the pricing that is totally nuts. Who will buy those things? Rich people? How can they sustain a mass market with just rich guys? And if young adults continue to buy consoles since PC are unaffordables, who will buy PC games in the next years? Who will sell PC games if nobody has PC to play them?

It's not a matter of "a good iteration" followed by a "a bad iteration" followed by a "good iteration" again. We're well over the famous microsoft good/bad iterations game. One can easily check on steam that most gamers sits on the 1000 serie. It's a 7 years old serie. It's 7 years that NVIDIA and AMD don't offer a good deal. 7 years is an era in the entertainment industry. PC gamers and PC gaming are already at risk of extinction.

Well... we have the deck I guess to keep the light on. That's still PC gaming on paper. But it's not the "quintessential" implementation of PC gaming.


Last edited by Mal on 16 January 2023 at 4:10 pm UTC

Epic Games Store offers discount card sometimes. And yes.. you must register to one's shop to be able to receive this discount card/ Difference is that, there some small group of registered users will receive discount card.

This concept is so alien that I had to read the title three times before grasping the message.

With this it's the third year in a row with PC gaming being non affordable. They continue like that again and by 2025 there won't be PC gamers anymore.

Perhaps Valve should start designing GPUs and save PC gaming yet again?

Just yesterday I was thinking that I would be totally in for buying a pre-built AMD-based gaming PC from Valve, especially if they gave it the same amount of attention as with SteamDeck.

With this it's the third year in a row with PC gaming being non affordable. They continue like that again and by 2025 there won't be PC gamers anymore.

The video card industry (really, the global semiconductor industry) may still be a mess, but I think it is improving slowly. As for PC gaming, that's not going to go away because of the pricing of the highest-end video cards - those have always been priced absurdly high, the computer component equivalent of a Ferrari or Koenigsegg. What's important to PC gaming is the mid-range cards, and those are available again in quantity, albeit more expensive than they once were. You can order an Nvidia 3060 card right now for ~$350 in the United States, no wait, and it'll play every one of the Top 10 most popular games on Steam at high resolutions and graphics settings, just not "Ultra."

What's important to PC gaming is the mid-range cards, and those are available again in quantity, albeit more expensive than they once were. You can order an Nvidia 3060 card right now for ~$350 in the United States, no wait, and it'll play every one of the Top 10 most popular games on Steam at high resolutions and graphics settings, just not "Ultra."

But at those prices, and those specs, console gaming is a superior option. It's cheaper and plays better. It's just that. New generations of gamers will grow on consoles. Those few who choose PC will regret not having bought a console. And I say that as a guy that simply can't play on console. I bought a ps4 once, I tried it, tried it again and after 3 months I sold it.

While you are discussing PC vs console, the next gen already switched to mobile.

Hopefully with Intel entering the discrete GPU market as a 3rd major player the increased competition will push prices down. Though I reckon it will take at least a couple of years for Intel to really establish themselves in the space.

using only the iGPU on a modern AMD processor

iGPU on a modern AMD CPU, sounds familiar...
I don't think you can run all games @ 1080p 60 FPS though, even at low (fine for me) settings.

When, in the history of pc gameing has that ever been the case with the entry-level option, though?

As for "(entry level) pc gameing has gotten too expensive nowadays" comments from others, consider:

One would be able to manage 60fps 1080p easily with a $160 rx6500xt, which is roughly in line with the historically "fairly decent and cheap" price point (without any inflation correction nonsense some people like to throw at you).

There's a whole range of video card options between the historically normal price range of $80-$400(ryzen 4600g), from the lowly ryzen 4600g's igpu right up to the rx6700 (non xt), the latter of which just happens to have the theoretical specs of the ps5's gpu.

The only thing one has to do is not follow gpu makers, tech press and some rather elitist enthusiasts, who are spreading this bizarre notion that one needs a $1000 video card to enter the hobby.


Last edited by emphy on 16 January 2023 at 8:53 pm UTC