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The GPU industry is so broken right now and to make things worse, MSI thought it would be a good idea to do a lottery for a chance to win the ability to buy a GPU. I had to do a triple-take to make sure I was reading it right.

I would really love to have been a fly on the wall in the meeting where MSI thought this was a good idea. A competition that lasted all of 3 days, where people who signed up and entered would be put into a prize-draw where MSI would pull names out of a hat and give them the chance to buy a GeForce RTX 4090 within 48 hours.

Wow, that's super generous isn't it? A "limited" amount of people would also get a $50 MSI store code.

I can't be alone in thinking that was just really weird, getting a chance to possibly spend money by entering a competition. What in the world…I thought doing a lottery was supposed to be the exact opposite of that. Did I fall into an alternate even worse universe recently?

Am I going insane, or is the GPU industry just a complete total mess right now? Prices are absolutely crazy, pricing out a huge amount of people with AMD and NVIDIA focusing mostly on the high-end with their latest chips, with both sides also having plenty of problems like melted power connectors and temperature issues (noted at the bottom). Then we have Intel, whose new GPUs aren't exactly turning heads.

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mr-victory Jan 16, 2023
Quoting: M@GOidusing 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.
Mal Jan 16, 2023
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Quoting: M@GOidGranted, 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
Lachu Jan 16, 2023
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.
pb Jan 16, 2023
This concept is so alien that I had to read the title three times before grasping the message.
pb Jan 16, 2023
Quoting: MalWith 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.
Chuckaluphagus Jan 16, 2023
Quoting: MalWith 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."
Mal Jan 16, 2023
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Quoting: ChuckaluphagusWhat'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.
mr-victory Jan 16, 2023
While you are discussing PC vs console, the next gen already switched to mobile.
questioner9 Jan 16, 2023
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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.
emphy Jan 16, 2023
Quoting: mr-victory
Quoting: M@GOidusing 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
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