You are describing people who buy stuff based on PR material and not the actual reviews, well suck to be those people I guess. But here you are talking to a bunch of techie who read through multiple reviews before making a purchase.
No. I am not describing any particular group of people whatsoever - and that takes us a significant step towards identifying why you're so dead set on derailing what is otherwise a relevant and useful point of discussion: you're essentially enacting the neoliberal/late stage capitalist move of individualizing everything as much as possible, denying the existence of larger-scale structures. What I am describing is the large-scale movement of expectations and ideas over time, for a large-scale population. This includes
everyone given sufficient time and exposure. Heck, due to the degree of technofetishism and upgrade mania typically found in tech enthusiast circles, one could make an equally strong argument for enthusiasts being
less prone to criticise price hikes (as long as they come along with a perceived increase in absolute performance). Which is exactly what we're seeing with people making the "It might be expensive at $2k, but at least it's the fastest GPU around" argument.
No one here would have any problem with 2000usd GPU if it had the same price-to-performance as the 3060 Ti, we are in a tech enthusiast forum after all.
Nonsense. There are absolutely reasonable arguments to be made as to why the very existence of such a product tier is directly harmful to the overall PC (gaming or not) enthusiast scene. There are also arguments to be made for them being beneficial, and we can agree or disagree on those, but saying "no one here would have any problem" is some
real overreach.
(Of course, a $2000 SKU delivering the same perf/$ of a nominally $400 SKU would also taint the value proposition of cheaper cards, going against the near-ubiquitous expectations that (down to a certain point) lower-priced SKUs deliver better overall value (in part due to economics of scale).)
So yeah the 3090Ti is a stupid GPU at 2000usd, but I'm open to future 2000usd GPU that completely decimate lower SKUs (like 1080 Ti vs 1080). I bet future 400usd GPU would provide good uplift over 3060Ti too, otherwise it make no sense to buy.
... so if AMD and Nvidia in the future just cripple their lower-tier GPUs sufficiently, you'll be fine with the well performing one costing $2000? Yeah, I know that's not what you're meaning to say, but your wording makes that an equally valid reading as the opposite. There's good reason to be careful with how you formulate your arguments.
As for future $400 GPUs delivering a good uplift over the 3060 Ti - that would be the hope, but developments over the past few years have been towards performance/$ stagnation more than anything else. Equally likely as things stand today is that the 4060 Ti will launch at $500-600 and deliver a performance increase equivalent to that price increase in %. It would be very nice to be wrong about that, but I'm not very hopeful.
Heck, the GTX 1080 Ti vs. the 1080 is an excellent example of the literal opposite of price creep. The non-Ti 1080 launched at "$599" with the real base price being the $699 FE pricing (as nearly all AIB models matched or exceeded that price, with only a few, low-stock exceptions). The 1080 Ti then launched a few months later
at the same price, while delivering a
19%/28%/35% performance increase (1080p/1440p/2160p).
For the same price. That is great value, and it's the opposite of price creep. Of course the 1080 on its part had pushed MSRPs for 80-tier cards $50-150 (non-FE and FE/most AIBs respectively), even exceeding the $650 MSRP of the 980 Ti, so there was some price creep there, but the 1080 Ti largely counteracted that, bringing the 1080 Ti within $50 of the 980 Ti launch price. Thus, the 1080 Ti is a perfect example of the exact opposite of what you're arguing.
On the other hand, for this generation of GPUs, even the MSRPs - which have mostly been way lower than street prices - have represented same-or-less perf/$ compared to previous-gen alternatives. This generation has been dominated by stagnant or dropping performance/$, which is unprecedented within the GPU space.
Another crucial distinction here that has disappeared with the death of the Titan moniker:
xx80 Ti SKUs, despite their overall poor value compared to lower tier products, used to represent a "value" proposition compared to those, with >95% of their performance at half the price or less. Now, instead of that borderline consumer-friendly segmentation (that still had plenty of room for "if you have the money..." type of products), we have a never-ending runoff towards ever-higher "consumer" flagship prices. This is of course beneficial to profit-seeking corporations that don't care whatsoever about their customers, but ... well, I'm not beholden to them, nor do I have to accept the harmful, extremist ideology that type of dogma represents. Just because it's the dominant ideology currently, and legally required in some areas, does not make it inevitable or any less harmful.
Is it? I'd make the case that these products effectively replace TITAN class products, given they're absent from the current lineup, and a good proportion of similar buyers would consider them.
2017, TITAN V - $2999 USD
2018, TITAN RTX - $2499 USD
maybe they lowered the price of the 3090 relative to those to attract more buyers back to TITAN-esque products? Who knows, but examples of extreme price and power consumption aren't new to the 3090Ti, it's the product du jour.
There is definitely an interesting discussion to be had around the effects on pricing and customer perception that come with the death of the Titan sub-brand, and you can see some of my points of view on that above. It's a bit of a side discussion, but overall I see this as a conscious move aimed at normalizing these products and their prices as "consumer" rather than "prosumer" oriented (which was the target of the Titan brand in what little marketing it got - the Quadro for those not wanting to pay Quadro prices). I think the removal of the mental cut-off point of the Titan brand (signalling "this isn't for you, relax, go look at Geforce cards") is exactly what Nvidia were aiming for with this move, even if the 3090 and 3090 Ti are so to speak spiritual successors to that line of products. The absence of separate branding is, IMO, exactly the point, and exactly what makes it problematic.
I mean, I certainly like your sentiment there, and boy do I wish we could make an impact. But I suppose I'm just too cynical to see this making a meaningful impact. People with deep pockets/willing to spend big/treat themselves for their hobbies will buy these products, you and I cannot talk them out of that. So to me, a lot of the ... lets say complaints and worry about these products is misplaced, they're never good value, and they almost never are the most efficient.
I can definitely understand that, as I generally understand pessimism and cynicism towards the world in general as it stands today. I just refuse to give up and lay down and die, so to speak - 'cause the options are either giving up entirely, assimilating, or attempting resistance. And I don't want to give up on my favourite hobby, nor would I ever want to assimilate into this set of beliefs - so I don't have much of a choice.
It's the classic situation of those with money and other privileges always having an easier time overall - they are louder, more visible, typically lead easier lives and have more resources to spend in order to ensure that, giving them more freedom to speak up about their beliefs. Of course the PC scene also to some degree inherently privileges these positions through its constant chasing of performance, which thus inherently also privileges those with the fastest hardware to some degree. I mean, if everyone still gaming on a GTX 1060 and reasonably happy with that spent as much time arguing their point of view as those with high end flagship GPUs today do arguing for theirs, the discourse here would look quite different.
I think the best we can hope for is voting with wallets en masse and buying products in the 'meat' of the lineups, closer to the efficiency and price to performance sweetspot, but again, the cynic in me doesn't think the relative few of us who are super into this and are invested in the market can really make the difference you seek. Especially given the vast majority of gamers sit in that category, and already are at least trying to do that, and prices are still creeping up, and average people have paid crazy inflated market prices... the creep just feels ... inevitable, which of course to some extent it was always going to be.
Yeah, that's the problem with the concept of "voting with your wallet" - it essentially requires a utopian combination of engaged and concsious customers sufficiently informed to make conscious choices and sufficiently privileged to
not choose what might otherwise fulfill their desired. Heck, there has been
one single successful large-scale boycott in the history of the world - that against apartheid South Africa. Of course that also had a far larger target than the GPU industry, but that example tells us quite a lot about what is required for that type of movement to succeed. And, of course, history is littered with examples of failed attempts at similar movements with similar goals.
Of course, that feeling of inevitability that you describe is precisely the point - and one that corporations and corporate-friendly ideologues are explicitly and concertedly working towards. Disillusionment in your opposition is a far, far easier and more effective tool towards getting what you want than actively and openly fighting them. That's pretty much the entire reason why neoliberalism has grown to become the dominant economic system in the world today, despite essentially nobody outside of a small group of hardliners (the Nixon-Reagan-Thatcher idolizers) really believing that this economic system is good at all. It's a mode of politics that is predicated on tiring out your opposition by making seemingly logical claims ("cutting government expenses is good") that require complex explanations of why they are wrong, while also winning over a public that is suffering from an increasing attention overload and is effectively rendered unable to process long-ranging, complex processes and ideas through the sheer sensory and mental overload of how their day-to-day lives are. If people are too tired to listen to complex counter-argumnets, they're more likely to not disagree or agree with your position. If people need to work three jobs to pay rent, and thus can't afford to strike or attend a protest, you're less likely to have massive protests staged against your self-serving legislation. Distractions and straw men are extremely important parts of this ideology, and that's exactly what ludicrously priced products like this serve as. That they also come with an undertone of "man, it would be great if I could afford one of those" only helps their cause.
In any case like I said I like your sentiment and I hope and wish we can influence the market, I just won't hold my breath for it.
Yeah, me neither. But while I can't predict any kind of positive outcome of my own actions, I know that my inaction will
definitely not have any postive outcomes. So, as long as I have the energy, I'll gladly be the difficult one pointing out the systemic problems of things like this. I might even get through to a couple of people. Then again, there's also a reason why I'm far less active on the forums now than I have been previously.
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