GPU launches no longer exciting.

[nguyen]

4090 has been an awesome launch, doubling the RT performance that make games that weren't really playable on 3090/3090Ti without aggressive DLSS very playable now even with DLAA

As someone who play games on daily basis and some disposable income, recent GPUs launch are great. I play online games with friends most of the time and the rest of the time I choose only good games with captivating visuals. Yes there are great games without good graphics but I get bored looking at them (like Hades, played like 15min then dropped)

People who think expensive GPUs will kill PC gaming need to look at Apple (and Samsung), they sell the same expensive phone every year at increasing prices but somehow their revenue just keep growing. I have colleagues that buy every gen of Samsung Fold and those are 2000usd a pop, if that make them happy and more productive then I think 2000usd is kinda worth it LOL.

 

[shovenose]

You seem to be far to emotional on that topic and your kind of mindset is a good example for the underlying problem: To high - probably gutted about - expectations. What do you think AMD should have done? Without further ado create another, more powerful chip or do what other companies - and AMD has also done this before - last time with Zen 4 - increase power consumption? Navi 31 is the top of the notch chip in the RDNA3 setup thus making the initial GPUs 7900 class and - probably later on - refresh GPUs 7950 class. There is nothing they could have done about it. One grand is still a lot of money but - and I would say AMD has better insight on how their products fare against the competition - the way to compete is not on performance but on price and to some degree features. I doubt they are happy that they have to put 7900 XT/XTX against 4080 but that's reality, Unless there are real, indendent tests it's also a waste of time and effort to already freak out. It's also reality that nVIDIA has a much higher and less wide spread R&D budget. They had an advantage before and they obviously made their homework to stay in lead.

Apart from that: Most people will not be able or willing to buy 4090/80 or 7900/7800 class at all. It's the same as with CPUs. i9s and R9s do look great on paper but the most value you get out of i5/R5 or even i3/R3 products. In the end you don't have to be market leader to be successful.



You could also pass a generation, meanwhile turn down settings/use a lower upscaling resolution and get a mid-class next-gen GPU that will most likely outperform RX 7700 or RTX 4070. I think you do already know this and are doing exactly that.

We have to adjust our expectations and consumer behavior. When products don't sell companies will either go out of business - based on how AMD stayed in business with Bulldozer I doubt this will happen to them or nVIDIA - or adjust their product portfolio. We need not to forget that there is a 3rd player in the ring right now. Might get really interesting when intel get's their drivers right.

I was so excited about Arc and was about committed to an A770. But after the defection A380 I ended up returning because it only worked on 1/4 monitors, I decided to skip Arc this gen, got a decent price on the RX6600 for now, and will happily wait for a better card. If Intel makes a good leap with the Arc B-series, it might be a good buy, but they have nothing 4K worthy at this time, driver updates or not.

the most important games to me are GTA V and MSFS2020. The former which runs OK on medium settings and the latter of which is getting FSR in about a week. So yeah, I will bide my time.

My biggest issue is I either I need to get a new mobo or am limited to a true dual slot card as I use an add-in card for the front USB-C port in my case. On RDNA2, I’m either limited to a reference RX6800 or a used Dell OEM card as they make RX6800XT or RX6900XT in a true dual slot card. Those should come down in price when RDNA3 comes out and I suspect I’ll get one of those in a couple months.

Or, see if there any RX7800XT options that only take up two slots?

 

[Hyderz]

im still excited about gpu launches, cept not as excited about the price.
The top end of the gpu's is boring, i rather cheaper gpu but offer great performance

 

[Yukikaze]

Haven't really been exciting since probably NVIDIA's RTX 2XXX series launch. Prices have been out of whack for a long long time.

I still have my GTX1080Ti, which I bought for $425. It does all I need it to do at 2560x1080. I'll probably keep it for another couple of years until I build a new system.

It really helps that most new games are completely unappealing to me, and the ones that do don't rely on eye candy to be good. Gameplay over graphics - Every time.

 

[Hofnaerrchen]

MSFS2020

My biggest issue is I either I need to get a new mobo or am limited to a true dual slot card as I use an add-in card for the front USB-C port in my case. On RDNA2, I’m either limited to a reference RX6800 or a used Dell OEM card as they make RX6800XT or RX6900XT in a true dual slot card. Those should come down in price when RDNA3 comes out and I suspect I’ll get one of those in a couple months.

With games like this one I understand you being exited about getting something that can run it smoothly on 4k. Have you considered going nVIDIA? Inno3d makes dual slot RTX 3080, 3080 ti or 3070 ti. Did not look further but I think there are other vendors with such cards, too.

 

[Vayra86]

That's a bit of what I'm afraid of. I remember the xbox 360 era of PC gaming consisting of a lot of ports and I hope that we are not coming upon a repeat.

We already are. Except now the ports happen in both directions

 

[Bomby569]

There are so many good cheap used cards, why do you need to go buy the shiny new thing? maybe you're the problem and people like you. The people that get/got excited for a launch, that went/go queue for cards.

They are not the problem, they have a product and people that queue to pay crazy prices, they would be stupid not to take your money. That meme of how the companies see their customers with money coming of their pockets is very real.

 

[Imperator]

That meme of how the companies see their customers with money coming of their pockets is very real.

Unfortunately he is so right.
We are just a number for them.
How many customers and how much profit.
Sad

 

[oxrufiioxo]

I still find them exciting in terms of technology. The new pricing doesn't bother me that much... Maybe it's becuase from 2010-2017 I ran sli in all my setups making the gpus cost me $1000 ish back when I made much less money. The only difference is I can't just upgrade my whole platform every time I upgrade my gpu every 2 years ish.

Previously I'd spend 2000-2500 doing a system upgrade every 2-3 years now I'll probably upgrade gpus and only update the platform when absolutely necessary.

 

[Dr. Dro]

High GPU prices are not my primary concern (though $1000 is usually my ceiling on spending in any product, as it snowballs into a lot more due to taxes in my country and the new administration coming up is not going to be helpful with this in the slightest, they're ideologically misaligned with technology), but a lot of the excitement is gone simply because GPUs are now good enough, like processors in general.

Take an RTX 2080 Ti for instance it is now a four-year-old product, is there really any game that it won't run - and run well - at 4K even? You're only going to make that thing feel weak if you go ham with the special effects, most of which gamers can perfectly live without or would disable even in such powerful hardware to ensure that the engine itself doesn't ever skip a beat. Things only begin to get a little dated once you go down to the GTX 10 series, because they are already well over six and thus lack concise support for modern standardized graphics such as DirectX 12 Ultimate and - on NVIDIA's part, were really bad at base DX12 to begin with. Even then, they will cater to gamers who play DirectX 11 and older games rather well, and these are still the majority of mass market games out there right now.

Avram Piltch's infamous "Just Buy It" pitch on Tom's Hardware may have sounded hilariously tone deaf and downright insulting at the time, but time has arguably vindicated it given that Turing is really the oldest thing you want to be on right now to play next-gen games of any kind. Which is fine, really.

The older Radeon cards are not in a better situation, because they're either stuck in outdated driver hell as AMD cut off everything up to R9 Fury, or have very inefficient designs that are simply not able to keep up with modern products to begin with (see: RX Vega 64 and Radeon VII - this last one despite exceptionally impressive specs at launch, not even 4 years later it's being handily outclassed in performance and power by 128-bit bus budget GPUs like the RX 6600 that aren't even close to being called remarkable performers).

My take - I understand the FOMO, friend, especially with all the marketing claims and all. But when you look at it, do you need another GPU? With my RTX 3090, I sure don't. So I will take my time and buy wisely, see if I can align my purchase with the next big game I want to play (which in my case, is Horizon Forbidden West's PC port), or at the very least the most favorable market condition I can see a window for.

 

[trog100]

High GPU prices are not my primary concern (though $1000 is usually my ceiling on spending in any product, as it snowballs into a lot more due to taxes in my country and the new administration coming up is not going to be helpful with this in the slightest, they're ideologically misaligned with technology), but a lot of the excitement is gone simply because GPUs are now good enough, like processors in general.

Take an RTX 2080 Ti for instance it is now a four-year-old product, is there really any game that it won't run - and run well - at 4K even? You're only going to make that thing feel weak if you go ham with the special effects, most of which gamers can perfectly live without or would disable even in such powerful hardware to ensure that the engine itself doesn't ever skip a beat. Things only begin to get a little dated once you go down to the GTX 10 series, because they are already well over six and thus lack concise support for modern standardized graphics such as DirectX 12 Ultimate and - on NVIDIA's part, were really bad at base DX12 to begin with. Even then, they will cater to gamers who play DirectX 11 and older games rather well, and these are still the majority of mass market games out there right now.

Avram Piltch's infamous "Just Buy It" pitch on Tom's Hardware may have sounded hilariously tone deaf and downright insulting at the time, but time has arguably vindicated it given that Turing is really the oldest thing you want to be on right now to play next-gen games of any kind. Which is fine, really.

The older Radeon cards are not in a better situation, because they're either stuck in outdated driver hell as AMD cut off everything up to R9 Fury, or have very inefficient designs that are simply not able to keep up with modern products to begin with (see: RX Vega 64 and Radeon VII - this last one despite exceptionally impressive specs at launch, not even 4 years later it's being handily outclassed in performance and power by 128-bit bus budget GPUs like the RX 6600 that aren't even close to being called remarkable performers).

My take - I understand the FOMO, friend, especially with all the marketing claims and all. But when you look at it, do you need another GPU? With my RTX 3090, I sure don't. So I will take my time and buy wisely, see if I can align my purchase with the next big game I want to play (which in my case, is Horizon Forbidden West's PC port), or at the very least the most favorable market condition I can see a window for.

a used 3080 will pretty much do anything asked of it.. people dont have to buy the latest generation..

over the last couple of weeks i have tried several different cards.. 3070.. 3080.. 3090 and now a 4090.. i play at 1440p.. in reality without some kind of fps counter running i cant tell the difference between any of them..

trog

 

[Dr. Dro]

a used 3080 will pretty much do anything asked of it.. people dont have to buy the latest generation..

trog

At current prices, the RTX 3080 is arguably not a desirable card, especially after the 7900 XT launches. But there is no bad hardware, just bad prices. A 3080 10G for $500, or $550 for the 12G model, is going to be a decent value proposition vs. these new GPUs from a performance standpoint, at least until the new mid-rangers release with superior power efficiency.

I'm ready for the upgrade, given I've owned and thoroughly used my card for the past two years and it already has a home to go to in my secondary build, but I personally don't think it's the time to jump in just yet. Anyone on GTX 1080 Ti and earlier should definitely be considering an upgrade by now though, as beloved as it is to some, it's too far behind the curve now. I'd go as far as calling it obsolete hardware, which from a technological standpoint, it very much is given it's several process nodes and multiple architectures behind, even if it still performs within an acceptable range to a lot of people.

 

[pavle]

Of course GPU launches aren't exciting; used to be 10% more money for 2x increase in performance, nowdays it's 2x more money for 10% increase in performance. A bit exaggerated but certainly not by much.

RTX 3080 to RTX 4090 upgrade does not count because they are not same-tier products.

 

[trog100]

At current prices, the RTX 3080 is arguably not a desirable card, especially after the 7900 XT launches. But there is no bad hardware, just bad prices. A 3080 10G for $500, or $550 for the 12G model, is going to be a decent value proposition vs. these new GPUs from a performance standpoint, at least until the new mid-rangers release with superior power efficiency.

I'm ready for the upgrade, given I've owned and thoroughly used my card for the past two years and it already has a home to go to in my secondary build, but I personally don't think it's the time to jump in just yet. Anyone on GTX 1080 Ti and earlier should definitely be considering an upgrade by now though, as beloved as it is to some, it's too far behind the curve now. I'd go as far as calling it obsolete hardware, which from a technological standpoint, it very much is given it's several process nodes and multiple architectures behind, even if it still performs within an acceptable range to a lot of people..

a used 3080 is pretty good value.. not new but the used prices are okay for high end stuff.. a used 3070 is bargain basement now..

trog

 

[Minxie]

Of course GPU launches aren't exciting; used to be 10% more money for 2x increase in performance, nowdays it's 2x more money for 10% increase in performance.

which is why i'll be getting the 7900 XTX, same price as a 6900 XT but around 60-70% more perf. RTX 40 is DOA to me

A bit exaggerated

you think?

 

[evernessince]

There are so many good cheap used cards, why do you need to go buy the shiny new thing? maybe you're the problem and people like you. The people that get/got excited for a launch, that went/go queue for cards.

They are not the problem, they have a product and people that queue to pay crazy prices, they would be stupid not to take your money. That meme of how the companies see their customers with money coming of their pockets is very real.

I have a 1080 Ti. My original comment was not about feeling the need to purchase every generation (I expressed the opposite in fact), it was a commentary on the factors surrounding GPU launches and their prices.

 

[freeagent]

They quit being exciting for me after $500USD was the norm

 

[Toss]

I literally skipping this generation because there is 0 games which bottlenecked my GPU. Plague tale did, but I finished it even with stable 40 fps perfectly fine.
Also nothing interesting coming until at least 2025 when GTA 6 theoretically release.
Games are very bad nowadays.

 

[Bomby569]

I have a 1080 Ti. My original comment was not about feeling the need to purchase every generation (I expressed the opposite in fact), it was a commentary on the factors surrounding GPU launches and their prices.

if you ignore the early days, there is still great improvements and you can get nice deals. I'm most excited for my purchases, the moment i purchase something. The release moment does nothing for me, i just ignore it, first adopter pains, higher prices, beta tester.

The soon to be last gen amd cards, are great value now.

I guess what i mean is tech is exciting, releases not even remotely exciting, more like the opposite.

 

[BSim500]

Of course GPU launches aren't exciting; used to be 10% more money for 2x increase in performance, nowdays it's 2x more money for 10% increase in performance. A bit exaggerated but certainly not by much.

It really isn't exaggerated. GTX 1050Ti -> GTX 1650 Super = +80% perf for +6% price ($159 vs $149). GTX 1660S -> RTX 3050 = +6% perf for +50% price ($220 vs $300-$350). Recent real-world p*ss-poor generational upgrade "value" genuinely is as bad as your "exaggeration" in some tiers...

 

[ARF]

They might already have sold 100k units of the 4090.

Impossible. I call it nuts and fake news propaganda.

 

[birdie]

I feel like games graphics wise have stopped drastically improving like they did in the past, so changes look every incremental and barely noticeable and that makes you doubt the entire progress in the industry.

Crysis in 2007 (15 year ago!) was something to behold. It was so forward-looking, it was jaw dropping. Nowadays? RT reflections, lighting, shadows? Barely noticeable except for certain scenes. Baked-in lighting has become so good to the point RT effects are hard to find and perceive.

At the same times games continue to lack

• Proper physics and real world simulation, including collision detection and prevention. In 2022 all games feature clipping of everything with everything, most things feel massless, water is still horrible to look at.
• Animation is still horrible.
• AI is nowhere to be found.
• Where's grass? Has anyone seen games where there's actual grass, not something which looks like horrible 2D sprites?
• Where's destruction? Red Faction did it over a decade ago and we've had nothing similar so far despite CPUs and GPUs being 50-5000 times faster vs. their counterparts back then.
• 3D audio? Where has it gone?

Better textures, higher fps, 4K, etc. all look gimmicky to me.

 

[evernessince]

I feel like games graphics wise have stopped drastically improving like they did in the past, so changes look every incremental and barely noticeable and that makes you doubt the entire progress in the industry.

Crysis in 2007 (15 year ago!) was something to behold. It was so forward-looking, it was jaw dropping. Nowadays? RT reflections, lighting, shadows? Barely noticeable except for certain scenes. Baked-in lighting has become so good to the point RT effects are hard to find and perceive.

At the same times games continue to lack

• Proper physics and real world simulation, including collision detection and prevention. In 2022 all games feature clipping of everything with everything, most things feel massless, water is still horrible to look at.
• Animation is still horrible.
• AI is nowhere to be found.
• Where's grass? Has anyone seen games where there's actual grass, not something which looks like horrible 2D sprites?
• Where's destruction? Red Faction did it over a decade ago and we've had nothing similar so far despite CPUs and GPUs being 50-5000 times faster vs. their counterparts back then.
• 3D audio? Where has it gone?

Better textures, higher fps, 4K, etc. all look gimmicky to me.

I agree with all the above.

Improved AI could help so much to immerse players in the world. Clipping as you mentioned is completely immersion breaking. Somehow we've got back in environment intractability and some franchises like BF removed destructibility.

Audio in general has been greatly neglected. 3D audio has been around for a long time. You can do ray traced audio on modern hardware without large overhead but unfortunately it's almost only used for VR games. It's also possible to dynamically generate sounds given reference samples based on the material type, impact force, thickness at the place of impact, and all other factors to simulate sound propagation. This more advanced sound simulation is newer but would mean that many sounds in the game are truly unique and reflect what actually happened and not just play generic pot breaking sound for the 10,000th time.

 

[TheUn4seen]

Honestly, just using the word "excitement" in relation to products made for simple entertainment speaks volumes about how marketing drones brainwash people. GPUs are merely products for the mass market. They have to be better than the previous generation, otherwise people wouldn't buy them - but not better by too much, there needs to be a new generation next year. They have to be more expensive because corporations exist only to maximize profit and "whatever the market will bear" pricing strategy is alive and well.
All in all, these are just toys, nothing to be excited about.

 

[ARF]

They have to be better than the previous generation, otherwise people wouldn't buy them - but not better by too much, there needs to be a new generation next year.

If the Moore's law is already dead, then soon there will be no new generations at all. Come TSMC N3 node maybe in 2 years for graphics cards, then we don't even know if "2 nm" and "1 nm" will work or will be failures like Intel's 10 nm process. Actually this was the first sign of the beginning of the end.

I feel like games graphics wise have stopped drastically improving like they did in the past, so changes look every incremental and barely noticeable and that makes you doubt the entire progress in the industry.

Crysis in 2007 (15 year ago!) was something to behold. It was so forward-looking, it was jaw dropping. Nowadays? RT reflections, lighting, shadows? Barely noticeable except for certain scenes. Baked-in lighting has become so good to the point RT effects are hard to find and perceive.

At the same times games continue to lack

• Proper physics and real world simulation, including collision detection and prevention. In 2022 all games feature clipping of everything with everything, most things feel massless, water is still horrible to look at.
• Animation is still horrible.
• AI is nowhere to be found.
• Where's grass? Has anyone seen games where there's actual grass, not something which looks like horrible 2D sprites?
• Where's destruction? Red Faction did it over a decade ago and we've had nothing similar so far despite CPUs and GPUs being 50-5000 times faster vs. their counterparts back then.
• 3D audio? Where has it gone?

Better textures, higher fps, 4K, etc. all look gimmicky to me.

You are correct, but it's funny how you wrote "animation is still horrible" when I have seen people in the know saying that the games development has never aimed to make physically real gaming environments - everything in games must be fake (Minecraft with ray-tracing or Quake 2 with ray-tracing lol) and animation, not photo-realistic.
BTW, the first wow effect game was the original Far Cry (2004) just before the original Crysis.