I see so much negativity about this card from some people and while I do understand it, I'm also shaking my head at how ridiculous some of them are. A video card is made good or bad by its competition and nVidia has done a GREAT job of making Radeons good in spite of themselves this gen. Don't blame AMD for the pricing because the consumers are really to blame. Then of course AMD has to raise their prices because they know that enough people will buy nVidia no matter the price (which is another serious issue with the GPU market) because it means that nVidia will be rolling in it and so AMD has to rake in more in order to keep up with nVidia's huge R&D budget! Consumers need to start blaming
themselves for this situation because it sits squarely on our shoulders. WE are in control of the market but we haven't been in control of
ourselves. That's the biggest issue imaginable in any industry marketplace, not just this one.
It's time for a reality check (and I don't care if you don't like it because it's the truth):
Universe-Level Stupid - If you're just a gamer and have an RTX 3090, you're almost as dumb as it gets and you would be if the RTX 3090 Ti didn't exist. This is because it means that you spent an extra $800 (MORE THAN DOUBLE) over the price of the RTX 3080 for an absurd 13% performance increase. Again, this is assuming that you managed to get it at MSRP because if you didn't, you could have paid as much as an extra $1,500! That's a stupid amount of money to spend just to stroke your ego and be able to say that you had "the fastest video card in the world" for the maximum of 15 months before the RTX 3090 Ti came out. The only people who make you look smart are the gamers who bought the RTX 3090 Ti.
You are the biggest reason that Jensen keeps pushing the prices up because if you show that you're willing to pay it, why wouldn't he?
Galaxy-Level Stupid - If you're just a gamer and have an RX 6900 XT (or RX 6950 XT for that matter), then you are still a big part of the problem. If you managed to get your card at MSRP, it means that you spent $350 to get a measly 9% performance advantage over the RX 6800 XT. If you didn't manage to get it at MSRP, you could have paid as much as an extra $700 over the price of the RX 6800 XT. You're not the dumbest class of people I'm profiling here, but you're solidly in second-place because you demonstrated that you're willing to pay WAY more for a video card than you really had to (even at MSRP) and AMD saw that you were willing to do this. They remember this when they do market research and analysis and conduct themselves accordingly.
Constellation-Level Stupid - If you're just a gamer but paid the exorbitant prices of the RTX 3080 12GB or RTX 3080 Ti, I don't need to explain to you what I just explained to the first two levels.
System-Level Stupid - If you're just a gamer and have an RX 6800/XT or RTX 3080 but you paid more than MSRP, you still showed that you were willing to pay way too much for a video card which also helped to fuel the fire, even if it wasn't to the same extent as the first two categories.
I myself am in this category because I myself am guilty of paying a good deal more than I should have so don't think that I'm trying to play innocent here. The fact that I did this is something that made me swear at myself in the mirror a couple of times after the initial joy of having the card wore off and I realised that I should've just stuck with my RX 5700 XT. The only reason why the people in this category are smarter than the people in the previous categories is that, as crazy as it sounds, they did choose to be screwed over LESS than the people in the first two categories, for whatever that's worth.
Planet-Level Stupid - If you're just a gamer and you're rocking a GeForce GPU
below an RTX 3080, then you have no right to complain about value because at whatever price you paid (or often less than you paid), there's a Radeon that absolutely DEMOLISHES your GeForce card in performance. The only reason that you're smarter than the first three categories is that you most likely paid a crap-tonne less than they did and that's a good thing because it didn't make the tech executives' eyes get as big as the first three categories.
BS Excuse #1, Ray-Tracing - RT is barely usable on cards below the RTX 3080. Just to be playable, you have to compensate with DLSS and as good as DLSS is, it's no match for native resolution and never has been.
You chose to throw too much money at nVidia for the card you own and you showed Jensen that it doesn't matter how crappy nVidia's low-end is because you're willing to screw yourself over just so you can get a video card in a green box.
BS Excuse #2 - Radeon Drivers - Radeon drivers haven't been problematic in years. I'm sure that 99% of the so-called "driver issues" from Radeons were either because the owner didn't think to use DDU or it wasn't the drivers in the first place, it was just an ID10T error. I myself had issues with my RX 5700 XT when I first bought it, but it was a hardware problem, a power distribution problem that went away when I did an RMA to XFX. I had no driver issues with my HD 7970s, R9 Furies, RX 5700 XT or my RX 6800 XT. That's over ten years of Radeon use with no driver problems. I don't believe that I was just lucky because as redundant as it sounds, I've never been lucky enough to be lucky.
Universe-Level Geniuses - If you're a gamer and use an RX 6700 XT or any Radeon below that, or you use an old GeForce GTX 1000-series card 9or older) that you bought years ago, then congratulations because you're the smartest consumers in the room and far smarter than I am. You read the writing on the walls and made the smart choice to just get
something with which to weather the storm while taking the least amount of financial damage possible or stick with what you had (which is what I should've done) while still being able to game decently. You ignored the marketing BS and got only what you needed to survive. If everyone was like you, we wouldn't be in this mess AT ALL.
I could've been a
Universe-Level Genius but I ultimately failed because I wanted the first gamer-grade Radeon reference card to NOT use a blower cooler and I got it for $500CAD less than what I could get any other RX 6800 XT for at the time. I tried to excuse the purchase away with this fact, but it was, at the end of the day, an emotional purchase and I should've known better because I'm not a kid, I'm a grown man. Therefore, I hang my head in shame as being
System-Level Stupid. I am part of the reason that video cards have become so expensive. The thing is, we can turn this around if we vow to be better the next time we purchase a video card (or CPU for that matter) and remember that the thrill of owning it is very short-lived. If we demonstrate a gravitation to lower priced cards with better value and leave the expensive cards with crappy values on the shelves, sure it will take a couple of generations, but this problem will eventually solve itself.
If you really don't care if the situation resolves itself or not, then you're probably a sociopath and are beyond redemption. Personally, I'm glad that I was able to come to this conclusion because admitting that a problem exists is always the first step towards solving it. Oh yeah, the other thing is, if you bought a GeForce card, then you have no right to whine about
anything that AMD does because you chose to support the other side and they don't owe you a damn thing. On the other hand, if you own a Radeon, then you have no reason to whine about anything that nVidia does because you've already avoided that bullet.
Goodnight everyone!
