Originally published at: No-one's buying (new) graphics cards | Boing Boing
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Not playing games so I’m ok with my laptops Intel HD onboard. Besides Nvidia can be a pain with Linux
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Sales are low. Prices aren’t.
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I -would- buy one for playing with AI, but the prices are just too damn high!
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commercial use of GPUs for neural network processing, from services like Google Cloud, are going to be the real steady and growing market
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I’m not sure if this has been fixed in newer generations(I’ve only been hands on with 8th gen, in T490, and earlier); but at least in systems of that era Intel HD has started to be a real downer as having multiple reasonably high resolution monitors has gotten cheaper. Even with the appropriate docking stations the Intel iGPUs just run out of heads or start limiting maximum resolutions noticeably earlier than the AMD ones do.
Back when a couple of 4ks would have cost roughly all the money in the world, and laptops always came with low res panels, that wasn’t a big deal; but times have changed in that regard.
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Even without the astronomical prices, the power demands of high-end GPUs is a deal-breaker for me. My graphics card was on the low end of midrange when I bought it many years ago. It’s still good enough for my needs, TYVM.
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I too am surprised how well the first gen of HP Omen has done. I thought I’d had to have upgraded by now.
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It’s really simple. Graphic card makers started designing their cards for the crypo market. The power needs and even footprint (have you seen how big some of the new ones are?) only make sense if you’re not putting it on your desk with a nice glass sidewall and lots of RGB.
NVDIA (I think, could be wrong) announced a “price drop” of their newest card down to MSRP and expected fanfare. It got nothing.
This is the longest I’ve gone without replacing my graphics card and while it was near top of the line 4+ years ago, it’s still chugging along quite nicely on any game I choose to play these days.
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I’m sitting on my 2 year old mid range system until VR hardware and software gets sorted out properly, and can be had for a reasonable price.
I know the old saying is to not wait for new hardware because there is always something better coming soon. But I feel like the overall pc industry is making big leaps in capability right now, and combined with over inflated prices, now is not a great time to upgrade into high end.
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That’s not true, prices have come down a lot in the last few months. A 6700XT I got from Newegg for almost $600 for in March is down to $370 now, and the other 6700XTs are similar. The new batches of next gen cards are pricey, but the cards that were available during the height of the pandemic are way down in price now.
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A coming use for graphics cards that could fill the gap might be the process of making AI art. That said, it probably will be cheaper for people who get that far into it to just rent cloud space for training models, etc.
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I’m stuck with whatever Apple deigns to give me. It’s nowhere near the capability of a nividia 40x0, but games do run at 1080p medium on my m1 mini.
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I’ve not bought a new card since my 2080 Super, and don’t intend to buy one until prices come down to respectable levels, along with power consumption, as noted by howaboutthis.
However, I do see a bright future for SOC and APU systems, like Apple’s new silicon and the AMD chips powering my laptop and Steam Deck.
And to be honest, if someone made a hobbyist’s version that was as powerful as the M1 / M2 chips, I’d be all over it. Precisely because the cost would be comparatively small, as would the power consumption.
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Definitely this for me. Compared to the high-end cards, mine has a reasonable power draw (230w 6700XT, vs the top-end being now 450W+). Even that card is too much to bear in the middle of the summer and i end up swapping out my PC for my laptop/steamdeck as the PC heats up the room too much.
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This:
"Of course, the majority of AIB parts that Intel sold in Q3 2023 were entry-level models, but… "
This, here, is some serious predictive power!
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It’s absurd. Even a gtx 1660 is still the best part of 300 quid. By now, that should be the price of three generous rounds of drinks, for fuck’s sake.
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I was happy to get a 3090 founders at MSRP right before the crash. I’m happy now. But doing VR and tons of adobe suite shit really needs the computer power.
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Ditto, mine was an EVGA 1070, two of them in SLI mode, purchased in 2016, and one of them died last December, but unfortunately I had to get a whole new PC in order to get a graphics card as I couldn’t obtain a graphics card by itself.
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I usually assemble my own PCs, but my last was an HP/Compaq something or other, which was just fine until I decided the graphics needed a boost.
Even mid-range GPUs demanded more power than the PC had, so I opened the case and discovered that the power supply had an almost ATX form factor — it was just non-standard enough that no standard PS could be made to fit.
Whelp, that was the first and last manufactured desktop PC that I will ever buy.
I assembled & occasionally upgrade my current PC to suit my needs, which are not very demanding, so I’m living just fine with somewhat mediocre graphics performance.
Anyway, today’s expensive, high-end performance will be available tomorrow in a more affordable & efficient package. I can wait.
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