It’s such a shame to see high-performance computing and gaming more broadly become largely unaffordable. Hell, prior to the DRAM shortage, the current-generation game consoles were already MORE EXPENSIVE than they were at launch. And it’s just going to get worse.
Or gpu prices or hdd/ssd prices that never recovered from the tsunami. Consumers just keep getting fucked.
I’m on ryzen 9 5900x, rtx 3080, 32 GB DDR4, with mobo and psu that’s ~€850 today and it will play most modern games on high settings 1080p at +100 fps. Computer hardware these days is a lot more like car hardware than it used to be. Generational improvements aren’t as big and the price for a used 5 year old unit is a ⅓ of a new one. Unless you absolutely need the latest and greatest go with a used last gen.
Same specs as you except 5800x3D. Same sentiments at 1440p.
Wow, I can’t believe my plan for a cheap motherboard worked.
If sales are going down, prices of the motherboards are going up.
Going to gouge all the midstream businesses in the long run. Hardware retailers, PC assemblers, all those little companies selling custom cases and overclock kits and fancy cooling appliances.
The lack of cheap but crucial components will have some ugly coat tails for the rest of the industry.
On the plus side, indie games that don’t require a rocket ship for a PC have never been better. So, can still play some good stuff on my old clunker. Thanks to Steam/Proton, they run even better on my old computer.
Would be nice to see the gaming industry pivot back to making innovative games within the constraints of hardware, instead of just expecting customers to throw ever more powerful (and power consuming) hardware at it.
As much (well deserved) hate that Nintendo gets, they are fantastic at this. They seem to be able to make games look good on low powered systems with stylistic decisions and smart optimization/coding. They learned some pretty important things in the NES/SNES era about using tricks to squeeze performance out of the few KB/MB they had to work with.
DLSS has made devs lazy. Why bother optimizing when you can have some whiz bang AI algorithm turn a low res input into a greasy looking high res output.
Dominoes falling
Riot in the streets…Streets? PC enthusiasts? Riot in the forums.
Next up: MSI, ASUS, … are pulling out of the consumer market due to falling revenue causing major price hikes.
Here’s to hoping that it increases pressure to break the cartels and start getting the ball rolling on more independent foundries.
Problem I see with new foundries is that the profit is still going to be selling to data centers. It would take a philanthrope like Marc Cuban selling meds at cost, selling at a loss to enthusiasts.
Calling Marc Cuban a philanthrope feels icky, but he is doing a thing that I think is genuine.
Do MSI and ASUS have enough corporate/enterprise sales to offset the loss of consumer demand? With the RAM companies the consumer crunch is caused by AI companies bidding up the price of raw memory silicon well beyond what makes financial sense to package and solder onto DIMMs (or even directly solder the packages onto boards for ultra thin laptops).
Asus is a significant ODM, supplying boards for brands like HP. I’m not sure what lines/models they make today, but they are a lot bigger than just their consumer lines.
This is hilarious. Intel after many years finally fixed their manufacturing process, but won’t be able to sell chips because of memory crunch
If only they had a solid state technology that expanded system memory… Shutting down optane comes to bite them, again.
Burst the fucking bubble already. I’m edging so hard right now.
It’s a play to make at home compute unachievable, forcing people to pay for subscription cloud services and cloud compute in walled gardens.
If they lower their prices of MOBOs to try and generate more sales, that might actually be worth it long term. For RAM, I saw the other day a Laptop RAM conversion to desktop. Which apartment Laptop RAM is still lower priced. There might some interesting Frankenstein builds in the coming months
Yeah but laptop ram hacks aren’t really a sustainable long term solution because we live in hell and scalpers will buy it all up if it becomes mainstream. And newly manufactured laptop ram will have all the same price issues because they need chips from the same fabs.
Oh, was this the Salem Techsperts video?
I fear they will pull a GPU and the storage prices will be permanently 50% higher after.
I mean, that’s capitalism, right? The manufacturers see that their product is still selling at a 300% markup, why would they bring the price back down when they can just make more profit if/when costs for them come back down? Sure they might drop it a little to make it “look” like a good deal. Just like GPUs. They went from being $600 for high end, to being $2000. Then when they announced that the next Gen was “only” going to be $1200 everybody was like “Wow! What a great deal!”
I hate this timeline. They just keep figuring out new ways to squeeze money out of me and ruining my hobbies.
This does seem likely, especially if it’s as the article claims and this continues into 2028. After 2 and a 1/2 years of triple digit profits nobody is going to be satisfied with a measly 14% or whatever markup they were getting before.
At least people aren’t buying at these high prices, wouldn’t want them to stay there after all.
This is a good point, we don’t need PCs to be this expensive.
I just hope we don’t fuck up the whole thing and end up with cloud computers or end up not making new PCs…
I’m pretty convinced this is the play. Drive up DIY PC parts then promote thin cloud clients as a way to have a PC without paying the crazy prices that they set. It’s a lot easier to tell you “it’s safer for the children” and pillage every file, action, and keystroke for AI training and data brokerage. Your owned PC is a black box for them and it’s their wet dream to own it for you… As a subscription of course.
Like a Chromebook.
thin client machines that you have to lease with a cloud subscription and which are locked down to the intended purpose only. basically the death of generic computing. delevoper machines will be tied down devel kits.
While it might actually end up going that way, I don’t think that’s a deliberate play. The tech bros and C-suite execs tend to be sociopathic dumbasses. I think they’re legitimately just loading themselves up with tons of debt just to buy hardware to capture market share thinking that things could never collapsed on them.
5 years ago I would’ve called you insane, but with everything happening right now… it’s a distinct possibility.
RAM’s unaffordable, GPU’s will likely be harder to come by and more expensive. Microsoft is actively driving people away from Windows, Steam is launching their Steam Machine…
Here’s hoping many gamers will jump to Linux and grow that platform instead. But even then, too expensive hardware will be an issue.
We’re living in interesting times.
That is an increasingly high risk I can see, PCs just no longer exist.
I was thinking of upgrading my RAM this year, but I know I don’t have to. It’s their loss, not mine.
I bet it’s this for so many people. Our libraries are full of games that work fine with older hardware.
I went from thinking about a full rig upgrade, to just buying the best used processor and GPU my am4 board could handle with my current PSU and ddr4 ram.
Went from a ryzen 1600x and a Nvidia 1060 to a ryzen 5 5600x and a Radeon rx 6600 xt. I’ll be able to ride that out for a few years no problem.
I went from thinking of upgrades to enjoying my backlog of old games. My wallet and library are both happy and I’m enjoying the games I’m playing.
same. I have over 300 games in my steam library that i’ve bought over the years and the vast majority of which I never launched. So now i’m going through them. combine that with finally getting retroarch/libretro all PROPERLY set up I’ve also got a shit ton of roms from various consoles to play also, games I couldn’t afford as a kid.
Like right now I’m FINALLY playing Ocarina of Time for the first time ever and it’s a blast, now I understand why people love it so much. Also started playing New Vegas and System Shock on the PC which I’ve owned for years and never played and both those are great too. New Vegas is REALLY fun.
and then there’s GOG which has thousands of older games, drm free.
Likewise. I haven’t bought a game that wasn’t at least a year old in a decade. Heck, right now I’m playing Psychonauts.
Same here, the Steam Deck changed my life 😆. Less AAA, more AA and indie games, especially at work.
funny i bought exactly the same CPU and GPU half a year ago. Someone in my city sold these for 200€.
I was going to go for an AM5 board and everything, but couldn’t afford it. My older parts were from 2016 and not even terrible. Its funny how little the hardware requirements have changed in the games and OS area. I am still using the same 16g RAM and PSU from 2016.
The artificial price hikes actually saved you money. Noice!
Ryzen 5600x here, was rocking a 6700 XT but found a good deal on a RX 9070 for $540 right around when the RAM prices increased. Already have 32 GB RAM, so I’m set for a while.
Yeah, I had the ram, but the 6600xt was the most I could buy without having to also upgrade my PSU.
AM4 unite! Have had 3600X and 2070 super since 2019 and still works well. Although some USB-ports on the mobo are starting to degrade.
That’s alright. USB rails for a PCI slot are dirt cheap.
I also decided to do a mild upgrade in my AM4 board rather than shell out for marginal upgrades. I’m rocking the 5700x3d 5700xt build.
Nnnoooo, you won’t get enough fps to enjoy your games!!!
/s in case some of you don’t get it
My eyes aren’t good enough for 4k. Lol
Nice, had a nitro 6650xt, can’t recommend enough if it makes sense financially
Paid under $200 for it and it punches well above the 1060 I’ve been using. Wanted a Radeon because they play nicer with Linux and this card is the beefiest AMD I could go without having to also buy a new PSU. Also couldn’t go much nicer anyhow or I’d be creeping up on games cpu limited, so it pairs nicely with the r 5 5600x. So for me and my particular set up it made for a nicely balanced hardware and cost choice. After this it will just be time for all new hardware in a few more years.
I haven’t made any purchases since tariffs drove up prices.
I was prepping to build a new NAS in 2026.
Not anymore sellouts.
