Wow, the last discrete GPU I bought was the GTX 570… 16 years ago!
last one i bought new was a 5670, early 2010. was about $75 for what was at that time the best you could get that didn’t need extra power. it was by far the most expensive part in the pc (which i still have and use) i put together back then (sales and substantial rebates were everywhere back then)
the last one before that, and only other one i bought new at retail, was an old agp ati aiw card for a pc-based dvr. i still have that system too, but it’s long been obsoleted by digital hd tv and digital encrypted cable that requires their equipment.
Unrelated to the topic of the article, looking at the graph made me realize that GPUs didn’t use to be so expensive, and the change is not so recent.
I have been gaming on PCs since I was a kid, first on a 286 in DOS. I don’t remember what were the first games, but I think it was ASCII graphics. Sprites were of course even better.https://cdn.mobygames.com/screenshots/2255336-prehistorik-dos-level-1-begins.png
I have been building my own computers for decades. I never wanted to spend more than necessary, so I only updated things every now and then, and I always picked a good value GPU from the budget to mid tier. I always understood that PC gaming has a niche where people build monster configurations with powerful GPUs to run games at max settings with unnecessary high resolution and frame rates. It makes sense for a hobby, it’s cool. But you don’t actually need that much power to enjoy games, right?
What I just realized is that the slice of people who look for high performance GPUs for games is likely much bigger than I thought. At some point the industry made consumers believe that you need 4k and 120 fps (or maybe more). That the point of PC gaming is to beat the specs of consoles. But that’s so not true. A PC is great because it’s a general purpose open platform to run whatever software you want. If a game is not fun at mid setting full HD 30 fps, it’s not fun. How many of the people dishing out north of $300 on a GPU are competitive e sports players or popular streamers? Probably most of them are not. 90% of the progress in GPU hardware is likely spent on generating frames that are not perceived at resolutions that are not seen.
That means you remember the thrill of getting the Diamond Multimedia Viper SVGA card (or similar)and being able to “crank up” the resolution beyond 800x600.
Or:
Set Blaster= A220 I5 D9Enjoy your day, fellow vintage builder.
