Ok, I'm not sure if my title is exactly accurate, others can say if it is or not. But, 5 years ago, I bought a Radeon RX5700 for $300. They don't sell them any more, of course. But I checked Tom Hardware Guide's GPU comparison to see what current cards are about as powerful as my old card. https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gpu-hierarchy,4388.html
So it's roughly equal to an RTX 3060, or an ARC A750. Both of which cost about $300. What happened to the days when graphics cards used to get cheaper over time? I was thinking that since it has been 5 years, it is probably time to update my graphics card. Well, there's certainly no point in buying another $300 graphics card which won't be any better than what I already have.
Obviously I could go spend 2 or 3 times that much and get a better card. But are we basically seeing the end of Moore's law here when it comes to getting more computing power over time for the same price? It looks like as graphics cards get better now, they just get more and more expensive, so I guess in another 5 years people will be paying $3000 for a top of the line card.
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On the other hand, M.2 prices have basically doubled! how… *fun*
Welcome to inflation. Where the government covertly taxes the population by printing money and thereby devaluing the money everyone has and earns.
Not to mention 2 years where the production of the world came to a near halt, destroying the entire global economy.
Neither has the price of cheese, toilet paper, kraft Mac n cheese, etc..
RX5700 or RX5700-XT ? Also the RTX 3060 is from 2021, the RX5700-XT from 2021 ,and the RX5700 from 2019.
I think Moore’s law is long gone.
This problem existed back when the 20 series came out and I wanted to pick up a 1080TI new in the box. The price never budged an inch. When the 30 series dropped I gave up because the 20 series remained expensive enough not to justify it even when compared to the 30 series prices.
When the 40 series came out I had my GTX 1080 for 6 years and at that point it was time to upgrade my GPU and CPU (1700X) so I went with the 7800X3D/RTX 4090 combo.
It’s because of the 1st crypto wave and pretending it’s because of covid and inflation only. It started in 2018. Culminative inflation since 2018 is around 25% ish percent.
They won’t.
Dennard Scaling (power density is constant) is almost dead and Komey’s Law (computations per unit energy doubles in 1.57 years) is holding on purely by throwing more money at the problem.
Moore’s Law died over a decade ago!
The last semiconductor process obeying Moore’s law was TSMC’s 40 nm half-node. Later versions of 28 nm (specifically 28 HPM) almost followed Moore’s law, and would have followed it if they had existed when 28 nm first went into production, but 28 HPM was almost a full year too late for that. Only Intel (as 32 nm) and TSMC had 28-class processes in 2011, CPA (GloFo, IBM, Samsung.), UMC and SMIC didn’t get there for years. CPA hadn’t even shipped anything 28 nm until 2014!
Dennard Scaling is still clinging on in AMD CPUs and GPUs, as well as Qualcomm, but it died in around 2021 on Nvidia and was being routinely violated by Intel as far back as 2018. Dennard Scaling was more a comment on how good coolers could be than anything to do with silicon, an ASIC designer can scale power use up or down as required. There were major points of inflection in Dennard Scaling when fans became common on heatsinks and when heatpipes became commoditised.
Komey’s Law can be extended arbitrarily by just making more and more expensive silicon. Stick thirty five H100 GPUs on the same card with a cryocooler more expensive and larger than it is and you will meet Komey’s Law, since it has no term of cost.
Because things are priced to what the market will bear and give the biggest profit, not based on what things cost.
Rx 5700 launched at $350 which is $430 adjusted for inflation, that’s like 4060 ti 16gb possibly 4070 non super money there.
Counter question: Do we need more powerful graphics cards? Have games gotten more demanding or are we using nicer monitors?
I’ve been using a 1070 since 2019. I only play rocket league and indie games. I’d love to upgrade but it wouldn’t improve my life in the slightest.
Then I look at my other devices. Pretty much anything made after 2017 has more computing power than it needs.
I could see demand for nicer and cheaper cards falling off. There’s no reason for demand to increase.
everything’s more expensive than it was 5 years ago
When did anything ever in history of mankind come down in price? People, red arrow only goes up, no idea where people get this idea that something gets cheaper lol…
Surely when the a.i scam is over they’ll go down….
Lots of people here citing economic factors or transistor scaling problems without mentioning NVIDIA’s consumer profit margins. They’re shafting the hobby and everyone is just content to keep paying higher prices every generation for worse offerings.
Why is anyone still getting advice from TomsHardware? They’ve been irrelevant for years!
You can get a 6700xt/6750xt for $300 and it’s about 30%-40% faster than the 5700
[https://www.techpowerup.com/review/amd-radeon-rx-6700-xt/29.html](https://www.techpowerup.com/review/amd-radeon-rx-6700-xt/29.html)
[ AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT Review, A Worthy 5700 XT Successor? – Gamers Nexus](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJboWJJFk9I&t=658s)
& this doesn’t account for the “HUGE” performance difference when you run out of vram
For an extra $~~60~~ $50 you can get the RX 6800 and get an extra 15% performance boost and 16gb vram!
Edit: From XFX Direct seller
[https://www.newegg.com/xfx-radeon-rx-6800-rx-68xlaqfde/p/N82E16814150886](https://www.newegg.com/xfx-radeon-rx-6800-rx-68xlaqfde/p/N82E16814150886)
Adjusted for inflation they have come down a bit. But inflation adjustment means very little when real terms wages have stagnated.
GPUs are an issue, Nvidia is still making monolithic chips and AMD is only just experimenting with chiplets to separate compute and IO. Big chips are expensive, and it’s a big gamble to try chiplet GPUs. AMD has demonstrated it works, and no doubt future generations will split up compute into much smaller dies too, significantly reducing cost. Nvidia should follow, but I have my doubts.
However, consumers have come to expect the current sky high prices for flagship graphics cards. Long gone are the days of a flagship costing £599 because the idiot consumers who always want the best thing will buy the most expensive GPU no matter how much it costs. It’s reinforcement to the manufacturer they can keep charging that. Shareholders also want more money each year, and sales of GPUs are decreasing, to keep shareholders happy prices have to go up. I have no doubt that we will see a £2000 GPU either next generation or the one after, by which point Nvidia will just be taking the piss.
I bought my 5700XT at launch in sep 2019 for 653 CAD/ approx /~ 480 USD. How did you get one for 300?
Man, I remember when I got my 1070 on release, it only took maybe a year? for 2nd hand prices to go down as much as half.
The 6700xt is only 300 and that’s a serious upgrade…
Hm not quite. They actually went up 60% from 2017-2022 cpi adjusted. Have stayed the same since. Nearly. Also it’s not fully correct to say 60% because the cpi isn’t meant for industrial and metals. Could be less.
It’s basically true that if developers keep increasing tgeir graphic demands. We the end users will be forced to play with sub 720p resolutions. Forget 4k when you need a 5080 to run things at 720p 90fps natively. Eh idk. I think I’ll be fine if i can triple 30fps to 90 or whatever. Just don’t want it to be sub 4k.
Line must go up
$300 five years ago is equal to $375 today, so you gotta look at $375 graphics cards
300$ now is cheaper than 300$ 5 years ago..
I remember when I bought my 3060 during the chip shortage. I bought it from a private seller and I paid $ 600 for it new. I had an old evga gtx 1060 6gb that I bought used a long way back off eBay for $150. The prices went up on used graphics cards so I sold it for $280.
I bought my gpu on a good sale at egg. I had price alert on. Chrome also offers it if you bookmark a page of an item you want for sale.
I over doubled my performance going from a 1000$ 2080 to a 1100$ 4070tiS. I just couldn’t waste 500-1000 more on a 4080or90 when I could wait untill 5080 comes out for prob same price and just sell my 4070 if I wanted lol
GPU have entered the Apple phase of advancement; incremental hardware advancements with compelling software advancements artificially locked behind new hardware.
They have come down, you are not including inflation. $300 from 5 years ago was worth more than $300 today.
Although could go 6750XT 12GB for 290-300 for a performance uplift.
However, it’s only 1 generation ahead of the 5000 series, and about 2 years old, now.
The issue, is the current gen AMD 7600(XT) and 4060, went to a 128 bit memory bus to maintain the low…er price point. A 3060 Ti can beat a 4060(non Ti) in raw performance.
Prices are going up, no doubt about it with a monopoly on Silicon and supply and demand for silicon.
In the next 3-8 years, we’ll have silicon production in the U.S. with Intel and TSMC both getting Taxpayer money to build fabs locally. However, TSMC is years ahead of the competition with engineering.
This was good both due to the U.S. having zero silicon production, and with foreign pressure on Taiwan overseas from China–can’t risk losing Silicon production if China pressures Taiwan.
Intel is a bit behind right now in engineering, but hopefully will light the fire for new competition once get new fabs up and running.
Also worth mentioning, Micron(a.k.a. Crucial) also has new fabs underway locally for DRAM and NAND flash storage to compete with Samsung and TSMC.
AMD is ahead of the curve in CPU capabilities, but Nvidia really has no competition for GPUs.
AMD and Intel right now are really in a ‘Battle of the Midrange’ for 2nd place GPU market price to performance.
It will still be a number of years of price gouging, and only slight increases in performance, but new technology is on the horizon.
I just upgraded from a 2070S to a 4070 Ti Super. Gone from $500 to $800. Now it’s nothing amazing historically speaking but it is still not nothing. 60% more price for 125% more performance and double the VRAM.
Depends how you look at it. I spend $2000 (my local currency) for a GTX1070. Today, $1700 will get me RTX4060Ti, which is much faster. Thanks to mining, the RTX4070 is $3000.
Arc A750 costs $200 something. I got mine for $180 and almost always there is one on sale
It’s bad but not quite that bad, Nvidia is a bad value right now. The 6650 XT, about 10 percent more powerful than those cards, can be had for about 220 bucks. That being said I’m still scared for when the day comes that I have to replace my 3060 TI…
What planet does price go down for highly demanded products
Inflation is a bitch
A750 can be had for less than $200 occasionally. So that’s a 30% reduction.
welcome to everything in life