Is the PC market becoming ridiculous? (1080p vs 1440p)

[scaryjim]

... in fact, if anything, it's even become more 'affordable' for enthusiasts too in the grand scheme of things? ...

That depends on your definition of enthusiast, and the timescales you're looking at, but generally, yes. PCs didn't really become an option in homes until the early to mid nineties (I remember my parents getting their first PC - a 286 running at 12MHz with 1MB of RAM and a 40MB hard drive), and that far back there was little to differentiate them apart from CPU speed and amount of memory. 3D accelerators were a thing of the future (although I remember that computer ran Catacomb Abyss really nicely ), so there was only so much you could do to a computer.

What's mostly happened since the late nineties - when 3D really started gearing up and there became genuine competition in the graphics market, essentially creating the modern enthusiast PC segment - is that the price range for components hasn't shifted much in numerical terms (ten years ago buying ATIs top graphics card would still set you back over £400), but that obviously means that in real terms the technology has become more affordable due to inflationary pressures. There's fluctuation in overall platform cost, particularly around new tech inflection points (e.g. DDR4 at the minute), but the upper and lower end of the ranges don't shift all that much.

[EpicZa]

I really begrudged paying £440 for a Fury Tri-X and a 1440p free sync monitor, but sometimes its nice to treat yourself.

[Galant]

I've never been on the cutting edge, the price hike from good to 'exotic' is way too steep for my tastes. Instead, with that progression of life thing, I've allowed myself to fall behind and instead enjoying everything late. This means I can have now what was a great computer years ago and enjoy older games at full settings. Since I never see nor play the brand new games as they come out everything always feels like a top notch experience to me!

My last buy was a local second-hand deal of an older Dell i5 desktop.

I'm basically some sort of technological scavenger/poacher. I find it quite satisfying in terms of both price and performance.

[zzkenseizz]

Why do you even care if you dont need 1. If people can afford then get the newest, if not (like me) using mid range tech is fair enough. The market just reflect what people want, as long as there is demands so it not really ridiculous for me

[RichieLee]

Why do you even care if you dont need 1. If people can afford then get the newest, if not (like me) using mid range tech is fair enough. The market just reflect what people want, as long as there is demands so it not really ridiculous for me

I understand what you're saying, initially I was on the lookout for a new monitor you see, and figured I may as well look into 1440 as everything seems to be headed that way and beyond. But the true price to upgrade to running 1440p smoothly astonished me (in order to do so I'd probably have to get a new psu and a very expensive gpu to do so in addition to the 1440 monitor.) I'm going to hang onto my 7950 now though and probably get a 21:9 1080p monitor instead which it should handle.

However, if we're going into the topic of 'need' then no I don't need 1440, I was just looking to go higher res as a 'might as well' step since I'm looking to replace my tiny 21.5"

But if you don't need top end then you don't exactly need mid range either, we could all plod along with lowest end gear and play at lowest settings on off the shelf builds or the cheapest gear. So yeah it comes down to desires and expectations rather than needs.

My point being, I understand that I don't need the high end stuff, I've just noticed that when I bought my hardware, it was considered to be in the high end category, whereas the stuff that's 'high end' now is easily double the price; SO is this indicative of a worrying trend that we should expect prices to exponentially rise?

Having the guys who have invested in tech far longer than I have educate me on trends in tech prices in the past, has shown me that no; chances are the tech will mature and prices will stabilise. So in conclusion I'm not that bothered, I wanted to see what everyone's thoughts on the subject was.

And your point is totally valid too. midrange is probably the best bang for buck way to go from here on out. I guess it'll always be a case of getting the best compromise of what you want and what you need.

[Millennium]

(not having read the whole thread :/ )

I think these prices have been on the fritz since the Athlon 1800+ days, where AMD could legitimately say 'we've got less clocks but we have so much more performance than your Pentium anyways'....

[TooNice]

There is probably not a fixed definition for "enthusiasts", but if I was to try and define it, I think it would be something like the following.
1. Someone who follows progress on hardware, and spend part of his disposable income to pursue it as a kind of hobby.
2. Someone who likes to tinker with the hardware (assemble own PC, overclock etc.).

I am sure that 1. exist since the dawn of computers. And given the cost of computers in the very early days, they must have spent quite a fortune.
As for 2., overclocking has been around pretty early on too. But I am under the impression that it didn't become a big thing until the Pentium II days, more specifically when the Celeron 300A came about.

At least that was when I first saw pre-overclocked CPU (remember those days?) being sold in enthusiast online store. This was also the age of 3DFX's Voodoo II, which introduced SLI, though it would set you back $600 (12MB version) if you took that route AND you would still need a regular graphic card (the highly regarded Matrox Millennium II would have been another $300). Online gaming took off on dial up. Subjectively, I consider that period the start of the enthusiast age. Not because you couldn't get more expensive gear before, or there were no tweaking etc. before, but the spread of the internet also allowed people to discuss gear and such. Also, while 3DFX were pretty much king on the high end 3D, there were quite a few more players to choose from. So a lot more to discuss than AMD vs nVidia nowadays. Heck, even Cyrix were still around on the CPU end.

Well, that was a little trip down my memory lane. One thing I am wondering though is, what was the first 3rd party heatsink aimed at overclocking enthusiasts? I didn't get into 3rd party cooling until after the Pentium II days. I am aware that watercooling, peltier etc. were available earlier, but how about just replacing the heatsink/fan? I do remember those legendary/infamous Delta fans though

[ltron]

I think prices are quite steep now, partly due to Nvidia realising they can get away with charging £999 for a titan x which then makes the 980 ti at 600 look like a bargain. This is in the main due to lack of competition from AMD and excellent marketing by Nvidia, also there have been paltry increases on the cpu front from intel for the same reason(competition), although the competitive situation is much worse in this case.

[GuidoLS]

I think prices are quite steep now, partly due to Nvidia realising they can get away with charging £999 for a titan x which then makes the 980 ti at 600 look like a bargain. This is in the main due to lack of competition from AMD and excellent marketing by Nvidia, also there have been paltry increases on the cpu front from intel for the same reason(competition), although the competitive situation is much worse in this case.

That 'normal' consumers are buying Titans isn't actually what they were built for. They were made to fill a gap between the high end of the consumer cards and the low end of the Quadro line. This is far more a consequence of the e-peen gamers out there that have far more money than sense. The high end for both green and red has always been relatively high priced. I paid over $500 new for my 9800GT - and as hysterical as that may sound, 8 years later, I'm still using it, and as long as the title doesn't require DX11, I'm still gaming on it. Sometimes it's in a limited fashion, as in I have to power down the effects or resolution, but the point is, I'm still getting my moneys worth out of it and more. The same thing applies to those that bought the top end of the ATI/AMD lines.

As in all things, you get what you pay for. Everything else is just fluff. If people are willing to pay an extra $100 for an extra 3 FPS that the human eye already can't distinguish, more power to them.

[Knoxville]

This is one of the reasons I went over predominantly to consoles for gaming during the last console generation. I know, I know, it goes against everything that many people find decent, holy and pure. Just like I'm aware that I miss out on certain games or will have to make unfortunate compromises... Yes, I'm that bloke that bought Tropico 5 for the Xbox 360 and I do wish my rig had the power to run it so I didn't have to do that.

When high end cards started hitting the £3/400 mark though and HD became the norm I decided that I could spend the same money I'd spend on a GPU that would be out classed in six months on a console that developers would have to work with for six to ten years. By the same token, I'd rather invest in a really nice T.V that covers more than one base than plough the thick end of £500 into a monitor. Since then my PC has become primarily a work and browsing machine and my games console picks up the slack. I don't get the very best graphics 100% of the time and yes, there's a few games a year that I miss out on but I don't mind too much. I don't think it's a situation I'd have been happy with when I was younger but I spend so much less time gaming now than I did then that to me it's a reasonable compromise.

[DanceswithUnix]

My point being, I understand that I don't need the high end stuff, I've just noticed that when I bought my hardware, it was considered to be in the high end category, whereas the stuff that's 'high end' now is easily double the price; SO is this indicative of a worrying trend that we should expect prices to exponentially rise?

I really don't think it is a trend, just a fluctuation.

Prices have fluctuated a lot over time, depending on what companies thought they could get away with. Sometimes there are price wars, sometimes aggressive enough to damage the companies involved as they make a loss to keep hold of market share.

[scaryjim]

... I can have now what was a great computer years ago and enjoy older games at full settings. Since I never see nor play the brand new games as they come out everything always feels like a top notch experience to me! ...

*ahem*




EDIT:

... Prices have fluctuated a lot over time, depending on what companies thought they could get away with. ....

Let's not forget the important role that exchange rates play for those of us on this side of the pond, too. Between June 2008 and October 2008 everything priced in dollars became 45% more expensive, and the difference has hovered between 20% and 30% since. Any new generation of tech released since October 2008 will seem - to a consumer who was purchasing tech before October 2008 - over-priced.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

This is one of the reasons I went over predominantly to consoles for gaming during the last console generation. I know, I know, it goes against everything that many people find decent, holy and pure. Just like I'm aware that I miss out on certain games or will have to make unfortunate compromises... Yes, I'm that bloke that bought Tropico 5 for the Xbox 360 and I do wish my rig had the power to run it so I didn't have to do that.

When high end cards started hitting the £3/400 mark though and HD became the norm I decided that I could spend the same money I'd spend on a GPU that would be out classed in six months on a console that developers would have to work with for six to ten years. By the same token, I'd rather invest in a really nice T.V that covers more than one base than plough the thick end of £500 into a monitor. Since then my PC has become primarily a work and browsing machine and my games console picks up the slack. I don't get the very best graphics 100% of the time and yes, there's a few games a year that I miss out on but I don't mind too much. I don't think it's a situation I'd have been happy with when I was younger but I spend so much less time gaming now than I did then that to me it's a reasonable compromise.

TBF,if you do buy a midrange card for around £150 every two years or so,you could still play the PC exclusives but with some settings reduced though!!

But,also on the same token,the console versions of some games like W3 seem quite well optimised and for many FPS games,consoles might be the cheapest way going forward.

Even PS2 and D3 are on consoles now.

[DanceswithUnix]

Let's not forget the important role that exchange rates play for those of us on this side of the pond, too. Between June 2008 and October 2008 everything priced in dollars became 45% more expensive, and the difference has hovered between 20% and 30% since. Any new generation of tech released since October 2008 will seem - to a consumer who was purchasing tech before October 2008 - over-priced.

2008? Meh, I was thinking more like this: https://web.archive.org/web/19971010...ww.scan.co.uk/

Ooh that takes me back. £250 for a K6-233, because that is a big saving over a £280 P233 or a £700 Pentium Pro. A Matrox Milennium 2 could be yours for £230.

https://web.archive.org/web/20030801...oducts/vga.htm In 2003 an Fx5900 Ultra would set you back £470

Expensive components are expensive, and always have been. You do get bargains, I'm sure when I got my Athlon 1.33GHz it was just about the fastest CPU you could buy and only about £150, but mostly all the machines I built over the the last 20 odd years have been down to a budget.

[TooNice]

If we look at the last 20 years or so, the Athlon were a bit of an outliner. Though AMD *did* make those FX edition for those who just want the best regardless of diminishing returns.

But if we want to talk volatility, we need to look at RAM price. Check this out: http://www.jcmit.com/memoryprice.htm

Okay, you need to watch out because the person who collected the data sometime picked RAM of different size and of course, the type of RAM change over the years too. Still, as an example (it is far from the only instance):



If you built your PC in mid-1999 you would have spent under $100 for 128MB RAM. Yet with price gradually falling until that point, you might have been tempted to hold on. Yet price reversed and increased to $300(!) half a year later. It would take another half a year to get it down to what it was (though at least you'd get PC-133 instead of PC-100 then).

If the OP had asked in December 1999 "Is the RAM market becoming ridiculous?" I think that I would've agreed

[ltron]

That 'normal' consumers are buying Titans isn't actually what they were built for. They were made to fill a gap between the high end of the consumer cards and the low end of the Quadro line. This is far more a consequence of the e-peen gamers out there that have far more money than sense. The high end for both green and red has always been relatively high priced. I paid over $500 new for my 9800GT - and as hysterical as that may sound, 8 years later, I'm still using it, and as long as the title doesn't require DX11, I'm still gaming on it. Sometimes it's in a limited fashion, as in I have to power down the effects or resolution, but the point is, I'm still getting my moneys worth out of it and more. The same thing applies to those that bought the top end of the ATI/AMD lines.

As in all things, you get what you pay for. Everything else is just fluff. If people are willing to pay an extra $100 for an extra 3 FPS that the human eye already can't distinguish, more power to them.

I take your point, but with Titan X Nvidia has removed the double precision compute capability that made previous Titans such a good deal to the people who use GPUs for scientific applications. Also, my contention is that Nvidia are taking advantage of the ultra-enthusiast market blatantly as the only tangible advantage that the Titan X possesses over the 980Ti, a card that was only released a couple of months later, is double the VRAM yet you pay much more than is reasonable for this(£300-400 not $100), so the "you get what you pay for" argument does not quite hold water in my opinion.