QOTW: Is the cost of gaming getting out of hand?

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

The high end however, especially for GPU's, is ridiculous though. Unless you must have a 4k gaming setup, a 1080p/1440p setup can be powered with a decent (but not the ridiculous top-end) hardware.
A have a RX580 now because my brother needed a GPU and had no money, he got my R9 390 and i used it as an excuse to get the RX580 . That R9 390 would have happily handled everything i could throw at it on my current PC even though it's now fairly elderly and wasn't a top-end card when new.

But that is the problem though the RX580 isn't the R9 390 replacement,and neither is the GTX1060,the GTX970 replacement. In terms of die size and peformance tier,that R9 390 is more analogous to a Vega56,and the GTX970 to something between a GP104 and GP102.



This is what the stupid high end cards are doing - pushing up the entire lower end and midranges up. For example the launch price of the GTX960 was $200,but the GTX1060 was actually more like $250 to $300. Launch prices of aftermarket RX480 cards were close enough to street prices the R9 390 cards had been for a while.

Intel did the same with their CPUs,by making sure anything over 4 cores,was sub-divided into HEDT,and they made the 4C Core i7 chips smaller and smaller and smaller,whilst maintaining or increasing prices.

By expanding the top end,less and less improvements trickle down to the lower ends,as computing companies try to tie the whole range to the top end product - its a classic tactic to push the ranges up,and upsell the cards above it.
Its been done with plenty of times before. Its working as ASP for graphics cards is actually going up - more people are spending over $300 now. Funnily enough for lots of other things this does not happen.

[OilSheikh]

Used to buy used ATi X1900 for £50-60
Now I buy used RX 580's for about £200!

[peterb]

T

But that is the problem though the RX580 isn't the R9 390 replacement,and neither is the GTX1060,the GTX970 replacement. In terms of die size and peformance tier,that R9 390 is more analogous to a Vega56,and the GTX970 to something between a GP104 and GP102.



This is what the stupid high end cards are doing - pushing up the entire lower end and midranges up. For example the launch price of the GTX960 was $200,but the GTX1060 was actually more like $250 to $300. Launch prices of aftermarket RX480 cards were close enough to street prices the R9 390 cards had been for a while.

Intel did the same with their CPUs,by making sure anything over 4 cores,was sub-divided into HEDT,and they made the 4C Core i7 chips smaller and smaller and smaller,whilst maintaining or increasing prices.

By expanding the top end,less and less improvements trickle down to the lower ends,as computing companies try to tie the whole range to the top end product - its a classic tactic to push the ranges up,and upsell the cards above it.
Its been done with plenty of times before. Its working as ASP for graphics cards is actually going up - more people are spending over $300 now. Funnily enough for lots of other things this does not happen.

But upgrading is a discretionary activity - it isn’t mandatory to upgrade to the latest and greatest as soon as it is released. Your existing card doesn’t immediately stop working or become obsolete.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

T

But upgrading is a discretionary activity - it isn’t mandatory to upgrade to the latest and greatest as soon as it is released. Your existing card doesn’t immediately stop working or become obsolete.

Every decision you make in life is discretionary though..unless you become a zombie...then brains is a way of life.

Also inb4 you say "but I am informed",well its not about you,either!

In all the years I have been here,do I come across as some one who just throws money at stuff,or uses it as long as possible??

I only upgrade due to parts failing or when I hit a real massive performance brickwall,after doing as much optimisation as possible. Sometimes I upgrade "earlier" if the longterm price/performance curve looks optimal.

I am not a frivalous upgrader of tech,so I would appreciate you don't try to make me sound like one.

Lots of stuff is "discretionary" too - even owning a car,owning a house,a TV,a phone,piped water,piped gas,having 24/7 electricity or lots of things we take for granted in the UK. It doesn't mean people should just accept it "quietly" if companies try a fast one or the service isn't up to scratch. Remember in that other thread about needing a car for shopping,instead of walking,just saying!

Anyway,got some "discretionary" stuff I want to do this weekend so have fun!

[philehidiot]

It has always been the case that gaming will give you 90% of the subjective benefits of high end parts for around 60% of the cost. Yeh the quantitative price/performance ratios are very carefully plotted and if you work in enough measurements you'll find almost all the cards have a price/performance ratio nearly bang on the same (my range for cards I analysed, bearing in mind this is just a ratio was 0.26-0.28, which is exceptionally narrow given the sheer performance gaps). Qualitatively, you're looking at getting console performance for much less cost which is enough for the vast majority of people for whom the pinnacle of graphics isn't even a secondary aim.

The problem now is a market willing to pay for ever more elaborate kit including gaming chairs.... CHAIRS! And £70 mouse mats!

Nvidia has taken this approach and gone down the route of "if you build it, they will come". And sure, it's an engineering masterpiece running well tuned on the edge of the performance / efficiency curve but they don't get that you can't build a fighter jet for the car driving public.

"But why would you want a car when you can fly?"
"I really don't want to re-mortgage my house when I can get a similar result for a fifth of the cost"
"But this will do so much you can't do now, you can do super-G turns on the way to work"
"But I can't fly and there aren't any runways at work"
"But it's a jet fighter!"
"But I'd have to taxi it to work along the roads with everyone else unless someone builds a runway"
"Why is our share price dropping? This is awesome kit! PPPOOOOOOOOOWWWAAARRRRRR!"

[philehidiot]

T

But upgrading is a discretionary activity - it isn’t mandatory to upgrade to the latest and greatest as soon as it is released. Your existing card doesn’t immediately stop working or become obsolete.

Actually, if it's an Apple product in my experience it might JUST stop working properly JUST as they declare it obsolete and do their final update. Funny that.

[Myss_tree]

On high end (new) products i would say that the Law of diminishing returns applies.
A £1000 product is better than a £100 product but not 10 times better. Its whether you are prepared to pay a lot more to get something only marginally better.

[peterb]

Every decision you make in life is discretionary though..unless you become a zombie...then brains is a way of life.

Also inb4 you say "but I am informed",well its not about you,either!

In all the years I have been here,do I come across as some one who just throws money at stuff,or uses it as long as possible??

I only upgrade due to parts failing or when I hit a real massive performance brickwall,after doing as much optimisation as possible. Sometimes I upgrade "earlier" if the longterm price/performance curve looks optimal.

I am not a frivalous upgrader of tech,so I would appreciate you don't try to make me sound like one.

Lots of stuff is "discretionary" too - even owning a car,owning a house,a TV,a phone,piped water,piped gas,having 24/7 electricity or lots of things we take for granted in the UK. It doesn't mean people should just accept it "quietly" if companies try a fast one or the service isn't up to scratch. Remember in that other thread about needing a car for shopping,instead of walking,just saying!

Anyway,got some "discretionary" stuff I want to do this weekend so have fun!

Not really. Food is not discretionary - but you can choose where, how and what to eat - but you don't need to eat at a three Michelin star restaurant to survive - neither do you need the latest high end CPU/GPU to play games. You make your purchases according to your needs and budget.

Actually, if it's an Apple product in my experience it might JUST stop working properly JUST as they declare it obsolete and do their final update. Funny that.

I guess you have been unlucky then, I have Apple (and other product makes) that are over 15 years old and still operate (the oldest is an ipod 4th generation). Battery life might be a bit down, but that's hardly surprising.

Similarly I know people with iphone 5s that are still perfectly functional.

[Troopa]

NOPE. PC gaming has always been a couple of more £££ that a console, but back in the day if you were a console gamer it cost more for the games than pc. I remember buying canon fodder for £2 on disc at a carboot sale, when it was a brand new game.

You can buy a decent gaming rig for about £700 with a monitor. Console+games is about the same but with a PC you can do so much more.

[Andi-C]

Yes & no. You can build a low/medium rig that will do the job but there's always the itch or Nagging doubt.
CPU performance with games isn't the problem, for me it's GPU's, Monitor's & peripherals that can suck up the cash.

[spacein_vader]

Yes & no. You can build a low/medium rig that will do the job but there's always the itch or Nagging doubt.
CPU performance with games isn't the problem, for me it's GPU's, Monitor's & peripherals that can suck up the cash.

For me it's RAM. I'd love to upgrade from haswell i5 to Ryzen, I've got psu, case, GPU and drives that would carry over but I currently use 16gb of ddr3. The cost of replacing that with the same amount of ddr4 is exorbitant.

[philehidiot]

...Similarly I know people with iphone 5s that are still perfectly functional.

I think the issue (aside from some actual documented issues like the battery / CPU oomph one) is the sheer uptake. If you get enough people buying you'll get enough of a failure rate at times befitting a conspiracy theory and then it'll seem like there are loads of people out there with this "pattern" of behaviour when it's just a function of numbers and human perception.

Corrolary: If "Dr" Andrew Wakefield had tried to link the onset of autism to the failure of extraction fans in people's kitchens rather than the MMR jab, he would also have found enough people who had seen their kids begin to express the symptoms JUST as their extractor fans fail and start yelling that he was right. Large sample sizes can be good but they can also screw you.

[DavDarkelf]

It depends. If you are starting with a new system then it can be expensive. For 1080p gaming it's not too bad.
If you want a top of the range setup with a 4k G-Sync HDR monitor and a RTX2080ti then it's expensive.

Once you have started and are just upgrading then it can still be an expensive hobby. My old system started to Bluescreen a lot and then the whole OS got corrupted. Managed to get it working again but the Ethernet port wouldn't work and I was pretty sure the PSU was a bit dodgy.

So I upgraded to a Ryzen 1600x, new MB, 16GB DDR ram, new PSU. Came to about £500. Now I have a 4k monitor with Freesync but AMD decided it would take a break from making consumer Graphics cards... Yet a GSync one would have cost more than double.

For games - there are some good free games and most of the others will come down in price if you wait a while. I picked up Tomb Raider and Rise of the Tomb Raider for under £15 a few months ago.

As a hobby it can be as cheap or as expensive as you make it.

[Percy1983]

T

But upgrading is a discretionary activity - it isn’t mandatory to upgrade to the latest and greatest as soon as it is released. Your existing card doesn’t immediately stop working or become obsolete.

Nvidia do like to gimp the old graphics cards on driver updates.

[cheesemp]

Yes and no. I'm rocking an i5-3570k and an rx480. Nothing expensive and im driving a 2k monitor fine in modernish games. I think if you want the best though the cost is increasing.

[Iota]

I only upgrade due to parts failing or when I hit a real massive performance brickwall,after doing as much optimisation as possible. Sometimes I upgrade "earlier" if the longterm price/performance curve looks optimal.

There are two sides to this, upgrading to the "latest and greatest" can be beneficial in terms of a longer term investment (as long as reliability comes into play). Upgrading later on when prices drop and more frequently can also be good, but again comes with the caveat of reliability (although the longer something has been out, the more the known quantity it becomes).

On the subject of gaming, it's relative to me. Expensive? Define expensive? I can take the family out to the cinema and for a meal afterwards, so maybe 4 hours or so of entertainment, maybe. Or for less I could buy a game that's been out a while and play that for 5-20 hours (or more) and have plenty of change left over. Hardware wise I don't upgrade frequently, so factoring in the cost of that my current PC cost me about £3 a week plus whatever game I buy once every 3 months (ish), so we're now at £7 a week if for some reason I buy the latest game on release (reality is different, but I'll go with the highest cost).

So even now, even if I decided to buy a new PC and spent a lot at the outset for doing so, over time the cost of that hobby / entertainment is reduced significantly.

It's only really the initial outlay that tends to be factored in, not the longevity of what you're buying into. It's still cheaper than the cinema.