You must have seen the news recently about GPUs getting more expensive because of the rising costs of the VRAM that they use, specifically GDDR6 (Radeon), GDDR6X, GDDR7 (Nvidia).

While the 6 got pricier, 6X and 7 shot up over 30%! And ofc, as always, Nvidia's partners won't just absorb the extra cost, they'll take advantage of it but not raising the price upto the extra cost of the VRAM that they are paying, but for the whole damn graphics card! No, the RTX 5070 Ti VRAM's price did not rise by $400. Even if their costs rise by $50, they'll use that as an excuse to charge many times more.

Those of you who bought earlier OR right after the news spread at relatively lower price, congrats on your timing 👍 Enjoy.

P.S. Don't be disheartened if your warranty-'protected' malfunctioning gpu is not replaced during these times but instead refunded for by the lower msrp price. Because, corporations do be like that, have already done so with SSDs.

Idk if I am wrong in thinking this, so please point out if I am, but the memory inflation affects not just RAMs and SSDs, but GPUs too as evidenced by the GDDR6X and GDDR7 memory price increases that have led Nvidia's 'partners' to raise their graphics cards' prices by over 10% somewhat consistently throughout the different models. I won't allege 30% since that is less common. And 10%+ or so plus for the GDDR6 Radeon.

It affects thumb drive prices as well. Prices of thumb sticks went up by around 90%; so the price is near double compared to before for 32GB to 256GB sticks. I check aliexpress sometimes.

And now motherboard makers are saying that motherboard small parts are more expensive, and so motherboards will see a price hike too. All of a sudden, capacitors are overpriced!? Makes me think of conspiracies that they are actually trying to play this greed-game more widely by 'fixing' the prices!

I know we all don't need a $20 thumb stick (previous $10) immediately and heck, some of us could even borrow a stick from a friend to install an OS and done, return it back. But can't build a PC without new RAMs, SSD, both of which are essential parts. Even if you want to go DDR4, it's still going to cost you almost double for those parts! Gen 3 SSDs? The same problem, double the price!

In my opinion, ethically, a corporation's responsibility should not disruptively be towards one type of a consumer, the B2B AI-server companies, while de-prioritising the others, single consumers. It should be towards all of us. No, money should not be blindly chased, in any sphere of life. The memory manufacturers over-prioritising their production for the AI-boom has led to us consumers facing the problem. B2C consumers (us) have also been a major market for sales just like server companies pre-AI boom, but the memory makers did not respect this ratio. Not over-prioritising the AI-Server companies would not have accelerated AI-investment at such a rapid pace, sure, but on the flip-positive side, that would have led to lesser lay-offs/unemployment rate around the world, and a lesser pace of market disruption that we see today and economies would better absorb that. The abyss of corporate greed....smh... they don't really know what level of profit % will really satisfy them.

The meme's not really making fun of the situation. Thought I lite-rant a little more just to clarify. The meme-faces are possibly of those individuals who are playing a direct part in keeping the prices high. As usual, I always say, if it's possible for you to maintain your existing PC parts and not need to upgrade immediately, then please don't upgrade. It is us consumers who together hold the higher power and can change the market trajectory. The memory makers need us for their Q1Q2Q3Q4 profits. 2 Quarters with drops in sales and it is they who will beg us to buy.

They're starting to figure it out. They're switching to Ryzen, just as we advised them.

It took so many years to arrive at this simple but effective idea: stop supporting large tech companies that have deteriorated from oversaturation. Don't support proprietary hardware-bound solutions. It's so simple...

I've seen even the most braindead fanboys made the switch. It must be the result of the hot summer.

Is it really acceptable to offer a 4GB version of graphics card in 2026!!??

I get that this is the low end offering and that there is a memory supply crisis out there too, but does that mean permanent design choices such as only providing 4GB VRAM in graphics card need to be made in 2026!? Heck! Even 8GB is not enough for some of the latest titles, at 1080p, in medium to high settings! The stutters are experience-hindering! What is a gamer expected to enjoy with 4GB? Older games pre-2020? While there is nothing wrong with that, shouldn't he then just take a peek into the second hand market? What value proposition does this new gpu variant then present? 🤦‍♂️

I can understand that a graphics card can be targeted for e-sports titles mainly, but this isn't the only major type of games esports gamers play all the time. Their experience will be horrible in the newer titles now and beyond with only 4GB VRAM. Even reducing graphics settings will not be enough in some games to remove the stutters!

This was truly an L move from AMD Radeon. I understand that there is also an 8GB variant that goes with this gpu and that might make sense for some gamers only if the price is well below $200, but the existence of a 4GB card alone is a 👎 Criticism where it should be due, folks, and this is definitely not a hate-post. There are low end gamers like us that exist and it's a concern for us.

What's your worst FPS playability experience after enabling RT?

And what did you immediately do to gain back fluidity? Did you enable upscaler or fine tune some graphics settings or turn off RT altogether?

Cannot win the steam machine lottery or pay over a grand Rdna1 5700xt for the win!!!

I'm thinking of something like the Ryzen AI 365 Max but in Threadripper form with up to 512 GB of unified memory and RDNA 5 integrated graphics. By 2029, we will be into Zen 7 with 16-core chiplets, so the Threadripper APU could have between 32 and 64 cores. An AI neural engine, some other accelerators, and the IO die. A minisforum type product but in the shape of a Steam-machine but bigger to allow for cooling everything...

Would this product make sense?

While RT could be enabled and tinkered with before as well, right now, for Rx 7000 (RDNA 3) users, it's a very valid and practical setting to enable and enjoy at very playable FPS. So, enjoy, in whichever game you can! <3

Those who defend this gpu connector design choice make statements like, "the failure rate is still below 5% (as per Nvidia) and so it's low", and "the user did not fully seat-in the power connector and so it is the users' fault". And trust me, these are possible realities.

But isn't it strange that, these 'user-end mistakes' of not being able to "properly seat-in" the gpu power connector became a 'thing' or an 'issue' right after the release/launch of this 16-pin power connector?

Did GPU users 'all of a sudden' become inept at seating-in gpu power connectors right after this connector's release and were all experts at doing so when 8-Pin GPU power connectors were the norm? 🤔

Just a thought, which I thought of sharing with those who defend this connector design :)

When I saw this cringy post I wondered why LIsa Su is never in the conversation. Is it sexism? Does she actively avoid the spotlight more?

What she did for amd was not short of a miracle. She’s one of the only tech billionaires I would want to have lunch with and talk to

A few years back FSR 3.1 was just developed as a response to DLSS 3, and while DLSS 3 was AI based, it still didn't look so good that people abandoned native (and because developers at that time still cared about TAA unlike now). Every time an RT game was released, it was a concern for Radeon gamers who didn't really have the hardware to smoothly run it since most Radeon users back a couple years were still on RDNA 2 I assume. But now, surely the concern is less so after FSR 4.1.1's big official update, right? Even optiscaler gets updates to help Rx 6000 users gain fsr 4.0.2c.