The scene is very much a niche of few narrow-minded individuals present on online forums and occasionally on some LAN parties. In worldwide context, their amount is completely negligable.I mean the scene is pretty bad. There is a defacto monopoly and fans of the brand that can't keep up can get pretty frustrated. Also because of said monopoly the prices are ridiculous. No doubt that also creates tension with some members scooping up insanely priced cards and others can't get a decent price on anything.
The only bright side is that 1080p cards are at a reasonable price from both camps.
The scene is very much a niche of few narrow-minded individuals present on online forums and occasionally on some LAN parties. In worldwide context, their amount is completely negligable.
It's because competition was once healthy at all ends of the spectrum and there were options with great perf/$ all over the spectrum to fit every budget. Now we're entering an era where AMD is finished in the high end and might be on their last hurrah in the low end depending on how Zen turns out. The high end has been surrendered to Nvidia and as with any for profit business they have used and abused it. Price hikes from previous tiers, "founders" edition hijinx etc. Console ports are fewer and when there is a port they are poorly optimized requiring ever greater hardware for less performance. It just isn't the hobby it once was.
I think this (and a few other posts in this vein) really hit on the issue.
Years of being in the red + poor management have finally started to take a toll on AMD and NV is finally starting to pull away in engineering and execution. When you can't argue tech, you argue everything else and AMD GPU fans and fans of the underdog are becoming more and more zealous in their defense. We'll be lucky to get AMD's 1080 competitor by October, let alone a competitor to the newly released Titan P.
NV isn't even wasting it's time marketing the Titan P, they already know they're going to sell every one they make, reviews could only hurt them.
Video card forums is their evening clubAll true, but it explains the hostility in video card forums.
That's why I let those guys just get what they want, similarly to some people who like to drive cars that have low mileage, high maintenance cost, poor performance and poor design, they will however go great lengths in rationalizing such use and that the brand is always worth it. Exactly that had happened with AMD fandom some time after bulldozers were released.I hate to say it, but a lot of it falls on AMD fans, imo.
The same thing happens in CPU discussions. AMD fans will scour every corner of the internet in order to find some mundane benchmark or performance metric in order to defend AMD's CPU designs. The fact that many fans still believe that Bulldozer was a good uarch but was poorly timed is laughable. The same goes for the last 6 generations of APUs. Even the most diehard Intel fans openly admitted that NetBurst (Prescott in particular) was a rubbish uarch.
This notion that AMD is holier than thou because they're the underdog is extremely irritating to deal with when trying to analyse or discuss CPU/GPU uarchs. We should be able to call a spade a spade. For example, I was a huge fan of ATI back in the day, but even I called the R600 for what it was -- a red hot mess.
Granted, you get a lot of bad Nvidia fans too. But they tend to just be ignorant and unaware of benchmarks. Most will acknowledge facts and reality once you show them some benchmarks and data.
I remember the good ole days of 3Dfx Voodoo, nVidia Riva 128, S3 Virge, ATI Rage 3D, Matrox Mystique, Intel i740, NEC Power VR...
Back then you didn't have the rabid fanboyism towards GPUs like you do now. Granted, 3Dfx was so far ahead of anyone at the time there was nothing that could compete until the nVidia Riva TNT2 came on the scene. Back then, all the heat was pretty much "Console versus PC Gaming" or "PC versus Mac" and the like.
Is it just me or does it seem like the GPU space has more hostility than it did in years past?
First of all there is of course green team vs red team, but where before that was a battle of benchmarks today it is a battle of economic "morality" and futility.
But even outside of that we have more battles: miner vs gamer, Directx 12 vs Directx 11 vs Vulkan fans, VR vs 4K, and each battle has its share of hostility either in your face or under the surface.
Was this GPU space always this hostile and I just missed it? If not how did we get here? Aren't games and technology supposed to be fun?
Thank you for your consideration of the situation.
I hate to say it, but a lot of it falls on AMD fans, imo.
The same thing happens in CPU discussions. AMD fans will scour every corner of the internet in order to find some mundane benchmark or performance metric in order to defend AMD's CPU designs. The fact that many fans still believe that Bulldozer was a good uarch but was poorly timed is laughable. The same goes for the last 6 generations of APUs. Even the most diehard Intel fans openly admitted that NetBurst (Prescott in particular) was a rubbish uarch.
This notion that AMD is holier than thou because they're the underdog is extremely irritating to deal with when trying to analyse or discuss CPU/GPU uarchs. We should be able to call a spade a spade. For example, I was a huge fan of ATI back in the day, but even I called the R600 for what it was -- a red hot mess.
Granted, you get a lot of bad Nvidia fans too. But they tend to just be ignorant and unaware of benchmarks. Most will acknowledge facts and reality once you show them some benchmarks and data.
Is it just me or does it seem like the GPU space has more hostility than it did in years past?
First of all there is of course green team vs red team, but where before that was a battle of benchmarks today it is a battle of economic "morality" and futility.
But even outside of that we have more battles: miner vs gamer, Directx 12 vs Directx 11 vs Vulkan fans, VR vs 4K, and each battle has its share of hostility either in your face or under the surface.
Was this GPU space always this hostile and I just missed it? If not how did we get here? Aren't games and technology supposed to be fun?
Thank you for your consideration of the situation.
I blame it on AMD fanboys. They all so desperately want AMD GPU's to be good, so they argue about how power efficiency doesnt matter and how AMD GPU's are "gonna be good" eventually when DX12 finally takes off a year from now. It's irritating.
the power consumption argument has gotten a little hyperbolic these days...
it's not the fault of fanboys on either side it's the fault of some companies who believe that a difference of 47 watts is a huge cost over a year.
it's not.
it equates to 25 dollars at the end of the year and that's gaming 8 hours a day.
and that's at 18 cents per Kwh, which afaik is only in Ontario.
at the low end of 8 cents per Kwh it's 11 dollars a year.
I sometimes think we're all part of some social experiment.