You don't honestly have to upgrade that often. It's mostly the resolution race that's making hardware go obsolete quickly. If you are a still on 1080p then a 7970 from 2011 is a still a monster card that can max almost everything.
Would you rather us remain in the era of Half-Life 2 graphics so ancient machines can play everything at max settings? There's a solution for that...it's called "play older games."
I run Doom in 1080P with everything maxed out on a single 970 and it's smooth as glass.
I'm not talking about the quality of graphics, and it's not about ancient machines either. I'm talking about the cost of the graphics hardware. Not long ago, I bought an 8800 GTX back when it was the top dog and it only cost me about 300 ish, and it ran everything on full, even the latest games. And graphics back then were just as advanced for the time as they are today. But nowadays that kind of money wont get you a top card or even close. You need to spend at least double that.
The other components are decent prices, some are even cheaper today than they were in the past. The price of RAM, CPU's, etc are all pretty good, but graphics cards are now a huge cost if you want to play games with high settings. The Geforce 10 series is a step in a better direction, but when the Titan X was top card, it was going down a dark road for PC gaming.
I'm not talking about the quality of graphics, and it's not about ancient machines either. I'm talking about the cost of the graphics hardware. Not long ago, I bought an 8800 GTX back when it was the top dog and it only cost me about 300 ish, and it ran everything on full, even the latest games. And graphics back then were just as advanced for the time as they are today. But nowadays that kind of money wont get you a top card or even close. You need to spend at least double that.
The other components are decent prices, some are even cheaper today than they were in the past. The price of RAM, CPU's, etc are all pretty good, but graphics cards are now a huge cost if you want to play games with high settings. The Geforce 10 series is a step in a better direction, but when the Titan X was top card, it was going down a dark road for PC gaming.
I'm not talking about the quality of graphics, and it's not about ancient machines either. I'm talking about the cost of the graphics hardware. Not long ago, I bought an 8800 GTX back when it was the top dog and it only cost me about 300 ish, and it ran everything on full, even the latest games. And graphics back then were just as advanced for the time as they are today. But nowadays that kind of money wont get you a top card or even close. You need to spend at least double that.
The other components are decent prices, some are even cheaper today than they were in the past. The price of RAM, CPU's, etc are all pretty good, but graphics cards are now a huge cost if you want to play games with high settings. The Geforce 10 series is a step in a better direction, but when the Titan X was top card, it was going down a dark road for PC gaming.
80-90%? I read that it'll be between a 390 and 390x which is slower than a 980, and a 980 is about 40% slower than a 1070... It'll probably be close to a 970... still a good deal but not 80% as fast as 1070/1080
AMDs new offering 480(?) seems like it will be the new 8800gts/9500pro. Low cost around $200-$300 and 80-90% of the performance of the top tier NVIDIA cards. I haven't followed it much but it seems like it will be this generations good value card.
Except that you are missing the fact that max settings actually brought significant IQ gains in the 8800GTX Crysis era, compared to now where max settings are designed purely to fellate the uber GPU master race crowd with pathetic IQ gains over high/medium. In either case, there has been no need to max out settings to enjoyably game whatsoever.
And no, I'm sure you bought a 8800 GT, not a GTX.
No card ran crysis on max settings at normal resolutions.
Yeah but it doesn't matter about the currency, my point was that it is a lot cheaper than the high end just a few years later. It used to be top end and it was around the price of a 970 gtx. 980 was about 100 more and the Titan was double or triple or something crazy like that.
PC gaming isn't popular and it's never been cheaper. You can get a rig together for less than a console and play almost anything released prior to 2014. As an added bonus humble bundles, steam summer sales, and origin freebies can create a massive gaming library for chump change.
But the currency does matter. You're seem to be cross comparing as though Pound = Dollar 1 to 1. If you were paying UK 340 for something the US paid $650 for, that's pretty much spot on for how the high end market still is.
How is same as always when a Titan X was about a grand for one component alone? All the components are more or less the same as they have been for 20+ years, except the graphics cards which are far more expensive. It is only cheap if you go for mid or low end stuff. If you want to play cutting edge PC games with full settings you need a really expensive graphics card. And for 4k you really need two really expensive graphics cards. 1080p might be acceptable but it is far from high end now. I have a 2560x1080 which was a compromise because of price. I would prefer a 2560x1440 or 2560x1600 but that would cost a lot more, not just for the screen but a better gpu. And 4k is still hugely demanding even for the latest gen graphics cards.Nah it's been right around the same as always. I would say that PC gaming today is actually cheaper than before, because now 1080P is an acceptable resolution and you don't need a high end card for it.
How is same as always when a Titan X was about a grand for one component alone? All the components are more or less the same as they have been for 20+ years, except the graphics cards which are far more expensive. It is only cheap if you go for mid or low end stuff. If you want to play cutting edge PC games with full settings you need a really expensive graphics card. And for 4k you really need two really expensive graphics cards. 1080p might be acceptable but it is far from high end now. I have a 2560x1080 which was a compromise because of price. I would prefer a 2560x1440 or 2560x1600 but that would cost a lot more, not just for the screen but a better gpu. And 4k is still hugely demanding even for the latest gen graphics cards.
You can game cheaply if you compromise but high end is way more expensive today than ever before. Some people run multiple monitors etc. and 4x sli. You could easily spend 10 grand on a computer like that.
Titan (X)'s are not normal consumer cards. They weren't even faster than the 780ti and 980ti's. You really shouldn't be looking at those for top end card costs.
And of course, there is absolutely no reason that you need those high end cards for a high end gaming experience.
You are talking about a guy who paid $600 in 2007 dollars (aka $300 in his lala fantasy land bucks) for a 8800 GTX while whining about how GPUs are now sooooo much more expensive when a 980 Ti is priced at a kitten-murdering level of $650, and now he is offended about why nobody is taking him seriously.