Upgrade or wait: mid 2022 edition

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StoleMyOwnCar

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I think we're kind of at an interesting crossroads in contemporary consumer GPU's, because of several factors:

  • Current generation prices are actually getting close to MSRP or even below it, for actual brand new cards. Hypothetically speaking they might keep getting lower for a time

  • But as they go out of production, naturally this situation will change, and everyone knows that the secondhand market is/will be absolute wild west of heavily mined and used up cards.

  • The next generation supposedly might not even have an MSRP?

  • So sure that mid-range 4070 (and whatever AMD will release) might faster than some of our top end cards right now... but if there is no MSRP and there's inevitably going to be a shortage as it comes out... what are you going to pay for it, when both scalpers and (possibly/doubtlessly) miners are involved?

  • And for how long will you have to pay that much for it before it becomes reasonable? Half a year? One year? Two years?

  • The next generation, while having overblown power requirements from initial sources, is still undoubtedly going to require a lot more power on a per-tier basis. For some people this matters (though considering the price they will possibly be at, I guess a new PSU is just a drop in the bucket).

  • Finally, though a weaker (and more personal) point... what's all this horsepower going to? My 2080 RTX (not Super, not Ti) is doing fine in many games I've been playing at 3440x1440p, and the resolution feels just fine to me for immersion and fidelity. Supposedly a 3080 Ti or similar will be, what, twice as powerful? At that point, who needs even stronger? Just VR players?

It's just a shower thought that occurred to me, and obviously no one has a crystal ball, I'm just curious what people are doing/thinking in the current environment.

Personally, I'm kind of split between gambling on waiting for a 4070, or just nabbing a 3080Ti in a little while and calling it good for the next several years of my 3440p life.
 
The way I see it, cyberpunk is the new crysis so if a card plays that comfortably I can't see waiting another year or more.
When I catch a 3080fe or 6800xt at the right price I'll bite. My hardcore 24/7 gaming days are over and like you alluded to, 40x0 will be a shitshow for probably 6 to 12 months. Worse yet, who knows what ngreedias pricing will look like. I'll read reviews and lounge about.
 
Your 2080 has some legs but if you do replace it soon may as well go 3080 12g at least and skip the next gen.

This is always the dilemma at this point in the cycle isn’t it? The last few years have made me pretty cynical concerning GPU launches. So get something when you are ready and don’t sweat it too much. At least you have a decent GPU now and aren’t pressed. Also, It’s not like anything faster you buy now for a price you are willing to pay magically stops playing games in 6 months. I still kind of want to go with my original choice of a 6900xt or 3080 12G but already picked up a 6800 off AMD direct for msrp early in the launch when when things were silly and recently the Tuf 3070ti on a New Egg sale. Either plays everything I mess with just fine and as a bonus I have a desk set up and portable itx box that are both strong. I’m probably done for a while and will just sit the next round out with a side of popcorn.
 
I'd just wait personally and see what happens. If the power demands are higher miners won't be interested in buying and cause another supply issue.
 
vegeta535 said:
The 4070 will not be faster then a 3090. Other then the top of the stack the power requirements won't be insane.
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I just kind of skimmed the title of this news topic, so that's where I got it from. Not sure if it's been debunked.

TheHig said:
Your 2080 has some legs but if you do replace it soon may as well go 3080 12g at least and skip the next gen.

This is always the dilemma at this point in the cycle isn’t it?
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Well my plan would be to go 3080 Ti probably... maybe a 3090 (or maybe AMD equivalent; I've read the 6800 XT is a very efficient card for watts vs performance). Figure if I was gonna upgrade and the next gen is gonna be a crapshow anyway, might as well just make it count. Depends on prices though of course.

I wouldn't have really made this topic if this was a typical year, I just kind of feel that on many levels it's different from the traditional "upgrade or not" GPU situations of the past.
Furious_Styles said:
I'd just wait personally and see what happens. If the power demands are higher miners won't be interested in buying and cause another supply issue.
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I guess it would be kind of funny if half the reason for the crazy power scaling would be just to deter miners... kind of skeptical on that front though.
 
1651419477336.png


Have been keeping my eyes peeled and have to say this sudden GPU price drop is making for some comical pricing differences across the stores I've been looking at. I think if I see a good price on a 3080 Ti, I might just grab it so I can stop worrying about it for a long time. But these 3080 Ti's have 12GB VRAM, not sure if that's futureproof for 3-4 years if we have a lot of negligent developers, even at 3440x1440. Computationally they usually seem to hold up even to 3090's, so I guess that's the sweet spot... kind of... if there ever was one...
 
If you don't own one just buy one next gen will be scalped just like this gen. I would get the 3080 10gb off Evga.com for 860.00.
 
3080 or 3090, 3080 ti pricing doesn't make sense yet.

I doubt high end 40 series will attract miners, I don't think scaling worked that way. Their bread and butter cards were 3060-3080 level, if the 3090 was a great miner they'd have swamped it too. Wasn't just because of pricing either.

The bubble will pop and there'll be a flood of cheap cards that may or may not be clapped out just like when bitcoin outgrew GPU mining.
 
Depends on what you have and what you want.

If you have an okay card for your resolution, I'd say wait. But that could mean waiting 6 months, and then the usual 1-2 extra months for things to really come in stock assuming there is no shortage or mining rush. Last few generations I typically had to wait 4-6 weeks to actually get a GPU and there was no abnormal shortage.

But if your GPU is getting older and really isn't cutting it, I say wait a few weeks and then grab something good if it is at MSRP.
 
Mining isn't so hot right now hence return to normal prices, with less of the miners reassuring people it 'has nothing to do with it'. Yeah, sure. The guys buying a container of cards from the factory have nothing to do with pricing and availability now eh?

Hopefully the crypto bubble stays deflated, but it often picks up around launch if it's going to rally. For no reason of course.
 
StoleMyOwnCar said:
View attachment 469269

Have been keeping my eyes peeled and have to say this sudden GPU price drop is making for some comical pricing differences across the stores I've been looking at. I think if I see a good price on a 3080 Ti, I might just grab it so I can stop worrying about it for a long time. But these 3080 Ti's have 12GB VRAM, not sure if that's futureproof for 3-4 years if we have a lot of negligent developers, even at 3440x1440. Computationally they usually seem to hold up even to 3090's, so I guess that's the sweet spot... kind of... if there ever was one...
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Why buy that when this is in stock straight from EVGA at $1299?

https://www.evga.com/products/product.aspx?pn=12G-P5-3967-KR
 
rhkcommander959 said:
3080 or 3090, 3080 ti pricing doesn't make sense yet.

I doubt high end 40 series will attract miners, I don't think scaling worked that way. Their bread and butter cards were 3060-3080 level, if the 3090 was a great miner they'd have swamped it too. Wasn't just because of pricing either.

The bubble will pop and there'll be a flood of cheap cards that may or may not be clapped out just like when bitcoin outgrew GPU mining.
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Yeah I think mining ETH is related heavily to memory speeds, and even the top 4090/4090 Ti SKUs will have the same memory chips as the 3090 Ti. The cards might not mine much faster than the 30 series at all.
 
pavel said:
Any chance of discounts (of current gen) when the new gen is out?
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Hard to know but probably a really safe bet that at the beginning new card will be sold out with little reason to have large discount on the older gen, like last time there was no good price 5700xt/2080 super around.

If it is possible to buy a 3080 under $950 on bestbuy.com anyday before the launch of the new gen, maybe.
 
Ducrider748 said:
Why buy that when this is in stock straight from EVGA at $1299?

https://www.evga.com/products/product.aspx?pn=12G-P5-3967-KR
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I'm not, I was just posting the picture because I thought it was humorous that the open box price was higher than the brand new price.

I see a few 3080 Ti's open box for 1169 and I'm considering it, but of course that begs the question why were they returned. I'm predicting some horrible coil whine or something, per that video that was posted up there, where he made an interesting point by saying most of these GPUs were rushed out of the factory. Of course with EVGA I can probably still register for the warranty anyway.
 
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Basically the story is literally always: if you can wait, wait. Prices always eventually go down and not up. Even in this silicon shortage situation, that will still happen (even though for some this seems "long", eventually it will return to normal just like RAM and HDD shortages before this). Basically patience always wins.
If you need to buy today for whatever reason, then buy today.

In my mind there is no reason to not wait for the 4000 series to drop. Because you'll either get one of those cards, or 3000 series cards will be less. In other words you either save money or you spend the same amount of money for a better card.
 
UnknownSouljer said:
Basically the story is literally always: if you can wait, wait. Prices always eventually go down and not up. Even in this silicon shortage situation, that will still happen (even though for some this seems "long", eventually it will return to normal just like RAM and HDD shortages before this). Basically patience always wins.
If you need to buy today for whatever reason, then buy today.

In my mind there is no reason to not wait for the 4000 series to drop. Because you'll either get one of those cards, or 3000 series cards will be less. In other words you either save money or you spend the same amount of money for a better card.
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I really don't see prices coming back down to "normal"... ever. If you only had a chip shortage and mining to contend with, maybe. But you also have the inextricable pressure of global inflation and, importantly, nV's (and to a lessor extend, AMD's) firm agenda and strategy to push prices up across the board. $900 is the new norm for flagship cards e.g. 3080, 4080.
 
pippenainteasy said:
So 1080p esports for life then :p
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Pretty much. I'm not into most new games or eSports so it works out in my favor. My monitors are old, 1080p. For me, it only makes sense to wait as long as I can.

More so expressing my frustration at the way the market has been. I would have upgraded 2 years ago if not for the insane prices.
 
StoleMyOwnCar said:
  • Finally, though a weaker (and more personal) point... what's all this horsepower going to? My 2080 RTX (not Super, not Ti) is doing fine in many games I've been playing at 3440x1440p, and the resolution feels just fine to me for immersion and fidelity. Supposedly a 3080 Ti or similar will be, what, twice as powerful? At that point, who needs even stronger? Just VR players?
Click to expand...

In my book, if your current set up is doing what you want it to do, why bother with the upgrade? Unless it's going to really make a difference on your experience, than just leave it alone and save your money for the next revolution.
 
N4CR said:
Mining isn't so hot right now hence return to normal prices, with less of the miners reassuring people it 'has nothing to do with it'. Yeah, sure. The guys buying a container of cards from the factory have nothing to do with pricing and availability now eh?

Hopefully the crypto bubble stays deflated, but it often picks up around launch if it's going to rally. For no reason of course.
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I don't suspect crypto is going to rip again in the near future unless central banks start firing up the printing press, which they won't because they're currently trying to tame inflation. Crypto got its start during quantitative easing when the price of ALL assets was inflating and people were just looking for the next comparatively undervalued asset to invest in because money was, frankly, cheap and plentiful, and major investors had so much of it laying around that they were willing to take a portion of it and throw it at whatever YOLO moonshot might be the next 10-bagger, while if they lost it it was no big deal because everything else was surging in value as well so they could always get more money if they needed it. Those days are done, at least for the foreseeable future, which is why you're significantly less likely to see people falling over themselves to spend $2 million on a JPEG.

I could be wrong, but given the scale of the correction in speculative assets we're seeing across the board (look at how many stocks in the NASDAQ and the Russell that are down 70-80% this year that were treated as the new paradigm last year), I suspect we'll see depressed asset values for speculative assets until we see a reversal in policy from central banks.

I'm personally more concerned about supply constraints impacting price and availability at this point for GPUs than I am of crypto prices.
 
harmattan said:
I really don't see prices coming back down to "normal"... ever. If you only had a chip shortage and mining to contend with, maybe. But you also have the inextricable pressure of global inflation and, importantly, nV's (and to a lessor extend, AMD's) firm agenda and strategy to push prices up across the board. $900 is the new norm for flagship cards e.g. 3080, 4080.
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The bottom line is that pricing always goes down. A graphics card purchased 10 years ago for $5000 is worth only a few hundred today (if anything). A $900 graphics card in 5 years is a fraction of that and any card that you buy that this one generation back will be less than it's original purchase price when it was first launched.

The 4000 series might launch with a higher purchase price than the 3000 series, but if the OP is going to buy a 3000 series card 'anyway' then he still benefits by waiting as the pricing on 3000 series cards will only inevitably go down. If there is nothing that the OP wants or needs to do with a newer graphics card, then like I said, there is only benefit to waiting. The 4000 cards which don't even exist on retail shelves yet, will eventually be obsolete and worthless.

As for trying to push prices up, it's not really relevant to anything I've said. However, increased prices can only happen so long as purchasers bear it and the marketplace allows it. And regarding other factors such as inflation, then really all we're saying is that pricing is increasing due to dilution of the dollar (purchasing power) and 'one could argue' that increasing prices due to inflation isn't actually an increase in price anymore than an increase in wages due to cost of living adjustments are not a pay raise.
 
I am not sure how the logical conclusion of the always benefit of waiting does not lead to just not buy a pc if it is just for gaming.

One could have assumed at some point in the past that large performant SSD would become cheap one day, would still be waiting, one could have decided to wait for the new Ampere/RDNA 2 launch to get is hands on a cheap 5700xt/2080 super or the new middle ground at a good price, still be waiting, yes the computing power/memory capacity of a $5000 2022 PC will be cheap at some point, but the subjective value of owning it diminish has time goes (and has games/app demand more power and your competition job workload wise has more power than you), without going into the opportunity cost of not having the hardware all those times.

There would have been no benefit to someone getting the possibility to get founder edition 3080 at launch MSRP at launch time to wait for a better price for an obvious example (or someone to get an used 5700xt/turin card at a good price before the launch from people that suspected price would go down), maybe people getting the new Alienware OLED technology on launch with the rebate made a very good deal/timing.

Maybe there was a little calm period that I did not follow, but historically buying PC stuff, you were never in what felt a good time, there were always better right around the corner (and thus what you would be buying now cheaper not far away), I would consider that right now is a time that is particularly not bad at all (I do not expect much better, much cheaper, that you can buy on amazon.com to be just months away) and how much power you can get from a 12100 cpu is quite something.

For a long time we were living with the Moore law fully going on and your 3-4 old year's PC had to survive in world with new computer that had 5 times the power/memory/hard drive around, new CD drive technology now popular, changing sound card landscape and so on. Now you are almost certain that a mid range PC of today will run games of 3 years from now at 1080p-60fps/mid-high graphic and every program you want.
 
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The new cards will very likely be hard to get and scalped to the moon just like the current ones were/are. Plus, if the 600W+ rumors are true then these things will be space heaters as well. My custom loop already has a hard enough time dissipating the heat my 450W my 3090 FTW3 puts out. I don’t even bother with the 500W BIOS.
 
LukeTbk said:
I am not sure how the logical conclusion of the always benefit of waiting does not lead to just not buy a pc if it is just for gaming.
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In short, yes. But the mentality can be summarized in my first post here as: buy when you want/need to, and if you can wait, wait.

Again this is all predicated on the idea that if there isn’t urgency and nothing the op wants to immediately play, then there is no advantage to buying now.
 
UnknownSouljer said:
In short, yes. But the mentality can be summarized in my first post here as: buy when you want/need to, and if you can wait, wait.

Again this is all predicated on the idea that if there isn’t urgency and nothing the op wants to immediately play, then there is no advantage to buying now.
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It is hard to imagine anything urgent with something like gaming to ever happen. You always buy game/gaming related thing when you want and never when you need too, it is not the server at work breaking down.

It will be years and years before a 2080 RTX is not able to play a game (or a 1080), big game will have to run on the current console generation for the next 5-6 year's at least, thus should run on a 2070 super, it is all about wanting luxury extra/playing with hardwares.
 
Normally I'm always in the "wait for what's next" camp. Right now is at least a little bit of an exception because a ton of game developers are 12-18 months behind. The 3090 can run damn near everything at at least 60fps with the details cranked. There are a ton of games that it can push to 100fps or more. Most of the time the motivating factor for buying a new GPU is when the current models get brought to their knees by the current crop of AAA titles. That's not happening right now. I'm unaware of anything coming that might change that, too.
 
LukeTbk said:
It is hard to imagine anything urgent with something like gaming to ever happen. You always buy game/gaming related thing when you want and never when you need too, it is not the server at work breaking down.
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I don’t disagree at all. But usually for me, and I assume others, there is a tipping point where the value becomes worth it. I liken this to all tech. We don’t need new phones ever 2 years either and I tend to run mine for 4-6 years. At a certain point though the ‘value’ and the timing line up for what I’m ready to spend. And of course the leap in tech only gets better the longer I wait.

When I got my Radeon VII I didn’t necessarily need the card either, but considering it has cut huge amounts of time off my renders and allowed for smooth real time playback it has paid for itself. (And luckily I picked it up as their price was decreasing on the used market and before the pandemic/silicon shortage hit).

Playing games on it is an ‘excuse’ too, though I definitely don’t game as much as I used to.
 
I think it's a very subjective thing, choosing whether or not you should upgrade or not at a given time. I would just do what you feel is best and what you enjoy.

On another note, I'm starting to wonder why Nvidia doesn't just start calling cards by their PSU requirement at this point. The Nvidia 1300 Watt RTX lol. It's getting a bit nutty though really. I hope we see efficiency improve in coming generations of cards.
 
I had to buy now so i bought now. I waited 2 years for a card to come in stock at close to a sane price. We all know 6+ before the launch and another 6+ till you can buy a card. Wars/china lock down/covid/supply/ I just got tired of the bull shit to be honest.
 
HockeyJon said:
In my book, if your current set up is doing what you want it to do, why bother with the upgrade? Unless it's going to really make a difference on your experience, than just leave it alone and save your money for the next revolution.
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Normally I would agree, but:
Domingo said:
Normally I'm always in the "wait for what's next" camp. Right now is at least a little bit of an exception because a ton of game developers are 12-18 months behind. The 3090 can run damn near everything at at least 60fps with the details cranked. There are a ton of games that it can push to 100fps or more. Most of the time the motivating factor for buying a new GPU is when the current models get brought to their knees by the current crop of AAA titles. That's not happening right now. I'm unaware of anything coming that might change that, too.
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This is what I'm noticing as well. There's a very good chance if I get a 3080 Ti here, it will last me for several years.

But then again, yeah, my 2080 is providing plenty of graphical fidelity in basically everything I've thrown at it at 3440x1440. So as much as I want to scratch the upgrade itch, I could probably hold off. But the future is just so uncertain with PC parts these days. Prices are low (er nearly at MSRP at least) and the 4xxx generation might be the most scalped generation in history, if the last one is anything to go by. Would I even get a chance to upgrade until years down the line, when I'd be in the exact same position I am now (just with a different generation)? And what kind of GPU (and heck, PSU.... and heck, house wiring) would I need to run the... 4090 RTX? Because the 4070, if it's not stronger than the 3080 Ti... assuming they do away with MSRP and it becomes priced nearly as high... what's going to be the point?

Just a really annoying time right now, between possible miner resurgence, ridiculous amounts of scalpers, a shortage on every single release, etc. These are all stressors I do not remember having during any part of my PC building life before. Part of me just wants to get the upgrade out of the way so I can just ignore the PC parts market for at least the next 3-4 years and not have to stress on it.
 
I'm pretty much in the same boat as OP; still running my 2080 and happy with it too. But really afraid GPUs are going to see 2021 levels of stupid again with supply and pricing after the next gen launches. So I'm pretty tempted to jump on the next 2080 10/12GB card deal that I see. 3080ti and 3090 pricing (even at MSRP) still doesn't make sense to me with their minimal real-world performance difference over the 3080s. Though I've almost bought either of those two cards as well just because they were available for a second before available got better recently. Then I remembered that I haven't really even touched my PC for gaming in the last few months because I've been on my PS5 mostly anyways in the last year with the few exclusives its had (playing a lot of Horizon and GT7 lately now). So it's hard to justify the upgrade when I'm not using much anyways.
 
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