For the price of one 5090 you could build 2-3 midrange gaming PCs lol. It's crazy that anyone would even consider buying it unless they're rich or actually need it for something important.

me neither. best is a 1070. don't play newer 'demanding' games, nor do i have a system 'worthy' of a better card anyway.

If I keep playing the same games my current CPU and GPU will do me well for a long time

Increasingly across many markets, companies are not targeting average or median consumers. They're only chasing whales, the people who can pay the premium. They've decided that more mid tier customers aren't worth it -- just chase the top. It also means a lower need for customer support.

Pretty sure the scalper situation makes a lot of that data meaningless too. Also if they keep supply significantly lower than demand then it’s still going to sell out. The survey mentions one of the reasons people are skipping is supply issues.

When did it just become expected that everybody would upgrade GPU’s every year and that’s suppose to be normal? I don’t understand people upgraded phones every year either. Both of those things are high cost for minimal gains between years. You really need 3+ years for any meaningful gains. Especially over the last few years.

And still have your house burn down due to it just being a 2080 that has 9.8 jiggawats pushed into it.

There isn't a single reason to get any of the 5 series imo, they don't offer anything. And i say that as a 3d artist for games.

Edit: nevermind i remember some idiots got roped into 4k for gaming and are now paying the price like marketing wanted them to.

Happy with my used 4070ti super i paid 150 for after trading in my 2080ti.
There is nothing to use your gpu on unless youre a kid and haven't seen the pattern of every aaa game bring literally the same game every year.

That's why it's best to focus on absolute unit shipment numbers/POS.

If total units increased compared to the previous generation launch, then people are still buying GPUs.

Absolutely. True creative games are made by smaller dev teams that aren't forcing ray tracing and lifelike graphics. The new Indianna Jones game isn't a GPU-selling card, and is the only game that I've personally had poor performance on with my 3070ti at 1440p.

Absolute numbers/POS is just going to tell you if supply is matching demand(it isn’t). The survey is telling us that demand is dropping off too. They’re losing from both sides. With the number of AI cards they’re selling by the pallet to data centers I don’t think they really care that much though.

Colour me surprised

Resumes gaming with a 1000-series card

It doesn't help that the gains have been smaller, and the prices higher.

I've got a RX 6800 I bought in 2020, and nothing but the 5090 is a significant upgrade, and I'm sure as fuck not paying that kind of money for a video card.

I don't think they're actually expecting anyone to upgrade annually. But there's always someone due for an upgrade, however long it's been for them. You can compare what percentage of users upgraded this year to previous years.

I bought a secondhand 3090 when the 40 series came out for £750. I really don't need to upgrade. I can even run the bigger AI models locally as I have a huge amount of VRAM.

Games run great and look great. Why would I upgrade?

I'm waiting to see if Intel or AMD come out with something awesome over the next few years. I'm in no rush.

I mean, as written the headline statement is always true.

I am horrified by some of the other takeaways, though:

Nearly 3 in 4 gamers (73%) would choose NVIDIA if all GPU brands performed equally.

57% of gamers have been blocked from buying a GPU due to price hikes or scalping, and 43% have delayed or canceled purchases due to other life expenses like rent and bills.

Over 1 in 4 gamers (25%) say $500 is their maximum budget for a GPU today.

Nearly 2 in 3 gamers (62%) would switch to cloud gaming full-time if latency were eliminated, and 42% would skip future GPU upgrades entirely if AI upscaling or cloud services met their performance needs.

Shipment/POS do not telling you anything about unfulfilled demand or "unrealized supply".

It's just how unit were shipped into the channel and sales at retail respectively.

These are the best data points that we have to understand demand dynamic.

Gamers are also a notoriously dramatic demography that often don't go through on what they say.

"When did it just become expected that everybody would upgrade GPU’s every year and that’s suppose to be normal?" - that's a really good question because I don't think normal PC gamers have ever, and still aren't, like that. It's basically part of the culture to stretch your GPU to the limit of time so idk who you're complaining about. Yeah, GPU prices are bullshit rn but let's not make up stuff

What's wrong with 4k gaming? Just curious

Still rocking an EVGA 980 here.