Mientras nos encontramos en el precipicio de una nueva generación de tarjetas gráficas de Nvidia y AMD, una discusión familiar se ha arraigado en línea: ¿vale la pena comprar la generación anterior de GPU cuando algo más nuevo, más brillante y más poderoso está en el horizonte?
Puedo aclararte eso: eh, sí.
El argumento sigue siendo el mismo que para los últimos lanzamientos generacionales: que no tiene sentido comprar un producto a punto de volverse "obsoleto" y que los precios a menudo no bajan lo suficiente como para que valga la pena el dinero. Ahí is lógica a este argumento, pero no tiene en cuenta un gran problema: el mercado de GPU no ha seguido la lógica durante mucho tiempo.
Al menos no en las formas que importan. Sí, en años pasados, podías ir a tu tienda de computación física local y adquirir una nueva tarjeta gráfica con relativo facilidad, ya sea un modelo completamente nuevo en MSRP o la generación anterior que estaba reemplazando con un delicioso descuento, pero los últimos años han demostrado que simplemente no se puede predecir el futuro de un mercado, GPU u otro.
When GPUs like the Nvidia GeForce RTX 2070 and RTX 2080 were first released, plenty of PC gamers and computing enthusiasts believed an upgrade from the previous generation couldn't be justified by the insanely high prices, and that waiting for the 3000 series to drop was the more sensible option – and then all hell broke loose.
La historia podría repetirse
Las raras GPU RTX 3080 con el tema de Gundam que se integraron en una plataforma de minería causaron revuelo en línea. (Crédito de la imagen: I_Leak_VN)
The Ampere series of cards like the GeForce RTX 3060 had a divisive pricepoint – some finding it to be reasonable, while other lamented the apparent death of affordable graphics cards – but a terrible cocktail of word issues also made them almost impossible to find.
The Cryptomarket saw a boom in Ethereum, which made the cards very attractive to miners who snapped them up in bulk for use in cryptomining farms, while the Covid-19 pandemic caused supply chain issues and a chip shortage that affected almost everything in the tech world, from computing components to cars and appliances.
All this scarcity inflated the price of GPUs to wild levels, with the GeForce RTX 3080 hitting an average resale price of almost x3 times its original MSRP during the height of the Great GPU Shortage. AMD fared a little better, though even Team Red was still blighted by shortages and scalpers.
One difference between how the two companies approached the situation was in regards to cryptomining, with Nvidia eventually re-releasing updated models of almost its entire Ampere series equipped with anti-mining preventatives.
These LHR (low-hashrate) cards weren’t completely uncrackable, but they may have helped dissuade folks from snapping up mountains of RTX 3060s. On the other hand, AMD acknowledged the situation and stated that once a customer buys a GPU, they’re free to do what they like with it.
Sin embargo, un gran problema es que esta escasez no solo afectó a esa generación de tarjetas gráficas, sino que también infló el precio de casi todas las GPU en el mercado. El argumento de esperar hasta que se lanzara la próxima generación de tarjetas gráficas para comprar un modelo más antiguo y más barato o un nuevo lanzamiento a un precio razonable desapareció por completo casi de la noche a la mañana.
It's your money, your requirements and your choice
¿Por qué está tan feliz? Quién sabe, pero apuesto a que su GPU hace exactamente lo que necesita. (Crédito de la imagen: Shutterstock)
Will this happen again? It's hard to say.
The shortage was caused by a variety of issues that just happened to occur at the same time, but should Covid-19 cause more supply chain constraints then it's likely that both Lovelace and RDNA3 GPUs could see their prices start to skyrocket due to demand. The crypto market also has every likelihood to recover given its volatility, so you shouldn’t feel like we’re out of the woods just yet.
I do have a simpler argument in all of this though: it's worth buying a new GPU if it’s worth it a usted .
Older GPUs still very much have a place in the market right now. You only have to look at the Steam Hardware Survey to see how many gamers are still using cards that are several generations old at this point, and depending on the games you play, it's likely you don’t actually need an especially powerful graphics card. Most first-person shooters and battle-royale style games intentionally keep the system requirements low to attract more players for example.
I wrote a piece several months ago off the back of the RTX 3070 Ti getting poor reviews. It was marked down for its price and performance, but the joy it has bought me is beyond value. I won’t feel bad for my choices given the circumstances given graphics cards were harder to find than gold dust. Would I have preferred an RTX 3090? Sure, but did I need one? Absolutely not.
Dado que el costo de vida es cada vez más alto en muchos países del mundo, simplemente no tiene sentido actualizar a la "próxima gran cosa" solo por hacerlo, y las GPU Ampere y RDNA2 seguirán siendo relevantes y capaces. en los años que vendrán.
If you see an especially good deal on a cheap graphics card in the coming weeks, don’t let early adopters try and convince you to wait for Lovelace or RDNA3 unless you’re happy to do so – we simply don’t know what the market will look like when they launch.
English
Arabic
Belarusian
Bengali
Bosnian
Bulgarian
Chinese (Simplified)
Croatian
Czech
Danish
Dutch
English
Estonian
Filipino
Finnish
French
Georgian
German
Greek
Gujarati
Hausa
Hebrew
Hindi
Hmong
Hungarian
Igbo
Indonesian
Italian
Japanese
Javanese
Kazakh
Korean
Kurdish (Kurmanji)
Kyrgyz
Lao
Latvian
Lithuanian
Macedonian
Malagasy
Norwegian
Persian
Polish
Portuguese
Punjabi
Romanian
Russian
Serbian
Slovak
Slovenian
Spanish
Swedish
Thai
Turkish
Ukrainian
Vietnamese
Yoruba