Stāvot uz Nvidia un AMD jaunās paaudzes grafisko karšu kraujas, tiešsaistē ir iesakņojusies pazīstama diskusija — vai iepriekšējās paaudzes GPU joprojām ir vērts iegādāties, kad pie apvāršņa ir kaut kas jaunāks, spīdīgāks un jaudīgāks?
Es varu jums to izskaidrot: jā, jā.
Arguments paliek tāds pats kā dažu pēdējo paaudžu izlaidumos — ka ir bezjēdzīgi pirkt produktu, kas drīzumā kļūst “novecojis”, un cenas bieži nekrītas tik daudz, lai tas būtu naudas vērts. Tur is loģika šim argumentam, taču tajā nav ņemta vērā milzīga problēma: GPU tirgus ilgu laiku nav ievērojis loģiku.
Vismaz ne tajos veidos, kas ir svarīgi. Jā, pagājušajos gados jūs varējāt aiziet uz savu vietējo tradicionālo skaitļošanas veikalu un paņemt jaunu grafisko karti ar relatīvs Vienkāršs, neatkarīgi no tā, vai MSRP vai iepriekšējās paaudzes modelis tika aizstāts ar garšīgu atlaidi, taču pēdējie gadi ir pierādījuši, ka jūs vienkārši nevarat paredzēt tirgus, GPU vai citu nākotni.
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.
Vēsture varētu atkārtoties
Reti Gundam tēmu RTX 3080 GPU, kas tika iebūvēti kalnrūpniecības platformā, izraisīja ažiotāžu tiešsaistē. (Attēla kredīts: 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.
Tomēr liela problēma ir tā, ka šis trūkums ietekmēja ne tikai šo grafisko karšu paaudzi, bet arī palielināja gandrīz katra tirgū pieejamā GPU cenu. Arguments gaidīt līdz nākamās paaudzes grafikas karšu izlaišanai, lai iegūtu lētāku, vecāku modeli vai jaunu par diezgan dārgu versiju, pilnībā pazuda gandrīz vienas nakts laikā.
It's your money, your requirements and your choice
Kāpēc viņa ir tik laimīga? Kas zina, bet varu derēt, ka viņas GPU dara tieši to, kas viņai nepieciešams. (Attēla kredīts: 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 tev .
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.
Tā kā dzīves dārdzība daudzās pasaules valstīs kļūst arvien augstāka, vienkārši nav jēgas jaunināt uz "nākamo lielo lietu" tikai tāpēc, lai to darītu, un gan Ampere, gan RDNA2 GPU joprojām būs atbilstoši un spējīgi. gadiem uz priekšu.
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.