À medida que estamos à beira de uma nova geração de placas gráficas da Nvidia e AMD, uma discussão familiar se enraizou online – a geração anterior de GPUs ainda vale a pena comprar quando algo mais novo, mais brilhante e mais poderoso está no horizonte?
Eu posso esclarecer isso para você: uh, sim.
O argumento permanece o mesmo dos últimos lançamentos de gerações - que é inútil comprar um produto à beira de se tornar 'desatualizado' e os preços geralmente não caem o suficiente para valer o dinheiro. Lá is lógica a esse argumento, mas não leva em conta um grande problema: o mercado de GPUs não segue a lógica há muito tempo.
Pelo menos não da maneira que importa. Sim, em anos passados você poderia ir até sua loja de informática local e comprar uma nova placa gráfica com relativo facilidade, seja um modelo totalmente novo no MSRP ou a geração anterior que estava substituindo com um desconto saboroso, mas os últimos anos provaram que você simplesmente não pode prever o futuro de um mercado, GPU ou outro.
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.
A história pode se repetir
As raras GPUs RTX 3080 com tema Gundam sendo incorporadas a uma plataforma de mineração causaram um rebuliço online. (Crédito da imagem: 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.
Um grande problema, no entanto, é que essa escassez não afetou apenas essa geração de placas gráficas – também inflacionou o preço de quase todas as GPUs no mercado. O argumento de esperar até que a próxima geração de placas gráficas fosse lançada para comprar um modelo mais barato e antigo ou um novo lançamento com preço justo desapareceu completamente quase da noite para o dia.
It's your money, your requirements and your choice
Por que ela está tão feliz? Quem sabe, mas aposto que a GPU dela faz exatamente o que ela precisa. (Crédito da imagem: 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 para você .
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.
Como o custo de vida está se tornando cada vez mais alto em muitos países ao redor do mundo, simplesmente não faz sentido atualizar para a 'próxima grande coisa' apenas por fazer isso, e as GPUs Ampere e RDNA2 ainda serão relevantes e capazes para anos que virão.
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.
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