Hewwo :3

03/11/2025 -- The Change of Nvidia GPU Pricing: A Short Story...

Ahhhhh Nvidia. The manufacture almost everyone has heard about. They were founded back on April 5th, 1993 in Sunnyvale, California...and now I feel old :(

The very first GPU they created is the Nvidia NV1/STG-2000, which was released on September 30th, 1995. A massive 2W TDP and between 1 - 2MB of EDO or FPM VRAM, all for the launch price of $249/$299 USD. Converted for inflation, that would be $516/$620 today.

Jumping forward almost 5 years, Nvidia launches the GeForce2 Ultra. Not Max, not Pro Max....Ultra baby! Coming out on August 14th, 2000, this GPU had an (hear in unknown) TDP, with 64MB of DDR VRAM. That's a x32 increase of VRAM size. Astounding! The extra performance of this GPU did come at a cost tho. It launched at $499 USD, which today would be $917! Almost $1,000 *explosion sounds*

Taking another lead forward, we land on June 22nd, 2005. Behold, the GeForce 7800 GTX. Launching for $599 USD, that would set you back $987 USD. What did you get for almost the same price as a GeForce2 Ultra? You got an 86W TDP chip, with 256MB of GDDR3, netting you a x4 bump in capacity. Things are starting to pick up.

Alright alright...what about 2010, I hear you ask? Well first, honorable mention to the GeForce GTX 480. Spicy she was. Even more powerful tho, is the GTX 580. Launching for $499 USD on November 9th, 2010 (hello 2000 pricing)...this would cost you just $724 today. That doesn't seem so bad, does it? Well...what do you get for that price? You get a 244W(!) TDP card, with 1,536 MB of GDDR5 VRAM. That's right, 1.5GB of VRAM...6 times as much. Alright, I see you Nvidia. Fair play, fair play.

Well hi, March 17th of 2015. Hello to you as well, GeForce GTX TITAN X. With your 250W TDP and 12GB of GDDR5 VRAM, you have to cost a pretty penny...right? Well you launched at $999 USD, which in today's money is $1,344. An x8 jump in VRAM, all for just 4 digits. Wait tho....this is an enthusiast-class card. What about the one that people would have more likely bought...the GTX 980 Ti? That GPU launched on June 2nd, 2015 for $649 USD. Whew, that's cheaper. For $864 of todays dollars, you got the same 250W TDP, with 6GB of GDDR5 VRAM. So a jump of just x6 instead. Still, overall performance was very close and 1080P gaming was still plenty.

Fine, let's see what 2020 had in store for us. We have the beeeeeg GeForce RTX 3090. Another enthusiast-class card with a 350W TDP and 24GB of GDDR6X VRAM, this would set you back a shiny $1,499 USD. With a release date of September 1st, 2020...you could expect to pay $1,830 today. A jump in price, with a *doubling* of the VRAM. Alright fine *sighs*, I'll add the 3080. With a launch price of $699 USD ($853 today dollars), this was easier to swallow. That lower price got you a 320W TDP, with 10GB of GDDR6X VRAM. Only a 1.66x jump. The 3090 was able to distance itself performance-wise, however you had to "pay to play".

Listen, I dun wanna hear no more yappin' about old cards! Tell me what launched in 2025! Alright alright, goodness. Starting out with the slim, toned-down reference design, the RTX 5090 seems different somehow. With a release date of January 30th, 2025...she's got a TDP of 575W. Smokin'! Throw in 32GB of GDDR7 (only a 1.33x increase), this would cost you $1,999 USD. That's right, 2...thousand...dollars. Oh, you can't afford that? No worries, we have the GeForce RTX 5080 instead. Also released on Jan 30th, 2025, this card will only set you back $999 USD. You get a 360W TDP and 16GB of GDDR7. That's a x1.6 jump in VRAM over last gen.

Looking through this data, Nvidia has almost consistently been giving you a more powerful GPU paired with less VRAM (generation over generation). The outliers being the GeForce2 Ultra and the TITAN X. So remember folks...."The more you buy, the more you save!" - Jensen Huang COMPUTEX 2024

10/31/2024 -- Still alive (ish)...

I've been messing around/daily driving Windows 11 24H2 for most of this month (Happy Halloween btw!!!!!). I've got the Ryzen 1600 OC'd to 3.85 GHz all-core @ 1.416V. The currnet (2) two sticks of Micron E-Die RAM I have OC'd from their base 3000 MT/s CL15 > 3400 MT/s CL16 + looser primary timings. I've been very slowly tweaking the secondary timings as it's a lot of work! I'm ummm also stuck on a 2019 BIOS because this CPU isn't even supported on this motherboard (or even this chipset). The IMC (Integrated Memory Controller) of this CPU isn't the strongest lol, so the tweaked RAM is super needed for now and I really really really need a faster CPU soon (she struggles with Windows tbh these days). Maybe by the end of next month I'll have enough to buy a cheap Zen+ CPU from Ebay? Sure I still won't have Gen 4 support, however it would be enough to let me run a 2024 BIOS. That and 1 more matching stick of RAM so I can finally populate all 4 slots. Why 4 sticks (64GB RAM)? Cause I do a lot of tech support for Windows PCs, so being able to run virtual machines is super helpful if someone I'm helping is using either A. A different version of Windows 11 or B. Running Windows 10. We'll see how the month goes, as I really don't make much money these days. Trying my best tho <3

Here are my thoughts on the PS5 Pro...

The PS5 launched in 2020 at a price of $399.99 USD for the digital version and $499.99 USD for the disc drive version. It has an eight-core Zen 2 CPU, an RDNA2 GPU, and a 1TB NVMe drive. The CPU is a Ryzen 3700X and the GPU has performance equal to that of the goat Nvidia GTX 1080 Ti. Either version of the console came with a vertical stand as well as one controller. The PS5 Pro is changing things up. Is this a good thing or a bad thing?

The PS5 Pro is going to launch at $699.99 USD as a digital console. It will still have the same CPU, as the main upgrade is the GPU. From what has been seen, it's estimated to perform like that of the Radeon 7700 XT. It will also have a 2TB NVMe drive this time. No disc drive version will be available. Yeah, that means you have to buy the disc drive separate, and it's actually unavailable right now (9/18/2024). Hey, at least the disc drive is only $79.99. Cheaper than $100.00! Well actually, you'd also have to buy the vertical stand separately if you didn't want to lay the console flat. The price for that is $29.99. So overall, getting the disc "version" this time around is more expensive than the original PS5. With this refresh, they are aiming for 60FPS with visual quality equal to that of the "Fidelity Mode" from the PS5. So a performance/visual bump that will cost $810 all-in. Yeah, $800+ for a game console in 2024. That is uhhhhh, not a small amount of money... especially these days with how expensive living is grrrrr.

Now to help see if that is worth it, let's try comparing it to a PC. Yeah, the old Personal Computer. Now before I go into detail, I am assuming that you already have a TV that you would be using with the console. Went ahead and put together a quick AM5 desktop build via PCPartPicker. This is built on the modern Ryzen platform, skipping right over a last-gen build for a reason :3 We've got a Ryzen 7600, 32GB RAM, B650 mobo, modern case, 2TB drive, and a 750W ATX 3.0 PSU. What about the GPU though? Well, you could get the 1080 Ti used for around $170. Add in the DualSense Controller for $74.99 and yer total comes out to $1,007 for PS5 level performance. More accurately, PS5 graphics performance with CPU performance 32% faster (single-core) and 17% faster (multi-core). You can also do more than just play games on a PC. Such is the beauty <3 Wait! We forgot to calculate something else in this comparison. The Playstation Plus subscriptionnnn. This changes things??

The cheapest membership is the PlayStation Plus Essential plan. This plan is $79.99/year. So if you keep the console for 5 years, that's an extra $399.95. This takes the $810 price and raises it to $1,210. Let's take our PC build and see what we can tweak for that extra subscription cost that you aren't paying for. I see that you can buy the ASRock Phantom Gaming 7700 XT for $399.99. Now we have all new parts, nothing used. Our PC now matches the PS5 Pro in graphics, while soundly beating it in CPU. Actually, there is a good possibility that we actually beat it in the graphics as well. Why? Because the 3700X trying to feed the GPU data at 4K resolution is going to mean our CPU is now the limit for the FPS we can get. By having the Ryzen 7600 instead, the faster 7700 XT will be able to stretch its legs further. Instead of aiming for 4K60FPS, something like 4K90FPS would be more obtainable. Maybe even 4K120FPS in some games. Let you really take advantage of the TV you have, especially if you have a nicer TV that can display more than 60FPS.

The last thing to consider is upgradability. With the PS5 Pro, the only thing you can add is more storage. Once the console can't play the newer games you want as well (or they just outright aren't developed for the PS5 Pro), you have to get a new console. With a PC, it's different. You are starting out with a faster CPU, so the PC could maintain higher FPS for longer compared to the PS5 Pro. You can also simply swap in a more powerful CPU (with a BIOS update) and GPU, assuming you are on the Ryzen platform. No need to buy a whole new PC. This greatly reduces the cost of an upgrade. Remember that consoles nor PC's are perfect. They will always have their issues, shortcomings, etc. What you want to do (imho) is get the best value for yer $. This traditionally (especially at launch) as been consoles if all you want to do is game. If consoles keep increasing in price like this tho, it'll make more and more sense to simply get a PC instead.

I'd think this over, as almost $1,000 USD isn't what I would call the cheapest purchase to make for something that you probably want to keep for many years.