MSI and Colorful raise Nvidia RTX 50-series prices in China by up to 59% across the entire lineup — change in distributer pricing suggests GPU price hikes are on the way

usertests said:

Grab a used RX 580 8GB or something like that for $50-80, and enjoy playing some PS4-era games.

only works for the now.
Game market doesn't make stuff based on old gpu's they ride the mid tier of newer gpu performance.

Ricket5 said:

There are cheaper solutions out there for PC gaming.

yes, but only for now.

Ricket5 said:

PC gaming isn't dying it's just moving to the cloud like everything else PC.

ask google stadia how that worked out.

cloud gaming doesnt work for most of the world.

Ricket5 said:

There are cheaper solutions out there for PC gaming. You don't need the latest and greatest. PC gaming isn't dying it's just moving to the cloud like everything else PC.

I will not openly say what I think about this comment to avoid being indefinitely banned from this forum, but you can guess how it would sound like if I did.

Cloud gaming and end of PC gaming are the same thing with different names. Everyone knows that if game streaming becomes the standard way to play video games, it will quickly become like the mobile gaming model: never-ending games filled with micro-transactions and solely designed to be addictive rather than fun.

And the corporations that are doing everything they can to rise prices above anthing most people can afford want exactly that to happen so they can charge us subscriptions for the rest of our lives. And you telling us this like it's perfectly normal and acceptable makes me think you are another of those corpo-paid new users that are flooding forums right now.

usertests said:

Grab a used RX 580 8GB or something like that for $50-80, and enjoy playing some PS4-era games.

RX 570 8Gb Vram here. Not the smoothest experience but I'm happy I have that little sucker. No ray tracing but it does a good job,considering everything going on.

JayGau said:

I will not openly say what I think about this comment to avoid being indefinitely banned from this forum, but you can guess how it would sound like if I did.

Cloud gaming and end of PC gaming are the same thing with different names. Everyone knows that if game streaming becomes the standard way to play video games, it will quickly become like the mobile gaming model: never-ending games filled with micro-transactions and solely designed to be addictive rather than fun.

And the corporations that are doing everything they can to rise prices above anthing most people can afford want exactly that to happen so they can charge us subscriptions for the rest of our lives. And you telling us this like it's perfectly normal and acceptable makes me think you are another of those corpo-paid new users that are flooding forums right now.

It may not be the case here but conspiracies are not needed when customers make countless excuses for awful corpo behavior. And absolutely ignore the many faults cloud gaming will have. It's only a matter of time til nvidia stops selling gaming gpu,s and force you to rent a gpu via "the cloud".

Nvidia fans better get their excuses ready for when that day comes. It IS coming ,BTW.

usertests said:

Grab a used RX 580 8GB or something like that for $50-80, and enjoy playing some PS4-era games.

While I understand that's an option it's definitely not something I'd ever suggest someone do. It's also not a solution to the actual problem to suggest someone get a decade old architecture. The fact that buying used cards is the only option for sub-$250 ($220 if we pretend MSRP is real) that makes sense is a travesty. That being something which is going to get worse of course thanks to the mempocalypse.

The worst part to me though is that buyers today aren't even getting much of anything for their money. About three years ago a friend of mine bought a 7900 XT for about $630 and I bought a 6800 XT for $430. Spending the same amount of money today won't get you 6800 XT performance and unless you got a Microcenter deal $630 won't beat the 7900 XT either. Now we're staring down the barrel of mempocalypse pricing, which is why I got a 9070 XT, which is inevitably going to skew things even further.

While I know we're not going to see the days of $100-130 new cards return the entry level should really be $200. I think we also need fewer SKUs since the true low end is dead and make those we get more meaningful. The majority of the SKUs from both AMD and nvidia retail MSRP is $550+. It'd be really nice if there was an even split above and below $400. Of course margins are a thing so I know it'll never happen, but it's really the sort of thing that needs to if the companies want the industry to continue existing.

edit: Just saw that AMD has a 4GB and 8GB RX 9050 coming with half the cores of the 9060 and the 4GB having a 64-bit bus (and yes they share the same name because GPU vendors can't help themselves).

thestryker said:

While I understand that's an option it's definitely not something I'd ever suggest someone do. It's also not a solution to the actual problem to suggest someone get a decade old architecture. The fact that buying used cards is the only option for sub-$250 ($220 if we pretend MSRP is real) that makes sense is a travesty. That being something which is going to get worse of course thanks to the mempocalypse.

Adapt or die, simple as. I think this option or similar could get you acceptable 1080p performance in some PS5-era/UE5 games. I checked out Oblivion Remastered performance on RX 580 8GB out of curiosity and that was around 1080p30 (though that game should be ignored in favor of the upcoming Skyblivion total conversion).

It may be time for some folks to open up their wallets before it's too late and prices are driven up further. I propose an RX 580 or other sub-$100 trash/treasure, because at least you are not making a huge commitment that will feel sour if we get a bubble pop and price relief. Pretty much everyone has an infinite backlog of games that will run on an RX 580. There are plenty of fun games that will run on old Intel iGPUs. Popular multiplayer games will often be playable. Turn on, tune in, and drop out of the modern gaming scene.

We should prepare for a future of computing that looks like an apocalypse with emaciated Americans rummaging through bins for spare 10+ year old components. Not necessarily due to AI, but possibly Taiwan and other factors. Then we can be pleasantly surprised as long as that doesn't happen.

thestryker said:

The worst part to me though is that buyers today aren't even getting much of anything for their money. About three years ago a friend of mine bought a 7900 XT for about $630 and I bought a 6800 XT for $430. Spending the same amount of money today won't get you 6800 XT performance and unless you got a Microcenter deal $630 won't beat the 7900 XT either. Now we're staring down the barrel of mempocalypse pricing, which is why I got a 9070 XT, which is inevitably going to skew things even further.

The 9060 XT 16GB was not transformational, but a decent value when it was around $330-350 in November/December 2025. Not very far behind the 6800/7800 XT, slightly less raster performance than the 7700 XT but handles ultra textures or raytracing better at 1080p. FSR4 out of the box. Now that card is at $450+ and could surge further.

thestryker said:

While I know we're not going to see the days of $100-130 new cards return the entry level should really be $200. I think we also need fewer SKUs since the true low end is dead and make those we get more meaningful.

First, my pet issue: we need a couple of good 75W cards. At least one to establish the new performance baseline, and another to provide competition. We've been stuck with the RTX 3050 6GB at $200+ (especially LP), with some arguable brief competition from the $350 MSRP Intel Arc Pro B50 16GB that is more like $500 now.

If 3 GB GDDR7 had been abundant and stockpiled, the RTX 5050 9GB (130W) could have been interesting at sub-$300 pricing. I think reviews would have found it to be better than expected vs. other 8 GB and 12 GB options. But with the rumor of 3 GB modules at >3x pricing of 2 GB, $60-70 each, that and Super cards appear derailed.

Further reporting of GDDR6/GDDR7 price increases screws the low-end for the foreseeable future.

thestryker said:

edit: Just saw that AMD has a 4GB and 8GB RX 9050 coming with half the cores of the 9060 and the 4GB having a 64-bit bus (and yes they share the same name because GPU vendors can't help themselves).

ASRock unveils Radeon RX 9050 with 1024 cores and 8GB/4GB memory options
I had to check because I almost didn't believe it.

First, both models appear to be OEM-only, so it's hard to get too outraged about it. If some company wants it to exist, whatever. It should be named 9040 though.

I don't like to see a 50% reduction in core count because Navi 44 yields are likely very high. Good cores are being sacrificed. 1,536 would be better (lower than RX 9060 with 1,792 cores that exists somewhere). If there's a low power target in mind, clock more cores lower, just as we see with low power workstation GPUs.

AMD should be able to easily produce a superior ~75W competitor to the RTX 3050 6GB using Navi 44. Ideally they wouldn't cut 8 GB memory, but 96-bit at least ties it.

These cards don't matter as long as there's no price tag. But you could easily imagine a 9050 8GB (1,024 core) making sense at some budget price point.

The 9050 4GB is more difficult since it probably has too much performance for the amount of VRAM. But it should outperform the 6500 XT while having full FSR4 and better video decode/encode support. So you could see it making sense to somebody at around $120-150, because ebay pricing of the (used) 6500 XT is around $80-100.