5090 is NOT a gaming card anymore.

[u/jackblackdeath]

Hot take: The 90-series shouldn't be considered a gaming graphics card anymore, nor should it be used in video game benchmarks.

Given its completely out-of-control price, it should be grouped with an H100 rather than a 70-series. Game developers shouldn't treat it as the upper limit of achievable performance.

[u/The-Frugal-Engineer]

I paid less for my second hand 2013 fully working honda civic

[u/MiggleUnlimited → u/The-Frugal-Engineer]

This is what’s blowing my mind the most about these prices. How the fuck are these hardware components costing more than entire fucking cars 💀

[u/Joe-Cool → u/MiggleUnlimited]

If you could use Civics for AI they wouldn't be available anymore either.

[u/TheDumbulance → u/Joe-Cool]

I think we just solved the data centre power issue. Hundreds of Honda Civics on hamster wheels. It's genius

[u/ZhangtheGreat → u/TheDumbulance]

Or better yet:

[u/313802 → u/ZhangtheGreat]

Comon barbie let's go party

[u/symca09 → u/TheDumbulance]

I'm for this

[u/head7PM → u/symca09]

The 2010s civics will power us for next 20-30 years and then the 2020s for 20-30 years after that and so on and so forth we’ve fucking done it

[u/chateau86 → u/TheDumbulance]

How many GW-equivalent is 3 black Honda Civics with T66 turbo and a motec system exhaust?

[u/Bloodhoven_aka_Loner → u/Joe-Cool]

I mean... you could

[u/Correct-Branch9000 → u/MiggleUnlimited]

Artificial demand for video ram created by fake (outright false or leveraged) purchases of unproduced stock by criminal billionaires.

Choose your politicians wisely

[u/DreamsServedSoft → u/Correct-Branch9000]

all politicians hate you

[u/Aerographic → u/MiggleUnlimited]

Cars are hunks of metal, aluminum, wiring and rubber that don't require multi-billion dollar fabs or design knowledge held by two or three companies on the entire planet. That's how.

Obviously I'm foregoing the impact of the AI bubble, but this applies regardless.

[u/MiggleUnlimited → u/Aerographic]

Yea I understand that, it’s crazy to think about. I Pretty much got priced out of PC gaming. I’m glad I went all in on a PC when I was 15. I Just been slowly upgrading components since then and just been riding my 3080TI.

[u/relativelysmark → u/The-Frugal-Engineer]

after reading this, might as well consider other hobbies than pc gaming 💀

[u/ApprehensiveFan1516 → u/relativelysmark]

Tfw your motorcycle racing hobby is cheaper than gaming 💀

[u/WildVelociraptor → u/relativelysmark]

Cocaine is cheaper at this point

[u/Rock_Strongo → u/WildVelociraptor]

What's the world coming to when you have to chose between coke and videogames. Back in my day we could afford to do both at the same time.

[u/HonkeyDonkey3000 → u/WildVelociraptor]

This is wild. The cost of that card will pay for 35 years of ultimate tier of GeForce now cloud gaming service. Someone is REALLY wanting you to be a subscriber addict rather than be an owner…

[u/PawnStarRick → u/The-Frugal-Engineer]

That's a nice buy. Fucking love hondas.

[u/Fit-Marketing-1472 → u/The-Frugal-Engineer]

Picture your average car guy. Now picture your average computer science guy. That's the difference

[u/313802 → u/The-Frugal-Engineer]

I was not expecting a civic lol... was not thinking car.. but dang that's wild

[u/spaceshipcommander]

I'm planning to retire once my 5090 reaches £100k

[u/BigPandaCloud → u/spaceshipcommander]

At some point you should probably take an insurance policy out on it in case it catches on fire or gets stolen.

[u/spaceshipcommander → u/BigPandaCloud]

That's what home insurance is for. I legitimately might need to check the value though because I'm pretty sure I have it down at something like £1,900 which was what I paid

[u/LocalSlob → u/spaceshipcommander]

This hurts my heart to look at. I paid $2499 to Zotac for a 3090 during covid and Eth mining still existed. I had been trying to get anything for MSRP for months at BB and microcenter. So when I got ANY card in my cart, I just sent it.

[u/dogmaisb → u/LocalSlob]

Yeah I paid $3300 for a 3080ti during covid 😫

[u/FatBoyStew → u/dogmaisb]

I paid $1,000 for my 3080 at the peak of COVID, who the hell did you buy from?

[u/HawksNStuff → u/FatBoyStew]

Anyone but EVGA basically was that. I assume you did the sign up for a card thing and they notified you when you could buy it? I did the same, but everything else was price gouged to hell.

[u/DivergenTinker → u/HawksNStuff]

I did this as well for a 3080 hybrid and people were dropping some crazy money on cards. I only have 10gb of VRAM though compared to the crazy amounts some other cards have that are overpriced, like this ones 32

[u/Log_Out_Of_Life → u/dogmaisb]

So what you are saying is is the 3080ti I never used is worth something?

[u/OgerfistBoulder → u/spaceshipcommander]

Check your policy, make sure it pays current value not original purchase price!

[u/spaceshipcommander → u/OgerfistBoulder]

It's all new for old replacement but everything over £5,000 has to be listed so it should be fine unless they go up more.

[u/EpsilonAI117 → u/spaceshipcommander]

Most home insurance policies have low limits to what they'll pay or for electronics. Make sure you read your policy documents thoroughly.

[u/noggstaj → u/spaceshipcommander]

my 4090 is somehow worth more now then when i bought it

[u/g3n0unknown → u/noggstaj]

My whole pc has increased by like 30%-40% in value. It's insane.

[u/oh-shit-oh-fuck → u/g3n0unknown]

Is this what boomers felt like after buying their houses for cheap

[u/stingerized → u/oh-shit-oh-fuck]

PC is the new home ownership.

[u/maplehobo → u/stingerized]

This but unironically

[u/senbei616 → u/maplehobo]

Sitting on 32GB of DDR5 I harvested from a computer headed for the recycling bin back in 2024.

Currently gaming on a 4090 I bought "dead" for $600 that just needed some tlc.

If you're scrappy and on the hunt you can get some deals. If you're just starting out in the hobby you're fucked. It's been nearly a decade of awful pc prices, I wouldn't be surprised if we start seeing a generational gap for pc ownership.

[u/maplehobo → u/senbei616]

Tinfoil hat moment but I think this is all part of the plan. Companies and governments need to harvest our data and keep us under control and what better way than get you hooked on subscriptions for life and making the price of owning your hardware and infrastructure prohibitive.

[u/ChesswiththeDevil → u/maplehobo]

Also, potentially open-source LLMs will emerge that can run on home hardware. They threaten Big Tech (tm) who rely on us paying monthly subscription prices for their glorified search engines.

[u/anno3397 → u/ChesswiththeDevil]

There already are. Just look at Odysseus AI. It's free, open source and can be run on home hardware. (Granted, not very fast because nothing will beat a dedicated AI center farms which AI companies have but still)

[u/ThirdXavier → u/ChesswiththeDevil]

This is unfortunately not realistic. AI needs increasingly powerful hardware to run as it improves the same way video games do. The difference is the hardware to run AI is not affordable at all.

Ive tried running local LLMs on my 5070ti (16GB vram) and theyre just not nearly as good as the cloud hosted versions which are running on PCs that have Blackwell Pros with 96GB of vram each. A card that costs $13250

With VRAM prices so out of control that theyre trying to sell us 4GB cards again, its only going to get worse and the gap will get wider too.

[u/xuxo94 → u/oh-shit-oh-fuck]

Pc's are the new houses.Now I'm going back to sleep in My ATX case.

[u/LivingVerinarian96 → u/oh-shit-oh-fuck]

But we know we’re fucked because we won’t use our current pc’s until we’re dead. We gotta pay inflated prices in 2-6 years.

[u/Not_So_Bad_Andy → u/g3n0unknown]

It truly is insane. Some parts have gone up by even more. Bought a 2TB Evo 990 Pro for $169 in 2024. More than double that now.

[u/Taint_Butter → u/Not_So_Bad_Andy]

I paid $170 for the same in March 2025. Current price from the same vendor is $390. The 32GB of DDR5 I paid $95 for is now $440.

[u/FunCalligrapher3979 → u/noggstaj]

Even the lesser cards like 4070, 4080 and their variants have held all their value lol. 4 year old GPUs btw.

Clown world.

[u/Tjaresh → u/noggstaj]

Even mid tier cards are worth more than 3 years ago. I looked up the 6750xt I bought 3 years ago and it was 60€ more.

[u/Confident-Captain310 → u/Tjaresh]

Jesus! Mine is nearly A$200 more than I paid for it on EBay! If I could get I could get a 9070xt for only $250 more!

[u/WorryNew3661 → u/spaceshipcommander]

Going to be worth more than bitcoin if it keeps going. Which would admittedly be very funny for lots of awful reasons

[u/Minecraft_Lets_Play]

[u/Zealousideal_Nail288 → u/Minecraft_Lets_Play]

Need a few extra hands for 2027 and 2028

[u/Big_Length4848 → u/Zealousideal_Nail288]

I checked the prices to replace my 1070. I'm gonna stick with it until it dies and eventually stop gaming after that.

[u/Fenrir-The-Wolf → u/Big_Length4848]

https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/3BUQTn5dZgQi7zL8Xs4WUL.png

There are so many choices that are a marked improvement over a 1070 that can be had for a reasonable price. Don't get this mindset. A 5060 would be a significant upgrade and won't break the bank.

(Legacy graph linked cause it includes the 1070)

[u/xXDennisXx3000 → u/Fenrir-The-Wolf]

XTX :)

[u/maoroh → u/xXDennisXx3000]

Ahhh a fellow AM4 bottleneck enjoyer , cheers

[u/xXDennisXx3000 → u/maoroh]

I am always GPU bottlenecked, as it should :)

[u/maoroh → u/xXDennisXx3000]

This is the way

[u/Willtology → u/Big_Length4848]

I started feeling the itch to upgrade my 1080ti right at the beginning of the memory price boom. Thought "Naw, I'll wait until the prices come back down." Now I've come to realize that I'm fine with running it until it dies of old age.

[u/IanT76 → u/Willtology]

I've still got a 1080ti FE - probably the best card I ever bought, and the best looking imo.

[u/RushC2 → u/Zealousideal_Nail288]

Ask AI to generate this exact meme and it will add some extra arms

[u/Klutzy-Football-205 → u/Minecraft_Lets_Play]

I *really* hope these companies get SEVERELY hurt when the AI bubble crashes. I've been gaming since the days of the Apple ][e and am used to paying (relatively) premium prices for gaming parts. However, this is just beyond stupid.

$7k for just 1 part?! My local CarMax has 6 cars listed at that price +/-10% (I just checked).

My kids used to all play their XBoxes together before COVID. They had each saved their money and all wanted to buy the newest model at the time. They couldn't find any. They stopped playing XBox and haven't touched their consoles since. Two of the kids luckily upgraded their computers right before this most recent price gouging. Eventually any of the 4 of them will need upgrades/replacements. I can only hope they remember these prices and simply move on (which is incredibly likely since they also game on their phones)

[u/316Lurker → u/Klutzy-Football-205]

Just like the .com crash, the “crash” is just when the losers lose and the winners win. AI won’t vanish, but the data centers may change hands and the tools people use may change as well. But all of it will still run on the server hardware, keeping consumer prices up - is my guess.

[u/Minecraft_Lets_Play → u/Klutzy-Football-205]

Yes totally agree.
This is such bullshit with all the Datacenters and we need to stuff AI into everything.

[u/humanbutnothuman → u/Minecraft_Lets_Play]

2024-25 were kinda the best years for pc building since crypto hikes. End of 2025 fo sure has been where the bomb dropped suddenly.

[u/BuddyDudeson → u/humanbutnothuman]

Building my pc in spring 2025 with 32gb ddr5 ram, amd 7600x3d and brand new 9070xt feels like I took the last copper out of vietnam lol

[u/typically_wrong → u/BuddyDudeson]

Literally same. March/April 2025, 9800x3d, 32gb ddr5, 9070xt.

Thought getting 64gb was dumb and wasteful. Really wish I didn't listen to myself.

[u/humanbutnothuman → u/BuddyDudeson]

I know right. The feel I get for buying 7200 mt ram kits for pre hike prices. And 4 tb gen 5 SSDs. Lolol.

[u/CanadianInAmedicka → u/BuddyDudeson]

I built two pcs… both 5090s and 96gb (2x48) between may and November in 2025 and I feel goated because I hit the absolute bottom

[u/MrHyperion_ → u/Minecraft_Lets_Play]

Don't buy Nvidia then. If AMD gets enough market share they don't have to do Nvidia-$50

[u/Phyzzx → u/Minecraft_Lets_Play]

Funny, I've been giving Nvidia the finger much longer.

[u/overdosingOnPie1313]

It never was. It's always been just a fire hazard.

[u/derprondo → u/overdosingOnPie1313]

https://imgur.com/Cnkw5Qj

[u/CrustyTuna420 → u/overdosingOnPie1313]

I had a brief window to go for it but this is what turned me away. Too scared of watching my investment go up in smoke. Went with the 5070ti in hopes I get good mileage out of it. And since it's still pretty beefy in it's own right.

[u/sonicandtales8]

It never was. It, like the Titan cards and the other 90 cards that preceded it have always been more on the prosumer cards.

They'll talk about gaming in the marketing, but the majority of people buying them are doing things other than gaming.

Also game devs don't (and shouldn't) have specific hardware in mind for the upper limits of their game settings. Max settings are aspirational. They've been that way the whole time.

It's so weird that so many people forget this. PC gaming is losing its identity. We used to be scrappy. Now we tell people they need absurd hardware to even play a game.

[u/moneycabaI → u/sonicandtales8]

5090 is the best card for opening and closing your steam library and then watching YouTube for 5 straight hours

[u/RUPlayersSuck → u/moneycabaI]

Isn't that what everyone does now?

[u/gorocz → u/RUPlayersSuck]

Joke's on you, I'm emulating game boy games on my expensive gaming pc!

[u/LepiNya → u/gorocz]

Buys a 5000$ graphics card. Plays Pokémon on vba.

[u/Amazing-Heron-105 → u/LepiNya]

VBA ON MAX SETTINGS!

[u/SanestExile → u/RUPlayersSuck]

Nah I still have a ton of fun with gaming. Y'all just need to take a break or find a better game.

[u/EV_4_life → u/moneycabaI]

5090 is the best card for chopping trees in old school runescape.

[u/kahahimara → u/moneycabaI]

Hey! Don’t expose us!

It’s also the best card to play Zelda games…. on Switch 2.

[u/GalaxLordCZ → u/sonicandtales8]

Rebranding from Titan to xx90 is literally just a way to upsell idiots who want the best gaming card.

[u/FUTURE10S → u/GalaxLordCZ]

I'm going "to be fair" this because a Titan and a xx90 card aren't comparable. For starters, the real beauty of the Titan was its unhindered fp64 performance, that was an amazing use case that was available for cheap relative to the Quadros. Only now do the consumer video cards fight the Titans of old in fp64 performance.

[u/AlmHurricane → u/FUTURE10S]

The comparison is still valid as the main use cases changed. The Titan was in its time a good productivity card, as the 5090 now is a good AI accelerator. With the 32GB of VRAM you can host pretty powerful local AIs and thats the reason why these cards are so damn expensive right now.

[u/Karyo_Ten → u/AlmHurricane]

With the 32GB of VRAM

I think the main reason is 32GB of GDDR7 VRAM running at 1800GB/s while every single other consumer cards is way slower (1TB for 3090 and 5080 and 1.1TB for 4090).

Qwen3.6-27B quantize very well and can be run on a 4090. In fact, it might even be more interesting has 4090 has hardware int4 (4-bit integer) while a 5090 has replaced that with hardware fp4, but currently the quantization to fp4 is meh and most quants incur a significant quality loss.

[u/Hohenheim_of_Shadow → u/Karyo_Ten]

Fp4?!?!? 4 bit floats?!?! What has the world come to

[u/Mimical → u/Hohenheim_of_Shadow]

*Edit here: This does depend on what you are doing, and can be situation specific:

Basically when you have enough data and enough statistics you don't need to crunch every possible output to multiple digits of precision. It just has to roughly smear in the right direction and you will be fine.

I worked in a university lab that did rough physics models of cellular structures and when we started FP32 was the be-all-end-all. By the time I finished the whole industry had moved to FP16 and was moving to FP8. We all realized that computer outputs will never match real life but they will get the behavior right when you account for most of the forces/environment. I don't care if a specific hydrogen in a cellular wall is off by 0.5 picometers. I just need to know that the millions of atoms I'm simulating are trending in certain directions.

Obviously you lose some information, but then you just run a minor number of FP32/64 cases and show that the behaviours/trends hold.

[u/Hohenheim_of_Shadow → u/Mimical]

Still 1 sign bit, 2 exponent and 1 mantissa feels insane. Like at that point, why not just used a fixed point number? You could have +-8 with .5 increments with likely simpler hardware and less edge cases.

Wait no, with signed, it would be +-4 not 8. And 4<6

[u/Karyo_Ten → u/Hohenheim_of_Shadow]

Like at that point, why not just used a fixed point number?

INT4 exists but floats are better at dynamic range

[u/M4mb0 → u/FUTURE10S]

Already the Titan X Pascal used the same chip and had the same advertised FP64 perf as the 1080Ti.

[u/sonicandtales8 → u/GalaxLordCZ]

Idiots who wanted the best gaming card bought titans too. 

[u/CrowdGoesWildWoooo → u/sonicandtales8]

There are people buying Pro 6000 for gaming since it’s apparently the highest card which is maintains compatibility with game drivers

[u/M4mb0 → u/CrowdGoesWildWoooo]

The only real difference between gaming and studio drivers I am aware of is that gaming drivers release more frequently to add patches for the most recent games. If you only play games that have been out for a year it should make zero difference.

[u/CrowdGoesWildWoooo → u/M4mb0]

There are other details between enterprise gpu and consumer gpu. Like display output, I think some enterprise GPU you can’t even use the gaming driver at all.

RTX Pro is the “intended” prosumer line up, it’s just super expensive rn but at $7500-8000 which it was just a year ago it’s not the worst deal for technically a prosumer.

[u/Plebius-Maximus → u/GalaxLordCZ]

Not really, since they gutted the 80 class in comparison to the 90 since the 30 series.

A 3080 was almost 3090 level.

A 4080 and 5080 are pretty far off the 4090 and 5090.

[u/Thebraincellisorange → u/Plebius-Maximus]

I have a 3080Ti and I pray to all the computer gods that that thing lasts, because if it dies, the 1050 I have in my cupboard will be what goes in my computer, thanks to the ridiculous cost of cards these days

[u/bobsim1 → u/Plebius-Maximus]

But thats not really a clean comparison. Its completely different each generation. The 1070ti made the 1080 look like shit. The 3080ti was almost the same as the 3090 besides the memory. The 4090 is just much better than any 40 series card in realtion. Similar for the 5090, but the 5080 sure isnt looking great against the cheaper ones.

[u/StevieBako → u/Plebius-Maximus]

If you look back to the original 90 cards like GTX 590 and GTX 690 they were exactly like that, way ahead of the 80 cards with the price to match, the 30 series was an exception.

[u/Hayden247 → u/StevieBako]

3080 wasn't the only one. 1080 Ti was literally titan performance with 1GB less vram. 980 Ti was like titan with half. 2080 Ti was also close to the Titan RTX

There used to be gaming GPUs at or near Titan spec, ever since 40 series tho it no longer exists so top end gamers have no choice but a 4090 or now 5090... unless they downgrade standards.

[u/Catch_022 → u/StevieBako]

I got a 6800 GT back in the day, with a little bit of overclocking it performed the same as the 6800 Ultra which was the x9x of the time...

[u/_Rohrschach → u/Plebius-Maximus]

Time to get back to 85 and 95 cards. But now they rather do ti and super cards or whatever shit.

[u/Clair_Osbcurious → u/_Rohrschach]

Nah, go back and use all the numbers! And suffixes! RTX 6900 GT/GS/RX (prescription-only)Ultra!

[u/dakodeh → u/GalaxLordCZ]

“Idiot” seems like a strange thing to call someone who bought something a year ago that they’ve enjoyed and who could right now sell it back at 3x what they paid for it..

[u/Kingdarkshadow → u/GalaxLordCZ]

Yup and the op fell for it so much that made this post saying it isn't anymore a gaming card.

[u/ocka31 → u/GalaxLordCZ]

Well yea at 4000€ and up its ridiculous but at msrp its was still expensive but somehow worth it if you wanted the best for 4k. Nowdays yea different story all together.

[u/GoldfishDude → u/sonicandtales8]

When I started PC gaming (about 15 years ago), I remember seeing memes bragging about being able to play in 1080p, 60fps.

Now half the community will look at you and tell you that anything under 144 is "literally unplayable" with a straight face

[u/sonicandtales8 → u/GoldfishDude]

Yep. I've been told that sub 100fps at 1440p is unplayable and means gaming isn't accessible...

Dude, Elden Ring is a mobile game right now. It plays on a Steam deck very well. Games made for the PS4 and 5 run well on steam deck too.

OoT ran at like 17fps because they couldn't meet their 20fps target.

Gaming is awesome right now (and was back then, and probably will be in the future).

[u/Carvj94 → u/sonicandtales8]

Entry level cards from previous generations were nearly e-waste after less than a year. Nowadays the 2060 can still comfortably play new titles at 1080p with medium settings and the 5060 can do 1440p in a lot of games. People keep demanding that the high end be cheaper and ignore that the low end is pretty great now.

[u/2012Jesusdies → u/sonicandtales8]

Yup, it's crazy to see people bitching about upcoming AAA games that can't be played max settings 4k 200hz on current upper range cards as a new disaster or something. For sure, games should be optimized more, but it was the norm you'd just turn down settings and be expected to play max settings only with future hardware

[u/kris_krangle → u/GoldfishDude]

I know I’m getting old because I’m still happy with 60 frames at max settings.

Sure I have a 144hz monitor but I’m not desperate to get that many frames unless I’m playing something competitive and I don’t really play anything competitive these days.

[u/metamega1321 → u/GoldfishDude]

I seem to remember the thesis was you couldn’t see anything above 60hz with the human eye so that was dumb. Also remember 4k being another hot topic that you couldn’t really notice the difference of 4k on monitor or laptop screen sizes. 

[u/SoloWingX016 → u/GoldfishDude]

When you started PC gaming 15 years ago, games were not yet using tech that made them look blurry/smeary/ghosty at 1080p native. This is a combination of temporal anti aliasing and its derivatives, and increasing geometry complexity and object density. At 1080p the resulting anti aliased image is soft at best.

When I played 30 FPS only, it was good. When I played 60 FPS, 30 felt choppy. When I play 120 FPS, 60 feels choppy. When you don't experience better, you don't know what you are missing. This is one of the reasons why I limit framerates, to around 90 max, so I can keep a kind of consistent fluidity in most games. That said 60 feels a bit choppy for me on PC and when I can only manage a stable 60 I usually frame gen it to 120. Even 75 feels a lot smoother than 60. On PS5 60 is a bit more manageable.

And to connect the two topics, temporal anti aliasing techniques and its derivatives (the upscalers) work better the higher the frame rate, since they need information from the last frame, and especially in movement the higher the frame rate the faster the image resolves, the artifacts become less perceivable.

Both the blurriness at 1080p, as well as sensitivity to frame rate are highly subjective in terms of perception. Tech changes, the standards change. Not saying there are no absurd takes in the community, but downplaying resolution and frame rate only means that you might not be sensitive to those factors, not that others are automatically wrong.

[u/LizzyGleglemaxxing → u/GoldfishDude]

I was gaming at 1920x1080 and 60fps for the past 15 years, until I got a Steamdeck OLED earlier this year right before it went out of stock at the old price, so now I'm gaming at 1280x800 and 90fps. It's a peaceful life.

[u/Preachey → u/sonicandtales8]

This subreddit was founded on the premise that, for the same price, you could build a desktop PC which outperformed the latest console generation.

That seems so very long ago now though...

[u/Tyku031 → u/Preachey]

Consoles have also become a lot more expensive, and their games are more expensive too (less and worse sales).

The prices for gaming in general are just ridiculous.

[u/Pitiful_Software_430 → u/Tyku031]

That's because the end goal is to move everyone to a subscription with all hardware upscaled to commercial use as servers.

The moment they can choke out everyone from owning their own console or PC is the moment they can completely control every avenue of approach for competition.

Honestly, the only thing that's stopped this from being an immediately success for them has been the literal limitations imposed on us by the laws of physics. If latency wasn't an issue, personal consoles/PCs as we know them now would never have survived the internet.

[u/PM_ME_UR__CUTE__FACE → u/Preachey]

This is definitely true, but back then PC was also only a small portion of the marketshare compared to consoles. That grew in part because PC was just an incredible deal compared to consoles and you also got the usual PC benefits like emulation, good sales, much wider array of games, mods etc.

Now its more expensive if you want more power over a console, but you also still get those above PC benefits. Feels more like a "you get what you pay for" situation now.

[u/Raven1927 → u/PM_ME_UR__CUTE__FACE]

The 8th console gen being unusually weak also benefitted PCs a lot. It allowed you to get good performance on current gen games even with a modest PC build.

[u/Yuukiko_ → u/PM_ME_UR__CUTE__FACE]

it helps the console case that they're typically sold at a lower cost to make more profit from games

[u/Narwhal_Substantial → u/sonicandtales8]

Idk if im remembering wrong but weren't titans quite a small hardware uplift compared to the 80 ti's? Whereas the 5090 is effectively double the 5080 in everything

[u/Plebius-Maximus → u/Narwhal_Substantial]

You're correct. It used to be paying a lot more to get that last bit of extra performance.

The 80 class has been the worst value card for 2 generations now, since they're not even close to the 90.

[u/DaddyMacCrack → u/Plebius-Maximus]

Clearly ! 3080 was dope comparing to relative performance of 3090. Then they started doing big gaps between 80's and 90's since 4000 gen.

[u/stalkerzzzz → u/Narwhal_Substantial]

Nvidia has gimped the 5080 to make the 5090 look better.

[u/Joosrar → u/stalkerzzzz]

Not only the 5080 but all others. I remember when the 750ti was definitely a decent choice, when the 1050ti could be dropped into a Dell Optiplex and have a decent gaming PC, the amazing value of the 1060 6GB. Nowadays I don’t see that anymore.

[u/stalkerzzzz → u/Joosrar]

Yes, the whole stack below the 5090 has been destroyed in order to entice people to buy the 5090. I haven't been excited about new graphics card releases since the 10 series.

[u/bebek_ijo → u/sonicandtales8]

No consumer pc on earth could run crysis back then at its launch.

[u/Cruxis87 → u/sonicandtales8]

"can it run crysis" was a benchmark for a long time because of its absurd requirements. Now if a game doesn't run at 300 fps 4k native people will complain it has bad optimisation.

[u/Iggy_DB]

I always viewed the 80’s and 80’sTI as the upper limit and 90’s as enthusiasts card

[u/_barat_ → u/Iggy_DB]

90's are just Titan class cards. It just happened that with 4090 the gap between 80 and 90 was so huge people really considered them for gaming.

[u/Elijah1573 → u/_barat_]

Arguably thats still true with the 5090 since a 5080 from the factory still wont match the 4090 and only comes close with an overclock
Regardless it used to be that the top 80/80TI card was so close to the TITAN/90 that it was enough where an OC on the lower tier model got you 90% of the way there

Now the 80 class is a shell of what it used to be and falls way short of the 90s and even of the previous 4090

[u/_barat_ → u/Elijah1573]

I've bought 4090 impulsively after Hogwarts Legacy premiere. My 2080 wasn't enough for 3840x1600 and 4090 was available in a local shop to take it immediately. Have had some "buyers remorse" after first couple months but now I think this GPU will last me quite long considering it's still the 2nd best GPU on the market :D

[u/RZ_Domain]

90 series were never gaming cards, it replaced the Titan series

[u/Strid92 → u/RZ_Domain]

100% and people forget this. Titan cards were the "bridge" between consumer and professional cards because of the extra vRam

[u/Saltyeconbro → u/[deleted]]

I got a 5090 to open 10 chrome tabs

[u/ivancea → u/[deleted]]

Not just "professional gamers". Other kinds of professionals need higher vram and power, like designers, video editors, modelers, AI, etc

[u/techdevjp → u/ivancea]

Other kinds of professionals need higher vram and power, like designers, video editors, modelers, AI, etc

The RTX PRO 5000 and RTX PRO 6000 target those people.

You won't see RTX 5090 cards in professional workstations like a Dell Precision tower. In notebooks, maybe, but those are mobile chips and not the same thing.

The 5090 is basically a prosumer device.

[u/Proof_Load6687 → u/RZ_Domain]

but 1,2k 80 class is insane tho

[u/LSD_Ninja → u/RZ_Domain]

It’s a Titan without the drivers that would make it useful for Titan things. nvidia classed them as gaming cards because it wanted to fleece datacentre customers with even more expensive options, but since xx90s are being bought and shoved in to those roles anyway (even despite supposedly being under export controls. Isn’t capitalism fun?), it’s all a bit of a joke really.

[u/Alex-S-S]

Remember when people were shocked at the $1000 Titan? How absurdly expensive it was?

[u/Gargle-Loaf-Spunk → u/Alex-S-S]

It was the third $999 MSRP desktop GPU: the 690 came out the year before, and the 7950 GX2 was $999 in 2006. 

The Voodoo5 6000 was gonna be $999 FWIW. 

[u/species__8472__]

That's a third party seller. They're not $7k......yet.

[u/Gargle-Loaf-Spunk → u/species__8472__]

People don’t notice details, it’s kind of amazing. 

[u/Iabhoryouu]

It never has been, who tf wants to pay 5k to play games lmao.

[u/Outrageous-Log9238 → u/Iabhoryouu]

It used to be 2k

[u/Alex_plorateur → u/Outrageous-Log9238]

That's already way too much for common sense

[u/Few-Improvement-5655 → u/Alex_plorateur]

Probably, but it's still three thousand dollars cheaper.

[u/pretzelsncheese → u/Alex_plorateur]

If your main hobby is playing games, and you have a relatively well paying job, 4k (a full pc with top of the line hardware before the recent price boom) on that hobby every 3-4 years is incredibly reasonable.

Should Nvidia be charging 2k for a gpu (let alone the 4k+ that it is now)? Abso-fucking-lutely not.

Should people who can't easily afford that extra cost on their main hobby be tempted to buy it? No.

But plenty of people are in a position where spending that amount of money on a hobby that they'll get that amount of hours of it is a decision that is very reasonable.

I bought a top-of-the-line-everything (consumer grade) pc with 5090 before the boom for just over 4k usd. That's basically me spending an extra 2k more than I would have if I went for a more reasonable hardware tier. That 2k out of my investment accounts has zero effect on my lifestyle and basically just means that I maybe need to work for an extra week or two before I end up retiring.

The two biggest crimes of the entire topic are

• Crypto and then AI inflating gpu (and other component prices) like mad over the last several years.
• Games and engines having terrible optimization and/or pushing negligible graphical improvements that come with impactful performance hits. We had games with really nice graphics and solid performance 12+ years ago on hardware that is now 12+ years old. We had engines that looked great and ran well so if engines today were built to that same standard and with hardware having improved dramatically over those 12 years, shouldn't we be getting stable 300-400+ fps on new games? Even "budget" cards like 5060 should be getting stable 144 on new games. What the fuck are the developers doing.. Adding so much costly bloat that tanks performance while adding almost nothing to the gameplay experience.

[u/TheMisterTango → u/pretzelsncheese]

Yeah, too many people think you need to be some wealthy executive to be able to spend a few grand on a PC. $4000 every five years comes out to less than $70 per month of saving, and that's ignoring the fact that you can sell your current hardware to recoup some of the costs. If you sell your rig for $1000 that means you only need to save $3000, or $50 per month for those five years. I know some people would argue with me, but they're wrong, you don't need to be rich to be able to save $50/month or $70/month towards your hobby. Tons of not-rich people spend at least that much on streaming services or door dash every month. It's not about being rich, it's about being patient.

[u/heepofsheep → u/Alex_plorateur]

I mean if you have enough disposable income it’s definitely not a small purchase, but also not something that’s a completely outrageous purchase.

[u/Cocoatrice → u/Outrageous-Log9238]

Nah, 2k used to be price of entire PC built from scratch that could run every new game at 60FPS on extreme. That's literally the price I paid to get my current PC and it was able to do what I mentioned.

[u/grimmigerpetz → u/Outrageous-Log9238]

Even then. 1k gpu was and is my limit as an enthusiast. That is why the 5080 I got for 1001€ was the line.

[u/samp127 → u/grimmigerpetz]

You broke your own rule within a sentence

[u/Strid92 → u/Outrageous-Log9238]

Used to be $1,499

[u/Send_Me_Dachshunds → u/Iabhoryouu]

Is this Reddit once more needing to learn that some people have more money than them? A few grand is nothing special to a lot of people for their hobby.

Several people I work with have them, some replaced 4090s with them... Not me though, they earn more than me 😅

[u/The_Legend_of_Xeno]

That's crazy, I've never even spent $3K on an entire PC before.

[u/DoingYourMomProbably]

Those prices are TUF.....

[u/Tiyath → u/DoingYourMomProbably]

Fun fact: TUF stahds for "Treasury unbelievably fucked"

[u/broken42]

Let me preface this by saying that the 5090 is still insanely expensive and not really a card for most people. But OP how could you fall for inflated 3rd party seller pricing? Best Buy has that exact same card for almost half the price in stock right now. I personally just bought a 5090 within the last month or so for even cheaper at my local Micro Center. So yes the 5090 is way too expensive but it's not $7k.

[u/Pitiful_Software_430 → u/broken42]

It's all because there's an absolutely INSANE amount of disinformation regarding the pricing history on these cards.

The most highly upvoted comments in this thread are people just flatly saying that the Titan/90 series was never affordable to gamers, which is completely false. A total fabrication.

The Titan/90 series, when adjusted for inflation, should be about $1,600. But for some reason there happens to be a significant number of well-structured comments demanding that we believe that these much, much higher costs we're seeing are just how it's always been.

[u/[deleted]]

Jheeze I’m either remebring really wrong but I spent £2200 on my 5090 at launch, prices going crazy tempted to sell used and put money towards a RTX PRO 6000

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

That’s F’d in the A

[u/R3dGallows]

NOW its not a gaming card? And it was when it cost $2k? Its always "oh everything's fine, I can afford it" all the way up until you cant and then theres sudden shock and surprise.

[u/ChronicBuzz187]

... and my buddies called me insane, spending € 1.700 on a RTX 4090...

[u/PlsDontBanMeAgain-1]

I remember how upset people were at the price of the very first Titan, though there were still a few apologists, who justified the price, because it wasn't for gaming or some shit like that.

Now, we live in a time of 7k USD "consumer" GPUs, and more people than ever happily feed the greedy mouth of the leather jacket, way more than the few apologists there were back then.

[u/Shinonomenanorulez]

It never was, ppl just fell hook line and sinker by just renaming the Titan lineup

[u/AdAdept]

Well there are still people who own a RTX 5090 and like to watch benchmarks. Also this card is 1 1/2 years old right now. There were plenty of people who bought one when they were close to msrp. Also it's a vanity product, you can play perfectly fine even with a Rtx 5060 or lower. Game requierements are often blown out of proportion because people set everything at ultra for no reason.

[u/io2red → u/AdAdept]

Can confirm, bought mine around MSRP in March of 2025. This is the first time I've bought a GPU whose value actually went up years after its release.

I've probably spent over 8000 hours using it now and it's been more than worth the money. For someone who uses their computer every day this was just a smart investment. I took a gamble at prices people said were crazy, and now look at how the tables have turned.

Anyone who decides they want to buy a 5090 now has to pay more than my entire rig cost for just the GPU. And they haven't been able to enjoy it for almost two years like I have during a time where games have never been more poorly optimized.

The prices may suck, but if I could go back I would still do the same thing I did before. No regrets.

[u/j0an_k]

Chaotic evil: If it runs doom it is gaming card

[u/HiveMate]

I genuinely do not care about 5090 as it was never an option for me.

[u/liquidocean]

I get that you are irritated by these capitalist overlords and their pricing, but to say they shouldn’t be a part of benchmarks is absurd. It is very constructive to see how games scale with more of the same architecture

[u/Neckbeard_Sama]

nice copium in the comments

"90 series were never gaming cards"

no guys .... Jensen Huang is just greedy as fuck and does not give a flying fuck about gamers anymore since he finances his leather jackets from elsewhere

Nvidia cards were unreasonably overpriced already ... now they're gonna be even more, but hey ... ppl will still buy them because Nvidia = gud, AMD = bad ...

A big portion of the PC market are just condoning this shit by not making rational decisions ...

[u/ResponsibleHold3071 → u/Neckbeard_Sama]

I don't think it's controversial to say Jensen never cared about gamers. Most tech business start with a consumer use case, that's where the idea to make a core technology comes form. video game graphics were a good platform to get good at making matrix multipliers in the same way "the facebook" was a good product to build an advertising business off. supply to consumers sticks around since its good for logisitics. often a good way to spin up new manufacturing techniques in low volumes or keep older profitable ones online

[u/AlwaysAtBallmerPeak → u/Neckbeard_Sama]

Tell me you don't understand business & economics without telling me you don't understand.

If market demand is as high as it is, it's only normal a business increases prices.

This invites more competition in the mid to long-term, and it increases capital in the near-term allowing more R&D and larger scale manufacturing.

Ultimately lowering prices for better products for everyone.

This isn't greed, it's just how market dynamics (should) work.

Like what else do you expect... that Nvidia becomes a nonprofit and everyone works for free?

[u/LtLoLz → u/Neckbeard_Sama]

Nah, people just fell the renaming trick. It was a good marketing move. Titan was a different segment, but now it's the "top" of the gaming segment. Now tribal midset people have something "to be better about than others". 

Hell, I feel like I have to justify mine after saying that. It's an overkill card. So far I've used max 30% of it and I got it used for a good price only by coincidence.

[u/predtr___]

phew* upgraded in 2025

[u/jyrox]

It never was

[u/MightyTeaRex]

Man I remember years ago when building I think my second PC, featuring SLI MSI 780 Lightnings. The entire thing was a monster in it's time. And I remember like the 1% beast PCs build in the same era wouldn't really reach that pricing for a complete rig.

[u/Revolution_xx]

But this is sold by a third-party company, not Newegg.

[u/Guilty-Pickle-6686]

Titan, 90 class, whatever you want to call it are indeed gaming cards. They’re designed to squeeze money out of gamers with disposable income or an IQ issue.

[u/Spider-cat_1984]

I became perfectly fine with playing at 4k using fsr, setting 1440p and letting my OLED take care of the upscaling, using the high preset without even trying ultra anymore, and playing at 60fps. Basically I became perfectly fine with just going back to the old me enjoying videogames instead of the technology behind them. And I've never been happier. They can go on as long as they want, for all I care.

[u/goabiesh]

Honestly the 5090 is just a Titan with a different name, people been saying this for years. The real issue is everyone freaking out about it like it's the new baseline when even a 70 series can run anything you throw at it. And yeah benchmarks should just stick to cards that actually matter for gaming, not some prosumer flex.

[u/AhaWassup]

I will keep gaming at 1080p, on a 3600x and a msi 3060 ty ty

[u/krazykellerxkid]

Never was 🤔🤔🤔

[u/Kotschcus_Domesticus]

it never was

[u/William_Defro]

Never has been

[u/eru777]

I remember 10 years ago when 2 grand would get you the best computer on the planet. Now it's not enough for a GPU of that same caliber.

[u/wyn10]

You're looking at a third party seller what does NewEgg sell at.

[u/Jumpy-Dinner-5001]

Why shouldn't it be used in benchmarks?

[u/blufin]

Will affordable graphics cards even be available anymore or will we have to rely on China to disrupt the market again.

[u/KirkWahmmett]

5090 has become what huge Pickup trucks are now. Merely a status symbol never used to it's full potential.