W>hy build a new PC when you can invest in a used one that is actually likely better? No overpriced components. No unnecessary features. No Copilot key. And probably you won’t have to fight for the RAM, what datacenter wants a DDR3 anyway? Ditto the hard drive. Install Linux , be happy.
Indie game devs looking around thinking, this is my chance for my potato graphics game to take over.
I got really lucky. I bought my PC between the crypto crash, right before the AI uprising.
Buying from Costco is still relatively decent.
To play all those games that aren’t being made?
wdym? There are tons of awesome games being made all the time. I’ve really been enjoying Slay the Spire 2.
I don’t think anyone needs a new rig to play STS2, this decade anyway.
I mean why build a pc with specs that I could have had years ago for the same price.
40% of gamers: cause I didn’t build it those years ago
Some percentage, including me, would have built a second or third
For a while now new hardware has been like 10% faster and also 10% more expensive, so they could have saved a lot of R&D time by continuing to manufacture everything from 2020 and added just a couple of new things to the top of the product stack.
Exactly. My computer is 7 years old. I can build a new one that is twice as fast for triple what I spent then. No thanks.
Just 60? Everyone I know has dropped all plans for the foreseeable future. Even those building their first PC.
The other 40% are waiting for the AI bubble to burst
I’m afraid they can continue artificially inflating their value longer than my PC will last…
“Hope is just a first step on a road to disappointment”
After one price hike after another for almost a decade soon, roughly since 2017. There is no point to hope anymore, there will either be some new issues or manufactures have just gotten used to the high prices and will not lower those significantly. Even if they do start to bring down prices and AI shit ends, everyone will run to upgrade their rigs and scalpers will take full advantage of it. This is new reality.
Better to just find a new hobby.
I bought my RTX 2060 for $300 in 2019. I could have gotten an RX 9060 XT for the same money that’s almost twice as fast and had 2 gb more RAM when it launched (16gb never dropped in price to msrp afaik)
You can whine about it, but you got double the performance in 6 years.
Yeah, the hope isn’t dead.
Dont worry, we gotta wait just two more decades and prices will drop.
On a whim I decided to look into getting a second ssd, so I could dual boot more easily, etc. The 2 TB nvme SSD I bought over 2 years ago for $135 is now $370 🤯 Yeah nah…
Lol not gonna happen. Ill wait until my drives die at that price.
Don’t exaggerate that badly you piece of s…wait a second, let me check. Oh fuck. I haven’t checked prices since I upgraded my main server and main gaming rig. I would now have to pay like 5000 more. After just checking some main components. But hey, the tower probably is still okay…
Fuck. This. Shit.
This whole post seems founded on the shaky assumption that all PC gamers would be on a roughly 3 year rebuild cycle anyway…
Not in my experience.
Even my most PC enthusiast friends would only ever have been upgrading every ~5 years anyway. That makes the ‘40% in 3 years’ an unexpectedly high number of upgraders.
My main PC rig is closer to ten years now, and no upgrade in sight. Cost of living with kids has made expensive hobbies untenable.
Microsoft and game devs facing the reality of having to do more with the same hardware rather than speed running hardware obsolescence.
Just going to work on my game log as well to stay away from newer games and the temptation to upgrade.
I’m in the games industry and I can tell you first-hand nobody is making games targetting future hardware right now.
The pattern used to be to optimise assuming your current average hardware would be minspec by the time your game came out. That’s no longer true and everyone knows it.
If you pick up a used 3060, you’ll have a solid gaming PC for many years to come.
When the AI shit flops and when it does bursts… there will pc parts for everyone!! Can’t wait.
Not really, many of the datacenters’ components can’t be used on PCs and many companies will go bankrupt (and won’t make more). If anything, PC parts will get a modest fall.
All I need and want are hard drives.
I too hoard a great deal of data and pray for the day ServerPartDeals has actual good deals again
My 1080ti’s retirement has been indefinitely postponed.
When I upgraded my desktop last January with all new everything I thought I was just getting ahead of tariffs…I did not foresee that memory and ssds and hdds and silicon would all explode in price. Glad I pulled the trigger when I did!
So 40% do? I feel like 40% of a population building a new PC every 2 years is very significant
An GMKtec EVO-X2 with 128GB was in my radar earlier last year, but at $3200 this is not something that I can justify buying.
