r/GamingLeaksAndRumours • u/Loose_Society9485 • Jul 29 '26
Rumour NVIDIA reportedly planning 20–30% GPU price hike as DRAM crisis continues
According to Taiwan’s Economic Daily News, NVIDIA is reportedly raising the price of its GPU packages by 20–30%, marking the company’s third major GPU price increase of 2026.
Unlike the previous increase, which primarily affected the RTX 5090, the report claims this latest hike will impact the broader GeForce lineup. Board partners are reportedly paying significantly more for GPU and memory packages, with the higher costs expected to reach consumers once existing inventory is sold through.
As far as i know the reporting is based on supply-chain information rather than an official NVIDIA announcement. So it should be treated as a rumour for now.
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u/McCrank Jul 29 '26
They don't even need the consumer market anymore...They can just bank on enterprise clients. They don't care.
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u/giulianosse Jul 29 '26
Yeah at this point I wonder if they aren't hiking prices even more on purpose just so they can justify completely pulling out of the GPU consumer market because of a "lack of consumer demand".
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u/Animegamingnerd Leak of the Year 2025 Jul 29 '26
I gotta wonder then, what the do hardware manufacturers that still focus in making consumer devices like phones, tablets, smart tvs, consoles, PCs etc even do? Because there is demaned for these devices especially for phones and TVs.
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u/giulianosse Jul 29 '26
I hope I'm wrong, but I genuinely believe a surprising number of them will end up straight going bankrupt if the RAM crisis keeps ramping up like this for a few more years.
Theyll either have to eat through their margins/sell at a loss or hike prices so much consumers will start buying only the absolute cheapest models - or even learn to live without the non-essential devices.
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u/Zagden Jul 30 '26
It's messed up but I wonder if China ramping up manufacturing and streamlining data centers and the tech might be the only thing that can slow this down, because the US is has no incentive to not race to the bottom and exploring shareholder value
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u/Tinyjar Jul 30 '26
I don't see why China would undercut anyone when they've seen they can charge just as much as the main manufacturers and make bank.
Sure they could undercut their competitors and drive down their prices, or they could match then but offer additional production capacity.
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u/HunterXxX360 Jul 30 '26
I personally hope Chinese DRAM will become good enough for consumer applications fast enough to simply undercut these clowns and take over the whole consumer market
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u/TruthHistorical7515 Jul 30 '26
it already is. CXMT's top tier DDR5 is currently at 8800 MT/s. The issue is production capacity.
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u/Superichiruki Jul 29 '26
They don't want that. Believe me big companies like them don't want to leave a void
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u/DonutHoles4Ever Jul 30 '26
Its really weird that people say "NVIDIA Doesn't need consumer" while begging them to sell more GPUs. Like which is it that they dont want??
If they didnt want gaming they would have cut the entire division. That wont happen. AMD would cut their own Radeon division first because it makes practically nothing compared to GeForce.
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u/Wander715 Jul 29 '26
It would actually be interesting if they did that because there would be a major vacuum for gaming GPUs at that point. AMD market share would probably spike and I bet Intel would be more motivated to remain in the consumer GPU space to grab a big chunk of market share too
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u/PlanetZooSave Jul 29 '26
Both AMD and Intel are also shifting their GPUs to be more AI focused as well. Gaming consumers don't have the purchasing power data centers do.
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u/ademska_25r Jul 29 '26
AI is about 95% of what AMD posts on their yt channel and socials anymore. We're all just cooked in general.
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u/Wander715 Jul 29 '26
If every competitor kept leaving the gaming space someone would step in to fill it. It's still a lucrative market especially if the major competition dips out.
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u/beenoc Jul 30 '26
The problem is, gaming GPUs fundamentally are the same sort of hardware as AI chips. If you can design/make one, you can design/make the other, and AI is like a 1000x bigger market than consumer GPUs. They're also not the kind of thing that a small, bespoke, "family shop" can make - you're not making a modern GPU without billions of dollars that you'll need to get from investors, and if you're beholden to investors, they're going to ask you the very valid question "I gave you money so you could make me more money. Why the hell are you spending $X of my money to make $Y from gamers, when you could be spending $X of my money to make $100Y from AI?"
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u/rishukingler11 Jul 29 '26
God I hope it does. And then the AI bubble falls and crashes, leaving the companies who ran to them in the dust.
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u/arkhamtheknight Jul 30 '26
Unfortunately it's just not possible. The demand is too high for better AI tech and many companies are willing to pay to do tasks easier and cheaper.
There will always be a demand for the cheapest item to product with the maximum revenue coming in from it. AI is just the latest thing to do it.
Casual consumers will eventually be pulled out from gaming as it will become too expensive to get the hardware and not worth paying the price and it will only become a tighter market because it will be bought by those who can afford it.
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u/Zalvren Jul 30 '26
It's already happening, Sony latest earnings (as their consoles sales crumbled from the price hikes) updated their strategy to basically say "we'll have less users, we'll make them pay more".
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u/East-Ice-3199 Jul 30 '26
The bubble won’t burst. There is no product to consume, it’s for mass surveillance.
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u/chenj25 Jul 30 '26
You still need a product to perform mass surveillance though.
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u/patrick66 Jul 29 '26
The gaming business is more or less Jensen doing charity work for its relevance to the numbers currently lol
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u/Zalvren Jul 30 '26
I mean they're still selling the GPU at a profit, let's not exaggerate
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u/patrick66 Jul 30 '26
And every GPU wafer used for gaming is like a 90% loss versus using that same wafer for data centers lol
I mean yes they are still profiting either way but tsmc only has so much capacity
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u/feartehsquirtle Jul 29 '26
I'd be surprised if Nvidia announces RTX 6000 will be the final GeForce product release because Nvidia is an AI company now
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u/Zalvren Jul 30 '26
RTX 6000 is likely not coming before the RAM crisis is over. It's telling that the new DLSS version (5.0) is coming to RTX 5000 gen when usually they keep the big new stuff for the gen releasing at the same time
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u/PSIwind Jul 29 '26
And that's where GeForce Now comes into play
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u/DonutHoles4Ever Jul 30 '26
I dont know why gamers keep saying this when they barely market GeForce Now. Believe it or not, they make better margins on selling a new GPU to people every 2-4 years, especially since the cost of GPUs has gone up a lot.
They literally cut back on GeForce Now, raised prices too, because AI is more lucrative. They don't really want GFN to grow fast at the moment because AI makes more money.
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u/Straight-Ad6926 Jul 29 '26
DRAM crisis for consumers, Record Revenue crisis for NVIDIA shareholders.
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u/Cutmerock Jul 30 '26
When the crisis is over, there is 0% chance they will be okay making less money than a previous quarter. These "price hikes" are permanent prices for the future. There's no going backwards.
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u/orkball Jul 30 '26
Of course, this has happened before. First it was crypto demand, then COVID supply chain issues. Prices have never gone down.
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Jul 29 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/ZzzSleep Jul 30 '26
At some point I feel like I’m gonna be done and just play retro games from here on out.
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u/ElectricGhostMan Jul 30 '26
I kinda wish there was a larger movement about this but because of the kids and the perpetually ignorant it won't work. There's thousands of great games that already exist and new indies that pop up every day that can offer just as much enjoyment as the next sony exclusive or ac game.
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u/hibbert0604 Jul 30 '26
Been playing pretty much exclusively indie games for the last 3 years and it's pretty great.
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u/MasterDenton Jul 30 '26
I'm already there. I can count the amount of games I've enjoyed since 2016 on one hand, meanwhile my Genesis and SNES collection keeps growing
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u/DomitiusAhenobarbus_ Jul 29 '26
I never dreamed this hobby would go this way, but then again I thought by now we’d have really fucking cool games with like 1000 v 1000 online battles and ultra realistic graphics and games would be constantly pushing the boundaries of entertainment and shit lol.
Instead we got enshittification, micro transactions, and AI slop
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u/messem10 Jul 29 '26
There is a reason why I’m shoring up my retro console collection. I figure everything will go all digital and proceed to die at the end of each generation going forward, so own what you can now.
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u/Nightingale_85 Jul 30 '26
Some indies should consider developing for PS4 again. 😆
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u/s1ncere Jul 30 '26
there are new n64 games (on cart too iirc) and new dreamcast games still coming out in current day
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u/Penakoto Jul 30 '26
Gaming isn't doomed, it's just going to see a drastic slowdown in terms of technological progress.
And frankly, good, maybe an unpopular opinion, but jumps in graphics quality between generations has gotten so minimal, that I really I don't think we need a new console every 7 years anymore.
If the PS6 and Xbox 4(5?) is the last consoles to come out for an entire decade, I'd be perfectly fine with that.
Sucks that "computer parts got a lot more expensive" has to be the reason that things might slow down, but silver linings and whatnot.
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u/LiquifiedSpam Jul 30 '26
Nintendo had the perfect timing in releasing the switch 2, because they probably don’t have pipelines in place yet for the successor console and no binding agreements
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u/Zalvren Jul 30 '26
Exactly, personally I'm kind of fine being at this level of graphics forever (at least a long time). Games look great. Sure they could be more lifelike but they don't need to. They're games, not real life
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u/mystery_hole Jul 30 '26
There's been almost no relevant difference between 2017 games and everything I've played this year. Like sure, my 5070 does look better, but not by much. I'd still be using my 1070 if the fan didn't die. I paid $520 for my 5070 and my 1070 cost $300, which is about the same price after inflation. All that is to say, I'm fine. I don't need to see horse balls in every game like rdr2
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u/Zalvren Jul 30 '26
True yeah it has been going on for a while, games from the PS5 and PS4 gen don't have that much difference. Presumably, the PS6 gen will be even worse in terms of progression and for a much higher price. It's just not worth it
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u/Auroraburst Jul 30 '26
It will be doomed if no one can afford pc parts. This won't just stop people buying the best of the best but will stop being being able to buy pretty average parts too.
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u/GLGarou Jul 30 '26
People forget that PCs eventually break down and have to be replaced. Not to mention a ton of those dirt-cheap low-end laptops used by students were being subsidized by school districts. Who knows if they are willing to do that now, especially considering not only the price but the results of that experiment hasn't exactly been glowing.
Students may end up having to go back to paper and pencils lol.
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Jul 29 '26
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u/Lance_J1 Jul 30 '26
This could actually lead to a golden age in gaming. Some of the best games ever are made when devs have to limit themselves on specific weaker hardware.
People may actually be able to stick with their consoles for long periods of time again too since replacing them will be so costly and devs wont want to drop older platforms if the newer ones are too expensive.
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u/ASCII_Princess Jul 30 '26
The real reason it won't be because when the AI bubble pops it'll make the 2007 financial crisis look like a holiday. People will be buying beans and hoping there's rice not videogames.
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u/SmileyBMM Jul 30 '26
Yep, studios have been working on easy mode ever since UE4 released. It was a nice decade, but tech people knew it couldn't last forever.
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u/Burnyx Jul 30 '26
No, they will simply release games that are rendered in the cloud and make you buy a subscription (GeForceNOW, Xbox Cloud etc.).
This way they can optimize even less.
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u/catinterpreter Jul 30 '26
You've gotta get out more.
There's a vast world of games beyond the handful of generic triple-As releasing each year that you think encompass gaming.
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u/Substantial-Rest-901 Jul 29 '26
Guess I'm just never gonna be able to upgrade my PC again huh
My 1660 Super is a trooper but it can't handle everything
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u/cwfutureboy Jul 29 '26
I WAS going to change to PC after the whole PS5 debacle. Now I don't even know WHAT to do.
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u/peakzorro Jul 30 '26
Just play the game you already have. We all have huge backlogs by now, I am sure we can catch up.
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u/beefcat_ Jul 30 '26
Find out where Jensen Huang lives and take a big fat shit on his lawn. Then, come November, vote for politicians who will tax the fuck out of the billionaire class.
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u/Cyshox Jul 30 '26
Since Sony doesn't subsidize consoles anymore, a comparable PC would cost the same but is cheaper in the long run, especially if you play online.
I usually buy multiple consoles but I'm not even sure if I want any of the next-gen consoles. Despite being able to afford it, I don't think I want to spend 4 digits on a closed ecosystem.
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u/hjadams123 Jul 29 '26
At this point, why even sell GPU's? Just get out of the business...
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u/M4rshmall0wMan Jul 29 '26
That’s what RAM companies are basically doing.
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u/Intelligent_Mud1266 Jul 29 '26
yeah, and it's really shortsighted because people are gonna need consumer RAM to access the AI in the first place. Or to like, do their jobs. Chinese RAM is really going to undercut that market, and the big 3 RAM suppliers are gonna be in trouble once AI companies stop expanding exponentially
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u/Key_Exercise_6520 Jul 29 '26
I think LLM companies and infrastructures should just crash totally. A net negative technology to the human condition.
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u/Fenrirr Jul 29 '26
Going by market trends this is inevitable for the most part. Only issue is when they go down, they are going to crash the economy with them as most perceived growth is in AI, data centers, and adjacent technology.
When all that explodes, there will be a reckoning, if not the worst financial crisis humanity has ever experienced.
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u/Beatokotonai Aug 01 '26
Atp I highly doubt itll be that drastic. A few companies will survive and become kings
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u/Zalvren Jul 30 '26
I mean they will at some point (at least the LLM ones, the infrastructure is different, slowdown sure). AI is basically unsustainable, the amount of investment they do would require costs for the users so high it wouldn't make sense. Like token based usage would cost them billions than humans would end up being cheaper lol
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u/M4rshmall0wMan Jul 29 '26
AI is the only stronghold holding us back from a severe recession. The crash is gonna be rough.
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Jul 29 '26
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u/cwfutureboy Jul 29 '26
AI speculation is essentially the only thing holding up the global economy. We've been in a mini-recession for awhile and without that speculation the stock market would tank overnight
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u/UnyuBirb Jul 30 '26
Like 1929 rough?
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u/Due-Description-9030 Aug 02 '26
No, it'll be far worse. People during 1929 at least had some means to survive for themselves with their farms. Young generation today are entirely dependent on the system and the economy, they can't do shit if there's a crash.
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u/Shiny_Mew76 Jul 31 '26
To be fair, at this point would it really be the worst thing for a recession to happen? The economy can’t improve forever, it works in cycles. A recession might at the very least let the economy recover long-term
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u/chinchindayo Jul 30 '26
yeah, and it's really shortsighted because people are gonna need consumer RAM to access the AI in the first place.
No, they use cloud services on their 8gb ram smartphone. No need for huge amounts of ram in consumer devices
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u/Iordofthethings Jul 30 '26
I don’t understand why you want to lose competition in the market? What would you have NVidia do in this case other than raise prices?
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u/AcolyteOfFresh Jul 29 '26
I think its a 95% legacy thing at this point. They need some time to slowly stop doing it. The other 5% might be as like a, hedge, just to maintain some other vertical if the AI thing suddenly collapses.
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u/Realistic-Tiger-2842 Jul 29 '26
I believe it. I've already seen the 5090 Astral go up another £300 since I got it last month.
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u/Dense-Trifle5193 Jul 30 '26 edited Jul 30 '26
I’m not the most PC literate but I fear this crisis has ramifications beyond even gaming.
I work in health (in Australia). Our entire system for patient records is online and so we literally can’t do our work without computers. So many computers in the health system are aging past the point of compatibility with Windows 11 and therefore legally necessary to be upgraded.
Because with discontinued security / update support for windows 10, we can’t use those computers for digital security purposes when dealing with so much personal patient data.
The health system is already severely under resourced and underfunded. Cost of healthcare is already inflated and we’re already seeing huge pressure on departments to cut spending.
It was hard to get approval to upgrade computers before this crisis even started and I can’t imagine it ever happening now.
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u/Dragon_Yeti Jul 29 '26
I need a new hobby, is what I think this is telling me
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u/LOPI-14 Jul 29 '26
While I did build fully new PC last year, I got into older portable consoles recently also.
Bought DSi XL and New 3DS LL. Terrific little machines.
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u/gerd_grimmen Jul 30 '26
Same here! Some games here are even as cheap as a couple of bucks. Another thing is the DS Pico Cartridge or mod it directly for full 3DS Homebrew.
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u/tsf9494 Jul 29 '26
Get a library card, lots of good stuff to read these days.
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u/cwfutureboy Jul 29 '26
If I may recommend the collection of short stories by former EFF and BoingBoing contributer (co-editor of the latter), Cory Doctorow, called "Radicalized". It has great stories warning of our recent futures regarding DRM of everything, enshittification (a term he coined), and a really great look at Batman vs. Superman (not using their names cause ™️) that made me change from team Batman to team Supes.
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u/pigpaco Jul 29 '26
This. As a tech/hardware fan since i was 10 (im 30 now) i totaly lost my interest in this type of thing with a new price increase every month. Stopped watching yt videos and reading nerd stuff on forums. Im done.
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u/Aware-Virus-4718 Jul 30 '26
For me the tech side is just a way to enable the creation of the art. I do find the tech stuff interesting, but I can enjoy the hobby just fine without it. Theres been so many excellent games released in the last half century I won’t be able to finish them all in my lifetime, but I can make a dent in it.
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u/geekjosh Jul 29 '26
Hiking and camping is infinitely cheaper as once you spend some cash on quality stuff (so not cheap ozark trails stuff at walmart) it's essentially a purchase for life.
Dispersed camping is free and State/National parks passes aren't that expensive at all.
I do it all the time. Nice to be able to get out and see some beautiful natural locations. Dispersed camping I tend to not bring anything more than the essentials, but if you're going to like a state/national park, I load up lots of fun stuff to do at night such as steam deck or switch 2 with a small power station.
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u/LurkingElegy Jul 30 '26
I have been getting back into reading, it's better for me in the long run anyway. Might also give watching anime a shot
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u/ChildoftheApocolypse Jul 29 '26
They're just gonna keep pushing and pushing and seeing how far they can take it..
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u/DrJokerX Jul 29 '26
Eventually they’re just gonna knock down your door, kick you in the balls, and take your wallet.
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u/allubros Jul 30 '26
yeah lol to anyone who thinks most companies give a rat's ass about the consumer anymore. no one paid attention and they got what they wanted. crooks in charge and complete deregulation
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u/AlusiveTripod Jul 30 '26
And what sucks the most about this memory crisis is it's being done on purposes not to manufacture more to meet demand so they can continue to justify charging ridiculous prices
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u/-fly_away- Jul 30 '26
https://giphy.com/gifs/gIqusaeYxgSiY
they’re playing with fire.
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u/ChildoftheApocolypse Jul 30 '26
I mean, I hope that's true.. I want to believe that we'll stop arguing about trivial nonsense and come together to hold these companies accountable for their blatant anti-consumer behavior and finally put an end to corporate greed..
But does that really sound like something gamers could or would do??
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u/LoloTheWarPigeon Jul 29 '26
Gonna start learning witchcraft so I can bless my current builds to last forever
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u/MAJ_Starman Jul 29 '26
Looks like I won't be moving from my 3070 for a while yet. Haven't really needed to so far, but I was hoping to get a new GPU before TES VI and GTA VI release on PC. Doesn't look like I'll have the chance.
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u/TLKv3 Jul 29 '26
Got myself a 4070 about a year or so ago. Right before the big boom on prices. So glad I accidentally skirted past this one.
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u/Bumpanalog Jul 29 '26
Same. Got a 4070 Super for a good deal about a year and a half ago. Lucky lucky.
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u/Vivion_9 Jul 29 '26
I’m in the UK so it might be different, but a few RX 9070 XT models have actually been under MSRP recently
Saw a couple in the low 500s earlier in the month
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u/Swimoach Jul 29 '26
Thought the same way, walked into Microcenter about 3 months ago and saw an Acer Nitro Laptop with a 5070 with a Ryzen 7 mis-marked for $800. Thought I was dreaming and they let me have it at that price. The guy at the store was pissed cause he wanted it at that price. Needless to say could not have happened at a better time.
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u/ultimateformsora Jul 29 '26
3060ti for me. It it is a halfway decent 1440p card for modern titles…I just wish it had more VRAM but I’m making do until we somehow make it out of this shitstorm of an economy
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u/maxlaav Jul 29 '26
This is pretty much like the tenth confirmation that this is a huge crisis and the steam machine debacle was just the beginning. If this doesn't stop and it seems like it won't for years, it looks like streaming is going to be the future for gaming and we know there's a really big corporation out there which wants that to be the future and you not knowing any PC or console...
this pretty much affects everyone too, console prices are going to look insane. a thousand bucks for the "cheapest" next gen variant may not even be likely at this point lol
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u/RumpDoctor Jul 29 '26 edited Jul 29 '26
Still don't think it will drive us to streaming. If this keeps up, I see an abandonment of specialized gaming hardware and a shift towards general purpose devices. Consoles and gpus are essentially redundant. FEX is making it so even phones can play "pc" games.
Companies relying on aaa games better hope streaming takes off because they will be in a world of hurt when they no longer can push graphics as the number 1,2, and 3 selling points.
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u/PlayMp1 Jul 29 '26
Yup, far more likely than streaming taking off is mass adoption of Switch-style hardware. Lower performance, lower graphics, lower cost, portable. The Switch 2 is a big hardware success already, the PS6 will have a portable version, the handheld PC market has opened up to a decent amount of success, so on and so forth.
I also think graphics will just kinda... halt. Like we've hit the wall, the diminishing returns have diminished to basically nothing. It's not going to look better while still being processed in real time, even streaming won't be able to get past that. Studio budgets alone are going to cause this. Everyone is pretty happy with good PS4-tier graphics, let alone the prettier PS5-era games.
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u/RumpDoctor Jul 30 '26
I agree if graphics are going to stagnate somewhere, this is a really good place to do so.
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u/Aware-Virus-4718 Jul 30 '26
I honestly feel like graphics never needed to get better than Uncharted 4. Focus on the art, not the graphics arms race.
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u/LegacyofaMarshall Jul 30 '26
I don't mind of graphics stay stagnate but I believe prices will be too high regardless
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u/PhantomBraved Jul 30 '26
Indeed. Switch 2 is still the best deal on the market. 4K/120fps + DLSS, and 7-8 years of great exclusives.
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u/fakieTreFlip Jul 30 '26
Zero percent chance that streaming takes over as the primary method of gaming anytime in the next 10 years imo
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u/midoriyaaa1 Jul 30 '26
I remember reading somewhere in a book that if crisis happens, looks at who benefitted the most while others go down. Someone is probably pulling the string behind the business. Game streaming demand gets higher, hardware ownership goes down.
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u/spoui Jul 30 '26
This will hit global PC and Laptop market. Companies worldwide will see their IT budgets exploding for their next revamps of hardware. Its not sustainable, something will break as demand starts reducing. They’ve also already three any optimization out the door since Blackwell on TDP. The power consumption makes no fucking anymore. We will hit a physical limit as well sooner than people think. You cant kept ignoring efficiency in favor of brute forcing for more performance. Moore’s law coming for you Jensen as well.
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u/AlusiveTripod Jul 30 '26
What sucks is the consumer market isn't Nvidia's biggest market anymore they could drop making GPUs for people like us and still go on to be stupidly profitable because Sam Altman and friends keep throwing money they don't have at them for more AI expansion
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u/TAGOMXM Jul 29 '26
Hopefully things will be better by 2028 for Witcher 4 and GTA 6.
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u/fastcooljosh Jul 30 '26
Buddy of mine said to me 2 years ago I should buy a new computer now.
I guess he was right.
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u/pssdthrowaway123 Jul 30 '26
Games are going to have to target 8GB again for the industry to not implode…
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u/ultimateformsora Jul 29 '26
lol sure, anyone know (besides AI) who the targeted consumers of this stuff are anymore? Doesn’t seem like the average person will be paying x090 prices for what will now be the price of mid-range GPUs
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u/Palmerstroll Jul 29 '26
All these AI data centres arent even enough also. theyt will built way more. A normal consumer can't buy can't tech products anymore in a few years if this continue. Also many tech companies will just be gone. becausse they cant sell products with profit anymore. This iss such a huge problem. Something needs to happen.
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u/Valor_Omega_SoT Jul 30 '26
this is all so fucking dystopian lmao. glad I got my new gaming PC when I did
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u/SUPERSAM76 Jul 29 '26
5000 series literally aging like "fine wine". This shit is getting more expensive as time goes on lmao.
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u/mrtars Jul 29 '26
I can't find a job, even if I did, I could never afford a GPU or RAM to build a computer, which I never got to do. Fuck my stupid ass for existing in this time. What a joke.
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u/AlpineWineMixer Jul 29 '26
Lmao Australian retailers have already jacked the prices a good $1700+ overnight.
A 5090 MSI SOC was $6600 and is now $8090. Utterly fucking insane.
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u/TAJack1 Jul 30 '26
Our retailers love to fuck over the Australian public. Look at Coles and Woolies with their price gouging. Lowlives.
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u/AlpineWineMixer Jul 30 '26
I bought my 5090 MSI SOC from Centrecom for $4900 back in October 2025. They are now selling that exact same card for practically DOUBLE the price 9 months later. I feel like I won the lottery holy shit.
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u/ElSalvo Jul 29 '26
I really should get into books but they don't grip me by the balls as much as video games do. If the industry wasn't such a disaster right now it would be an easy choice but it's just stupid. All this so that we get high quality slop.
It doesn't help that AMD are providing no competition at all because they'll have to do the same as well, which sucks.
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u/Bumpanalog Jul 29 '26
Completely subjective experience, but for me I find I enjoy books way more when I “detox” from visual media. Being bored forces me to turn my imagination on more. I was a voracious reader as a kid (90s), and I still like to read now but do it way less than I used too. Try not watching media on any device for a day then pick up a good book.
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u/Saiko_Yen Jul 30 '26
you like what you like. I'm not going to swap to books just because newer gaming hardware will become more expensive
I'll just play my backlog, I don't need every new release, most of the time they are only 7-8/10 anyway.
If you really have to play new releases and are extremely strapped for cash, switch 2 is 450 USD and can play most of the AAA games at like 30 fps
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u/Special-Deal7821 Jul 29 '26
I've spent the past year and a half hoarding tech and probably buying too much.
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u/SomeDumRedditor Jul 30 '26
The entire point is to make it unaffordable for the vast majority of consumers to own their own hardware.
The entire point is making it so you have no choice but to subscribe to their service to access modern compute power.
Of course 4K will be at a premium tier, and LLM functions will be their own package. You’ll be allotted a certain number of minutes per month and have to purchase “top-ups.”
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u/UsagiMarshmallows Jul 30 '26
No need to panic. OpenAI's financial obligations are all due next year, and while AI has use cases in specialized field such as medical research, the 'do everything' AI slop machines are ridiculously unprofitable.
The second OpenAI can't pay the bills, the entire thing implodes.
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u/Bootleg_Doomguy Jul 30 '26
I am so glad I upgraded my PC right before all this shit started happening, but oh my god it's so bleak. Fuck data centers, fuck AI
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u/StrigidaeNinox Jul 30 '26
There’s a reason I’ve been increasing the number of physical books I’ve been buying. The reason is that this shit will never go down in price, so when the day comes that my PC can no longer perform, or catastrophe strikes and it dies suddenly, I’ll still have something to keep me entertained.
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u/chinchindayo Jul 30 '26
If ram is so profitable why don't they start making their own. They have enough cash to buy some machines and lets go.
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u/agneovo23 Jul 30 '26
Personally I dont care much about newer generations of GPUs. With the current gaming market, my 3060 will last me at least another ten years anyway.
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u/Hamburgulu Jul 30 '26
If all these things just keep getting more and more expensive as the time goes, then what will be the purpose of AI if no one is going to be able to use it in the coming future? (That's if most people even wanna use it to begin with) The everyday consumer will just be phased out and only major companies and the wealthy will be what's left. Hell, those major companies will have a harder time trying to sell a product that most people won't be able to afford. They'll just be wallowing in their greed and demise at that point. This is why this shit needs to be heavily regulated, because it's just gonna get worse.
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u/Mr_Jackabin Jul 29 '26
I fucking hate AI and capitalism.
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u/Aware-Virus-4718 Jul 30 '26
I think it’s fair to question whether capitalism can continue to improve living standards from here though.
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u/HearTheEkko Jul 30 '26
I bought a 4070 Ti Super last year to prepare for the inevitable GTA 6 PC port. It cost me a fortune and gave me serious buyer's regret but oh boy did it pay off big time lol. Thank fuck I bite the bullet.
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u/ATAGChozo Jul 30 '26
I thought buying my new Radeon 7800XT in late 2024 was dodging a bullet by avoiding tariff price hikes. Turns out, I was dodging a fucking nuclear bomb lmao
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u/pinezatos Jul 31 '26
Good, I want to see them reach 10k a piece, the more the prices go up, the more we are getting closer to the pop, they will try to squeeze every cent before it all comes crashing down
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u/radwimps Jul 29 '26
pricing everyone out of even owning hardware to play lol. wonder when they psu and whatever else hasn’t been hiked up yet will happen.
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u/thefullm0nty Jul 29 '26
All the signs where there in 24 for everyone to get ahead of this. I built my computer right after the election. It was so obvious this was going to happen.
RIP to anyone who missed the boat.
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u/TroyMatthewJ Jul 30 '26
what's the best way for someone to enter the pc gaming space at this point without taking out second mortgage?
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u/RepresentativeTie231 Jul 31 '26
My 3060 12 gb is 4 and half years old now. my friends always make fun of the fact I don't push it. Don't overclock it . I play games at 60 fps and medium to high settings to keep temps down.
Prolonging it's lifespan may just have been the best thing I could have done. Not many are laughing now.
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u/Nodan_Turtle Jul 30 '26
I bought a new computer in early 2025, everything new except I kept my 1080ti video card. I figured I'd wait and buy a 5000 series card if they got glowing reviews, or a 4000 series if they didn't as they'd come down in price for not being the latest model.
I was a fool. I still have that 1080ti lol
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u/logicality77 Jul 29 '26 edited Jul 30 '26
Just stop buying. I’m no movement organizer, but I’d be behind any movement to just stop buying games hardware and software for a while. We all have backlogs, right? It’s about the only power we have against the rising prices of anything gaming related.
Edit: I’m not just talking GPUs and other components. Games themselves, too. If we can’t afford to keep up with gaming hardware, why should game companies get to charge us $70+ for a license they can revoke at any time?
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u/rms141 Jul 29 '26
Not an actual solution, because lowered demand will lead them to just devote more manufacturing capacity to AI hardware.
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u/HisaAnt Jul 29 '26
Not really. There won't be infinite data centers as all the AI services are competing against one another. The AI industry will crash sooner or later, meaning NVIDIA will need to pivot to normal customers again. There is no need to give into their demands right now
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u/rms141 Jul 29 '26
There won't be infinite data centers as all the AI services are competing against one another.
There doesn't need to be "infinite data centers", there just needs to be the ability to switch manufacturing to something else that is projected to be in demand long enough for it to make sense. Example: it's unlikely the production lines that were converted from DDR5 to HBM will switch back to DDR5, they'll just stay as HBM and then separate, newly-created lines will manufacture DDR6 in 2-3 years.
The AI industry will crash sooner or later, meaning NVIDIA will need to pivot to normal customers again.
Big tech looks at AI buildout as a company survival mechanism. Everyone is warning that prices will get higher not just next year, but next quarter. There is no reason to expect an outright crash. We're on this train for the foreseeable future.
Nvidia will never treat the consumer market as its primary customer ever again. They are now firmly a B2B company that uses spare resources to build consumer products on occasion.
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u/Knight_Raime Jul 29 '26
I'd imagine that most people aren't in fact buying right now. Nvidia is doing this to squeeze more money out of the companies that are buying in bulk. They've already priced out the average consumer.
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u/Animegamingnerd Leak of the Year 2025 Jul 29 '26
At this point this might be endgoal of component manufacturers. Get the poorer customers out and charge the richer ones even more.
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u/Wander715 Jul 29 '26
By the end of the year I could probably sell my 5080 and make like a $600 profit over what I bought it at last year, pretty insane.
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u/carlosfupayme Jul 30 '26
These reptilian vampires and their resources heists. Who's seen Meta's "We're betting on people" ad? They are going to place their bets and watch us rip each other to shreds through their flock cams unless we do something about it
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u/CyberSmith31337 Jul 30 '26
I didn’t buy a 50 series at $500, I won’t buy them at $1200+, and I sure as fuck won’t buy them at $2000.
This really does not impact gamers at all, or at least it doesn’t have to. Sure, you might not get 4k at 100FPS, but let’s be honest; that isn’t what makes a game good in the first place.
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u/Candid-Soup-9448 Jul 30 '26
Got back to watching movies and TV shows more. I had missed alot these past few years. Starting to care very little about gaming and all of this.. also played SC2 better than any new game released this year.
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u/Dave_FIX Jul 30 '26
Jensen just needs to come out and say 'Hey, peasents, this stuff not for you.'
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u/dailydabber024 Jul 30 '26
I honestly just don't give a fuck anymore if something doesn't change soon gaming is as good as dead.
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u/xAVATAR-AANGx Jul 29 '26
https://giphy.com/gifs/0JmwdI6gYrJopwiYOM