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Look at how unhinged GPU box art was in the 2000s (2024)

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Re: Look at how unhinged GPU box art was in the 2000s (2024)

#71

Post by vladvasiliu »

yourusername wrote: post #68
vladvasiliu wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 3) MSRP meant something I'm not in the market for a 5090 or similar, but the other day I was looking at a lower-end model, an AMD 9060 or Nvidia 5060. What shocked me was the massive variation in prices for the same model (9060 XT 16 GB or 5060 Ti 16 GB). The AMD could be had for anywhere from 400 to 600 euros, depending on the brand. What can explain that? Are there actual performance differences? I see models pre…

> What can explain that? Looks. I'm not joking. The market is aimed at people with a fish bowl PC case that care about having a cooler with a appealing design, a interesting PCB colour and the flashiest RGB. Some may have a bit better cooling but the price for that is also likely marked up several times considering a full dual tower CPU cooler costs $35.

I was thinking about cooling, but basically they all have either two or three fans, and among those they look the same to my admittedly untrained eye.

Re: Look at how unhinged GPU box art was in the 2000s (2024)

#72

Post by pjc50 »

jakebasile wrote: post #2

I miss when gaming in general was less mainstream and more weird like this. Now the silicon manufacturers hate that they even have to sell us their scraps, let alone spend time on making unique designs for their boxes. I bought a small press book with a collection of this art and it was a fun little trip down memory lane, as I’ve owned some of the hardware (boxes) depicted in it. For anyone else interested: https://l…

> I miss when gaming in general was less mainstream and more weird like this.

To me, this is a continuum with the box art of early games, where because the graphics themselves were pretty limited the box art had to be fabulous. Get someone like Roger Dean to paint a picture for the imagination. https://www.rogerdean.com/

The peak of this was the Maplin electronics catalogue: https://70s-sci-fi-art.ghost.io/1980s-maplin-catalogues/ ; the Radio Shack of UK electronics hobbyists, now gone entirely. Did they need to have cool art on the catalogue? No. Was it awesome? Yes.

Re: Look at how unhinged GPU box art was in the 2000s (2024)

#73

Post by yourusername »

vladvasiliu wrote: post #71
yourusername wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What can explain that? Looks. I'm not joking. The market is aimed at people with a fish bowl PC case that care about having a cooler with a appealing design, a interesting PCB colour and the flashiest RGB. Some may have a bit better cooling but the price for that is also likely marked up several times considering a full dual tower CPU cooler costs $35.

I was thinking about cooling, but basically they all have either two or three fans, and among those they look the same to my admittedly untrained eye.

The manufacturer can use better fans that move more air and stay more silent. They can design a better vapor chamber, lay out the PCB in a way that VRMs and RAM gets more cooling. But still all that stuff should not account for more than $30-50 markup.

Re: Look at how unhinged GPU box art was in the 2000s (2024)

#74

Post by Gigachad »

MaxikCZ wrote: post #59
Gigachad wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the plus side, PC gaming hardware seems to last ages now. I built my gaming desktop in 2020, I had a look lately at what a reasonable modern mid tier setup is and they are still recommending a lot of the parts I have. So I'll probably keep using it all for another 5 years then.

Its a double edge sword. Yes, back then 2 year old computer was old, but at the same time every 2 years a new generation of games came out that were like never seen before. Each generation was a massive step-up. Today, a layman couldnt chronologically sort CoD games from past 10 years from looks/play/feel, new Fifa and similar is _the_ same game but with new teams added to it, and virtually every game made is a "copy…

This is fine? Today’s games look beautiful and developers are hardly restricted by hardware. Games can innovate on content, stories, and experiences rather than on technology.

Feels similar to how painting hasn’t had any revolution in new paints available.

Re: Look at how unhinged GPU box art was in the 2000s (2024)

#75

Post by pavlov »

pjc50 wrote: post #72
jakebasile wrote: post #2

I miss when gaming in general was less mainstream and more weird like this. Now the silicon manufacturers hate that they even have to sell us their scraps, let alone spend time on making unique designs for their boxes. I bought a small press book with a collection of this art and it was a fun little trip down memory lane, as I’ve owned some of the hardware (boxes) depicted in it. For anyone else interested: https://l…

> I miss when gaming in general was less mainstream and more weird like this. To me, this is a continuum with the box art of early games, where because the graphics themselves were pretty limited the box art had to be fabulous. Get someone like Roger Dean to paint a picture for the imagination. https://www.rogerdean.com/ The peak of this was the Maplin electronics catalogue: https://70s-sci-fi-art.ghost.io/1980s-mapl…

This great interview with Roger Dean about his career in games was recently posted:

https://spillhistorie.no/2025/10/03/legends-of-the-games-ind...

Turns out that the Psygnosis developers in the 1980s used him as a kind of single-shot concept artist. They would commission the box art first, then use that as inspiration for designing the actual game to go inside the box.

Re: Look at how unhinged GPU box art was in the 2000s (2024)

#77

Post by FirmwareBurner »

IlikeKitties wrote: post #62
jakebasile wrote: post #2

I miss when gaming in general was less mainstream and more weird like this. Now the silicon manufacturers hate that they even have to sell us their scraps, let alone spend time on making unique designs for their boxes. I bought a small press book with a collection of this art and it was a fun little trip down memory lane, as I’ve owned some of the hardware (boxes) depicted in it. For anyone else interested: https://l…

> Now the silicon manufacturers hate that they even have to sell us their scraps, let alone spend time on making unique designs for their boxes. I genuinely don't believe this to be true for AMD. I bought a 6600xt on Release Day and by the time I was able to build my complete PC, it had upstream linux kernel support. You can say what you will about AMD but any company that respects my freedoms enough to build a produ…

>I genuinely don't believe this to be true for AMD. I bought a 6600xt on Release Day

That was 2021 though when AMD was still a relative underdog trying to claw market share from Nvidia from consumers. AMD of today has adjusted their prices and attitude to consumers to match their status as a CPU and GPU duopoly in the AI/datacenter space.

Re: Look at how unhinged GPU box art was in the 2000s (2024)

#79

Post by badsectoracula »

dvh wrote: post #63

Behold, the Delphi 1.0 installer screen: https://www.gladir.com/SOFTWARE/DELPHI1/delphi1-install5.png

Early to mid 90s Borland had a lot of fun making "multimedia" :-)

There was also this[0] video posted recently here of a Turbo Pascal tutorial which has some interesting intro :-)

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UOtonwG3DXM

Re: Look at how unhinged GPU box art was in the 2000s (2024)

#80

Post by boppo1 »

Gigachad wrote: post #74
MaxikCZ wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its a double edge sword. Yes, back then 2 year old computer was old, but at the same time every 2 years a new generation of games came out that were like never seen before. Each generation was a massive step-up. Today, a layman couldnt chronologically sort CoD games from past 10 years from looks/play/feel, new Fifa and similar is _the_ same game but with new teams added to it, and virtually every game made is a "copy…

This is fine? Today’s games look beautiful and developers are hardly restricted by hardware. Games can innovate on content, stories, and experiences rather than on technology. Feels similar to how painting hasn’t had any revolution in new paints available.

AAA games suck compared to 10 years ago though.
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