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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)

#91

Post by opan »

Discordian93 wrote: post #82
boppo1 wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AAA games suck compared to 10 years ago though.

I disagree, AAA games started nosediving with the seventh generation 20 years ago and only recently have they started to tentatively show signs of recovery.

Do you have any examples in mind from each era? I thought Fallout 3 was quite good around back then. Today we've got stuff like Borderlands 4 (or whatever the newest one is) that barely run on anyone's PC, and general game install size has also shot up drastically so it's no longer really feasible to keep most of your games installed all the time and ready to play.

I mostly play indie/retro/slightly-old games these days, so I mostly hear of the negatives for modern AAA, admittedly. I'm also tempted to complain about live service, microtransactions, gacha, season passes, and so on in recent big releases, but maybe that would be getting off-topic.

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

#92

Post by opan »

arethuza wrote: post #85
pjc50 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was planning on hanging on to my Win10 PC, which was perfectly fine except that Microsoft were both pestering me to upgrade and telling me it wasn't possible, but the death of its SSD after 7 years put paid to that.

I have a PC that is probably at least 10 years old but works perfectly well for browsing, spreadsheets and the occasional lightweight game but MS has decided, in its infinite wisdom, to say that it can't be upgraded to Windows 11. So I will probably install Linux (probably Debian) and move on and forget about those particular games... (~30 years since I first installed Linux on a PC!).

What sort of lightweight games? Nethack? Solitaire?

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

#93

Post by opan »

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 agree with the spirit of your post, and that AMD is probably the lesser evil, but it's worth noting they "just" moved the proprietary bits into a firmware blob. It's still similarly proprietary but due to the kernel being pretty open to such blobs, it's a problem invisible to most users. You'd have to use linux-libre to get a feel for how bad things really are. You can't really use any modern GPUs with it.

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

#94

Post by arethuza »

opan wrote: post #92
arethuza wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a PC that is probably at least 10 years old but works perfectly well for browsing, spreadsheets and the occasional lightweight game but MS has decided, in its infinite wisdom, to say that it can't be upgraded to Windows 11. So I will probably install Linux (probably Debian) and move on and forget about those particular games... (~30 years since I first installed Linux on a PC!).

What sort of lightweight games? Nethack? Solitaire?

World of Tanks...

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

#95

Post by ProllyInfamous »

alex43578 wrote: post #49
vinkelhake wrote: post #43

Besides the box art, I miss the days when 1) the graphics card didn't cost more than the rest of the components put together, 2) the graphics card got all of its damn power through the connector itself, and 3) MSRP meant something.

I just bought a RTX 5090 at MSRP. While expensive, it's also a radically more complicated product that plays a more important role in a modern computer than old GPUs did years ago. Compared to my CPU (9950X3D), it's got a massive monolithic die measuring 750mm2 with over 4x the transistor count of the entire 9950X3d package. Beyond the graphics, it's got tensor and RT cores, dedicated engines for video decode/encode,…

Do yourself/me a favor, and give your 5090's power plug/socket a little jiggle test.

I'm a retired data center electrician, and my own GPU's has been "loose" at least more than once. Really make sure that sucker is jammed in there/latched.

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

#96

Post by jasomill »

opan wrote: post #93
IlikeKitties wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 agree with the spirit of your post, and that AMD is probably the lesser evil, but it's worth noting they "just" moved the proprietary bits into a firmware blob. It's still similarly proprietary but due to the kernel being pretty open to such blobs, it's a problem invisible to most users. You'd have to use linux-libre to get a feel for how bad things really are. You can't really use any modern GPUs with it.

I understand the sentiment, but I don't see how devices with proprietary firmware stored in ROM or NVRAM are any more free or open than devices that require proprietary firmware loaded at boot.

And it looks like Linux-Libre also opposes CPU microcode updates[1], as if bugged factory microcode with known security vulnerabilities is any less non-free than fixed microcode. Recommending an alternative architecture that uses non-proprietary microcode I can understand; this I cannot.

[1] https://www.phoronix.com/news/GNU-Linux-Libre-4.16-Released

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

#97

Post by ProllyInfamous »

vladvasiliu wrote: post #61
vinkelhake wrote: post #43

Besides the box art, I miss the days when 1) the graphics card didn't cost more than the rest of the components put together, 2) the graphics card got all of its damn power through the connector itself, and 3) MSRP meant something.

> 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 shocked me was the massive variation in prices for the same model [AMD v. nVidea]

I am not a tech wizard, but I think the major (and noticeable) difference would be available tensor cores — that currently nVidea's tech is faster/better in the LLM/genAI world.

Obviously AMD jumped +30% last week from OpenAI investment — so that is changing with current model GPUs.

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

#99

Post by wtallis »

crote wrote: post #81
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.

On the other hand, you're also stuck with design mistakes for ages. The AM5 platform is quite lacking when it comes to PCIe lanes - especially once you take USB4 into account. I'm hoping my current setup from 2019 survives until AM6 - but it seems AMD wants to keep AM5 for another generation or two...

There's minimal demand for Thunderbolt/USB4 ports on Windows desktops. It won't ever make sense to inflate CPU pin count specifically for that use case, especially when the requisite PCIe lanes don't have to come directly from the CPU.

You'd be better off complaining about how Threadripper CPUs and motherboards are priced out of the enthusiast consumer market, than asking for the mainstream CPU platform to be made more expensive with the addition of IO that the vast majority of mainstream customers don't want to pay for.

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

#100

Post by gs17 »

ProllyInfamous wrote: post #97
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 shocked me was the massive variation in prices for the same model [AMD v. nVidea] I am not a tech wizard, but I think the major (and noticeable) difference would be available tensor cores — that currently nVidea's tech is faster/better in the LLM/genAI world. Obviously AMD jumped +30% last week from OpenAI investment — so that is changing with current model GPUs.

They were talking about within one model, not between AMD and Nvidia.
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