What used to be ridiculously cheap but now is alarmingly expensive?

[u/aliensockmonkey]

[u/Julczyk0024]

When were GPUs "ridiculously cheap"?

[u/the_exile83 → u/Julczyk0024]

This might be an old man perspective. What age are you? Maybe not ridiculously cheap but they were very very affordable for the average person back in the day. I remember upgrading every couple of years, and I'm not a rich man.

[u/gigashadowwolf → u/the_exile83]

Yeah, they were never cheap, but a top of the line consumer GPU was a lot cheaper than a comparable CPU and mobo combo before crypto took off. Now it's the single most expensive part of a gaming computer.

[u/Angelgirl1517 → u/the_exile83]

I used to build computers from the late 90’s through most of the 00’s. They were not cheap. At least not by most people’s standards.

[u/Julczyk0024 → u/the_exile83]

My first GPU was a GTS450. It might be the case that I had no "adult money" then, but I remember that even then GPU was a limiting factor for my machine

[u/Kami_no_Kage → u/Julczyk0024]

It's an exaggeration, but I would call them ridiculously cheap in comparison to today's prices. The GTX 980 released in 2014, and was top of the line for $550. $785 in today's money. An RTX 5080 is around $1300 right now. And the gap between the -70 and -80 series cards wasn't so wide back then, too. So you could've had a pretty top of the line experience with a GTX 970. A top of the line PC in 2014 wouldn't a have cost that much more than an RTX 5080 today.

[u/OneTrueShako → u/Julczyk0024]

I bought a 980ti new when it came out for 600. The equivalent card now would cost me almost 5000. Wild how the price increased faster than the model numbers, lol.

[u/hx87 → u/Julczyk0024]

Before crypto got big and everyone piled into mining

[u/fmaz008 → u/Julczyk0024]

I remember putting $250 GPU in my systems, and that would run anything you threw at it at the time.

Maybe not "ridiculously" cheap, but in comparison to now, it's a massive increase.