• Hey Guest. Check out your NeoGAF Wrapped 2025 results here!

Are hardware prices affecting your upgrade plans?

Are hardware prices affecting your upgrade plans?

  • No. I'm upgrading my PC soon.

    Votes: 4 3.6%
  • I'm upgrading soon, but with less RAM or VRAM.

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • I have delayed my upgrade plans.

    Votes: 24 21.8%
  • I'm satisfied with my current PC.

    Votes: 76 69.1%
  • I'm selling my RAM and retiring to the Bahamas.

    Votes: 6 5.5%

  • Total voters
    110

winjer

Gold Member
Hardware is very expensive now, especially ram and vram chips. And because of his building a new PC, has become significantly more expensive.
So the question is, how much has this hardware crisis affected your upgrade plans?
And tell us a bit about your PC and why you think you need or don't need an upgrade.
 
Yes..

My plan was to have extra money left over after my move that I could put toward a new build. But those prices..

I wasn't aiming for top-of-the-line hardware anyway, but even a solid mid-tier upgrade would be a big step up from what I have now.

I'm still running a 3070, and honestly it's holding up pretty well. Most modern games run fine at 1080p with medium to high settings and 60+ FPS
 
Last edited:
No, I'm quite happy with what I have. And I don't use my PC that often.
As long as my PC can run NEOGAF, I'm happy. If they increase the system requirements, then I'll think about it...
 
I am good. Picked up a 5080 near MSRP a few months back and grabbed 64GB of DDR5 before the RAM madness really kicked off. And my 7800x3D is more than sufficient so don't see a need for a CPU upgrade.

If I didn't have my build and was thinking of upgrading right now I would run to the nearest Microcenter and either grab one of their pre-builts or grab a RAM/CPU/Mboard kit and a 9070XT.
 
Last edited:
You can kind of work around ram by either looking out for some bundles or even going with ddr4 but holy shit, ssd prices are bad right now, too. I bought a 2tb 990 evo plus for 130 bucks not that long ago and now it's going for 350 dollars.
 
Yea, ram and gpu prices for sure. I was thinking about doing a refresh from a 3090ti, 5900x, to AMD 9000 and a 5090 or 4090, but it's balloned so much, that I'd rather roll the dice on a collapse in demand.
 
I just bought my new one and luckily didn't wait any longer, but sucks for people who are wanting to upgrade with the present crazy situation with prices of RAM and GPU's
 
7600x with a 9070xt here. 32GB of RAM. No plans to upgrade until the new consoles launch.

MIGHT upgrade my CPU once the final X3d chips come out for AM5.
 
Yes. I had upgrade plans.

Now I do not.

I got my first GPU in 2014, a 970, for about 170 euros. That's 230 with inflation today. You couldn't get anything close to a capable mainstream GPU these days for that.

I'll really enjoy it when the AI bubble collapses and Nvidia/AMD come crawling back to gamers.
 
Last edited:
Of course. I mean when I heard ram going up in price I figured I was better off upgrading my current rig back in November(3070->5070ti 32gb->64gb) and waiting 2-3 years to do a new build instead of just doing a new build at the end of 2026.
 
Gonna upgrade to highend(hard to say if top) 6000 nvidia card series in 2027 for sure(or amd card if rdan5 proves to be any good in comparision, we will know once they launch).
It will cost probably 1500-2000 usd but so be it, paid 2200€ for my 3080ti in the middle of crypto boom coz games i wanted to play at top quality were coming out.
TLDR if i like what i see i fork up cash for it no question asked, thats the way us guys do things :messenger_sunglasses:
 
Right now i have a 5600x pair with a 3080 10GB and 32GB RAM. I debated to either upgrade to a new CPU and a 5080 or to wait until the new Nvidia 6000 to upgrade.
It seems i have to wait until 6000 and still probably buy a 4000/5000 card due to the prices.

Anyone with similar specs to mine? On which settings do you play the games released in the last 2 years?
 
Nah. Lazy developers are. Why upgrade when they're hardly tapping what the launch hardware is capable of. No one should be rewarded.

And next gen, I just don't think I'll take part. I might just go Nintendo and PC again.
 
I'm fine with what I have for a while (and would be regardless of the current shitshow). Most AAA(A) games don't do much for me anymore and for the ones that do I'm perfectly fine with 1440p/60fps and am not afraid to turn some settings down if needed.

I always skip at least one generation of video cards so the earliest I'll reevaluate is with the next generation. And even then I wait until they've been out for a bit.
 
I've wanted to switch from Playstation to PC for a while but It just feels like it's never a good time.
There's always at least one key component that's insanely overpriced.
 
Not really, no.

Plan is still to make a complete new build when series 6000 is out, hopefully a 6070 is gonna be NOTICEABLY more powerfull than my 4080.

This is unless graphic stop evolving and my setup can still give me 4k60 max details or close to that until series 7000.

I already have 32gb ddr5 6000mhz so i'm not even sure if i need to upgrade the ram at all.
 
Last edited:
Happy with my current PC, although I was forced into purchasing an OLED monitor yesterday when my son's VA panel died. It didn't make sense to buy him another VA and wait for shipping when I wanted an excuse to get an OLED anyway. So I gave him my monitor (same model he had) and hit Best Buy over lunch.

*obligatory OLED drooling*

My 9070 XT is keeping up fine with the games I had installed already. I'd like to have something bigger, but the only sensible choice would be a 5090 and that's too much. I guess I'm waiting on the next AMD generation at this point, so... Q3 2027?
 
6900XT, 5800x
I don't need the best of the best, as long as I can still play the games with decent fidelity and framerate I am good. I don't see games that require beyond what I have until the cross gen period for the PS6 is over - so a good 5 years at least.
 
I should be fine for a while. I use computers till they croak and then replace them. Recently my computer of 7 years died, so I walked into a Walmart and dropped a grand on a gaming prebuilt.
 
Already upgraded everything possible on My current build because of it.

32gb of RAM when DDR 4 was showing signs that it was on the last legs in March 25 (I got perfectly matching sticks for a great price. Prices went 3-4x in the exact same module)

9070xt (necessity) + new CPU on the Black Friday (I have a 12400f so it wasn't as necessary, but I got a 14700k on huge BF flash deal. Basically paid the price of a 14400f on it)

If there isn't any problem, I'm pushing it well into the next generation with this build.
 
Last edited:
Not really, my PC still doesn't have issues with most games I want to play. I'm at 1440 and doubt I'd go beyond that anytime soon regardless.

12700k/3080ti
 
I have two rigs with 5090's and 64gb DDR5 ram in both + a 5080 and extra Ram in backup, so personally i'm fine.
But i'm a bit concerned that the situation makes it hard for people to upgrade and keep the industry going and moving forward.
It's a pretty bad sign when 3060's, AM4 motherboards and DDR4 Ram is doing a comeback in 2026..

Hell, I even read somewhere that DDR3 is coming back..
Terrible.

Hopefully this tough period doesn't kill off too much of people's enthusiasm and interest in PC gaming. (and kills off a huge numbers of companies making PC hardware as a consequence. )

I would be very, very sad to see a day when building PC's is no longer possible because of all the shit that's going on atm.
 
Last edited:
i have rtx 4080 , 9950x3D , 64 gb ram

no upgrade until 6000 series or even 7000 series depending on how the market will look like , many people are saying that pcgaming is dead and both nvidia and amd have give up on gamers and home desktops
 
Wife & I built a pair of gaming PCs in August last year just before the prices started going crazy. Got most of our build at pretty significant discounts at the time. We're both running 9800X3D/5080/64GB RAM/990 Pro SSDs, etc. We were very fortunate with the timing, and I think we're set for several years at this point.
 
I´m pretty satisfied with my current hardware. The only thing missing in my setup is a Steam Machine, and hopefully it will not cost an arm and a leg.
 
More so software quality. I remember being driven to upgrade my hardware by weapons grade yearning. I want a dev to make me get a second job to start putting money away for a 6090.
 
Lack of interesting games that push the hardware is stopping me from upgrading more than anything

The newest game I own is Stellar Blade and the recommended GPU is a 2060 Super

I have a bunch of RTX 2000 series cards I'm good until next gen esp since Kingmakers is basically vaporware at this point
 
Last edited:
I got myself a new GPU for christmas
I got it just in time..
looks like I'm back to 2018 pricing where if I will be unable to build a PC so a prebuilt will be my only option when I do need to upgrade.
 
I was planning on upgrading around Black Friday 2026 but it's not looking good.

I think I might be able to get away with just a GPU upgrade and keep using my 5800x3D for another few years
 
They are really - I would never have upgraded from a 3080- to a 4080 super - and now be contemplating a 50 series, if I could not show off how expensive they are.

They have become status symbols to the point that even women percieve a man to be more attractive if he is rocking 52 teraflops.
 
Last edited:
I'm happy with what I currently have (13900k, RTX 4090, 64GB DDR5 RAM). If by the time the 6090 comes out prices haven't gotten better and I have to spend like $6K or more to put together a high-end build, I will just ride this machine out as long as I can.
 
bought a 5090 the day after they said they were going to be cutting supply of some cards, then they cancelled supers etc. Glad i did it, but the price was fucking stupid
 
I bought the Hellhound RX 9070 XT at Christmas time due to being on sale for $629.99.
I figured (and probably correctly) that GPUs in this class are going to be nightmare to find later this year so I bit the bullet now.

There's a Microcenter near me and I'm thinking of buying an AMD bundle they have as well. They may not be the dream parts I would want but they will be good enough.

I forgot I bought Samsung 2TB 990 Pro 4.0 NVMe back in Nov 2023 for $130 that I was going to put in my current PC to use as extra storage but never installed.
So I got that going for me.
 
Yes. I had upgrade plans.

Now I do not.

I got my first GPU in 2014, a 970, for about 170 euros. That's 230 with inflation today. You couldn't get anything close to a capable mainstream GPU these days for that.

I'll really enjoy it when the AI bubble collapses and Nvidia/AMD come crawling back to gamers.
A 970 for 170€ would have been far from normal pricing.
980 and 970 were released close to Q4 2014 and new 970 cards were around 350€.
I got a 4GB 960 on September 2015 for 220€. The 970 was still way more expensive than that a year after release.
c44zQ36VzmBmDsjA.png



Answering OP question. Yes.
With all that uncertainty about graphics cards prices and RAM already getting crazy I was looking at some options.
I had a selection of components for around 500€ with a 9600X, B650 MB and 32GB of DDR5. But the RAM availability and price changed too fast. The RAM kit I selected went from 139€ to 437€ quickly.

I saw the 9060XT 16GB for 349€ after missing a chance earlier so I went for that instead. That was a couple of months ago and right now that same card is about 100€ more expensive.
While everything keeps working I'll be fine. I have a backlog expanding decades, and with more modern games where my old CPU is still enough the 9060XT allows me to reach image quality and/or performance levels I wasn't able to achieve before.

PS: Seems like I can't to vote on forum polls.
 
Last edited:
Top Bottom