I keep reading that the PC market has fallen about 30%… That is Big !
Seems that after the “Pandemic” people got back to work and sales dropped.
For Me, it was the SUPER GREEDY GPU Price Gougers that stopped me from upgrading hardware or buying new. It appears they are still being plenty greedy. That greed may come back to give them a serious bite in the posterior.
What do you think about the PC sales decline ?
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Agreed.
A big issue with nVidia is that they were counting on crypto-miner sales for their 4000 series GPUs and made ridiculous projections to their shareholders while planning on selling the bulk of their GPUs at high “shortage” prices to miners, much as they did with the 3000 series. When the crypto market crashed right before launch, they got stuck with a surplus of GPU chips, so had to sell at way higher prices in order to try to meet those projections. And they help back supply to their 3rd party board manufacturers to create artificial shortage and keep prices high.
And of course, seeing the prices they could get away with charging, AMD hopped on that bandwagon as well, keeping their GPUs a bit more affordable, but at least 50% higher than they actually should be.
So yes, like anything else in this world, it’s all about money. Mammon always rules.
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Cost of living crisis globally. Most folk can’t afford to pay for their heating let alone a PC.
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Let’s please keep this related to MSFS. Thanks.
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It has nothing to do with MSFS from the outset, apart from the fact that unless you have an Xbox, you need a PC to run it.
It’s a valid subject for discussion but perhaps not in a forum dedicated to MSFS.
It might do better at Reddit or Avsim, where there are no corporate sponsors.
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My computer heats my house. 
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To me, the subject relates to MSFS because to get good results from MSFS one needs PC Power. I really do want to upgrade or purchase new just for MSFS !
…
I am using a very mediocre computer that does not give me the quality I want from the MSFS sim. What is holding me back from upgrading my MSFS computer ? The GPU Price Gougers. It is just the principal of it all.
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Weak demand, excess inventory,
Global personal computer shipments are expected to rise starting late 2023, with a new cycle of system upgrades likely to accelerate growth next year, according to research firms IDC and Canalys.
What is worrying me is when/if Tawain gets invaded. A lot of computer parts come from there.
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Over supply and week demand should mean bargains, if there are then I must be looking in the wrong places.
If you’re truly desperate for an upgrade, go to the 2nd hand market. At least then you can actually blame it on greedy gougers since they’re trying to turn a profit, not just break even on operating costs which are increasing too and has an effect on the price you pay.
GPU Prices are coming down. I Recall a year ago an AMD Radeon 6800 XT was over $900 i saw on at Microcenter for under $700 now. But i don’t think we’ll see GPU prices “like the old days.” I’ve been sitting on an upgrade for at least 2 years now and i’ve had ample opportunity to buy one on credit, but it is not a financially sound idea for me. I’d stake money that many others have similar line of thinking. People are choosing to feed their families over upgrading their computer, going on vacation, making new investments (such as a car, home, appliances etc).I’m sure greed is a very small part of it for many sellers nowadays; they gotta eat too!
But like i said, if you’re desperate for a computer upgrade, look to the 2nd hand market. You may get more fair pricing but you’d be accepting the associated risks of making online purchases through unverified third party vendors like on FB Marketplace or eBay.
Or you could pull a pro gamer move and play MSFS on xcloud or whatever. No need for a PC upgrade if you’re not actually on a PC to play it…
Not desperate at all, just prefer NOT to feed the greedy GPU price gougers. I upgraded my CPU and Ram a year ago just for the purpose of enhancing my beloved MSFS, all good there, however, for the GPU part, it is a matter of principal and I am not feeding the GPU price gougers.
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They’re on borrowed time.
At some point enough people will switch to streaming.
I doubt it’ll ever be as good as running it yourself, and there’ll be tons of games that’ll never end up on such services so there’ll be plenty of holdouts, but it will be vastly cheaper than buying and upgrading your own hardware.
They’d better be sniffing out some diversity because a cliff edge is coming.
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The bulk of cloud processing is done on Nvidia Processors so they’ll win either way. The Intel GPU’s are showing real promise and competitively priced.
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The world is dying because of greed!
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You are darned if you do and darned if you don’t. You will be waiting for a new GPU for quite a while if you think prices will drop because retailers suddenly had a change in their moral compass. I respect your choices, even if i don’t agree with them.
That said, you seem set on “sticking it to the man” so keep up the good fight, comrade. We’ll show GPU manufacturers their corporate greed won’t prevent us from having a good time in the virtual skies!
It’s not a case of retailers. It’s nVidia that’s artificially setting the price and artificially controlling availability creating a fake shortage to keep prices sky high for the reasons mentioned in my previous post. AMD are just following suit selling their stuff a bit cheaper to be competitive, but charging as much as they can get away with.
Retailers are left with very little margin at that point. They’re not the ones price gouging. Sure, there are some that are, and scalpers are, but for the most part, most major retailers aren’t.
This is what we get when there’s no competition in the market.
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I don’t know about the rest of the world, but where I travel in the U.S. (I’m a trucker, so I get around), I’m seeing wage increases all over the place as companies try to entice people back into the workforce and get production back to normal. Greed may have played a part at first, but I don’t expect to see prices come back down because all these wage increase have to be paid for somehow.
Back to the original topic of market stagnation, think about what happened when Covid hit. Everyone and their dog was buying/upgrading a computer to work or do schooling from home, which interrupted the normal purchasing cycles. Take greed, scalping, and lost production out of the equation, and you still have a market where a lot more people than normal now have a computer they are ok with and are simply not looking to upgrade. It’s a temporary slowdown at worst, and the upgrade cycles will return.
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You are right ! The Manufacturers greed is not keeping us from the MSFS skies. I’ll just continue with one screen instead of 3 screens until some of the Manufacturers greed subsides. Who knows, an AMD GPU may be in the future or maybe a total switch to a console. If a game console finds its’ way into the home, I will have several GPU’s to sell on eBay and help with the supply chain and greed recovery…smile
potato potahtoe. I just think it’s naive to solely blame price gougers as the reason for expensive GPUs (not saying you specifically, just seems to be OPs grief and overall theme of the thread)
Low supply + High Demand = High prices. Its been like this since time started.
All i see in this thread is a lot of speculation and conspiracy theories as to why computer parts are expensive as they are. It could be none of them, it could be all of them. Like i said it’s naïve to believe price gougers are the sole reason for expensive GPUs. Or any one reason is the reason why. If there was a common denominator, money is the motivation, but not for a lack of, I think they need to do whatever they have to in order to break even and maybe turn a profit.
Remember when China banned cryptomining and we all thought GPU prices would go down? Fun times, eh?