I’ve been playing games on PC since my IBM XT, and I think that you’re statement “How many of the people dishing out north of $300 on a GPU are competitive e sports players or popular streamers? Probably most of them are not.” is completely off for a few reasons. I bought video cards that cost in that range in the 90s, hell they didn’t even do 3D acceleration then. I have never been an esports player, and that wasn’t even a thing back then. Higher end GPUs have always been expensive niche products that were targeting people that wanted the best performance and were willing to spend probably unwise amount of money for it. The chart in the post was showing the top of the line Nvidia cards, maybe of which were essentially “SLI in one card” halo products that most people weren’t buying. If you think that $300 is actually still a reasonable price for a decent GPU, you are misinformed. The last GPU I owned that was less than that was Nvidia Riva TNT from STB that was which was $250 or so in 1998. My fancy 2D only card that I owned years before that was even more expensive (it was a Number Nine video card if you’re curious). My current GPU was a super good deal at under $700 when I got it, and I never produce “frames that are not perceived”, I still have a 60Hz monitor. I just like high resolutions and less GPUs struggle with playing things even remotely smoothly unless I turn down many of the settings.
Yes, I can still technically play many of these games on the steam deck or use a cheap GPU, but it will be play and look poorly, especially on my rather large high resolution monitor that I use for work.
I’ve been playing games on PC since my IBM XT, and I think that you’re statement “How many of the people dishing out north of $300 on a GPU are competitive e sports players or popular streamers? Probably most of them are not.” is completely off for a few reasons. I bought video cards that cost in that range in the 90s, hell they didn’t even do 3D acceleration then. I have never been an esports player, and that wasn’t even a thing back then. Higher end GPUs have always been expensive niche products that were targeting people that wanted the best performance and were willing to spend probably unwise amount of money for it. The chart in the post was showing the top of the line Nvidia cards, maybe of which were essentially “SLI in one card” halo products that most people weren’t buying. If you think that $300 is actually still a reasonable price for a decent GPU, you are misinformed. The last GPU I owned that was less than that was Nvidia Riva TNT from STB that was which was $250 or so in 1998. My fancy 2D only card that I owned years before that was even more expensive (it was a Number Nine video card if you’re curious). My current GPU was a super good deal at under $700 when I got it, and I never produce “frames that are not perceived”, I still have a 60Hz monitor. I just like high resolutions and less GPUs struggle with playing things even remotely smoothly unless I turn down many of the settings.
Yes, I can still technically play many of these games on the steam deck or use a cheap GPU, but it will be play and look poorly, especially on my rather large high resolution monitor that I use for work.