Hacker News Reader

Comment by malnourish | Hacker News Reader

I will be astonished if I'll be able to get a 5090 due to availability. The 5080's comparative lack of memory is a buzzkill -- 16 GB seems like it's going to be a limiting factor for 4k gaming.

Does anyone know what these might cost in the US after the rumored tariffs?

View on HN

Honestly, with how fast memory is being consumed nowadays and the increased focus on frame generation/interpolation vs “full frames”, I’ll keep my 3090 a little longer instead of upgrading to a 5080 or 5090. It’s not the fastest, but it’s a solid card even in 2025 for 1440p RT gaming on a VRR display, and the memory lets me tinker with LLMs without breaking a sweat.

If DLSS4 and “MOAR POWAH” are the only things on offer versus my 3090, it’s a hard pass. I need efficiency, not a bigger TDP.

I use my 3090 on a 4K TV and still don't see a need, although a lot of that is being bored with most big budget games so I don't have many carrots to push me to upgrade.

Turn down a few showcase features and games still look great and run well with none or light DLSS. UE5 Lumen/ray tracing are the only things I feel limited on and until consoles can run them they'll be optional.

It seems all the gains are brute forcing these features with upscaling & frame generation which I'm not a fan of anyway.

Maybe a 7090 at this rate for me.

Efficiency is why I switched from a 3090 to a 4080. The amount of heat generated by my PC was massively reduced with that change. Even if the xx90 weren't jumping up in price each generation, I wouldn't be tempted to buy one again (I didn't even really want the 3090, but that was during the supply shortages and it was all I could get my hands on).

Pricing for the next generation might be somewhat better if Nvidia switches to Samsung for 2nm like the rumors suggest:

https://wccftech.com/nvidia-is-rumored-to-switch-towards-sam...

Coincidentally, the 3090 was made using Samsung's 8nm process. You would be going from one Samsung fabricated GPU to another.

NVidia's pricing isn't based on how much it takes to produce their cards, but since they have no competition, it's purely based on how much consumers are grudgingly willing to pay up. If AMD continues to sleep, they'll sale these cards for the same price, even if they could produce them for free.

Nvidia’s Titan series cards always were outrageously priced for the consumer market. The 5090 is a Titan series card in all but name.

I suspect there is a correlation to the price that it costs Nvidia to produce these. In particular, the price is likely 3 times higher than the production and distribution costs. The computer industry has always had significant margins on processors.

AMD is not sleeping. They publicly admitted that they threw in the towel- they have exited the high end market.

And if these 50-series specs are anything to go by, they made a good call in doing so. All the big improvements are coming in mid-range cards, where AMD, nVidia, and Intel(!) are trading blows.

If the only way to get better raw frames in modern GPUs is to basically keep shoveling power into them like an old Pentium 4, then that’s not exactly an enticing or profitable space to be in. Best leave that to nVidia and focus your efforts on a competitive segment where cost and efficiency are more important.

DLSS4 is coming to other RTX cards, eventually. https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/geforce/news/dlss4-multi-frame-...

Note, the portions of DLSS4 that improve 2x frame generation performance/stability and the improved models for upscaling are coming to other rtx cards. DlSS4 multi-frame generation will not.

4k gaming is dumb. I watched a LTT video that came out today where Linus said he primarily uses gaming monitors and doesn't mess with 4k.

There are good 4K gaming monitors, but they start at over $1200 and if you don't also have a 4090 tier rig, you won’t be able to get full FPS out of AAA games at 4k.

I still have a 3080 and game at 4K/120Hz. Most AAA games that I try can pull 60-90Hz at ~4K if DLSS is available.

Most numbers people are touting are from "Ultra everything benchmarks", lowering the settings + DLLS makes 4k perfectly playable.

I've seen analysis showing that DLSS might actually yield a higher quality image than barebones for the same graphics settings owing to the additional data provided by motion vectors. This plus the 2x speedup makes it a no brainer in my book.

Also, ultrawide monitors. They exist, provide more immersion. And typical resolution is 3440x1440 which is high and and the same time have low ppi (basically regular 27" 1440p monitor with extra width). Doubling that is way outside modern GPU capabilities

A coworker who is really into flight sims runs 6 ultrawide curved monitors to get over 180 degrees around his head.

I have to admit with the display wrapping around into peripheral vision, it is very immersive.

No it's not. 2560x1440 has terrible PPI on larger screens. Either way with a 4k monitor you don't technically need to game at 4k as most intensive games offer DLSS anyway.

And FSR, which is cross gpu vendor.

Not anymore. FSR4 is AMD only, and only the new RDNA4 GPUs.

I have seen AMD's PR materials for RDNA4, and as far as I can tell, they do not say anywhere anything like that.

People read too much into "designed for RDNA4".

https://cdn.videocardz.com/1/2025/01/AMD-FSR4-9070.jpg

Why would they write that on their marketing slides?

Because it only works on these cards right now.

Further elaborated by their GPU marketing people on interviews. To summarize "RDNA4 for now" and "we're looking into supporting older...".

What matters is the PPD, not the PPI, otherwise it's an unsound comparison.

Too much personal preference with PPD. When I upgraded to a 32" monitor from a 27" one i didn't push my display through my wall, it sat in the same position.

Not entirely clear on what you mean, but if you refuse to reposition your display or yourself after hopping between diagonal sizes and resolutions, I'd say it's a bit disingenuous to blame or praise either afterwards. Considering you seem to know what PPD is, I think you should be able to appreciate the how and why.

Yep. I have both 4k and 1440p monitors and I can’t tell the difference in quality so I always use the latter for better frames. I use the 4k for reading text though, it’s noticeably better.

That's why I also finally went from 1920x1200 to 4k about half a year ago. It was mostly for reading text and programming, not gaming.

I can tell the difference in games if I go looking for it, but in the middle of a tense shootout I honestly don't notice that I have double the DPI.

I watched the same video you talking about [1], where he's trying the PG27UCDM (new 27" 4K 240Hz OLED "gaming monitor" [2]) and his first impressions are "it's so clean and sharp", then he starts Doom Eternal and after a few seconds he says "It's insane [...] It looks perfect".

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQ404RCyqhk

[2] https://rog.asus.com/monitors/27-to-31-5-inches/rog-swift-ol...

Taking anything Linus or LTT says seriously is even dumber....

Nonsense 4k gaming was inevitable as soon as 4k TVs got mainstream.

Almost no one plays on native 4k anyway. DLSS Quality (no framegen etc) renders at 1440p internally and by all accounts there is no drawback at all, especially above 60fps. Looks great, no noticeable (excluding super sweaty esports titles) lag and 30% more performance. Combined with VRR displays, I would say 4k is perfectly ok for gaming.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com