• Alphane Moon@lemmy.worldOPM
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    3 months ago

    I of course agree there is not enough competition in the GPU and that we need more proper regulation (making drivers code public domain 5 years after release, opening up CUDA and NVlink), but I do think there is “hard floor” on budget GPUs.

    This primarily due to inflation and some of the fixed costs inherent to delivering a GPU device to the market.

    I remember back in 2004, my dad bought me 6600 GT for around $230. A great (nominal) price for what was then a solid mindranger. But that being said $230 in 2004 dollar is around $380 in modern 2024 dollars.

    It also seems that with chips being so complicated these days, even a small die with limited memory/features, still has a lot of “fixed” costs around validation, packaging and so on.

    The GPU market is definitely an oligopoly and lacks competition though.