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The original was posted on /r/pcmasterrace by /u/Rinkzate on 2025-06-04 04:57:11+00:00.
Hello PC gaming folks, just wanted to share a little story that hopefully may make at least one or two people out there who are bummed by the current graphics card situation feel a little bit better about not getting that upgrade you wanted.
A handful of a years ago I went ahead and treated myself to a 3090 ti from EVGA (rip) which cost something to the tune of $1600 on sale. This was at the time a ridiculously large expense for me but I told myself "ok I can definitely skip the 4000 series and then I'll let myself upgrade again in the 5000 series."
I know that for a lot of people even a every other generation upgrade may seem ludicrous but I play a lot of video games. I actually play video games probably as much as I work, typically a bare minimum of 4 hours a day and then often 10+ hours on days off. Spending a good chunk on something I get so much mileage out of makes sense to me.
Anyway, news of the 5000 series broke, I was excited, and then all hell broke loose. I was bummed, and I felt defeated about the upgrade I had promised myself when I got the 3090 ti.
Flash to a handful of months later and I get a chance to get the aorus master ice card for "retail price" from a major retailer at $3000. Not wanting to let the opportunity go back and regret it I went ahead and bought the card.
Here I am about a month later, and I'm going to return it. Maybe I have really unrealistic expectations, but I expected to play the new Doom at 1440 all on ultra and it keep a constant 163 without it breaking a sweat or dropping a single frame. I expected to play expedition 33 on highest settings and it not hitch even slightly when I parry.
I really thought I would be able to see performance I had only dreamt of, and that really just did not happen.
This series at least in my experience is a bit of a farce, and an overpriced one at that. Yes, it is better than my 3090 ti, but being constantly worried about cables melting, drawing 600 watts, and having those settings turned up a smidge higher than I did previously only to still have some performance hiccups just did not improve my gaming experience, and I really don't think it would for most people.
Don't know if anyone will actually give a damn about any of this, but I have seen a lot of people wishing and lamenting on here and I just wanna say that if your situation is anything like mine, you really aren't missing out that much. I think the ridiculously high dollar amounts being appended to these cards leads many of us to believe they're more of moonshot upgrades than they really are. No, we're just in a really screwed market.
