GPU prices shelved my upgrade plans, so I pushed my 5-year-old GPU to its limits
It seems ever since the pandemic, the PC hardware market has been wading in and out of stormy waters. One crisis after another keeps PC component prices inflated, with only a handful of small windows in between where gamers can buy parts at MSRP. I let one such window slip from my hands last year when I failed to pull the trigger on the RTX 5080, at a time when it was retailing at $1,000. After the September-October window, however, GPU prices breached the stratosphere, and all my upgrade dreams were shattered. With another two years (at least) of this hardware crisis on the cards, I decided to make the most of my existing GPU, the once-great RTX 3080. I've used the Ampere card mostly at stock settings in the three years that I've had it, but I finally took overclocking and undervolting seriously to squeeze a few more years out of it.
It seems ever since the pandemic, the PC hardware market has been wading in and out of stormy waters. One crisis after another keeps PC component prices inflated, with only a handful of small windows in between where gamers can buy parts at MSRP. I let one such window slip from my hands last year when I failed to pull the trigger on the RTX 5080, at a time when it was retailing at $1,000. After the September-October window, however, GPU prices breached the stratosphere, and all my upgrade dreams were shattered. With another two years (at least) of this hardware crisis on the cards, I decided to make the most of my existing GPU, the once-great RTX 3080. I’ve used the Ampere card mostly at stock settings in the three years that I’ve had it, but I finally took overclocking and undervolting seriously to squeeze a few more years out of it.
Azar Kostishin
Ukraine
Ukraine
Published by: aplhsindia.in
