The months roll by slow, without relief.
The price of hardware beggars belief.
The weather is bleak, the thoughts are black;
Ah! When will the old days come back?
How have you been, dear reader? Have you needed to purchase a non-GPU, non-RAM, and non-SSD piece of hardware recently? That is good, for the prices of those are stable.
For the rest who have suffered the misfortune of needing a new high-end graphics card, or additional memory, then we offer our sympathies. We at Logical Increments need new graphics cards, too. To play Grand Theft Auto 6? No, no, not at all, never, no. Because… GTA6 is coming out on consoles first, and we are on PC. So we need new cards by next year, and we have arranged several tables to flip if prices do not return to sanity by then.
But what about right now?
An Old/New Recommendation
While we wait, the price fluctuations and EOL-ing of older items have brought forth a surprising little hero: The A380! It is a quiet, smooth thing, capable and worthy, with decent fuel economy (Editor’s note: ?) and unrivaled passenger carrying capacity (Editor’s note: ??!). Launched in the year 2000, it was—
Please hold, I am getting a call from my editor.
I see. Alright.
Launched in the year 2022, the A380 was one of Intel’s earliest serious attempts at a real discrete card, as opposed to Intel’s prior mobile/integrated GPUs. It suffered at launch from poor drivers, and the fact that many systems back then lacked resizable BAR… in addition to having a name that is identical to a slightly different product.
But it has been a few years, and Intel’s drivers have improved tremendously. And all modern systems have resizable BAR. And, somehow, the $150 A380 price has remained unchanged, which must be some sort of miracle.
So if you are okay with an older card, and its performance and price are acceptable, you will find the A380 in the Entry and Modest tiers on the Logical Increments main chart.
Site Changes
And while you are checking out our main chart, if you are a regular, you may find that some tier names have changed. The Destitute, Poor, and Minimum tiers have been renamed to Barebones, Frugal, and Baseline. These three changes were voluntary, and made by us without being forced or threatened.
Coincidentally, some friendly gentlemen in suits visited us (as friends do) and politely talked to us and asked us friendly questions, and on that day the tier “Extremist” was renamed to Extreme. That change was also voluntary, and made by us without being forced or threatened.
We have been working on site caching, and making the tiers load more efficiently. Did you notice the site loads faster? Mobile should look and load a bit better too.
Do tell us what you think of these changes. And if there are some suggestions that you have for us, let us know! Your comments, suggestions, and criticisms are always welcome at Logical Increments.
Going Forward
While the situation has not changed much in the last month, do take the time, dear reader, to reflect on the good aspects of life, and try to remember that bad times cannot last forever. Time heals all wounds, including AI-psychosis, the AI datacentres with their insatiable RAM demands, and the subsequent RAM shortages.
Do not say, “2019 was the end of an era.” Instead, say that, “2020-2026 were humanity’s lost years, before we found our footing once again.” Perhaps the day when prices become reasonable will come sooner than we expect. Perhaps we can purchase new cards then, and play GTA6 on PC at medium settings. What? Yeah, medium settings, because we are realistic and we saw the launch of both Crysis and Witcher 3.
So do not fear what lies in store;
We have been through this before.
The clouds will part, the sun will shine,
And we will both, one day, be fine.