Gaming Study Sheds Light On GPU Budget Limits, How Players Feel About AI Upscaling And More
You don't have to venture far to hear a gamer's opinion on the current state of GPU pricing and gaming technology. Sky high prices for the latest GPUs raise concerns when the performance difference seems minimal for new generation products. Companies like NVIDIA lead with AI upscaling tech as the primary sales point, when gamers are used to traditional rasterized benchmark comparisons historically.
A recent study posted by Liquid Web sheds some light on the fact that gamers are embracing some cloud gaming services in light of high hardware prices. AI upscaling technologies such as NIVDIA's DLSS and AMD's FSR can be found in the latest GPUs and inside gaming consoles like the Nintendo Switch 2.
It shared some interesting stats from the 1,000 gamers it surveyed, such as 57% of gamers pinged had trouble acquiring a GPU, and 43% have delayed such purchases. Furthermore, 25% of gamers said $500 is the max budget they're willing to spend on a GPU. This is tough when the ceiling is as high as the GeForce RTX 5090, which retails for closer to $3,000 (the baseline MSRP is $1,999). Some more mainstream GPUs, such as the GeForce RTX 5070, are also more expensive than $500.
While AMD offers some competition, the survey also found that 73% of gamers prefer NVIDIA GPUs over AMD. The future may not necessarily be about hardware, however, as cloud gaming is quickly ramping up in popularity. Some 62% of gamers said they would be open to cloud gaming if it had no latency, and performance was on par with traditional hardware. This is a tall undertaking, however, with inconsistent network performance across even higher population areas. That said, we've had good experiences with GeForce NOW.
While pricing is an important factor, performance tops the list of what gamers initially are looking for in a GPU purchase. NVIDIA has been the leader for performance, even in the age of AI upscaling. Its DLSS technology with multi-frame generation and similar innovations lead the pack in terms of impact on gaming, albeit they're not perfect.
Intel has struggled to establish a foothold in the GPU race, with AMD often making some interesting moves that fall short of really catching NVIDIA's dominance. Gamers are watching, and will go to whichever side gives them the best performance for the dollar long term, as this study indicates.
A recent study posted by Liquid Web sheds some light on the fact that gamers are embracing some cloud gaming services in light of high hardware prices. AI upscaling technologies such as NIVDIA's DLSS and AMD's FSR can be found in the latest GPUs and inside gaming consoles like the Nintendo Switch 2.
It shared some interesting stats from the 1,000 gamers it surveyed, such as 57% of gamers pinged had trouble acquiring a GPU, and 43% have delayed such purchases. Furthermore, 25% of gamers said $500 is the max budget they're willing to spend on a GPU. This is tough when the ceiling is as high as the GeForce RTX 5090, which retails for closer to $3,000 (the baseline MSRP is $1,999). Some more mainstream GPUs, such as the GeForce RTX 5070, are also more expensive than $500.
While AMD offers some competition, the survey also found that 73% of gamers prefer NVIDIA GPUs over AMD. The future may not necessarily be about hardware, however, as cloud gaming is quickly ramping up in popularity. Some 62% of gamers said they would be open to cloud gaming if it had no latency, and performance was on par with traditional hardware. This is a tall undertaking, however, with inconsistent network performance across even higher population areas. That said, we've had good experiences with GeForce NOW.
While pricing is an important factor, performance tops the list of what gamers initially are looking for in a GPU purchase. NVIDIA has been the leader for performance, even in the age of AI upscaling. Its DLSS technology with multi-frame generation and similar innovations lead the pack in terms of impact on gaming, albeit they're not perfect.
Intel has struggled to establish a foothold in the GPU race, with AMD often making some interesting moves that fall short of really catching NVIDIA's dominance. Gamers are watching, and will go to whichever side gives them the best performance for the dollar long term, as this study indicates.
