By Andrew Georgy
“Wow! This is the best purchase I have ever made!” said no one ever after spending almost $750 (or more) to acquire NVIDIA’s latest graphics card series, the 5070, 5070 TI, 5080 and 5090 cards. Yet despite NVIDIA’s underwhelming launch on January 30, the tech world makes it seem like an atrocity has just been committed.
Now, this is no longer a praise session for the 5000 series. The launches have been inconsistent and shaky, and the reliance on AI is questionable, especially when we see no considerable difference between the two higher-end cards, the 4090 and 5090. If we compare the 3090 TI to the 4090, you see a massive performance difference (almost double in all categories), while when we compare the 4090 to the 5090, you only see a 23%-26% figure.
But I’ve noticed an interesting trend among so-called “tech experts” and “PC YouTubers.” They have trashed this series, with most saying to hold out for AMD’s release, a direct competitor of NVIDIA.
Well, AMD did release its new lineup, the 9070 series, and while, of course, it’s nice to see a company giving up its higher-end cards to focus on the perfect budget card for every gamer, that’s not what AMD gifted us on March 6. Rather, they gave us a comparable card (only a 3-5% advantage/disadvantage compared to the 5070 TI series) rather than the haven most had expected after such a long wait.
Priced only $50-100 less, too, the card isn’t technically a steal. While it is reasonably priced at the base price (which will probably fluctuate as much as the 5000 series over the next few months due to production and timelines), it’s pretty comparable to the 5000 series while also keeping in mind that the 9070 XT will most likely see a noticeable difference compared to the 5090 when more benchmarks are done.
So why the outrage? Why are so many people making it seem this graphics series was worse than the last one? Why did some switch over to the 9070 series when they’re pretty much the same graphics card (albeit the 9070 has more VRAM)? The answer lies in the consumer’s wallet and vision.
As mentioned before, AMD has almost wholly dropped its higher-end graphics card lineup. It’s also made considerable progress compared to its last drop, where the benchmark was significantly lower than NVIDIA’s 4000 series. They did all this while maintaining a lower price and releasing at the same time as NVIDIA, which gives them a considerable upper hand when someone is deciding between which company to buy from.
But the problem isn’t just in the price difference and great turnaround AMD has had; rather, it’s NVIDIA’s mediocrity.
For a release that was extremely touted and hyped up to have amazing capabilities because of improved ray-tracing and AI incorporations, gamers were left disappointed to see a minimal difference between the last generation and competitors. After what seemed like a bitter ending to a rivalry between AMD over the past few years, NVIDIA left the door wide open by not making any consumer-related improvements. Instead, they focused on advertising all the new but overused features, which made people feel like they were being tricked.
Yet the GPU series itself isn’t terrible. From a logical viewpoint, it’s still very competitive with other companies, especially considering that not many have released similar cards to the 5080 and 5090 cards. The price range (when it hopefully calms down) is also not far-fetched and honestly lower than what many expected (the 5070 will only cost a kidney this time rather than the usual arm and leg).
And who knows: maybe the new 6000 series will prove us all wrong in a couple of years after all (I’m not delusional, you’re delusional).
