Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, FIFA 11 - some of the most memorable games of the past 2 decades didn’t require any graphics cards.
Playing a game was simple. We didn’t need the highest-end computer, the RAMs and the cores didn’t matter much, and all of us were just an installation away from having a good time.
Since then, the gaming world has evolved into a much more realistic, graphics-heavy industry. Although the hardware requirements have also gone up, this didn’t stop some average gamers and consumers from playing the games they love.
This segment has always been the most popular category amongst consumers, and the Steam Hardware Survey shows that most people are still using their 5–6-year-old 4-core computer to play games to this day.
If we talk about it from the perspective of Bangladesh, building a budget PC was still possible until late 2020.
The Intel Core-i3 10100f cost only Tk 7,800, and a GTX 1650 cost around Tk 14,000. A person could build a gaming computer spending around Tk 50,000 and still include a monitor within that budget.
A gaming computer with the mentioned spec could handle most modern games at 1080p, with the graphics detail set at low to mid quality. But in the last 1.5 years, the scenario has changed completely.
We all know about the chip crisis and the price surge in every PC component that has taken place since then. But the supply shortage is not the only reason behind the price surge.
The tech companies and manufacturers have understood that they can take advantage of the situation by releasing newer products with ‘better performance’ (read marginally better) than their previous counterparts and charge a higher price premium.
If we think about the processor market, the ever-popular Ryzen 5 3600, a capable six-core processor, costs Tk 16,500. The Intel offering was even cheaper, the core i5-10400f, another six-core processor, cost only Tk 14,000.
In less than two years, the latest six-core Intel processor, the Core-i5 12400 costs Tk 21,000, and the Ryzen 5 5600x costs Tk 26,000. Of course, the performances are better, but gone are the days when an average customer could purchase a well-rounded six-core processor within Tk 15-16,000.
The latest budget offering of Intel, the Core-i3 12100 might cost more than Tk 12,000 after they enter the market, which is 5000 more than the core-i3 10100f. Not to mention, the new motherboard prices have also gone up steadily with the release of newer, pricier CPUs.
The GPU market is in an even more dire position. The GTX 1650 Super was a popular budget GPU, costing Tk 17,500 back in 2020, a price tag that now seems impossible.
When the RX 5600xt came out, it cost 31,000 Tk. The new RX 6600 GPU, which has similar performance as the RX 5600XT, now costs Tk 53,000. This is currently the most ‘value for money’ GPU in the market!
This sort of price increase is likely to continue as manufacturers have understood they can charge higher prices and the customers can do nothing about it.
Getting an affordable GPU or building a budget gaming PC are on their way to obsolescence, and it all happened in a span of fewer than 2 years.
