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I'm GPU poor. Sick of buying hardware that is not only not fast enough after a year, but not even supported by software that just multiplies and adds numbers in

I'm GPU poor. Sick of buying hardware that is not only not fast enough after a year, but not even supported by software that just multiplies and adds numbers in fancy ways. Debian runs like a champ on my 8 year old CPU. When will gpus last that long?

amelius 3y ago
In the early days of computing this was the same situation with CPUs. However, I do want to complain about the poor tooling around GPUs, particularly package managers, and closedness of drivers. Getting stuff to work on your GPU is often a shitty and time-consuming experience.
vGPU 3y ago
I guess it just depends on what you want to do. Training AI? Probably better off renting computer at this point. Everyday use? I still have a 1070 in my main workstation that has survived three computer upgrades. I am looking to upgrade, but I’m not in a hurry.
- giobox 3y ago
  The 1070/1080 are absolute champions of longevity if using a GPU... for graphics/gaming. I still have a gaming machine with my old 1080ti from 2017 in the house, for the most part it will play most of the latest games like Cyberpunk (albeit with no raytracing, but heyho) at 1080p/1440p at good frame rates. Every year that passes now I genuinely marvel at the useful lifespans of those parts, which has been completely unprecedented for me as someone who has been building gaming PCs since the 90s. The MacBook Pro I bought in the same year is officially classed as "obsolete" by Apple.
calamari4065 3y ago
I ran a used GTX570 until it died in 2017. Then a used GTX780 until it died in 2021. Now I'm on a used Radeon 5600. I paid less than $200 for each of them. I've also been running the same i5-3470 CPU since it was new. Computers can last a long, long time if you can bear the thought of not being on the bleeding edge. Otherwise, yeah, you're going to be paying a premium for brand new tech. That's the trade you make chasing the newest and shiniest thing.
- FirmwareBurner 3y ago
  >Now I'm on a used Radeon 5600. Well AMD just ended support for Vega and Polaris architectures so you're shit out of luck there, proving the point of this thread. And AMD was selling Vega APUs all the way in 2022. So imagine a year later you get the news that the chip in your system is not getting updates because it's architectures is too old. Lol. I wish I couldn't forget AMD for this.
  - calamari4065 3y ago
    Ah, maybe you misunderstood. I use GPUs several generations old explicitly because I don't care for the latest shiny features. My main computer runs a nvidia NVS5400m. It's been out of support for a very long time. I genuinely wasn't even aware that my AMD GPU was still in support at all. Support affects me exactly none. I'll just use whatever default driver my Linux distro provides and never think of it. I'll get whatever kind of performance it provides. As long as it's above 30fps and textures aren't obviously broken, I don't care.
  - beAbU 3y ago
    Games dont magically stop working the moment after support ends, you know.
    - FirmwareBurner 3y ago
      Old games not, but new games do need these things known as optimisations to run well, or eve at all, you know. We give shit to Microsoft for W11 needing quite modern hardware even though the 10 year old W10 will still keep working after support stops, so why don't we hold HW manufacturers to a similar standard for supporting their shit longer than a year? So forgive me for feeling stabbed in the back by being dumped on only a year after purchase.

amelius 3y ago

In the early days of computing this was the same situation with CPUs. However, I do want to complain about the poor tooling around GPUs, particularly package managers, and closedness of drivers. Getting stuff to work on your GPU is often a shitty and time-consuming experience.

vGPU 3y ago

I guess it just depends on what you want to do. Training AI? Probably better off renting computer at this point. Everyday use? I still have a 1070 in my main workstation that has survived three computer upgrades. I am looking to upgrade, but I’m not in a hurry.

giobox 3y ago
The 1070/1080 are absolute champions of longevity if using a GPU... for graphics/gaming. I still have a gaming machine with my old 1080ti from 2017 in the house, for the most part it will play most of the latest games like Cyberpunk (albeit with no raytracing, but heyho) at 1080p/1440p at good frame rates. Every year that passes now I genuinely marvel at the useful lifespans of those parts, which has been completely unprecedented for me as someone who has been building gaming PCs since the 90s. The MacBook Pro I bought in the same year is officially classed as "obsolete" by Apple.

calamari4065 3y ago

I ran a used GTX570 until it died in 2017. Then a used GTX780 until it died in 2021. Now I'm on a used Radeon 5600. I paid less than $200 for each of them. I've also been running the same i5-3470 CPU since it was new. Computers can last a long, long time if you can bear the thought of not being on the bleeding edge. Otherwise, yeah, you're going to be paying a premium for brand new tech. That's the trade you make chasing the newest and shiniest thing.

FirmwareBurner 3y ago
>Now I'm on a used Radeon 5600. Well AMD just ended support for Vega and Polaris architectures so you're shit out of luck there, proving the point of this thread. And AMD was selling Vega APUs all the way in 2022. So imagine a year later you get the news that the chip in your system is not getting updates because it's architectures is too old. Lol. I wish I couldn't forget AMD for this.
- calamari4065 3y ago
  Ah, maybe you misunderstood. I use GPUs several generations old explicitly because I don't care for the latest shiny features. My main computer runs a nvidia NVS5400m. It's been out of support for a very long time. I genuinely wasn't even aware that my AMD GPU was still in support at all. Support affects me exactly none. I'll just use whatever default driver my Linux distro provides and never think of it. I'll get whatever kind of performance it provides. As long as it's above 30fps and textures aren't obviously broken, I don't care.
- beAbU 3y ago
  Games dont magically stop working the moment after support ends, you know.
  - FirmwareBurner 3y ago
    Old games not, but new games do need these things known as optimisations to run well, or eve at all, you know. We give shit to Microsoft for W11 needing quite modern hardware even though the 10 year old W10 will still keep working after support stops, so why don't we hold HW manufacturers to a similar standard for supporting their shit longer than a year? So forgive me for feeling stabbed in the back by being dumped on only a year after purchase.