Is the "liberal leftist alliance" over?

 So...Kyle just had a debate with someone where they were discussing if the "liberal leftist alliance" is collapsing because some vocal liberals are threatening to leave the democratic party and I wanna just put a stop to this right now. 

As someone who has been fighting for my own politics within the democratic party since the 2016 election cycle, no, it's not. In 2016, I got pissed off and tried to leave the democrats, but then most people just voted for clinton anyway. In 2020 I was still pissed and went for howie hawkins, and guess what, most still voted democrat. In 2024, it seemed like "leftists" collapsed with bernie being too old to run again, and it seemed like the left had no future. But then harris lost and now we're having a democratic tea party where some leftists are getting power, which is causing the centrists to threaten to leave too. The fact is, we've been fighting over control of the democratic party since 2016, and now that progressives are gaining power some are threatening to leave and you know what? Most probably won't. And the ones that do...well...woof, good riddance on that ones, they're the ones I hate.

If anything, the democrats in 2026 seem more united than we've seen in a decade. And I'd say we're kinda reaching an ideological melding where we're kinda left, but not super left. people talk about James Talarico being the most popular candidate running, but he's a mcmorrow brand democrat, even with his weird christian framing of things that make him sound conservative. people also like zohran mamdani and abdul el sayed. 

And...looking forward to 2028, i'm gonna be real, I was looking at polling data last night, and much like with 2020 and 2024, I dont think a huge appetite for a hard leftist candidate exists. I see AOC as a long shot to the presidency. Even if she did make it out of the primary, her numbers are abysmal and she flat out loses the popular vote to vance and rubio. We clearly arent at a point where "socialism" is appealing to democratic voters at large and I dont expect that to change.

Even my politics are kinda melding into the democratic party. Dont get me wrong, I like bernie progressives, but I do clearly have ideological differences from them. And my own ideology is also kind of a melding of progressivism and centrism at this point.

On social issues I'm an anti woke libertarian progressive. I dislike the obnoxious overtures to social justice known as "woke 1" or whatever, but I still largely embody the actual ideas of "woke" put into practice, being accepting of just about everyone as long as you dont piss in my cornflakes and get on my bad side with the toxic woke 1 nonsense. On foreign policy, I'm literally just a biden democrat but with a more anti israel stance at this point (and lets face it, israel brought whatever shifts i made from 2023 on themselves). Even on economics, my views are complicated. 

I mean...I'm basically more andrew yang than bernie sanders at this point. I want major systemic change, but I dont think going back to the new deal or implementing socialism is good enough. I like medicare for all in theory, but i champion the public option for cost related reasons. I still embrace bernie style politics on education and housing, but then on the green new deal, I'm definitely more in the centrist wing. But then I just outflank the bernie wing being all in on UBI, pissing off the centrist AND left wings at the same time since that's too spicy for centrists and too controversial for leftists. Barring my UBI aspirations though, once again, I kinda just meet in the middle of the two wings. Im neither a leftist, nor a centrist. Again, I'd say if we use the michigan primary with stevens, mcmorrow, and el sayed as a metric for the 3 paths democrats can take, I'm more mcmorrow, and while mcmorrow kind of got stuck between the other 2 candidates, in other races, LIKE texas and others, mcmorrow style democrats seem to be the answer. They're progressive enough to win progressives but still kinda moderate enough to get the normies. In some ways, yeah, I am more left wing than those guys...but do I really agree with actual leftists on much? That's the thing, I don't. I'm kinda my own thing. Ya know, back to the whole "radical and moderate" at the same thing mindset. And I think some variation of both radical and moderate at the same time is the answer. Full on centrists suck, but leftists are also a bit too spicy and dogmatic around solutions that I quite frankly dont identify with any more. Ya know? And I kinda think that while the populace at large is still more moderate than me, the center of gravity for the democratic party is basically that in between radical but moderate model...just without my own UBI anti work dogmatism. Gotta keep in mind your median american and even democrat is still jobist AF and won't give up on their weird work worship. To me its more a combination of ignorance and indoctrination, but that seems to be where they are.

Anyway, with that said, I dont think the public wants like, full on socialist solutions, and polling doesnt indicate that they do. But I also dont think they want a moderate either. Again, we're kinda gonna need someone to thread the needle. I'd love to say my politics are the answer, but unless you strip UBI and my anti work stuff out of them I dont think they fit the bill for the moment either. Still, maybe a talarico type? Or a bolder Biden/Harris style democrat? 

Like, again, IM basing this on polling, but right now, the option most dems seem most comfortable with is another Harris run. It's not my cup of tea, but then the debate becomes if not her, then who? Buttigieg is just harris but even more moderate. He's somewhat popular. Newsom is a moderate with the aura of a used car salesman for better or for worse. AOC is in the running, but with 11% or so support, which is about where she's at, and polling in the negatives vs vance and rubio....eh...is she the right play? I know for the left lane, I've more or less endorsed her as a standout candidate. Because again, if not her, who? Ro Khanna? Andrew yang? Again, Andrew yang is MY choice. I'd LOVE Yang to run again. If Yang ran again I'd simp so hard for him unless he totally F-s up and loses my support. But will he? Idk. Like to me, Andrew Yang is everything this country needs right now. He is more progressive than a centrist, and more moderate than a leftist, and he is UBI pilled and able to address the modern crises surrounding AI. If were still in a bubble he could do his whole "the robots are coming" pitch, and if we're in great recession 2.0 by then, he can advocate for it as an anti poverty program. Either way, I want Yang more than anyone. 

But barring that, we're gonna have to make some hard choices for 2028 for who to run. And I'll be honest, whomever we run, needs to be ELECTABLE. Again, AOC is nice on paper, but can she win? I aint seeing the math working for her, neither in the primary or general. Right now, we're gonna end up with Harris 2028 is gonna be my guess. ANd if harris aint it, it's gonna be like buttigieg or newsom, with the off chance of some other centrist breaking through like josh shapiro or mark kelly. Idk. 2028 can be wild and we might even have a donald trump movement where someone completely out of left field runs and takes off. Who knows?  We might end up with like michelle obama or something because the public reveres the obama family by this point and whenever she's talked about a lot of people will vote for her just out of nostalgia, who knows? I really dunno where we're going next.

Either way, I dont think we're at a point where the democratic coalition is at risk of serious breakage. I honestly see the die hard centrists at this point as a boomer faction that's gonna lose relevance as time continues to do its thing. And leftists, well, they've always been a minority. Most democrats kinda want something in the middle between them, and I honestly think being progressive without being aggressively leftist is the play in the modern environment for a national election. Leftists can continue to gain traction in local races, but yeah, they're not gonna by hyper relevant in 2028. But neither will the die hard centrist wing either. Theyre kinda dying out.

Again, I actually think the modern dems are pretty united in the modern environment. The focus right now is on getting trump out. We will still see infighting into the 2030s, but I think for 2026 and 2028, we're likely gonna all be on about the same page, and even if some people (including myself) will complain about things, it really does come down to 'well what's the alternative?" Again, we're stuck with the dems whether we like it or not. And so are they. And none of us have the numbers to really force the party to one extreme or the other. That's my honest take on the situation.  

Discussing the GPU market...again...

 So...time to discuss the GPU market....again. This article will be a bit more on the political side though, and needs to be discussed. So....JayZTwoCents nailed it again in discussing how the current AI market is...in fact, a bubble. There's been a lot of rumblings over this over the past few days, and I largely agree. Even more concerning, now there are reports saying that a lot of GPUs are just sitting unused in warehouses since Nvidia and other sellers like those in the RAM industry are pressuring buyers to buy stuff they dont need because if they don't, they fear not being able to get their hands on them. This is leading to a lot of buyers buying excessive amounts of GPUs...and then storing them in warehouses unused. And I just wanna say, freaking called it.

Seriously, Im no econ expert with markets and investing, but even I could see this from a mile away. The AI bubble has been a sight to behold. And not in a good way. It seems like collective short term insanity. People are convinced that AI is the next big thing and they gotta to out and BUY BUY BUY or be left behind. Even normal consumers are doing it, and it just comes off as insane to me. Suddenly people who have $200-300 GPUs are going out buying 9070 XTs at $800+ fearing that if they dont BUY NOW they wont be able to later and that things will get worse. but again, this whole thing is FOMO. It's like the crypto stuff again, or the covid shortage, and people keep talking like YOU DONT KNOW THAT ITS JUST GONNA GET WORSE, BUY NOW! And...my own opinion? This is unsustainable.

Here's the thing. Companies exist to make money. And for as damning as nvidia looks in that above article, they're making money hand over fist over this. it's like they created a new gold rush and they're making a killing selling the shovels. As for the other companies, this looks more and more iffy.

Here's the thing. It's like AI has been forced on us for a good 3-4 years now. I started noticing it right after I upgraded my PC last time, how we suddenly need NPUs on CPUs even though I dont care about AI and have next to no use case for it. Sure I could use it to improve my writing, but what's the point in doing that? I do it for the love of the game, and even professionally, there are ethical concerns with just having AI write for you. Like do you even own your own work?

But still, these companies were convinced to CREATE a need in the populace. When that largely failed, they pivoted to businesses, who were hooked with promises of eliminating jobs and improving productivity. And while AI does have great promise of doing that, even I, the anti work guy, know that there are some obvious limitations. Also, AI companies are basically being forced to give away their product very cheaply or even free to get consumers hooked because...again, those consumers (businesses) also need to make money. AI is only worth it if it's cheaper than human labor. And given its obvious drawbacks it often isn't better than human labor at the jobs. Maybe it'll get there eventually, but we're not there yet.

Still, major companies were all pressured by each other and competition to buy into AI models. open AI was the early one but lots of people not use claude. I tend to use gemini these days given its integrated right into google searches if i need it. And heres the thing. How are they making money on this? I mean, again, a lot of users are only using it because it IS free and being forced onto the websites we use anyway. It seems like the idea is that if we get people hooked on AI now, they wont be able to live without it later, and then they can charge subscriptions for it. But if they do that, guess what, a lot of the casual users are OUT and it's only a minority of businesses and power users who will insist on using it all the time.

So with that said, let's discuss what the AI bubble is, it's Nvidia and other companies pressuring buyers to BUY now to build data centers nobody wants for a product that no one really wants, and there's serious questions of whether it will be profitable. Because, again, I cant see people wanting to PAY for AI, outside of some businesses seeking to automate work flows, and even that will happen less than we think it will IMO, given how fallible AI really is and how unreliable it gets when humans arent actually constantly double checking everything it does. Like seriously, it isnt human, it will do weird stuff, it'll get lazy, hallucinate, fall into weird logic loops that cause it to quickly become corrupt and stuff. it cant really be trusted with anything. it can be a nice tool, but its usefulness is overstated. And again, I say this as the anti work guy. 

So...with that said...how the hell are the companies supposed to make money off of this? They're buying tons of GPUs at inflated costs, building warehouses no one wants, for a product no one wants, and doesn't have a clear path to profitability. And heres the reality, we're in a huge debt bubble. These companies took on huge debt to push this product and get it up and running, believing they can make up the money later. They'll go into debt now...hoping to become profitable in a few years, but if they don't, guess what, they'll likely go bankrupt. And we're likely gonna see a lot of companies doing that. Because again, this is a gold rush with nvidia selling the shovels.

And a lot of people, including jayz above, are saying when it pops it's gonna be painful for all of us. because this AI bubble is the only thing keeping the economy going. Trump's policies sure AF arent helping. The economy is growing DESPITE trump's policies, and AI is literally the core reason. All of this money going back and forth is artificially increasing GDP and when that bubble pops, BOOM, we're back in 2008 again. And people are gonna be laid off from their jobs, their retirements will be kaput if they're in the stock market, it's gonna be a bad time. 

Honestly, at this point though, and I know these takes are harsh, I'm to the point of saying this market correction is needed. I hope, if this is a bubble, it pops before 2028 because that will MASSIVELY help the democrats. Hell, it might actually propel progressive candidates to the forefront, since economic populism will be on the menu again. Maybe the public WILL want an andrew yang or AOC if this happens. 

And as far as GPUs...well....if you didnt buy into the hysteria, 2028ish might finally be the time to upgrade our 2022-2023 era parts. Imagine if we suddenly see say, RDNA4 chips (since AMD will likely drop first, Nvidia will artificially keep prices high as long as possible) at RDNA2 pricing. Like, imagine THIS product stack:

RX 9060 XT 8 GB- $200

RX 9060 XT 16 GB- $250

RX 9070 GRE- $350

RX 9070- $450

RX 9070 XT- $500

....or something like this. I'm kinda basing that on RDNA2 pricing vaguely, kinda like how we had:

 RX 6600- $200

RX 6650 XT- $250

RX 6700 XT- $350

RX 6800- $480

RX 6850 XT- $600

I mean, it can happen. If we have a bubble burst, we could get something like that. Happened once, it can happen again, especially if we suddenly got tons of GPUs sitting in a warehouse that they have to sell. 

Nvidia ones likely will still be at MSRP, they'll push $250 for a 5050, $300 for a 5060, etc., and it will be a bad value but some idiots will buy them anyway, just like they're buying them now at the ridiculous inflated prices where a 5060 Ti 16 GB costs as much as a 9070 XT. Im mostly betting on AMD being cheaper at this point. 

I know a lot of people will think this is a ridiculous fantasy and "theyll never let us have good hardware again and it will get worse", but that's what they want you to think. They want the consumer to BUY NOW, fearing that in the future it will get even more expensive. That's kind of part of the bubble. it's a pump and dump scheme driven by FOMO and short term thinking. Right now the prices are being pumped, and then the bubble will deflate, and we'll get the inevitable "dump." I'm waiting for the dump. 

Now, some might fear they cant afford an upgrade if they lose their job in the impending aftermath of this bubble bursting. That IS a legitimate concern. But still, if you CAN swing it, yeah, this is the play IMO. Dont buy now, i mean, you're insane if you buy now. Wait for this crap to burst and the prices to drop like crazy, THEN upgrade cheaply if you can afford it. Buying right now is like buying in 2021 when GTX 1050 tis were $400. Dont do that, you'll regret it.

Anyway, that's my take on the situation. And you know what? When the bubble does pop, give AMD, and if you can stomach the downsides, even intel, your business. Nvidia deserves to be punished for doing this crap IMO. And it's so stupid, they do all of this abusive behavior, and then 90% of people buy them anyway. Just...dont. There are other companies out there, especially if you're a gamer. AMD being the best one besides nvidia. Even Intel is half decent, although I kinda got reservations for reasons mentioned previously. Still, as we saw in my article thinking about it rationally, I tend to exaggerate intel's problems to some degree and have a bias against them as a result. But yeah, that's where I stand.  

Election Update: 10/23/26

 Okay, so we're getting down to the point where the election is in less than 2 weeks, and next week's Friday update will be the last of the season. We've come a long way, and it would be a shame to choke now. Sadly, that's what I'm gonna be spending much of today discussing.

Before we get to that though, I want to discuss the rest of the election season. So, next week I'll post my last friday update. I'll then make a semi final update Monday, with me finalizing my predictions on Tuesday before polls close. I also have been toying with a mid week update next week, although doubt there will be significant need for it. With that said, let's get to it.

Senate

 

So...if people have been following this stuff lately, YIKES, this map is a marked shift toward the republicans. It's only about a one point shift, but seeing movement in the republican direction does concern me. If we want to understand why it's so concerning, let's look at this chart:

Yeah....we were going in a direction where the democrats were getting a more and more solidified chance over the senate, but now they're regressing to the mean. This is by no means fatal to them. But this movement can be problematic. Im saying can be because, I'm not sure about it. On the one hand, I was thinking, okay, maybe things are shifting republican because the last minuters genuinely like MAGA. It's a terrifying thought but sadly my opinion of the median voter is such where it wouldn't surprise me. 

However, there is another explanation, which is far more benign in a way, but also concerning in its own way. See, polling aggregators use the last few polls an organization puts out to judge their performance for the election season. This is putting pressure on the polling organizations to herd, rather than putting out risky polls that could sour their reputation (see: Ann Selzer's 2024 poll). After all, if someone comes out with a bold prediction and it's wrong, they're never gonna hear the end of it, and they won't be included in future election cycles due to being wrong, and kind of become less relevant. On the other hand, if these polling organizations play it safe, and post generic results indicating what they THINK will happen rather than what their data science suggests, well, that makes their final polls less risky, meaning they have a greater chance of being included in the average in future cycles. 

This is problematic because we should want pollsters to put out the truth no matter what. Accuracy is important, yes, but the integrity of the industry is also important, and herding kind of undermines the trust of the industry. people already say we shouldnt listen to polls as they're often wrong or fake, and if they're basically faking or weighting their results in a way to get a result that looks publicly palatable and noncontroversial but is wrong, that's problematic. We should want pollsters to put out the truth no matter what it is, and no matter how controversial it is. 

I admit, even I kind of think the results will be more conservative than polls have been indicating. I think dems are favored to win the senate, but recognize that it's very possible for republicans to overperform. last week, I pointed out the chaos a R+2.5 environment would cause to senate results. This week R+1.5 would deliver the same effect, because the tipping point shifted almost a point since then, and most states that were in the D+2-3 territory are now in D+1-2 territory. This is still "lean dem", but it's more 60-65% probability vs around 70%. 

Given the ambiguity as to why this is happening, it also gives us conflicting narratives of what's happening. It could indicate the electorate shifting more toward the republicans in the final weeks of the campaign. It could also indicate, if the herding explanation is accurate, that the final result will be far more DEMOCRATIC than anticipated. The polls could be trying to compensate for some perceived left wing bias, meaning the polling is more right leaning than the actual reality of things, and we could see democrats OVERPERFORM the polls. 

Which explanation is true? I dont know either way. I just wanted to talk about it.

As it stands, Ive given up trying to predict which way the politics winds are blowing. The data is the data, I'll stand with it, take it or leave it. The probabilities are the probabilities as well. Lean D, but decent chance of an R outcome. 

House

Regardless of what's going on with the senate races, one thing I can confidently say is the democrats still have a lock on the house. Once again, it's more a matter how much the democrats will get, not whether they take control. 

I also can say we're getting more polling this week. Not enough to justify making its own model, although I might sneak in a polling hybrid model by election day kinda like the 2024 model. We can compare which one ends up being more accurate. I won't say the polling model is necessarily better or worse for dems than the fundamentals driven one, but it does give different results. While sometimes it corroborates my model, other times it gives radically diverging takes on a handful of house seats. Sometimes it's more optimistic, sometimes less so. Again, not really better or worse, just different. 

Governors

 

Here I dont really have much to say and the results are similar to last week's.

Conclusion

With that said, once again, this is one of the last ones of the season. Next week is the last weekly one, and then after that it's gonna be my prediction prediction. 1.5 more weeks until this stuff is over. I kinda cant wait. By the time we get to this point, it's like...I just want the season to be over. I like following races, but you know, it's like...let's do this already. I wanna settle in on election night and watch results already. 

But yeah. House will likely go to the democrats. The senate still leans democrat but it's becoming a bit less certain. The governors are what they are. And yeah, that's this week's update. See you next week. 

Discussing the wedgewood polls debacle

 So....Wedgewood polls, a small and upcoming polling organization that was relatively new to the block, ended up being exposed as a fraud by fiftyplusone. Wedgewood released their own statement claiming that they were doing a social experiment to see how easy it would be to fake polls and still be taken seriously, but regardless, the cat is out of the bag now.

Some might wonder how this has and will impact my own election forecast. The answer is: not a lot. I get my data from realclearpolling.com for the most part, and they tend to be one of the most cautious aggregators, often excluding newer and less reliable pollsters almost to a fault. If anything, RCP sometimes comes off as TOO cautious, being slow to report on trends that others are picking up on, like tossup nebraska and kansas. There is a reason I've been occasionally using 270towin and new york times as backup aggregators at times. Now, when I use THOSE guys, yeah, they tended to include wedgewood polls in their averages. Of course, my reliance on them is short lived because once RCP starts reporting their numbers, I'll swap to them since I quite frankly trust them more. I've been using RCP since 2008 and while never dead on, no one is. Polling has error, as you guys know, and there's bound to be some randomness leading to error in even the best, most sound predictions. However, RCP tends to keep things pretty grounded and tends to perform reasonably well. Using them, I only tend to get 1-2 races wrong per election cycle, and often they're no less reliable than anyone else. They haven't had a MASSIVE mess up since 2000, where they infamously predicted Bush would get like 375 electoral votes, although to be fair, Gore DID overperform, leading to that election cycle being A LOT closer than it was expected to be. 

With all of that said, their impact on my own analysis was minimal. I already take data from my secondary aggregators less seriously BECAUSE I don't trust weird new pollsters with no record like wedgewood very well. Some people are pissed off about this development, like Mallory McMorrow who claimed Wedgewood's negative polls helped kill her campaign. I'm not 100% sure of that, as that data was replicated in other polls. If anything, my own take, having seen others post wedgewood's numbers in a variety of races, is that they seem to do a lot of herding to stay under the radar. Most of their results are noncontroversial. They just kinda straddle the averages. I can get why some would suspect they had a darker purpose, like to manipulate elections or betting markets (did I mention I think online betting markets should be banned?), but yeah. Mostly they just seemed to toe the line of what everyone else was saying at the time. 

Anyway, I just wanted to post this in part for transparency's sake, since my election predictions do rely on the aggregates that others put together, and in part because, well, it's kind of a big controversy. However, I dont want people to get the wrong idea and act like ALL polls are fake because these polls were take. Wedgewood was some low grade pollster that more serious aggregators never took seriously. Also, polls are mostly accurate for what they are, if you understand what they're actually measuring and what their limitations are. There's a reason I convert averages to probabilities. I assume a 4 point margin of error and I let statistics do the talking from there. I'd say my model holds up reasonably well, assuming the data fed into it isn't total garbage, and since I rely most on RCP, it mostly isn't. And if there are limitations, I normally discuss them in my models and explain why such data should be taken with a grain of salt. 

Once again, if you can't support progressive democrats this election cycle, gtfo of the democratic party

 So, James Carville came out of his complete and utter irrelevance in 2026 to say that he would rather see the republicans win the mid terms because if democrats win due to progressives, they'll be "held hostage to the DSA". 

I really dont know why people care what this guy thinks so much. yes yes yes, he was a hot shot in 1992. And in 1992, I was like 4. I didnt have opinions on politics. All I remember first hand from the 1992 cycle is vague memories of Bill Clinton playing the saxophone and my parents spending hours in line trying to vote and me wanting to go home. And at this point, I'm more or less middle aged. So this guy is as has been as has been can get. No one should care what this guy has to say. It's the equivalent of caring about what strom thurmond thought in 1992. Like, okay dude, you hate the modern democrats, we get it, go join the other party or something. You're not "it" any more. 

But I do wanna talk about this a bit more deeply. Because...I'm not gonna lie, I HATE the hypocrisy. After years of "vote blue no matter who", these guys are showing their true colors. They held the democratic party hostage on US. They told us we HAD to be moderate and if we werent we'd lose elections. They told us that if we didn't support the democrats it was the equivalent of directly supporting trump. And now when these guys gotta vote for DSA candidates, they're literally saying they'd rather trump win. Again, if that's how you feel, get out. The future is now, old man. You're not with it any more. Go wear a MAGA hat and cheer for trump already. I'm sick of this crap.

I NEVER EVER wanna hear about voting blue no matter who if these guys can't vote for democrats this time ever again. Trump is a literal fascist, he's as dangerous as it gets, and yet, the same guys who has been screaming hes a fascist since 2015 are suddenly like "I'm with the fascist." THEN GO AWAY. You're making your bed, go sleep in it. It's our party now. The sooner you guys give up the reins of power, the better, because then we can get some actual change in this country. 

Btw, I wanna point out, I can't stand these guys for the same reason they cant stand me. There IS a huge ideological difference between the centrist "new democrats" and the modern left. And I dont fully align with either faction on everything, but I am a bit closer to the left.  At least they want change, you know? And after telling us our differences dont matter, when they gotta vote for lefties, suddenly they go full rightoid. Cool. You're showing your true colors then. Then get out and don't come back. Do us all a favor. 

Really, I'm sick of playing nice with these people. If you can't support the modern democrats in 2026, then go away. You won't be missed. If anything, in some instances, your exit might be a blessing to us. Because it's one less out of touch guy stuck in 1992 that we gotta deal with.

Explaining the origin of Nvidia's GPU naming scheme

 So....RTX 5050, 5060, 5070, 5080, 5090. How did we get this naming scheme? Even more do, why dont they use terms like 5040, 5030, 5020, 5010, etc. I'll explain all of this since the history is kinda interesting. 

Going back to the GTX 200 series

The origins of the modern naming scheme go back to the GTX 200 series from 2008-2009. And it even goes back further as I'll express with their even older schemes, but I do wanna discuss this. 

So...yeah, Nvidia used to have like 9 or so product tiers. These ranged from being really cheap crap, to really high end. 

At the bottom end was the GT 210. And if you've ever heard of this, it probably comes off as infamous as being one of the biggest POSes to ever grace gaming. It was infamous for not being able to run much of anything, and being virtually useless today. No one wants this thing. It was awful. 

The GT 220 and GT 240 werent much better. Both were budget cards that were dated. They typically were sub $100, although I think by the time you got up to the GT 240, you got something okay that could come close to the venerated but aging 8800 GT/9800 GT. Not bad for sub $100, but by the time we got to this point, this was becoming budget performance because of how fast the industry moved and how much performance uplift Nvidia could get out of it.

The GTS 250 was the official midrange card. It matched the previous flagship, the 9800 GTX+, and it was available for around $150. It wasn't bad. Once again, aging, kinda budget, but decent. The real mid range price/performance king was the GTX 260, the lowest end of the more higher end gaming cards. Originally it as released for an eyewatering $400 or something, but eventually dropped to around $250, which was pretty reasonable. Again, they had to compete with AMD at the time, and it was on par with AMD's HD 4850 at the time, which was their third highest end card (because even then AMD was always second rate, but hey, their aggressive pricing offered good market corrections at times). 

The GTX 270 was a bit more power for a bit more money, with the GTX 280/285 being the highest end cards at the time. And then the 295 was a dual 280/285 model for the spare no expense RTX 5090 type crowd. The series was initially overpriced, but again, AMD forced a market correction and it set the modern standard, virtually every series after followed this general format.

We had cards like the GT 420 and 440 which were crap, GTS 450 was okay, being close to a 260, the GTX 460 was on par with the previous 280, and had to compete directly with my HD 5850 at the time. The 470 and 480 were more premium cards, premium being around $350 and $500 respectively. And things kept continuing.

Eventually, Nvidia stopped producing the 10-40 cards. They simply werent big sellers. people wanted these cards for gaming performance, and the sub 50 cards ended up being borderline ewaste. And again, back then, even the 50 series was cheap, generally going for around $150ish or so, with the 60 series being $200-250ish, the 70 series being $350-400ish, etc. This is why we never had many sub 50 cards starting with like the 900 series on. No one wanted anything below the 50 cards because the 50 cards were the bare minimum that could actually game decently. 

The before times

Even before the 2 digit cards, the last time we had 4 digit cards, nvidia followed a similar scheme. You'd have high end cards be 8 or 9 models. We had stuff like the 6800 GT, the 7950 GT, the 8800 GT and GTX, the 9800 GT and GTX. These were all typically expensive, although the 8800 GT and 9800 GT became quite affordable models that were close to "60" cards in pricing, while getting like 80% of the performance of the much more expensive GTX cards. 

You'd have more midrange cards like the 9600 GT, 8600 GT, 7600 GT, and 6600 GT. They didnt use the 7 cards a lot for some reason, skipping straight to 6, but these models were often much cheaper than the 6, but also a lot weaker. Typically around half strength or so, although the 8600 GT seemed exceptionally weak given what a jump the 8800 GT was (it was closer to 1/3 performance), and the 9600 GT on the other hand was about 75% of the 9800 GT despite costing a lot less. And pricing varied. Historically it was closer to $200ish, so more like your typical "60" card even then (so basically the same general naming scheme). Although at one point the 8800 GT and 9800 GT dropped down pretty cheap due to competition from AMD and then dropping their 200 series, which again, had previous flagship performance at 40-50 card tier performance.

Speaking of 50 series, yeah, we had 5 series cards too. The 9500 GT was like a budget card, similar to the 8600 GT, but around $100ish mostly. Again, crap used to be CHEAP. You'd get acceptable, but kinda bare minimum performance out of them. Previously you had the 8500 GT which was kinda crap, but I guess it was similar to a 6600 GT.

Once again by the time you got to the 400 cards you were getting crap. The 8400 GS goes down as one of the worst cards ever made, similar to like a GT 210. It was only good as display adapter and that was it. But it was like $60. So we're talking REAL cheap. Better than integrated I guess, but kinda like buying a GT 1030 today. THe 9400 GT was better, similar to the 8500 GT. Some people I knew used that one, and their gaming abilities with it actually surprised me. They seemed to be able to run stuff I never thought they'd be able to run on it. So I guess it wasnt THAT bad, but yeah, again, super cheap budget card, not really made for gaming. Eventually they stopped making these mostly. 

There were also weird budget cards like the 6200, the 7300 GT, that were also display adapter tier, but I considered them when I was shopping for my first card. I went AMD for the HD 3650 for obvious reasons (8600/9500 GT performance for less than $100 and compatible with my old AGP system). 

And yeah, again, similar scheme. 

Going back to the modern day

 Yeah, after a while anything below the middle of the road "5" series stopped being produced due to lack of demand. They were just display adapters with weak gaming abilities. A 40 series card like a 9400 GT, 240, 440, they weren't BAD BAD, but it was like...for a little more money you could get a 50. For a little more than that, yuo can get the 60. So eventually the sub $100 market just collapsed and became a sea of ewaste, in retrospect it always was basically. It was boots theory of economics all the way down where you'd get diminishing value from cost savings as youd lose more performance than you'd save money. Didnt stop them from occasionally releasing stuff like the infamous GT 1030, or the short lived 1630 which was ridiculously overpriced for what it was (a GT 1050 for like $130 when you could get 970/1060 performance from a 1650 for like $30 more), but yeah, again, you can see why the value just wasnt there. So I dont feel bad for the loss of the lowest end cards. Outside of maybe having a 30-40 tier display adapter model they were rarely worth buying. 

The real problem comes from the inflation of the rest of the stack. Due to the problems with the RTX 2000 series and onward, 60 tier cards are 70 tier pricing a lot of the time, and that's relatively luxury relatively speaking. We're talking like, $300-500, which used to be the high end. For the lowest tier, or second to lowest tier card. The 3050 and 5050 both had MSRPs of $250, historically 60 tier territory. And those would be the new low end. They wouldnt even bother below that. AMD DID try with the 6400 and 6500 XT, but those were anemic and again, boots theory of economics at work. And nvidia just straight up abandoned the REAL 50 tier with the 1650/1650 super being the last card they ever produced for it. And that's what I see as the real problem here. Once again, RTX killed gaming. It killed the affordable entry level $150 gaming card. Because there's no way for them to make an affordable RTX card with all the new bells and whistles at that price level I guess. it wouldnt be worth it, and if you tried, well....do I gotta show you the 6400 and 6500 XT again on the AMD side? 

And that's the problem too. It's a similar problem of what happened with the 40 card before it. You'd go from 9800 GT, a relatively high end card, to the GT 240 and get similar performance. And here, it seems like the market was perpetually stuck at offering RX 580/GTX 1060 performance at that tier forever. So they just sold the old cards which couldnt do it any more despite being quite venerated for their time, and they never released new ones. 

Now the baseline for gaming is around 1.5x that performance with the 3050, with the real baseline being closer to 2x with the 3060/4060/5050/6600/7600 tier cards. And i gotta wonder if, in the long term, they abandon us too and just start their product stacks at like $400 and if you dont like it, tough. Again, do i gotta keep belaboring the point? The market is screwed up. 

Again, it's fine to kill the sub $100 market, it seems like you couldnt make a good GPU at that price no matter what you did. People wanna game on cards, the minimum viable card was like, the GTS 250/450/1050 ti/1650, etc. Anything below that is crap. So they stopped producing it. Fair. Next. 

But now we're talking like sub $300 being on the chopping block. it's getting ridiculous. Not all of us can just pay more and adapt to higher prices, a lot of us will just drop out, stick to older hardware, and play lower end games. heck, it's already happening. This is how you get a situation where your average gamer buys 1 game a year and most money is made from a handful of whales. Now the only gamers that matter were the ones bringing their "80" money to the table and everyone else can either adapt or do without. it's getting ridiculous.

Anyway, I know I'm ranting a lot but I wanted to give further thoughts on this so people understand what exactly we've lost over time and just how good and affordable and accessible PC gaming used to be.  

Jayztwocents is not only right, but I'll go further: RTX killed affordable gaming

 Jayztwocents had a short recently where he talked about the RTX 2080 ti being one of the worst GPUs of all time. His argument was simple. Basically, it normalized 4 figure GPU prices, despite it not being that good. 

I agree wholeheartedly, but I'll go further, the RTX 2000 series was bad IN GENERAL for these reasons. 

Seriously, with Pascal, we had a really reasonable GPU stack. $110 for a 1050, $140 for a 1050 ti, $200-250 for a 1060 depending on model, $380 for 1070, $600 for 1080, $700 for 1080 ti. Remember when the top end card was $700? Pepperidge farms remembers. Even worse, remember when $700 GPUs were only for the people who were rich and would throw insane money at GPUs? Seriously, there's a reason the real star of the series was the GTX 1060 6 GB, it was the best price/performance, and it was reasonable. You got tons of value for $250. It was half as good as the $700 card. It was the best price/performance just about for the whole series, and while 1050 ti and 1070 were solid options too, with more budget oriented consumers getting the 1050 ti which had similar longevity, and more allfluent but still midrange buyers going for the 1070, there was something that pleased everyone. 

With the 2000 series, this is what happened to the product stack:

RTX 2060- $350

RTX 2070- $500

RTX 2080- $700

RTX 2080 ti- $1000

And I'm gonna be honest, I thought $350 for a 2060 was highway robbery at the time. That was almost as much as the 1070. And it only performed like a 1080. So really, the boost we got from Turing wasn't that good, although jayz mentioned that. Everything was RTX gud, and for most gamers it wasnt even worth it. The tech was very immature, hell, it still is almost a decade later. And you might be wondering, wait, what about the sub $300 market? EXACTLY. Well, to be fair, we got cards, we got the 1650 and 1660/1660 ti at the old prices, but yeah. Those cards were so weak they couldnt even support RT. And then RT and all that AI crap required specialized hardware on the card where it wasnt worth putting it on lower end models than the 2060. So anything below that just...wouldnt support anything that would eventually require RTX. They didnt even have enough VRAM since nvidia strangely regressed to some degree with turing with the 2060 only getting 6 GB, and the 50 cards being stuck at 4, and yeah. So they died off. Never mind the 470 had 8 GB for $200 back in 2016. Ridiculous, utterly ridiculous. 

And yeah. Look at the market since. The 3000 series and 6000 series sucked because neither catered to the sub $300 market AT ALL. The 3060 and 6600 were both $330 with their bigger brothers (3060 ti/6600 XT) being $380-400. COVID basically jacked things up like is happening now where you were paying $400 for a 1050 ti at one point (another reason I say dont buy now if you dont have to). The 3050 and 6500 XT at $200-250 were a joke. And I swear, the only reason the RX 6000 series became as "legendary as I glaze it as now is because they couldnt sell cards when the bubble popped and suddenly they had to sell 6600s for like $200 and 6650 XTs for $250 just to move them. So eventually the market corrected itself, but it took a bubble painfully popping to do it (again, a huge reason you shouldnt buy now). 

And yeah, that's the best the market ever got. In 2023, we got the 7600 for $250 and the 4060 for $300 and that's the lowest end either company supported. At least they reached the old 1060/580 style pricing, but now at the lowest end, with that budget market basically being ewaste. It became uneconomical to make lower end cards than that in part because all this new tech everyone was chasing required specialized hardware, which drove up costs of the whole thing. 

And the 5000/9000 series initially followed similar pricing. The 5050 was $250, same as the 3050, it was a joke. The 5060 was $300 but then the ti models were around $400. The 9060 XT was $300 with the 16 GB one for $350, and then RAMpocalypse happened where now you're spending $330-400 for a fricking low end card again, this time like a 5050 or 7600, with the 5060 being like $450 and the 9060 XT reaching over $500 for the 16 GB model. It's a joke. It really is a joke.

A lot of people will say "oh it's inflation." This crap started in 2018, and most price increases since then are because the industry has suffered several severe demand induced crises from COVID and crypto, and then AI, and yeah. Us gamers have been getting screwed. 

Anyway, I just wanted to agree with jayz on this one. the RTX 2000 series IS one of the most infamous GPU series of all times for me BECAUSE it normalized this crap. Worst part is, this isn't the first time nvidia pulled this crap. Back when I got into gaming Nvidia was similarly expensive but at least AMD/ATI was cheap. And when Nvidia tried this kinda pricing scheme with the 200 series back in like 2009, AMD hard countered them on pricing, forcing them to bring it down out of the stratosphere. That aint happening these days, at least not as much. AMD seems more interested in competing with the high end now, while only competing down to that $200-300 price range when the market is bad for them and they can't move units, and taking advantage of the same crises to push expensive cards. Still better than nvidia, but make no mistake, AMD isnt our friend here. 

Honestly, if I didnt have so much reluctance to embrace intel due to their quirkiness, I'd be glazing them so hard now. Although even they're getting more expensive too, slowly but surely. It sucks. This whole market sucks. But yeah, I do blame Nvidia's greed first and foremost. And now, it's not just "inflation" that did this, it was Nvidia explicitly taking advantage of market conditions (and in some cases engineering them) to maximize profits, even if it makes gaming more unaffordable for people.

I miss 2016 and before when $500-700 GPUs were for rich people, most people bought $200 GPUs, and even $100 GPUs were viable for budget buyers. I miss when I bought the HD 5850 for like $260 only to get the 4th strongest single GPU in the world at the time (seriously, only the 5870, 470, and 480 were better, and yes, the 295 and 5970 existed but those were DUAL GPUs, SLI/crossfire driven monstrosities with absurd price tags and almost no one actually bought them but the hardcore enthusiast crowd). Seriously, why are we suddenly okay with $300 GPUs being the bare minimum to run games? Jesus Christ this market is broken. And the idiots on forums who defend this are just as ridiculous as the whole situation is. This is why I always say, no, the problem isnt just the top 1% or 0.1%, it's the top 20% in general. Their insane purchasing power is driving up costs for everyone else, and we need to tax the #### out of them to bring prices down for everyone else. 

But yeah, I digress I guess.