• Competitor rules

    Please remember that any mention of competitors, hinting at competitors or offering to provide details of competitors will result in an account suspension. The full rules can be found under the 'Terms and Rules' link in the bottom right corner of your screen. Just don't mention competitors in any way, shape or form and you'll be OK.

RTX 4090 - actually future proof?

It's strength in the long term is that people will be able to buy them second hand and get good performance at a lower price.

No one who spends huge money on halo cards keeps them long term. It just doesn't happen. Those people bought it because they were enthusiasts and always buy the best thing available.

There's probably loads of people on here who bought a 3090 and told themselves they might skip the next gen. Only to sell it for a 4090 anyway.
 
While AMD seems to have potentially cornered the market on a DP 2.1 600 FPS Fortnite experience platform, I get the feeling the rest of us who humbly want to run triple AAA games with ray tracing @ something like 1440p/4K @ > 60-100 fps, we will have to yet again look to the ludicrously overpriced NVidia offerings this generation. Hell, even an ex-mining 3080 for £500 looks to be the card we all should have over AMD's latest and greatest if we want some sweet RT.
 
Short answer, yes it is; if you're looking at a 6-8 year future.
Long answer: I bought a GTX 1070 back in 2016 when I had a 1080p monitor and everyone was telling me things like "overkill" and "waste at FHD" etc etc, the card having been made for 2K. I didn't care. The card lasted me even when I switched to ultrawide 1440p for quite a lot of titles. This time I bought a 4090. Again, people say "overkill", "under utilized" etc. Well it's not. You get the fps and the card isn't maxing out in utilization, except for a select few titles that are better optimized. So, I believe the card is great for ultrawide 1440p and -for the time being- 4K. Next gen games, at 4K will bring it to its knees. Personally I won't bother again with a GPU purchase unless I change monitor resolution to some 5K ultrawide or something.

Lastly, I think it's a good investment for a good 6-8 years. The cost is alleviated.

PS: There's always gonna be modded Skyrim to harness all the xx90 cards :cry:
 
Last edited:
The logic of buying hardware today for future needs doesn't make sense unless you belive that the hardware will either be difficult to find in the future when you need it

Because of you do buy a 4090 to under use it today then this applies:

you paid a premium today for performance, the dollar per fps that you aren't using is very high due to the tier of card. In years to come, sure the GPU will get more use but the dollars per frame you paid years earlier is now poor value compared to modern mid tier cards so overall you wasted your money because you'd have achieved not just less absolute performance but you paid a premium for something you did not use.

So if you just bought a GPU that covered what you need today, the money saved would generally be enough to buy a future GPU that is faster than the 4090 and cheaper too when looking at dollar per frame. That's why the advice is for most people to just buy the hardware they actually need and can actually use today.


There are still use cases for future proofing hardware but it's use case specific; for example a business might choose to go overkill on a new CPU for its server because downtime for the business costs money so it values only having to take servers down for for hardware upgrade once every 10 years and a higher core count CPU allows the business to grow.
 
Last edited:
Vexr said:
Please describe what the new cards of 2024 are likely to be bringing to the table that make the RTX 4090 obsolete in two year's time.
Click to expand...

There aren't many that will have the technical details right now.

But is what you see when playing a game as realistic as watching a film?
No, it is not.

The scenery can be pretty good, but animating humans in real time to be 100% realistic is still miles off, and will continue to be so for some time.
Adding more shaders won't achieve that.
 
I have the logic of buying the best hardware you can the moment you decide to buy new hardware. Myself, I don't regret buying a 4090. I had been saving for a new GPU since the CoVid crisis appeared and was seeing the rising prices even for low end cards. So I decided to save up until the new series arrived which -according to the rumours- would be seriously ahead of the 30xx series. So, the best I could buy this year was a 4090, and I did. I don't mind the "missing" fps, I am well aware it is under-utilized. Who doesn't want very good fps, all maxed out but not at 450W though? So far, only 3-4 games have managed to fully exploit my 4090. Borderlands 3, Quake 2 RTX, Portal 2 RTX.
 
NastyPirate said:
I have the logic of buying the best hardware you can the moment you decide to buy new hardware. Myself, I don't regret buying a 4090. I had been saving for a new GPU since the CoVid crisis appeared and was seeing the rising prices even for low end cards. So I decided to save up until the new series arrived which -according to the rumours- would be seriously ahead of the 30xx series. So, the best I could buy this year was a 4090, and I did. I don't mind the "missing" fps, I am well aware it is under-utilized. Who doesn't want very good fps, all maxed out but not at 450W though? So far, only 3-4 games have managed to fully exploit my 4090. Borderlands 3, Quake 2 RTX, Portal 2 RTX.
Click to expand...
there is always going to be a bottleneck somewhere tho, and besides you can always use res scaling to run lots of 1440p titles at 4k to get higher gpu usage if you really want to :)
 
NastyPirate said:
I have the logic of buying the best hardware you can the moment you decide to buy new hardware. Myself, I don't regret buying a 4090. I had been saving for a new GPU since the CoVid crisis appeared and was seeing the rising prices even for low end cards. So I decided to save up until the new series arrived which -according to the rumours- would be seriously ahead of the 30xx series. So, the best I could buy this year was a 4090, and I did. I don't mind the "missing" fps, I am well aware it is under-utilized. Who doesn't want very good fps, all maxed out but not at 450W though? So far, only 3-4 games have managed to fully exploit my 4090. Borderlands 3, Quake 2 RTX, Portal 2 RTX.
Click to expand...
Lol those games you listed can be run on a gameboy
 
Hedge said:
No one who spends huge money on halo cards keeps them long term. It just doesn't happen.
Click to expand...

Not true. Keeping them long term is the way to extract maximum value.

Let's look at my GPU history for the past 9 years:

GTX 780 Ti - awaiting repair, needs a new fan.
Titan M - working just fine in my brother's PC.
RTX 2080 Ti - now a cold spare (can't fit in brother's PC).
RTX 3090 - second PC.
RTX 4090 - current.

I suppose I ought to update this picture:

CFRWj3C.jpg

Of recent GPUs I also have a RTX 3050 (currently unused, was going to go in a small HTPC or my NAS) and an Arc A770 (in a test box). I actually game on the A770 quite a lot because that box will run Far Cry whereas my RTX 4090 will not. I've got a few more - older - cards tucked away too, including a 3dfx V5 5500, probably the original halo card.
 
Quartz said:
Not true. Keeping them long term is the way to extract maximum value.

Let's look at my GPU history for the past 9 years:

GTX 780 Ti - awaiting repair, needs a new fan.
Titan M - working just fine in my brother's PC.
RTX 2080 Ti - now a cold spare (can't fit in brother's PC).
RTX 3090 - second PC.
RTX 4090 - current.

I suppose I ought to update this picture:

CFRWj3C.jpg

Of recent GPUs I also have a RTX 3050 (currently unused, was going to go in a small HTPC or my NAS) and an Arc A770 (in a test box). I actually game on the A770 quite a lot because that box will run Far Cry whereas my RTX 4090 will not. I've got a few more - older - cards tucked away too, including a 3dfx V5 5500, probably the original halo card.
Click to expand...
So you're saying your cards last average of two years before being moved on or repurposed.

That's kinda my point.

You've basically bought the top end card of each generation. You haven't really bought the halo cards with the intention of keeping them until they are no longer capable of playing anything.

I'm thinking more of the idea that someone might buy a 4090 with the aim to keep it for 5 years as their main card. Them kind of people don't really exist. Just people like yourself who buy the top card every release.

You haven't really kept any of them long term. (in prime position at least)
 
Last edited:
Hedge said:
So you're saying your cards last average of two years before being moved on or repurposed.

That's kinda my point.

You've basically bought the top end card of each generation. You haven't really bought the halo cards with the intention of keeping them until they are no longer capable of playing anything.

I'm thinking more of the idea that someone might buy a 4090 with the aim to keep it for 5 years as their main card. Them kind of people don't really exist. Just people like yourself who buy the top card every release.

You haven't really kept any of them long term. (in prime position at least)
Click to expand...
I aim to keep my 4090 for 5 years but in reality I will probably succumb to getting the 5090 in two years!
 
Iron Man said:
I aim to keep my 4090 for 5 years but in reality I will probably succumb to getting the 5090 in two years!
Click to expand...
Yep definitely. I'd say 90% of 4090 owners likely had top card last gen and will buy top card next gen.

It's just the need to have best
 
Hedge said:
Yep definitely. I'd say 90% of 4090 owners likely had top card last gen and will buy top card next gen.

It's just the need to have best
Click to expand...

Yes.

My 3 machines now have a 3070, 3090 and 4090. Previous top end cards used to be sold but these days I donate them.
 
Last edited:
jonneymendoza said:
Lol so no such thing as future proof
Click to expand...

No, but the more you spend the longer it lasts. It has always been that way in computing, and if you are into incremental upgrades the monumental ones ALWAYS work out to be the best value.

Of course if you are fickle there is no point in wasting money. But if you are in it for the long haul it is deffo worth spending more, and always has been.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom