I know Intel is dipping its toe into the GPU market, but let’s be real, AMD and nVidia are the only options and have been for the last 20+ years. The manufacturers/assemblers of the complete graphics cards are varied and widespread, but the core tech comes from two companies only.
Why is this the case? Or am I mistaken and am just brainwashed by marketing, and there are in fact other viable options for GPUs?
Cheers!
A RX 6800? Yes, in fact I was playing CP2077 with FSR and ray tracing on at 4K on a 6800. It was the first real card AMD had that could. Though it did struggle at times.
Sadly replaced after 4 years with a RX9060 of similar capability but better Ray tracing.
AMD cards are only about 2-3 years behind NVIDIA in a lot of specialised tasks, but trying to pace the behemoth that is NVIDIA’s RnD with a much smaller budget. ROCm works but is held up by compatibility issues with the newer CUDA features.
Ray tracing? No no, I said Path Tracing.
Hmm. I’ve decided I don’t like you.
It feels like you’re setting an artificially high goal purely to make challenging your assirtion impossible. I’m not even sure a 3090 can do path tracing. 40/5090, maybe they can.
Could an AMD card do it? Yes. RX 7900 possibly, a theoretical RX 9090 could if they bothered to release one.
But none of that matters really. Never has.
Yes, a 3090 can do Path Tracing, that’s why I’m asking for one. It’s not a artificially high goal - it’s how I play one of my favourite games of all time - CP2077.
Obviously both the 4090 and 5090 can do that too and better, but that’s essentially out of reach for mere mortals, and even if it weren’t it’s not enough of an upgrade to really justify the massive price tag.
Still, If I were to get a new GPU, I wouldn’t want a graphical downgrade, ideally an upgrade since y’know, that’s what matters in price to value of computer components, and AMD can’t provide so they’re not a serious option. CPUs on the other hand? Hell yeah I’m 100% AMD, but that’s because they have a serious competitive offering in the 9800X3D.
Maybe to you gaming performance doesn’t matter when buying a gaming computer, in which case that’s your opinion and it’s ok, but it’s safe to say it matters to the rest of us.