For me the answer is to upgrade less frequently than I would otherwise. I would rather just game on my current GPU for a while longer than feed Nvidia’s greed. I will wait for some future generation GPU that offers compelling performance upgrade per dollar. I have a 4070 now. Until a midrange GPU delivers at least 50% more performance than what I have now for roughly what I payed for this card, I’m sticking in place. The 4080 actually meets that performance expectation, but it’s significantly more expensive than it should be. Until that level of GPU comes down to the $600 range, I don’t think it’s actually worth it.
It’s very easy for people to go full American on this stuff. We love to spend more money than we should. The guitar community does the same thing. They call it G.A.S. (gear acquisition syndrome). I have to consistently remind myself that I don’t need the new shiny stuff just because it exists.
I am sticking with my 7900xtx until AMD releases something better, or it outright fails.
Back to the drawbacks of OLED post: a lot of that has been significantly improved in the newer OLED generations. I have the cheapest of the “gen 3” monitors (MSI 321UPX) and have very few of those concerns listed impacting me. ABL can be disabled, and at least at 4k the pixel density is high enough that the sub pixel structure does not result in blurry or color fringed text that I can notice, even looking for it (from a normal distance, haven’t touched my eyeball to the screen to check). The one text clarity problem I have is that 4k 32" is unreasonble to run at 100% display scaling, and some app windows don’t play well with windows display scaling and look blurry. the next most annoying thing is the display refresh cycles.
I’m not really a fan of HDR, I prefer to see more detail than “realistic” pitch black shadows, so I haven’t messed with that or looked into what seems like needlessly annoying managing (can’t just turn it on and leave it, because then SDR stuff doesn’t look right, the aforementioned eye-searing, etc). But even without that, contrast in games and content has been absolutely stunning, to the point I went and checked if HDR turned itself on. Reflections actually shine, stars on a space background were just jaw-dropping from my old TN or VA, honestly not sure what the old one was.
I’d say it’s definitely worth upgrading your current monitor, but if you really want an ultrawide, going OLED now doesn’t make sense, they are too expensive to buy as a holdover. But depending on your financial situation, there are definitely sub-$200 monitors that would be a real upgrade while you wait for what you want to be released.
The used GPU market is on fire right now - multiple used 4090s on ebay getting big up well over $2,000. It’s a bad time to buy all-around between new stock levels and used market getting snatched up. I bought a 3060 Ti for a buddy used for under $200 last year, and they are way up over that right now.
A bit of patience will go a long way I reckon as long as your current setup still works.
Just going to second that this sounds like gear acquisition syndrome. I didn’t see anything in the first post that said ‘my system cannot do X, thus i need to upgrade’. Instead the vacillating is because it’s not necessary and it’s choosing between two flavors of technolust.
That being said, as a general workflow? Monitor capabilities are going to determine what the GPU requirements are, and at least with non-OLED the monitors are more like good furniture in the ‘it should last a while’ sense (i.e. several GPU refresh cycles, refreshing when the games and settings preferences can’t hit your preferred FPS range). OLED has been and continues to be ‘oh its not so bad’ coupled with ‘oh you’ll replace it before then anyway’ arguments. YMMV.
Eh, I’ll admit to a certain amount of that. Or maybe it was the broccoli…
But a large part of it was/is a desire to beat tariffs and a potential nastier trade war. I updated the rest of my system in the last 2 months, so the rest of my system is solid for the next ~4 years plus, it’s just the monitor and GPU that remain.
Of course, if my main hobby these days revolves around that computer, a certain amount of technolust is to be expected. (I am forbidden from more camera gear until my wife and I take our next major vacation, so no G.A.S there… )
And OLED… if this was a pure gaming rig, it wouldn’t be so much a concern… but the dual use leaves me looking for a perfect unicorn, that doesn’t exist yet it seems.
Yeah, I went through the monitor hunt in the last six months. The nearest to perfect I could find was some mini-LED IPS screens. All the usual IPS benefits, but better backlight control. But they were out of budget, at the time, or an off-brand that wouldn’t ship to where I am.
Yeah… the current IPS offerings are either lacking, or overpriced to sell for pro production work.
The more I walk through it… the more likely I’m waiting until Dec to see if that Acer materializes, and is a reasonable price, or if nextgen OLEDs hit my preferred size range.
One other side note… I’m seeing that ASUS and MSI have officially hiked their 50 series prices, tariffs + supply I’m assuming, and if this trend continues, and MSRP cards completely go away, then that pushes this to a next gen question regardless.
MSRP is irrelevant when supply does not exist. Both companies delayed launches long enough to dry up existing stocks, to make prices jump enough, to FOMO consumers into buying, without a second thought to the jump in SKU margins. This is painfully obvious in the case of something like the RTX 5080, where some variants are as much as a 50% markup over ‘MSRP’.
Monitor + a great and versatile monitor stand/arm. It’s a tangible quality of life upgrade. If your current monitor is not too tall, take a taller monitor arm to experiment if a vertical stack of 2 monitors would suit you, compared to the default side-by-side.
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