[Saka]

Notebookcheck has posted an early analysis of midrange mobile GPUs from the RTX 4000 series, so RTX 4070, 4060 and 4050. There was only a handful of devices available, some of them being engineering samples, and the TDP in these models was all over the place. Therefore the results should not be taken for a granted, but rather with a large pinch of salt. The game benchmarks though are good enough to get a general idea of what performance level to expect.

[DoctorEldritch]

@Saka That's a tad too technical for me, I am not really sure what I am looking at, I get lost in jargon. To me, it boils down to the simple "more advanced card = better performance", but maybe your trained programmer eye spots more, @Saka?

[Saka]

@DoctorEldritch Well yes, more advanced cards generally give better performance.

Hm, I think in a nutshell of this article, the 4000 generation does bring improvements across the board, but the exact numbers are still difficult to measure. The 4080/4090 bring 30-40% better performance compared to the previous generation.

4070 is slightly slower than 3080Ti, and I hope it would be cheaper so that's a good sign. Similar performance to desktop 3070.

4060 is roughly similar to 3070. Only estimated numbers due to configuration differences.

It's possible that 4050 might be a budget star, showing a large performance increase over 3050Ti. However, the tested model had much larger wattage than the card would usually get. No other test options available yet.

So, the improvements over 3000 series look good, but it depends on the final models and the pricing.

[DoctorEldritch]

@Saka Considering how big of an investment those cards usually are, it is certainly good news that there are budget options. Still remains to be seen how much it would end up costing and where.

[Saka]

@DoctorEldritch Yeah. Something really weird is going on with pricing of electronics in the Europe lately. Just a few years ago you could just take the number of USD from MSRP, put an euro sign and it'd be very close to the price in stores here. Now... everything suddenly costs much more.

One of the most offending examples is actually the newest Legion Pro 7i. This is the i9 13900HX 4080 variant in the US. In the shops in Europe the same config is listed for close to 4000 euros. You can't explain that by just taxation differences.

[DoctorEldritch]

@Saka I am not an economist, but we are facing an unprecedented level of inflation. Still, I was under the impression that the whole world was in the same boat. Seems some are more equal than others, though, eh? 😅

With so many factors, it is difficult to say how those prices are calculated.

[Saka]

@DoctorEldritch Definitely feels like Europe is experiencing one of the worse hits. I have not seen anywhere as much complaints from the US on Reddit or the CI community I am a mod in (and as you probably know, people with disabilities are more likely to struggle financially). My experience shows that Americans can get very vocal when something goes wrong. During the massive gasoline price hike they would not cease the rants about it, even though Finland had literally triple the price they had.

Meanwhile it's Finnish Reddit (and some complaints from Baltic neighbours) that's exploding with inflation-related rants. The prices of vegetables, particularly bell peppers, cucumbers, tomatoes are skyrocketing. Somehow the companies behind the supermarkets are recording record profits, too. After years of relatively stable prices, my favourite chocolate bar (Pätkis Crunchy) went up from about 1.20 to 1.45 just after the start of the year. I know that this is not a very drastic increase, but it's starting to reach the point where it will be too much for a spontaneous purchase for me. I can just save 1.5 euro and not get fat. 😁

My home country is getting hit by inflation even worse, the current prices for everything are starting to get closer to Finnish prices. And Finnish living costs are one of highest in the Europe. For me it just means I won't eat out or won't go have a fancy cake, but people in my home country have much smaller wages and have to pay the bills with them (and they struggle to do so). People are not heating their houses, starving themselves - it's getting too common. Even my family cut on heating. Smaller businesses are going bankrupt everywhere. It's much worse than during the pandemic and it's scary. Even businesses with long history, which became a recognizable part of the culture (for example a famous china manufacture) did not get help and were forced to shut down. Scary and sad times to live in.

[DoctorEldritch]

@Saka Interesting times indeed. But let's try to keep hope, after all, people say that "the darkest hour is just before the dawn". Then again, they also say that "the light at the end of the tunnel is actually an upcoming train", so take what fits.

Maybe some dinosaurs will cheer you up a bit?

[Saka]

@DoctorEldritch There are for sure many things that could have gone better lately. 😁

[DoctorEldritch]

@Saka Everything could always be better and, as well, worse. Makes me remember Stanislaw Jerzy Lec and his quote about reaching the bottom only to hear a knock.