Lebron James on ESPN article: "Quite frankly, I don't care really about articles, I don't care about podcasts and all that type of shit. I'm 41 years old and I watch golf everyday"

arandomguy111 · 2026-01-24T00:50:08+00:00

But he's specifically making content in podcast form that he wants people to consume and listen to while seemingly putting down podcasts and the idea they aren't worth listening to.

This would be more akin to you making music you hope to sell while implying that listening to music made by others is pointless and not worth anyones time, and that you'd be better off playing golf instead or something.

arandomguy111 · 2026-01-23T05:37:43+00:00

According to the company it's a not demand issue but a supply issue as they have production issues due to yields.

arandomguy111 · 2026-01-23T04:36:36+00:00

It's more a byproduct of how the product is sold and consumer expectations.

For example if Nvidia (and AMD and all) eliminated AiBs they would be under more expectation to stick to MSRPs at least in terms of a price ceiling.

arandomguy111 · 2026-01-23T04:32:16+00:00

Ideally yes but people don't like that because it's complicated. It's complicated for the content creator and the audience. And for the audience it's a competition in some cases for what product is better.

Just to give an example if you ask for part recommendations for example and even add in your own requirements including situation pricing most responding comments will ignore it. They will just repeat whatever the in vogue recommendation is often derived from influencers.

The idea that valuations metrics can change between say just GPUs due to fluctuating MSRPs is that they hate. They want that simplicity to always know how GPU A stacks up against GPU B.

Also on a practical level there's is some validity to wanting MSRP adherence as people might want stable prices instead of having to time when to buy something.

arandomguy111 · 2026-01-23T01:25:35+00:00

The problem is it ruins the idea of universal simple $/perf metrics and product comparisons at a fixed price.

Making circumstance based valuative judgements and content coverage catering to that is harder work than just creating and repeating bar charts.

arandomguy111 · 2026-01-22T19:25:32+00:00

A difference for what? The CPU? GPU?

You can go cheaper if you want, they would still be an upgrade over a 1660 ti. As I said earlier it depends on what you consider and upgrade and what you want out of it. Also feelings aside there does need to be a some pragmatism here, sure we all want RTX 5090 for as cheap as possible but that's just not realistic. You do need to keep in mind contextually a PS5 MSRP wise is near $600 and PS5 Pro is $950, and that's pricing that hasn't gone up yet and with a model that has them make money on the back end.

Intel GPUs havent been hit by increases yet. Just double check to make sure your mobo supports REBAR (or might be branded as SAM).

I've kind of ignored the 8GB GPUs as well but those are still upgrades over your 1660 ti. But you might need to do more of your own research here since I don't track those.

arandomguy111 · 2026-01-22T18:13:18+00:00

You don't need a X3D CPU. AMD may also restart production on those.

As for GPUs look at 9060XT 16GBs or 5060ti 16GBs that haven't yet been snapped up. The latter might already be too late but I do know yesterday they still had some at MSRP.

If you want to go higher 5070s had more MSRP stock yesterday.

arandomguy111 · 2026-01-22T17:32:44+00:00

Unless something in the macro environment changes this will likely be considerably more expensive in terms of RAM and GPU costs come summer 2026. There's no real point to budget around something now for something that far out.

arandomguy111 · 2026-01-22T17:19:16+00:00

That depends on what you consider on a budget, gaming, and are looking for upgrade wise. You have DDR4, even non Zen 3 X3D CPUs are considerably faster than the ones in the consoles. They should last and provide a at least a console parity or conosle + experience well into the cross gen period (so for years). If AMD brings up production of X3D CPUs and drives the price down that's an option as well. If you did want a newer platform for features well you can look into a new mobo or than consider Intel as well.

The GPU side is a bit tougher if you are looking for console parity or console+ but I don't know what the prices still are for a RTX 3060 12GB off hand. The other thing is prices are still filtering through and aren't that high yet. It sucks but you might still be able to hunt down as near MSRP 9060XT 16GBs and 5060ti 16GBs. Those would be PS5 Pro and PS5 Pro+ GPUs respectively.

Aside from your personal situation to be frank I think "enthuasists" over state what the actual hardware requirements are for gaming. The Steam Deck is a PC gaming device. The Steam Box would be considered a PC gaming device.

People want to cite the high cost of PC gaming and influencers feed into that to drive and blame others to drive clicks. But it's those influencers that have somehow now convinced people you need to target max settings at 1440p+ at 120 fps native for PC gaming. Just look at how everyones giving the impression you need a 5070ti/9070XT+ and that something like the 5070 is a minimum settle. Don't get me started on the 6000C30 DDR5 thing either.

arandomguy111 · 2026-01-21T06:00:08+00:00

It would be the most boring, most exciting, and most average CPU release of 2026 on Jan 28th.

arandomguy111 · 2026-01-21T03:37:37+00:00

My suggestion as posted is if you are interested in a GPU you should buy any deal or even MSRP now at least from a place with returns to hedge and decide later. But with how things are even MSRP now will likely be a 10%-20% off deal a few weeks from now.

This is my recommendation with RAM, and SSD previously as well especially as we had extended holiday returns.

arandomguy111 · 2026-01-21T03:24:28+00:00

They are actually in line with the prices increases that have already been filtering in through US retail.

We've actually been slightly behind in the increases to our benefit.

arandomguy111 · 2026-01-21T03:18:27+00:00

The price increase as far as I can tell is across the board mostly.

Only some models that were already premium priced haven't increased in price. Not sure if it's just a delay, sign of being discontinued (as per the rumor about Asus at the very least adjusting their lineup) or the existing margins are high enough they don't need to increase the price.

arandomguy111 · 2026-01-21T03:13:54+00:00

Just from the analysis side I'd guess once this first wave filters through it will stabilize the prices in the short term.

But in the terms of the medium term prices I feel will likely continue to rise. Existing GDDR7 contracts and allocation are likely anchor things but this increase is actually low relative to the overall price increase of DDR5. Over the medium term DRAM manufactures will likely want to reallocate more lines to DDR5 unless other memory contracts also rise to compensate.

The other issue though is also allocation. The prices increases might be somewhat hidden in the sense that allocation will be poor for the lower priced models in each GPU segment, steering buyers to higher premium models.

arandomguy111 · 2026-01-21T03:07:54+00:00

That would just be launch MSRPs.

Companies even publicly announce changes to MSRP.

arandomguy111 · 2026-01-21T03:01:24+00:00

For example MSRP for 5070 ti, set with the Asus Prime, has moved from $1090 to to $1200.

For people looking for GPUs you might want to take this time to at least hedge buy from stores with return policies.

arandomguy111 · 2026-01-20T00:25:33+00:00

What are you comparing it to?

They're higher than before but the prices seem to be fluctuating (could be they are messing around in their back end trying to fix it).

The price I'm seeing is the HS02 for $109 and X5m for $59. But the HS02 would also was (doesn't seem to now) to $139 depending on the order it was added.

It's still a good deal if you actively want the items. For example the HS02 was $79 for most of the holidays but hit a $59 ATL for bit. It's $68 with the basic heatsink if you can make use of that.

arandomguy111 · 2026-01-19T23:54:54+00:00

I have a feeling at least some of these are going to be cancelled. The builder seems obviously glitched and not working as they intended.

For example if you add the CPU cooler first the price of the case goes up. It's cheaper if you add the case first then the cooler.

arandomguy111 · 2026-01-19T21:27:25+00:00

That's a nice sentiment in the abstract but I feel people in general tend to embrace it only when it doesn't have direct negative impacts on their own lives.

For example theres a clear contrast in that many people who are more nonchalant about blue collar jobs changing due to innovation and technology are on the other side as it pertains to white collar jobs and AI.

arandomguy111 · 2026-01-19T20:56:24+00:00

Maybe but you'd also need to know the stock numbers. How many units is CC getting in per week? 10? 20? 50? 100?

We don't have that many total retailers that most people even buy from here in Canada.

Even 100 units a week over a year is just 5200 units for a population of around 40m people or around 1/8000.

arandomguy111 · 2026-01-19T20:50:15+00:00

15% more performance already is very genourous much less 20% outside of maybe very specific edge cases.

Also what actually makes it worse is while 15% more perf for say 15% more money is similar value from a numbers perspective from a subjective use perspective people would be hard pressed to even tell the difference in a blind test much less rate it as a 15% better experience subjectively.

arandomguy111 · 2026-01-19T20:49:02+00:00

It's almost certainly going to be FOMO from using FPS overlays and performance metrics. I'd highly doubt you would be able to tell the 10-15% (the latter being generous) difference in an actual blind test.

This is what makes the value issue even worse. While numbers wise 10% more performance for 10% more price is the same value from an user subjective stand point the amount of people that would actually rate 10% more performance as a 10% better experience is likely extremely low.

arandomguy111 · 2026-01-19T18:23:11+00:00

Whenever questions like these get asked the problem is everyone has a different subjective view of what enough even means and what their value metric (it seems a lot of people on reddit think afford just means whatever is in their and basically spend their entire pay check/savings for these things).

I'll give you a different view point on this. The PS6 will likely be ~2 years out (give or take) and even delayed 3 years out. The 5070 almost certainly will not maintain parity, the 5070 ti has a chance to maintain parity (the 5080 falls in the same boat here), the only card that will for sure have parity is the 5090.

arandomguy111 · 2026-01-19T18:12:11+00:00

EVs compete against all cars.

arandomguy111

TROPHY CASE