Expectation Vs. Reality: The GPU Evolution

Nothing says "trust our technology" like NVIDIA's CEO casually pondering our AI-driven extinction while selling the very hardware that'll power it. "Hey, we might all die horribly, but at least we'll die on cutting-edge NVIDIA architecture!" Talk about the ultimate sales pitch. The tech industry has gone from "our product will change your life" to "our product might end all life, but look how efficiently it'll do it!" That 80% GPU market share will be super comforting when Skynet becomes self-aware.

The classic bait-and-switch from Valve! Everyone thought the Steam Deck competitor "GabeCube" (named after Gabe Newell, Valve's founder) would be reasonably priced at $500-600, competing with consoles like PlayStation and Xbox. But nope! Valve decided they're "competing with PC" instead – which is corporate speak for "we're charging you $1000+ for this tiny box." It's like going to buy a Honda and the salesman says "Actually, we compete with SpaceX." The PC gaming tax strikes again – miniaturization doesn't come cheap, folks!

OH. MY. GOD. The absolute TRAGEDY of desktop elitists watching laptop peasants dare to *checks notes* ENJOY COMPUTING ON THE GO! 😱 The sheer AUDACITY of someone coding without a 50-pound gaming rig and seventeen monitors! Desktop warriors clutching their RGB pearls while laptop heathens frolic in coffee shops with their puny machines, writing the same code but with the outrageous benefit of SUNLIGHT and HUMAN INTERACTION! The HORROR! Next you'll tell me they don't even have custom water cooling systems that require a second mortgage! The nerve of some people, honestly!

So you spent three weeks learning trigonometry, diving into DDA algorithms, and debugging why your walls look like a Salvador Dalí painting, only to realize John Carmack did this in 1992 on hardware that had less computing power than your smart toaster. And he did it while probably eating pizza and writing assembly like it was a casual Tuesday. The "box of triangles" bit hits different when you realize modern game engines abstract all this pain away with their fancy rendering pipelines, but back then? Carmack was literally casting rays and doing trigonometric calculations per pixel to fake 3D in Wolfenstein 3D. No GPU acceleration, no Unity, no "just import Three.js"—just raw math and the will to make demons shootable. Meanwhile, you're here in 2024 with Stack Overflow, ChatGPT, and 64GB of RAM, still struggling to get your raycaster to not crash when you look at a corner. Humbling stuff.

Remember when AMD was the affordable alternative to NVIDIA's wallet-destroying GPUs? Well, that fairy tale just died a fiery death. The 9060 XT at $299 for a measly 8GB is AMD's villain origin story – they've crossed to the dark side of premium pricing. It's like watching your favorite indie band sign with a major label and suddenly charge $200 for nosebleed seats. The betrayal is palpable. Gamers everywhere are dramatically screaming "NOOOOOO" into the void while their credit cards weep silently in their wallets.

Ah yes, the highly scientific comparison between AMD and NVIDIA where the only metric is... *checks notes*... the number in the product name. Groundbreaking research showing that 6900 is indeed larger than 3090. Next up: shocking revelation that RTX 4090 absolutely destroys both in this revolutionary benchmark. Hardware enthusiasts in shambles right now.