The Stages Of Hardware Terror

THE ABSOLUTE STATE OF GPU WARS IN 2025! Nvidia's out here making us choose between selling a kidney for performance or switching tracks for affordability, while AMD's just like "Hey, remember us? We exist too!" But AMD's train is literally DERAILED off the tracks! The perfect metaphor for how Nvidia has completely dominated the AI hardware market while AMD struggles to even stay relevant. It's giving "I'm in this picture and I don't like it" energy for anyone who's been desperately waiting for AMD to save us from Nvidia's pricing tyranny. Spoiler alert: THE RESCUE AIN'T COMING!

When Nintendo announces a €459.99 Switch 2? Meh, too expensive. But slap a Steam logo on a handheld gaming PC for €419? Take my money immediately! The classic "I hate your overpriced product but will happily buy this slightly less expensive alternative that does basically the same thing but feels more justified because I can also use it to pretend I'll do actual work on it someday." The Steam Deck: where we convince ourselves we're making a practical purchase while still blowing our rent money on games.

The sphinx cat sprawled across the PC case is the physical embodiment of every developer's code after a brutal refactoring session. Stripped of all its unnecessary fluff, optimized to the bone, and somehow still functioning despite looking like it's been through digital hell. The cat's expression screams "I may not be pretty, but I'm efficient" – which is exactly what we tell ourselves after removing 200 lines of legacy code and replacing it with a cryptic one-liner that nobody (including future you) will understand. The cooling vents are right there, because nothing says "high-performance computing" like a hairless creature blocking your airflow.

The ultimate tech origin story carved in stone! That runestone honors King Harald "Bluetooth" Gormsson, whose nickname inspired the wireless technology we all know and hate when it randomly disconnects during important calls. Fun fact: The Bluetooth symbol () is actually a combination of Harald's initials in Nordic runes (ᚼ and ᛒ). Ericsson putting this at their entrance is like the ancient equivalent of a company flexing their heritage in the most literal way possible. Next up: A stone tablet commemorating the inventor of Wi-Fi, conveniently placed where the signal doesn't reach.

The great GPU hypocrisy highway! AMD started with noble intentions of being the anti-NVIDIA hero we needed, only to swerve right and basically clone NVIDIA's 5060 card. It's the corporate equivalent of saying "I'll never become my parents" and then finding yourself yelling at kids to get off your lawn. The 5060 reference is to NVIDIA's RTX 5060 architecture - AMD basically took the same approach after promising to be different. Ten years in this industry and I've seen it all: companies start as rebels, end up as copycats. The circle of tech life continues...

The GPU hierarchy portrayed as a medieval throne room is absolutely genius. The legendary GTX 1080 Ti sits on the throne like an immortal king, while newer cards like the RTX 3060Ti, 3080Ti, and even the mighty RTX 4090 and 5090 bow before its greatness. What makes this so damn funny is how the 1080 Ti released in 2017 still commands respect in 2024. It's that one graphics card that refuses to become obsolete despite its age—the perfect price-to-performance ratio that haunts NVIDIA's marketing team to this day. Gamers still cling to it like it's the holy grail while newer cards struggle to justify their kidney-selling prices.