Source: PC hardware has turned upside down in the last 5 years
The PC hardware industry moves fast, but, as consumers, many of us believed in a few constants till a few years ago — Nvidia makes the best GPUs, AMD is always playing catch-up, and Intel CPUs are the best for gaming. The last 5 years, however, have turned the PC hardware landscape upside down. The seemingly unchangeable truths of the industry crumbled in the face of innovation, perseverance, and hubris.
Slowly but surely, Nvidia GPUs have become uninteresting for the value buyer, and AMD’s RDNA GPUs have finally matured. Intel’s domination of consumer CPUs might have ended unceremoniously, but its discrete GPUs have made a comeback that surprised everyone. More competition benefits everyone, and it’s time consumers relearn the rules of the revamped PC hardware space.
Nvidia has become the worst option
Reserved for the rich and the elite
Nvidia doesn’t hold a whopping 90% market share of consumer GPUs for nothing. The company made its name by pushing GPU technology forward and producing some of the best GPUs of all time. The Nvidia of today, however, is known for prioritizing AI chips above all else, and gouging consumers for everything they’ve got. From iconic GPUs like the GTX 1080 Ti and RTX 3080 to disappointments like the RTX 4060 Ti and RTX 5070, Nvidia has gone from great to greedy.
Testing Games
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KitGuruTechIn terms of value, Nvidia had already started to lose the battle to AMD’s RDNA 2 GPUs back in 2020, but 5 years later, its defeat is complete. AMD’s RDNA 4 GPUs have provided gamers with high-end performance at mid-range prices, and even Intel’s Battlemage GPUs have been a godsend for budget gamers. Nvidia’s $1,000+ graphics cards might be slightly faster than AMD’s latest offerings, but they’re out of reach of the vast population of gamers. After a long time, Nvidia holds the distinction of having the most uninteresting products on the market.
AMD is in the same league as Nvidia
Ray tracing, upscaling, and frame generation
In 2020, AMD’s RX 6000 GPUs signified a crucial shift by the company — it was ready to compete with Nvidia in the high-end segment. Its GPUs, like the RX 6900 XT, and later, the RX 7900 XTX, offered better raw performance per dollar than Nvidia’s offerings, but it was way behind in ray tracing and upscaling. With the RX 9000 GPUs, however, AMD has bridged the gap, more or less, with Nvidia with much-improved ray tracing and advanced FSR 4 capabilities.
To be clear, AMD’s RX 9070 XT is still behind the RTX 5070 Ti in ray tracing performance, but you need to see the difference in performance as well as the price. On average, the RX 9070 XT is around 21% slower than the RTX 5070 Ti in ray tracing, but it also happens to be 20% cheaper, essentially offering the same value. More importantly, AMD has made a huge jump in RT performance compared to the previous generation, and will likely improve things further with its next-gen cards.
AMD has made great strides in upscaling and frame generation as well, transforming an unusable FSR 3 into a remarkably competitive FSR 4. It virtually matches Nvidia’s DLSS 4 in terms of performance uplift, and falls somewhere between DLSS 3 and DLSS 4 in image quality. The highlight here is that AMD is no longer a distant second to Nvidia; it offers much of the same experience at a lower price.
Intel has great discrete GPUs
Who would have imagined this in 2020?
Intel’s last stab at producing discrete desktop GPUs was in 1998 with the i740, a chip that was mostly a disaster. Around 2020, there were murmurings of Intel using its Xe-HPG architecture for a new line of discrete consumer graphics cards, which, unsurprisingly, raised several eyebrows. In late 2022, Intel made it to the finish line with the Arc A380, an entry-level GPU that was first launched in China alone, and then worldwide several months later.
While the Arc A380 launch couldn’t have gone worse, the other GPUs in the lineup, such as the Arc A770, Arc A750, and Arc A580 fared much better. We finally had more than two players in the desktop GPU market, and Intel was firmly going after the budget segment. Considering the problems surrounding raw performance, drivers, and power consumption, however, all eyes were on what Intel would do next — will it successfully combine the affordability of the Arc Alchemist GPUs with improved gaming performance?
Intel did exactly that with the much-celebrated Arc B580 and Arc B570 for 1440p budget gaming, at $250 and $219, respectively. The Arc B580 is still the best budget GPU in this market, even at its current $350 price. Intel’s second-gen Arc Battlemage GPUs made 1440p 60+ FPS Ultra gaming affordable, even with ray tracing enabled. Its XeSS software suite was much improved compared to the previous generation, and complemented the GPUs perfectly. Plus, the issues around drivers were mostly gone, with efficiency remaining as the only concern.
No one wants to touch an Intel CPU right now
How the turntables…
The once-mighty Intel has been hit from multiple sides in the last few years, reducing it to a shadow of its former self. What started with the onslaught of AMD’s Ryzen CPUs, especially its X3D CPUs, continued with the unstable 13th and 14th Gen Core processors, and culminated with the Core Ultra launch being an embarrassing failure. Not only does Intel have no answer for AMD’s X3D CPUs, but its high-end Core Ultra chips are slower than the Raptor Lake CPUs and perform the same as AMD’s budget Zen 4 and Zen 5 chips.
There are way more reasons to avoid Intel CPUs right now than there are to buy one. Whether you consider gaming performance, productivity performance, thermal efficiency, stability, or pricing, Intel isn’t a clear winner in any department. AMD’s Ryzen 9000 CPUs haven’t delivered any significant gains over the Ryzen 7000 chips, but they’re still more impressive than anything from the Intel camp.
The Core Ultra 9 285K is still the fastest CPU for some productivity workloads, but the performance difference compared to, say, the Ryzen 9 9950X, doesn’t justify the higher price tag. Plus, you need to put up with the higher power consumption, stability concerns, and weaker gaming performance (if that matters to you).
AMD is the undisputed king of gaming CPUs
Team Red is in the driver’s seat
The consumer CPU space was dominated by Intel CPUs till 2016, with AMD producing slower yet more power-hungry processors. Intel was ahead for so long that it grew complacent, stretching its 10nm node for years. In 2017, however, AMD debuted its Zen architecture with the Ryzen 1000 CPUs, and nothing was the same ever again. AMD offered high core counts, competitive single-core performance, and impressive power efficiency, often at lower prices compared to Intel.
AMD’s 6-core and 8-core chips from its Zen 2 and Zen 3 lineups offered significantly better overall value compared to Intel offerings, even if they weren’t ahead in absolute performance. Eventually, with the launch of the Ryzen 7 5800X3D, AMD beat Intel’s Core i9-12900K in gaming, marking the first time in years Team Red was on top. AMD created a decisive lead with the Ryzen 7 7800X3D, and by the time the Ryzen 7 9800X3D came out, AMD was smoking the best Intel chips by around 30%; it was pure carnage.
In 2025, whether you need a pure gaming CPU, a budget 6-core chip, or a 16-core workhorse, AMD leads in almost every department. Intel’s Arrow Lake CPUs turned out to be slower in gaming compared to the Raptor Lake chips, so gamers are waiting to see how Team Blue recovers with its Nova Lake CPUs in 2026.
A lot can change in 5 years
A span of 5 years might not feel like a lot, but it has completely changed the PC hardware space. Intel and AMD have swapped places, Intel has budget discrete GPUs now, and AMD GPUs are much better options compared to Nvidia offerings. It will be interesting to see what changes the next 5 years will bring. Will we see a resurgent Intel in 2026? What about high-end AMD GPUs to compete with the likes of the RTX 5090? And I would love to see an Intel Battlemage or Celestial GPU in the mid-range or high-end market.