My previous card was a Vega 56, which cost me 399 €. I was lucky to get one during launch week, at MSRP despite the mining craze back then. It was a fantastic card in retrospect and lasted me more than 7 years with my 1440p/70 monitor.

I now own a 1440p/144 monitor, so my target framerate at the same resolution is a bit higher than it used to be, but I'm happy with somewhere consistently between 60 and 90 fps. The replacement for my Vega 56 is a 7900 XT (didn't wanna wait for the 9070 XT earlier this year), which still is not a proper 4K card if you're after High or Ultra settings. It does 1440p very well, but it absolutely is not a huge leap in technology compared to Vega. I got it for 600 € open box, regular price (after two years on the market mind you) was more like 700-750 € even right before the new gen dropped. I know everything's gotten more expensive between 2017 and 2025, but an 80 % price increase for a card with a smaller die size and regular GDDR memory is insane. After all, both Vega 56 and 9070 XT are pretty much comparable in their market position when they were introduced.

I've ditched AAA gaming as a hobby before for several years, until the announcement of Fallout 4 made me build a new, potent system. If the "been there, done that" feeling returns when I play new releases in the future, I'm not sure I can find motivation to pick that hobby up again further down the road. Ever increasing hardware cost and capitalist enshittification of the games industry might kill it for good as far as I'm concerned.