Right the AMD R9 FURY X is sold out pretty much everywhere even though it has a pricetag of nearly $700. While this may or may not be due specifically to supply constraints, and you can always turn to the GeForce GTX 980 as a solid alternative that in stock, it is very telling of desire for PC gamers to constantly have the best, strongest video cards. My only issue with this logic is that the last time I upgraded my video card was sometime in 2013, to a Radeon 7870 Dual-X (one of the pre-OC'd versions). This video card which was around the $200 price point has yet, to this day, to fail me. From Final Fantasy XIV on maximum settings to Heroes of the Storm and even Witcher III, I've yet to have a single issue with any of the games I've ran into so far.

Dying Light honestly didn't even really phase my video card. This is a card, mind you, I bought several years ago, that wasn't even really that great of a card at the time. It was the upper tier of basically the lowest tier. I consider cards to come in three tiers. There is the "not tier" which goes up to $100 and probably isn't as sufficent as modern day GPUs on your processor. There is the $100 to around $250 sweet spot that doesn't "future proof" you (I'd argue it almost certainly does). Then the premium tier between $250 and $500, followed by the lord of GPUs above the $500 price point.

However, one problem I'm running into is that my video card hasn't really started to suck yet. I'm not noticing anything wrong. Sure, it might not handle shadows like a boss, but that's not specifically that rare of an issue. Every other setting is fine and I often run multiple games. Right now I have Company of Heroes AND Skyforge open. Both games play beautifully without any lag. I just don't have the motivation to upgrade.

I'm certain there will be something to come along in the near future to "own" my video card, but I've yet to see it and for that reason alone, I would definitely say to anyone out there to not think about it as if it's 2005 still. Ten years ago, video cards that were just a year old could probably not even support some of the new technology games had. Fifteen years ago, in 2000, your video card literally was a yes or no answer to if you could or couldn't even run a program. Ragnarok Online, when I first started playing, wouldn't even run with an older voodoo card I had. I upgraded to a 3dfx card and was able to play, but transparency couldn't render. Think about that - transparency couldn't render in a video game. I then was able to get one of the first Radeons.

Now though, it's a bit different. Odds are, if you have a GPU, and you've bought it in the last five years, it has at the very least two gigs of ram on it. That's enough for most modern games. Beyond the ram, most of the focus is on processing speed. Comparing my card to a modern day GTX 960, it barely losses in statistics, being a point or so behind on various comparison sites. I wouldn't gain very much performance upgrading.

Anyway, while this might be mostly anecdotal, I honestly don't feel the drive to upgrade my video card like I used to. I used to sit dreaming of the next card and how I would run games better, but now it's more or less I'm dreaming for more SSD storage than anything else. I'd load a game up and it wouldn't even play, stuttering along barely being able to run. Now though, in the last five years, I've only had one card upgrade, instead of a card upgrade every year or two. I'll probably upgrade at some point next year when games finally come out and start challenging my perception on this, but as of right now, I don't see why there continues to be a rush on every new video card released - there is rarely a need to upgrade so quickly unless you're wanting to play eSports on a hyper competitive level.