In just about two hours, Alienware attracted masses with the peculiar question on Twitter: “What GPU does your current PC have?” with an accompanying thinking-face emoji, as if they actually wanted to know. Perfectly fitting for an old-time memory: The answers flooded in from the masses, granting us a snapshot of the wild idea about what peoples’ gaming rigs really consisted of nowadays. It’s like an accidental census of the hardware landscape within the gaming community, and some of the replies are…wow.
Right up front, the high-end folks have flexed: User BamaBoy0791 is holding down an RTX 4070 Super; Liboii_ has the 4070 Ti; ObscurusCaligo casually drops the Nvidia RTX 4080 Super into conversation, as if everybody who ever talked about a 2080 super should now get their act together! Knuckleheadnz, meanwhile, claims they’re running a “5070”-hang on, what was I saying? That card ain’t out yet, unless they’re from the future or something. Maybe they meant 4070? Who knows, but they did post a picture, so maybe they have some prototype hardware or just typed that in wrong.
Now, for the mid-tier folks: Freya5842 is on RTX 3050 and looking to upgrade presumably to a “5070” whenever that becomes an actual thing, MurphyTechPC has the AMD Radeon RX 6650 XT, bluesmoke421 is running the Radeon RX 6600 Challenger D, and mehrab619 drops the Intel A750, which unfortunately lacks instant replay, unlike AMD and Nvidia cards. That must be pretty frustrating for content creators.
The real poignant stories are attached to some of those still rocking older hardware. For one, so many unfortunate gamers claimed they still have GTX 960s – Lsd4u1 is running the MSI GTX 960 2G Gaming, overgrovvnchild is holding down the Asus Strix GTX960, and NFSFan199 has “An GTX960 from Colorful” while longing for some cash to upgrade. Then there are the ones with a sense of humor: RajunCajunLo with GTX770 using the skull emoji like he knows it’s ancient and FORSAKE45990198’s laptop with that GTX 950M…ouch.
Maybe the most heartbreaking one has to be Jim_Pol_ with the “Vega 8 (1Go) who came with my 2500u,” with the pleading emoji. Integrated graphics gang really struggling out here.
There is that trend; yet many of those going strong still have RX 580. tweetysaviour said, “Still rocking with rx 580 8gb,” throwing in the fire emoji as if to say, “Look at me, I’m proud of it!” Meanwhile, jpmorelli straight up said, “AMD RX 580” without needing any emojis. The card was released back in 2017, and it’s still being used! That’s happening to be a great thing for an GPU.
Then there is the odd stuff with DoctorNatg62761 claiming to have an “Intel Arc b570,” which doesn’t exist – Arc cards are A-series, not B-series. And TacK_DriveR83 replied, “My boot if it keeps messing up after every driver update,” which is either a hilarious joke about their GPU being so bad it crashes their system or they genuinely think their boot drive is their GPU? Either way, mood.
Comments regarding the brand loyalty (or lack thereof) are crazy. Without hesitation, loot5709 replied: “9070XT. Nvidia is a scam.” Then, Haze2K1 responded: “Alienware is a meme brand like Razer,” which is kind of funny because they’re replying to Alienware’s own Tweet. Young move.
What this entire thread really displays is the extent to which the gaming community is fragmented in terms of hardware. You’ve got people with top-of-the-line $1000+ GPUs playing with those who use cards that are nearly a decade old, and they all somehow manage to make it work. Koldunya81 was telling how he replaced a “decade-old 970GTX” with an RX6750 XT “got for a song” because GPUs prices seemed to have plummeted in recent years but he refused to pay inflated prices. That is probably relatable for so many gamers who sat through the whole crypto mining madness.
You know what’s missing from every reply? Anyone who’d be complaining about not being able to play the latest games. None of them is making excuses for what they’ve got, which is actually cool. Even the one with the Vega 8 integrated graphics isn’t complaining, just put up the pleading face emoji to express the struggle.
Many targets to upgrade, it is intriguing. Several said toenailing shortly; a few mentioned explicitly waiting on the 5070 series, even though no clue is on when that is coming. The cycle never ends in the PC-gaming world.
Then, what does it mean? Much simpler: PC gaming is way more diversified than one would think just by reading tech sites strictly about the latest and greatest. There are some out there happily running on two, three, four generations of old hardware; some who splurged for shiny new hardware; and all in between. That is the cool thing when thinking about it.
The thread also reveals Nvidia is still an enormous leader in their minds (so many RTX mentions), AMD really holds ground with their Radeon cards, and Intel seems to be carving out an initial user-base with their Arc lineup. It is no longer just a two-horse competition, and what ought to be good for competition and hopefully better prices for everybody.
Wrap-up: From just one simple query, Alienware opened up this interesting perspective into the brand name GPUs gamers are actually running. From year-old GPUs to the latest super cards, the PC-gaming community is alive and well across every label of hardware. And this is what matters the most – that people are playing and enjoying games regardless of what’s in their case. PlayStation and PlayStation gamers, as well as those on Xbox, all share this passion for gaming.
