The Death of Affordable Computing | Tariffs Impact & Investigation

[bonami2]

 

 

 

[schuck6566]

The section with Hyte was probably the clearest I've seen the tariff situation explained.

[Snakecharmed]

The last computing purchases I made were my 96 GB memory and 7950X CPU upgrade at the end of last year. Those were advance purchases made to fend off any uncertainty in the retail market for PC components. I haven't been paying very close attention to the news because the manic, ever-changing chaos of the tariffs is tiresome to follow and nobody has time for that crap.

 

I've been looking to upgrade my laptop as well, but I noticed one retailer on eBay jacked up their price from $980 to $1200, then later to $1350 on a refurbished model I had been eyeing for months. The first price hike happened one day after the initial tariffs were announced. I missed out on a normal(ish) price because I was ready to buy that day, but took a break for lunch. Refreshing the page afterward led to the sticker shock.

 

Considering that I distrust most laptop makers for one reason or another, this isn't a good situation. Ideally, I'd go for a 16" Framework laptop, but I'm not spending that much money on something I don't use often apart from watching some YouTube videos daily and may use more heavily when traveling. Now I'm shopping used laptops and it's a lot harder finding something with acceptable specs and pricing (if some sellers can be trusted to provide that info accurately), and that still doesn't address how previous gen laptop prices remain high because the RTX 50 series disaster launch did nothing to bring down the prices of laptops with the RTX 4060+ or 3080 mobile.

Edited April 29 by Snakecharmed

[bonami2]

@Snakecharmed Got my 9070XT as fast as i could since i waited for the 7900xtx and price increased even before tariff. Was like 1250$ cad on release and was now 1500+ on most store before the release of the 9070XT. Finished my server also. Just need to get a 2x64gb one days to be 100% finished. Am afraid it going to get worse.