At the start of this year, it seemed like 2022 would be a banger for PC enthusiasts. Big spenders could look forward to cutting-edge CPUs and GPUs from Intel, AMD, and Nvidia in the form of 13th-generation chips, Ryzen 7000, and RTX 40. Even budget buyers could expect new low-end and midrange GPUs not just from AMD but also Intel with its brand-new Arc series of graphics cards.
However, we're at the end of 2022 now, and that feeling of optimism has slammed right into cold, hard reality. Almost every release this year failed to live up to expectations, and the end result is one of the most disappointing years for the desktop PC in quite some time.
Bitter losses for Ryzen and Radeon
Before we get into Ryzen 7000 and RX 7000, it's important to acknowledge that throughout most of the year, AMD launched new products on a near monthly cadence. We had new low-end Radeon cards in January, new budget Ryzen 5000 CPUs and the Ryzen 7 5800X3D in April, and the RX 6000 refresh in May. Things looked particularly promising for users on a budget who couldn't afford even last-gen hardware due to the supply shortage that thankfully ended in the early months of 2022.
Almost all of these releases were disappointing in various ways, ranging from mediocre to historically terrible. The new budget RX 6400 and RX 6500 XT didn't offer compelling value; Intel's 12th-generation counterparts outclassed the Ryzen 5000 budget chips; the RX 6000 refresh introduced more expensive cards that only had a little more performance than existing models. This year, AMD lost its mojo on budget components.
Almost all of AMD's releases were disappointing in various ways, ranging from mediocre to historically terrible.
Things didn't go well over on the high end either. The brand new Ryzen 7000 series launched in October with the cutting-edge 5nm node from TSMC but with the lowest generation-to-generation IPC gain since Ryzen 2000. The flagship Ryzen 9 7950X won back the performance crown for AMD but lost it not even a month later to Intel's Core i9-13900K, which was basically a Core i9-12900K with more cores and cache. It had to sting for AMD to work so hard on getting a 5nm CPU made just to lose to the 13900K (which isn't without its own problems).
The loss in GPUs might even be more bitter. With the RX 6000, AMD was neck and neck with Nvidia at 1080p and 1440p while generally losing at 4K, ray tracing, and in the features department. The new flagship RX 7900 XTX sadly could not keep up with the RTX 4090, and now AMD is right back in second place. At least the RX 7000 is priced much better than both the RTX 4090 and 4080, and its new chiplet technology clearly works and sets up AMD well for the future.
Given AMD's potential for this year, not having either the CPU or GPU performance crown is just disappointing, especially for consumers who wanted better value components or brand-new processors with leading performance. But although AMD lost to Nvidia and Intel, that doesn't mean the grass is greener on the other side.
RTX 40 was a disaster
Nvidia found itself firmly in the lead once again with its new RTX 40 GPUs, but it's hard to envy Nvidia even in victory. The company started the year with some pretty mediocre GPUs. The supposedly low-end or midrange RTX 3050 wasn't a particularly great value at over two times the price of the GTX 1650, the RTX 3080 12GB was basically a 3080 but with a bigger price tag, and the RTX 3090 Ti was fast but otherwise nothing special. But everyone was looking forward to the launch of the RTX 40 series, powered by the new Lovelace architecture.
However, just before these announcements, EVGA announced it would no longer be making Nvidia GPUs because of Nvidia's alleged "disrespectful treatment." Not only was EVGA one of Nvidia's biggest partners, but its GPUs also received almost universal praise for cooling, performance, and customer support. This was a blow to both Nvidia's reputation and the company's chances of getting well-made RTX 40 GPUs out to the market.
When the RTX 40 series was finally announced, the reception was lukewarm at best and riddled in controversy. Before anything even launched, everyone noticed that the 16GB model of the RTX 4080 had a $1,199 MSRP, much higher than the RTX 3080 10GB's $699 launch price. The real focus of everyone's ire was the RTX 4080 12GB, however; at $899, it was significantly more expensive than the RTX 3080 10GB. Still, most of the controversy concerned its specs, revealing that it was not simply a 4080 with 12GB of VRAM but a wholly different GPU with vastly lower performance.
I cannot recall a time in the past decade when Nvidia canceled a GPU this close to launch.
In the end, Nvidia canceled the 12GB card just weeks before launch, citing confusion about its name. Rumor has it that the RTX 4080 12GB will come back as the RTX 4070 Ti, but so far, Nvidia has made no such announcement. I cannot recall a time in the past decade when Nvidia (or AMD) canceled a GPU this close to launch.
As for the RTX 40 GPUs that did make it to launch, things have been going very poorly. The RTX 4090 was fast but embroiled in a scandal involving melting power cables. It was discovered that it could become a fire hazard if the cable were plugged in a specific way, though there were only around 50 reported cases globally. PCI-SIG, the entity that sets standards about PCI devices, even blamed Nvidia for the problem. Meanwhile, sales of the RTX 4080 16GB appear to be slow as supply remains quite high.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang declared that it was no longer possible to offer lower prices each generation, hence the dramatic price increase that came with RTX 40. Whether Moore's Law is dead or not is hotly debated (Intel insists it's alive and well), but ultimately, Nvidia's attempted transition into selling more expensive GPUs didn't go very well this time, not for the company or for its fans.
Intel took a bullet for us
2022 was terrible for Intel's finances. It posted a half-billion-dollar loss during the second quarter, the worst loss the company has suffered in decades. Other companies like AMD also saw declines in revenue and net income throughout the year, but Intel's earnings were particularly bad. That alone makes 2022 a sour year for Intel as a company.
On the other hand, the products Intel launched this year were actually pretty decent. The company started strong with its budget 12th-generation CPUs in January. Outlets like Techspot found that the Core i5-12400F offered similar performance to the Ryzen 5 5600X for almost $100 less. Intel didn't have to offer the Core i5-12400 and other CPUs for so little, considering AMD had nothing new in the budget segment.
The company's Arc Alchemist GPUs that came out in the fall were also oriented towards budget buyers but sadly fell flat on performance and value. We liked the A770 and A750 when we reviewed them in October, but now that the comparable 6600 and 6600 XT have fallen in price, they're clearly the better deal. As for the low-end A380, in its review, Tom's Hardware described it as "one of the worst graphics card launches in history," specifically citing the troubled launch and drivers, not the hardware itself. At least Intel tried.
Intel's final act this year was to release its 13th-generation CPUs based on Raptor Lake. It wasn't obvious that Raptor Lake would actually end up beating Ryzen 7000 because Intel was still using the 10nm node it used for Alder Lake CPUs while AMD was moving to TSMC's new 5nm.
The 13900K proved all the doubters wrong, reclaiming the performance crown from AMD's Ryzen 7950X, as we found in our review, although just barely. But perhaps the most impressive thing about the 13th-generation CPUs is how much they cost. The price structure was basically unchanged from the previous generation despite all the CPUs released so far having more cores.
This new generation isn't perfect, however. It consumes way more power than Ryzen 7000 CPUs, particularly the 13900K. Furthermore, the excellent LGA1700 socket is, unfortunately, at the end of its life cycle since 14th-generation Meteor Lake chips will be on a new platform. But I think we can forgive Intel when its 13th generation was a bright spot in a year full of disappointments. We may even have Intel to thank for Ryzen 7000 selling well below MSRP for the last few weeks. It should go without saying that competition is good for everyone.
We may be in for a rough 2023
How did 2022 start? With lots of new releases for product lines that launched with the highest-end parts the year or two before. How will 2023 start? Probably the same way since Ryzen 7000, 13th Gen, RX 7000, and RTX 40 have just come out. Presumably, we can expect the big three have more models and variants in store for us. Judging by recent history, my expectations for what's to come aren't too high. But maybe we'll all be pleasantly surprised with reasonably priced CPUs and GPUs revealed at CES or Computex next year. I'm prepared for the worst but hoping for the best.