Hey I'm not saying too much money, I'm saying significantly more than what most people spend.

The first is a value/ethical/moral judgement, the second is just numbers, just objective reality.

8 gigs VRAM, 16 system RAM, 15 years ago?

Most GPUs 15 years ago had one or two gigs of VRAM.

As far as I can tell, no consumer grade, 8 gb VRAM gpus even existed in 2010.

(tho, i guess SLI and Crossfire were things people did back then... maybe you had a dual or even quad gpu system?)

The first 8 gig VRAM GPU was, I think, the Radeon 290X VAPOR-X, this thing:

https://videocardz.com/49757/sapphire-launch-radeon-r9-290x-vapor-x-8gb-ram

Launch MSRP of $650.

In 2014 dollars.

That's roughly $880 in todays dollars.

Thats more expensive than me, right now, getting a 9070 (non xt), those are down to under $600, or not too far off of that, at this very moment.

Meanwhile, most AMD, budget conscious people are probably still gonna find that too pricey, and go for a 9060 XT, 16 gb version, as they're closer to $350.

Either your specs are wrong, your recollectiom is wrong, or you're spending a good deal more money on your pc builds than the average person.

A person who is able to save up and buy some.e pretty solid hardware, only occasionally?

That's a sign of relative wealth, having the ability to save up and plan. Most people don't have that, at least 25% of the US right now has more debt than wealth, ie negative equity, ie, theyre essentially debt slaves.

Most people are constantly needing to buy new, shitty shoes, that wear out, because they never have the budget margins to have any real savings, but they gotta keep walkin.

Like, I also am a person who will save up a good chunk of change, get a new solid machine that'll last a while.

But I realize that that is far from common.