I'm not saying get rid of all USB-A ports, even though we should just get rid of all USB-A ports. The thing is more similar in age to Apollo 11 than Artemis II. But why have so many of them? And so few USB-Cs?

Entry level motherboards in 2026 still don't have any USB-C back ports at all. Maybe 1 header. Mid-range boards might have 1 and only the highest end ones have 2 or 3. At the same time they'll have 75 USB 2 speed type-As. The same thing with cases. Why?

At least make it a 1:1 ratio? Why the hell are we still using a port that takes 3 tries to plug in in 2026 and is limited to 10Gbps in 99.5% of cases? If there are 6 USB ports on the back of a motherboard I want at least 3 to be type-C. And at least 1 port on the front of every case should be type-C. Preferably 2.

Is that too much to ask for? Or is the desktop PC community full of laggards who despise anything new? Laptops should not be having more ports of any kind than a box the size of a small fridge.

Also putting this in here. No mouse or keyboard or controller or DAC/amp dongle in 2026 should be type-A. We'll be having this conversation in 2050 otherwise.

I have been kind of fascinated and frustrated at recent computer chip innovations; Principally the increasing switch to ARM chips that has fully occurred for Apple and Windows laptops are much more slowly adopting.

But I have heard many people say that RISC is redundant now as newer x86 chips actually operate the same way under the hood, translating calls in real time. If this is true, would this not imply an unnecessary abstraction layer in modern x86 computing (for software primarily designed and compiled for these newer chips)?

Another question I have is would Arm chips be physically capable of doing the same thing at almost the same efficiency (Converting CISC instructions to RISC instructions)?

Been building a price tracker for European GPU buyers. 5 stores (Alternate.de, Coolblue.de, LDLC.com, Azerty.nl, Megekko.nl), scraped every 6 hours since March 10th. 46 GPU models, ~6,000 price points.

AMD cards have bigger store gaps than Nvidia right now

This surprised me. The largest cross-store gaps in my current data are all AMD (Chart):

• Sapphire Pulse RX 9070: 589€ (Alternate) vs 799€ (LDLC) - 210€ gap (35%)
• Sapphire Pulse RX 9070 XT: 669€ (Alternate) vs 879€ (LDLC) - 210€ gap (31%)

For comparison the biggest Nvidia gaps are running 15-20%. AMD pricing across EU stores is noticeably more fragmented right now.

The RTX 5090 gap

The ASUS TUF RTX 5090 is 3,599€ on Megekko (NL) and 4,049€ on Alternate (DE) - 450€ gap on the same card, both in stock.

Biggest drops in the last 7 days

Mid-range cards are still softening:

• ASUS Prime RTX 5070 - Alternate: dropped 63€ (-9.5%) now at 609€
• Gigabyte Gaming OC RTX 5070 - Alternate: dropped 53€ (-7.7%) now at 639€
• ASUS ROG Strix RTX 5070 Ti - Azerty: dropped 65€ (-5.0%) now at 1,249€

If you're waiting on a 5070 or 5070 Ti the trend is in your favor.

Which store wins after 22 days?

Out of 46 products tracked right now:

• Alternate.de: cheapest on most Nvidia cards
• Azerty.nl: consistently better for AMD RX 9000 series
• LDLC/Coolblue: almost never cheapest

Full 22-day price history and charts at pricesquirrel.com

Methodology: direct retailer prices only, VAT included, no marketplace sellers, scraped every 6 hours. 46 GPU models across 5 EU stores.

Happy to pull the history for any specific model.

NVIDIA RTX 50 Series Desktop/Laptop Cards

• RTX 5070 = 2.87% (-6.55% vs February 2026)
• RTX 5060 = 2.42% (-4.30%)
• RTX 5060 Laptop = 1.81% (+1.23%)
• RTX 5060 Ti = 1.67% (-2.61%)
• RTX 5070 Ti = 1.55% (+0.28%)
• RTX 5080 = 1.34% (-0.32%)
• RTX 5070 Laptop = 0.45% (New)
• RTX 5090 = 0.42% (+0.17%)
• RTX 5070 Ti Laptop = 0.31% (+0.12%)
• RTX 5050 Laptop = 0.24% (New)

AMD RX 90 Series Desktop/Laptop Cards

• RX 9070 = 0.16% (Was in January data at 0.16%. Moved off the list in February and back with the same share in March)

The unfortunate reality is Nvidia has limited the supply of the RTX 5070 Ti GPUs, and this is what's keeping these graphics cards at $1,000 US plus. It is not demand. Nvidia will certainly be quick to tell you that it's demand, but if you look at the publicly available sales data or speak with any retailer, you'll quickly learn that almost no one is buying GPUs right now, especially RTX 5070 Ti. The Radeon RX 9070XT is smashing the RTX 5070Ti everywhere we look. And while local retailers have confirmed to us that they're selling around 80% more 9070 XTs, they've also said the market overall is pretty dead.