Are current-gen midrange cards just...bad?

[StrangerGuy]

6770/550 Ti: Lame rebadges to charge more for 5770-level performance. Even 5770 wasn't that good compared to cheap 4870/4890 2 years ago.

560 Ti...Same price for 2x GTX 460s.

I know prices are especially volatile but you'll get the idea; pay more, get less this gen.

 

[Jacky60]

Mid range is where a lot if not most people go. Therefore its a minefield of good/bad and indifferent products designed to trap the unwary. There are some very good cards in there but others that crush the hopes of the junior gamer. It's the same with most consumer products, people do a little research but often not enough to sort the wheat from the chaff.
Manufacturers benefit from this and selling a mediocre card to someone who doesn't know any better means they have more cash for whores and coke.

 

[zebrax2]

4xxx and gtx2xx time was a spectacular time for the consumers as the price war was in full heat. This was followed by the 5xxx series which IIRC has no competition when it was released thus price remain stagnant. Nvidia later released 4xx series but reviews was less than spectacular except for the gtx460, which is the saving grace of the series(in terms of reputation), performs great and to this day sell like hotcakes. TSMCs' 32nm node was cancelled which forced both camps to release the current gen to the same node as the last.

I guess you could say that the events leading to this day resulted to a perfect storm that caused performance/price to remain stagnant

 

[fuzzymath10]

Performance may be similar but I like to group classes of video card by TDP. To me, mid range means either one or two 6-pin PCIe plugs. Regarding SLI not all mid range users have four plugs and a satisfactory level of cooling or ventilation.

So performance may not have gone up much but efficiency has gone way up, particularly AMD. An i3 and 5770 are comparable to a Q6600 and 4870 (give or take for different core count or architecture) but in terms of thermals and power, are ahead by around a factor of two.

 

[toyota]

the Q6600 is 4 1/2 years old, 65nm and has 4 real cores. the i3 is 32nm and has just 2 cores plus HT. I would hope that setup would be massively more efficient just based on the cpu alone. to be honest I do not consider that to be all that impressive after that long.

 

[skipsneeky2]

Mid range is where a lot if not most people go. Therefore its a minefield of good/bad and indifferent products designed to trap the unwary. There are some very good cards in there but others that crush the hopes of the junior gamer. It's the same with most consumer products, people do a little research but often not enough to sort the wheat from the chaff.
Manufacturers benefit from this and selling a mediocre card to someone who doesn't know any better means they have more cash for whores and coke.

Hell i went high end for the first time with the gtx280.

While not the best purchase,it was a nice trade up from the 8800gts.

Sucked mid range in the next generation kicked its ass up and down the charts.

 

[evident]

what's wrong with the GTX460?

 

[skipsneeky2]

what's wrong with the GTX460?

Nothing if you game at 1680x1050 or play the same titles at 1920x1080 in the next 2 years.

Don't think it would hold up at 1920x1080 period for the next titles especially BF3.

I could be wrong but till beta comes out and we can see...only speculation.