Question are video card prices headed down yet?

[biostud]

Remember when there were NO 3D cards and yet games were so much more fun?

Maybe because you were a kid at that time?

Personally the technology in itself is just as fascinating as gaming is, so that combined with mouse and keyboard is the main reason for me staying on the PC platform.

 

[Golgatha]

Remember when there were NO 3D cards and yet games were so much more fun?

Yes, but I also remember installing a Creative Voodoo 2 8MB card in my computer and playing Quake 2 and Need for Speed 2 at high FPS at 1024x768 resolution too. I was hooked from then on.

 

[Stuka87]

Remember when there were NO 3D cards and yet games were so much more fun?

Not sure I would say PC games from before 1995 were so much more fun than games that we have now. Some were very fun. But the majority of games that people look back on are either with nostalgia glasses, or were games that actually used hardware acceleration.

The Voodoo 1 graphics card came out in '95, and it changed gaming as a whole. There were 3d accelerators before it, but it was the first mass market card.
If you look at any of the Quake games, Diablo 2, etc, they were all best played with an accelerator card.

 

[Golgatha]

Not sure I would say PC games from before 1995 were so much more fun than games that we have now. Some were very fun. But the majority of games that people look back on are either with nostalgia glasses, or were games that actually used hardware acceleration.

The Voodoo 1 graphics card came out in '95, and it changed gaming as a whole. There were 3d accelerators before it, but it was the first mass market card.
If you look at any of the Quake games, Diablo 2, etc, they were all best played with an accelerator card.

I got in on the Diablo 2 beta back in the day and was rocking a Voodoo 3 3000 at the time. That was gaming bliss! My retro gaming rig has a Voodoo 4 4500 AGP in it.

 

[UsandThem]

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/asus-gpu-price-reduction

Please note that the MSRP cut of 25% isn't being applied across the board. This is an 'up to' figure, or as Asus puts it, "Consumers should expect prices to decline up to 25% on different models throughout the springtime."

Looks like GPU prices might finally get down to a more reasonable price soon.

Of course the prices have been declining pretty steadily for months now, but they've still have a ways to go (for me anyways).

 

[moonbogg]

I got in on the Diablo 2 beta back in the day and was rocking a Voodoo 3 3000 at the time. That was gaming bliss! My retro gaming rig has a Voodoo 4 4500 AGP in it.

I was just out of high school and Burger King wasn't paying me any money, but my older sister had some. She wanted to play some amusement park game that was lagging like hell, so I convinced her to buy a Voodoo 3 PCI card from Best Buy. The game ran like butter, and as soon as she stopped playing I fired up Quake 2 and was in gaming heaven. 1024x768 easy!

 

[Golgatha]

I was just out of high school and Burger King wasn't paying me any money, but my older sister had some. She wanted to play some amusement park game that was lagging like hell, so I convinced her to buy a Voodoo 3 PCI card from Best Buy. The game ran like butter, and as soon as she stopped playing I fired up Quake 2 and was in gaming heaven. 1024x768 easy!

My Voodoo 3 AGP came from Babbages!

 

[igor_kavinski]

Weirdly, the Voodoo3 part of my brain is just blank. All I remember is that its heatsink would get abnormally hot. The only game I can think of that comes to mind using the Voodoo3 is Super Mario 64 on UltraHLE. I can't remember the names of any other games I played on it.

 

[Golgatha]

Weirdly, the Voodoo3 part of my brain is just blank. All I remember is that its heatsink would get abnormally hot. The only game I can think of that comes to mind using the Voodoo3 is Super Mario 64 on UltraHLE. I can't remember the names of any other games I played on it.

You could definitely fry an egg on that heatsink.

 

[CP5670]

I got a Voodoo3 3000 specifically for Descent 3 and Unreal. Many games back then were designed around Glide and ran much better on that, or had Glide-only graphics features.

 

[RnR_au]

Prices are still heading downwards \o/



From

https://twitter.com/x/status/1508504693936435207

 

[beginner99]

Except its not a "belief". Its very easy to follow GPU pricing trends in regards to GPU mining. We have now been through multiple cycles now. And they follow each other like clockwork.

Right. miners are at fault for global chip shortage. They are to blame for the insane car prices. Common. The shortage affects chips that have nothing to do with mining. Miners are just a easy excuse without having to do actual research. COVID and increased demand for electronics factor in way more. Then that China had to stop production regularly due to either COVID or too much pollution or not enough power (which I see is ironic and of course you will again blame the miners for).

OEMs had no problems getting GPUs for their gaming laptops or prebuilts. Yes new consoles are hard to get too but the sold about 30 mio of them in 2021.

We can actual see that GPU shipemnts are far lower than in previous years:

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/jpr-q3-2021-desktop-discrete-gpu-shipments, in some cases half the units!!! compared to 2018 per quarter.

 

[Aapje]

Prices are still heading downwards \o/

We seem to be at a point where the supply chain has to reconcile itself with these new prices and where they have to shift focus to the lower end cards.

Basically, the entire supply chain upped their prices to take advantage, so the shops pay high prices to the board partners, who pay high prices to Nvidia/AMD. Shops can't structurally go below the prices they buy the cards for. With cards now piling up at the shops, they are putting pressure on the board partners to lower the prices, who in turn put pressure on Nvidia. Asus seems to have taken the lead in reducing the prices. Other board partners will now have to respond.

An issue here is that many shops have supply that they bought at higher prices and they are reluctant to sell these at a loss. So they often want to keep the prices too high for the actual market situation, until they have sold their expensively bought in cards. Yet by keeping the prices high, they suppress demand, so it takes longer for their old stock to sell. However, some sellers with little stock are able to pass on those lower prices quickly. That's what I'm seeing right now, with some shops asking very high prices still and then others having much better prices, but selling their stock fairly quickly.

Nvidia seems to be mostly producing 3070's and up, with very low supply of 3060 and 3050's, which keeps the prices of those cards relatively high. So Nvidia will also need to start producing more lower end cards, which will take a while.

Anyway, very good news is that the Ethereum people seem to have created enough diversity with the validation clients that are used to not have to hold up the merge over this. So there are no apparent barriers for Proof of Stake in June (but they still have to do more work and issues may arise).

 

[ultimatebob]

The price for Ethereum shot back up, though, so it's going to be profitable to mine with a GPU for at least another month or two.

 

[Aapje]

The price for Ethereum shot back up, though, so it's going to be profitable to mine with a GPU for at least another month or two.

That may actually be a result of Proof of Stake. I see a lot of speculation that many people may move from Bitcoin to Ethereum due to it, which would raise the price, so people may be speculating on that price increase by buying ETH before the Merge. Hopefully the Ethereum price will become completely irrelevant in 3 months' time.

 

[Insert_Nickname]

Yes, but I also remember installing a Creative Voodoo 2 8MB card in my computer and playing Quake 2 and Need for Speed 2 at high FPS at 1024x768 resolution too. I was hooked from then on.

I might remember wrong but I think SLI was required for 1024x768 on Voodoo2 8MB cards, due to limited VRAM. The 12MB ones could do it single card I think. It has been years after all.

That said, I have very fond memories of my Voodoo Banshee 16MB. That was a beastly 2D card, with very decent 3D performance too.

 

[igor_kavinski]

Voodoo Banshee 16MB.

Led me to this: 16MB 3Dfx Voodoo Banshee GPU from 1998: Quantum3D Raven - YouTube

Which led me to download this game I've never played before. Thanks!

 

[igor_kavinski]

EVGA GeForce RTX 3090 Ti FTW3 GAMING, 24G-P5-4983-KR, 24GB GDDR6X, iCX3 Technology, ARGB LED, Metal Backplate, Includes eLeash - Newegg.com

Get ready, get set, on your marks, GO!

 

[Aapje]

You have to be quite a masochist or simply not care about money at all to buy that for up to 6 months or so until the 4090 drops.

On the plus side, the VRAM on one side means that this card won't fry its VRAM.

 

[Stuka87]

Right. miners are at fault for global chip shortage. They are to blame for the insane car prices. Common. The shortage affects chips that have nothing to do with mining. Miners are just a easy excuse without having to do actual research. COVID and increased demand for electronics factor in way more. Then that China had to stop production regularly due to either COVID or too much pollution or not enough power (which I see is ironic and of course you will again blame the miners for).

OEMs had no problems getting GPUs for their gaming laptops or prebuilts. Yes new consoles are hard to get too but the sold about 30 mio of them in 2021.

We can actual see that GPU shipemnts are far lower than in previous years:

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/jpr-q3-2021-desktop-discrete-gpu-shipments, in some cases half the units!!! compared to 2018 per quarter.

There are other factors sure. But the fact that people can now buy cards for near MSRP prices just as crypto values drop is not a coincidence. If you want to be a minor apologist, that's your prerogative. But you are supporting a group of people that are just as bad as oil tycoons. They do not care about the environment as long as they make a profit. They will consume the full output of coal based power plants just to power mining GPUs. Mining for crypto is one of the least green ways to make a profit.

 

[VirtualLarry]

can now buy cards for near MSRP prices just as crypto values drop is not a coincidence.

Except, prices of both BTC and ETH are on the rise again this week, and yet GPU prices continue to fall, just as GPU mfg's predicted that they would, as the the "shortage" comes to an end.

 

[ultimatebob]

Except, prices of both BTC and ETH are on the rise again this week, and yet GPU prices continue to fall, just as GPU mfg's predicted that they would, as the the "shortage" comes to an end.

You're a miner, Larry, so you tell us... if you can profitably mine with your GPU's for a few more weeks, are you going to keep doing so or are you going to start to unload your excess cards now?

It looks like you already missed the peak selling point, but there is a risk that GPU prices will drop even more over the next few months.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Profits are up a bit... I'm not selling. Retail prices are down, now, anyways, no great profit in selling anymore, be lucky to get MSRP.

Edit: I'm not buying more cards, either. I'm basically at capacity at this location, close to 1GH/sec.

 

[Golgatha]

I might remember wrong but I think SLI was required for 1024x768 on Voodoo2 8MB cards, due to limited VRAM. The 12MB ones could do it single card I think. It has been years after all.

That said, I have very fond memories of my Voodoo Banshee 16MB. That was a beastly 2D card, with very decent 3D performance too.

You're right. 1024x768 at 16bit color was around 4.5MB of VRAM. Since SLI worked by rendering half the lines of resolution, each card only needed 2.25MB of VRAM when using SLI. Both cards had a 4MB z-buffer and 4MB (8MB for the 12MB version) of VRAM for the frame buffer as I recall. Probably remember playing Quake 2 at 1024x768 on my Voodoo 3 most likely.

Side note - I have a Voodoo 3 3000 PCI as a backup card for the Voodoo 4 4500 AGP I have in my retro box.

 

[Whirlwind]

The talk of those old voodoo cards bring back some fond memories.