Are we in a golden period of GPU's right now?

[tviceman]

Looking at the incredible value of video cards $100 and up, I honestly think that, as consumers, we're in a golden age of GPU's in respect to performance that we're getting for the value. Speaking strictly on cards that are either being still made or have very wide availability, starting with the gts450 for moderate gaming and HTPC setups, and moving up the chain to the hd5770, gtx460, hd6850, 6870, gtx560, hd6950 and gtx570 - there are quite literally at least 10 different cards at different price points from $100 to $330 that can all run today's software and games at reasonable to maxed out levels of performance.

Either by a combination of consoles stagnating much of the graphical innovation in games, or by way of the industry simply trying to cater to a larger potential audience (through customers with capable hardware), I think we might be seeing the best GPU market that has EVER existed. In my opinion, I think both Nvidia and ATI are going to have a small mountain to climb in finding new customers when they come to market with 28nm technology based strictly on performance alone. As a result, I think we're going to see both companies continue to differentiate their products through features i.e. physx, cuda, eyefinity, 3D, etc....

28nm GPU's might have the capability to extend and improve this "golden age" of video cards, but at the very least I think we're in it now and as the future moves more toward cpu/gpu on the same die and SoC's, we may look back at these times with our fondest memories of this market.

 

[lavaheadache]

The cards wouldn't look so good if Games would start to push the envelope again.

There are a few games out there that will bury even a 580 at lower resolutions but after you get past those 3-4 games even a mid range card(GTX460) can put up awesome frame rates at higher resolutions in most games

Blame consoles.... Actually blame all of us for letting this shit happen

 

[Vdubchaos]

I don't know about Golden period, and even if we were, games are not taking any graphical leaps anyways.

They look no different they they did 2-3 years ago+....

 

[maniacalpha1-1]

One of the latest graphical leaps has been"destruction"(such as BF BC2). What's going to be the next leap likely to happen? Even more detailed destruction?

 

[Cogman]

Once upon a time, we saw huge, like, 50% performance leaps between generations of graphics cards. That, IMO, was the golden age. Now, we are lucky to see 10-20% performance leaps between generations. Still impressive, but not the most impressive the industry has seen.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/537/11
for reference to what I consider the real start of the GPU golden era. It probably ended around the 8800 days.

 

[SickBeast]

IMO right now is probably the best time to purchase a midrange GPU that I've ever seen. For a little over $100, you get cards that are extremely capable.

For $120 brand new, I've never seen a card that's as good as my GTX 460. Usually an upper midrange GPU would cost at least $200.

 

[RavenSEAL]

One of the latest graphical leaps has been"destruction"(such as BF BC2). What's going to be the next leap likely to happen? Even more detailed destruction?

That's what frostbite 2.0 is gonna be. I can't wait to see a fully destructible NY map. :Sss

 

[maniacalpha1-1]

Though it may not be graphically heavy, I wonder when Battlefield will start modeling compartmental damage for vanilla? Meaning you can damage and cause not to function individual parts of a vehicle such as treads, the gun, turret can't turn, etc.

 

[badb0y]

It seems like it is the Golden Era to buy GPUs but I would argue that the reason why all these cards look like amazing values is because we have hit a performance wall, being stuck on 40 nm, and all the high end GPUs are not really moving much in terms of performance. Going from GTX 480 to GTX 580 gets you about 15% increase in performance, which isn't very impressive considering the difference in performance a person might see in the past (going from the Top GPU of one generation to the other). Essentially, you can OC the GTX 480 to catch the GTX 580 which is impossible for top end GPUs to do from 2-3 years ago. The 4870 won't catch a 5870 and a GTX 280 won't catch a GTX 480. So it's not so much that we are in a golden era, it's just that we are stuck as of right now and considering the games that are coming out, there isn't much that is going strain our cards (Maybe Crysis 2?).

 

[deimos3428]

I'd say yes. People often just look at the raw performance of the cards and conclude they aren't getting massively more powerful, which is true. But GPUs are also getting cooler, quieter, more feature-rich at a given price point. The $200-300 range is looking pretty sweet.

 

[Soleron]

The 4850-level of performance has been stuck at $100 for over two years now (-> 5750 -> 6670 and GTS 440 much weaker) despite two generations of hardware having gone by. I don't think so.

 

[s44]

No, we're just in a lame period of software thanks to ancient console tech.

 

[Fox5]

Agree with s44, lame period. Video cards have far outstripped games, leaving little benefit to upgrading. It sure is making laptops capable of gaming far cheaper though.

In terms of advancement, gpus have somewhat stagnated. I would blame tsmc's poor 40nm process, I bet 32nm/28nm video cards will be a >2x performance increase.

 

[Mr. President]

I wouldn't call it the golden age, but it's a golden age for midrange cards. I seem to remember ATi announcing to abandon the super high-end race a couple of years ago (to focus on the midrange where the money is) and nvidia has followed suit.

The consoles factor into it to some degree, but hardware has also grown powerful enough to become a matter of R&D. Nobody seems to know how to use traditional graphics hardware to improve the image without killing performance. If anything, the biggest advances all seem to be happening in post-processing on the PS3's SPUs.

If I were to place bets, I would put it on DirectCompute being used to do similar things in the near future. Tessellation is (so far) just being wasted on subdivision and it will probably be a while until content starts becoming designed for it. XP and old hardware are as much to blame for that as the consoles.

 

[pw38]

Though it may not be graphically heavy, I wonder when Battlefield will start modeling compartmental damage for vanilla? Meaning you can damage and cause not to function individual parts of a vehicle such as treads, the gun, turret can't turn, etc.

That's what I want to see. Pretty visuals are great and all but I want advances in physics, damage modeling, destructible environments, etc.. I'd like to literally be able to knock a building down by accident. Now, they have to work that in to making sure it doesn't hinder the story or anything but I'm sure they could do it.

 

[RussianSensation]

Once upon a time, we saw huge, like, 50% performance leaps between generations of graphics cards. That, IMO, was the golden age.

:thumbsup: More like 70-100% performance increase actually. I agree with you, from a performance increase point of view between generations on the high end, the market is not what it used to be at all (but that's probably also a factor of the stagnating graphics and problems with 28/32nm manufacturing nodes.)

However, the market has so many offerings between $100 - $350, and a lot of great offerings at that. Every $20-30 extra buys you a faster card. From that point of view, it's the best I have seen (and not even getting into endless CF/SLI possibilities). Also, at $200-250 you get at least 70%+ of the performance of the high end cards from GTX470/HD5870/GTX560/HD6950 2GB.

 

[Skurge]

The 4850-level of performance has been stuck at $100 for over two years now (-> 5750 -> 6670 and GTS 440 much weaker) despite two generations of hardware having gone by. I don't think so.

Yeah, with cards like the 4870x2 and 295 being close to gtx480/6970 performance. Back in the day you would get a more than 2x boost each generation.

x800xt/6800ultra was more than twice as fast as 9800/5950, same with with x1800/7800. I blame DX10+

 

[Wreckage]

1998 was the "Golden Age of Video Cards"

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/3d-accelerator-review-step,51-12.html

Here we see chips from ATI, PowerVR, NVIDIA, 3DFX, SiS, etc. Being tested on CPUs from Cyrix\IBM, AMD and Intel.

 

[badb0y]

1998 was the "Golden Age of Video Cards"

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/3d-accelerator-review-step,51-12.html

Here we see chips from ATI, PowerVR, NVIDIA, 3DFX, SiS, etc. Being tested on CPUs from Cyrix\IBM, AMD and Intel.

Damn, I was 7 years old when that review came out lol.

 

[bryanW1995]

only reason prices are good right now is b/c of competition.

 

[sxr7171]

It seems like it is the Golden Era to buy GPUs but I would argue that the reason why all these cards look like amazing values is because we have hit a performance wall, being stuck on 40 nm, and all the high end GPUs are not really moving much in terms of performance. Going from GTX 480 to GTX 580 gets you about 15% increase in performance, which isn't very impressive considering the difference in performance a person might see in the past (going from the Top GPU of one generation to the other). Essentially, you can OC the GTX 480 to catch the GTX 580 which is impossible for top end GPUs to do from 2-3 years ago. The 4870 won't catch a 5870 and a GTX 280 won't catch a GTX 480. So it's not so much that we are in a golden era, it's just that we are stuck as of right now and considering the games that are coming out, there isn't much that is going strain our cards (Maybe Crysis 2?).

This is how I see it. We have hit a brick wall.

 

[dust]

If you go outside US your golden era is bronze for the rest of the world. The way I see it here in the Middle East we get minimal performance improvement for rates always higher than 300USD( unless I consider the 5750/ 440).

You get a 5870 for 200ish over there, while I still find it at 423 USD over here.

 

[hans007]

there isnt much competition now.

i think the golden period of GPUs was back when you had geforce256s , battling ati radeon first gen cards, going up against matrox g400/g450s and voodoo4/5 cards. with the occasional kyro3d with tile based rendering card.

that was the golden age. you even had savage 3d s3 cards being competitive. when we used to have 5-6 different gpu companies it was the golden age.

 

[dualsmp]

1998 was the "Golden Age of Video Cards"

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/3d-accelerator-review-step,51-12.html

Here we see chips from ATI, PowerVR, NVIDIA, 3DFX, SiS, etc. Being tested on CPUs from Cyrix\IBM, AMD and Intel.

Oooo the Quantum3D Obsidian! That was the bad boy back in the day. I remember they would put an empty retail box on the shelf at CompUSA put the real ones behind the counter (fairly rare back then). Retailed for over $600 if I remember.

 

[eric.kjellen]

The cards wouldn't look so good if Games would start to push the envelope again.

There are a few games out there that will bury even a 580 at lower resolutions but after you get past those 3-4 games even a mid range card(GTX460) can put up awesome frame rates at higher resolutions in most games

Blame consoles.... Actually blame all of us for letting this shit happen

I agree. Consoles are responsible for the present situation of PC games (and ironically also for the "golden age" of GPUs, at least when it comes to value) and should be burnt at the stake.