For all of you who think that $500 is too much for a video card

[Schadenfroh]

The NV40 chip itself is more complicated than the pentium4 EE. The NV40 has 33% more transistors as the pentium 4 Extreme edition, check this out.

The cheapest P4 EE on pricewatch is 789, lowest price here. (OEM, not retail)

The NV40's MSRP is $500

With the pentium4 EE you get only the chip in a antistatic bag.

The NV40 proccessor comes with a PCB, onboard video proccessor, onboard TV encoder chip, 256mb of expensive DDR3 memory, a heat sink and fan.

but yet, there is a $289 price differance in favor of the NV40. So, the chip (NV40) is more complicated to make, has ram, has a pcb, and a video proccessor on it, but still is that much cheaper. Same way when you compare it to the Athlon FX53. (although im not sure if the FX53 is more or less complicated than the P4 EE)

is there any logic in what i have layed out? I know you can do more with the CPU, but im reffering to what goes into producing it, like the components and the cost of those components. Versus how much the consumer pays for it.

 

[Regs]

Not to mention the pipe line of a video card is HUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGE! 16 is just your basic pipeline. Each main pipe breaks off into thousands of other sub-pipelines that help the one above them.

 

[imported_Aelius]

I don't think it's too much at all.

I think my paycheck should scale with the market. To be fair and all you know.

Then again I'm sure some cleaning lady in a factory makes 50% more than I do doing contract tech support for the government.

In fact I know a whole bunch in my building who make 60% more than me.

I know I know...

Life aint fair... yada yada yada....

 

[Vernor]

I, as a consumer care only about utility.
Manufacturing costs are irrelevant.

500$ make no sense at all, when the only benefit is playing a few shooters at max res/detail.


And it's not like the PC game industry is looking very healthy these days.

 

[Viper96720]

Nope not too much. Cosidering how much a GF2 GTS was when it came out. Around $300

 

[imported_theEman]

Originally posted by: Vernor
I, as a consumer care only about utility.
Manufacturing costs are irrelevant.

500$ make no sense at all, when the only benefit is playing a few shooters at max res/detail.


And it's not like the PC game industry is looking very healthy these days.

Yeah, $500 makes no sense at all when you think about it. The top-of-the-line $500 card you buy today will be worth around $200 in a few months when more $500 top-of-the-line cards replace it.

 

[JackBurton]

Originally posted by: Viper96720
Nope not too much. Cosidering how much a GF2 GTS was when it came out. Around $300

And the GF2 Ultra was $500-$550+.

 

[alrocky]

Wouldn't a better comparision not be between the $500 video card and the CPU, but the $500 video card versus a $400 or a $300 video card? I'd imagine that for most of us the extra $100 or $200 cost provides too small a benefit to justify the expense.

 

[Shamrock]

But, the Intel CPU does a WIDE variety of things, whereas the Video gpu is specialized in one thing...graphics.

Which would be more expensive. A racecar that races in only the indy 500 (NV GPU), or a racecar that races in IRL, Champcars, NASCAR, and F1 (P4 EE)? You got it, the Car that races in all of them would be tremendously expensive

 

[Regs]

But, the Intel CPU does a WIDE variety of things, whereas the Video gpu is specialized in one thing...graphics.

Whats the WIDE variety of things that a CPU does?


The CPU only knows how to calculate, end of story. 0's and 1's. I don't think a CPU can store up to 256 Megs of information locally, or split signals across 2 monitors and a TV. A Video card is a computer in of itself.

 

[jiffylube1024]

$500 is too much for a video card IMO - way too much. The P4EE costs a lot too. So? It's also a rip off! There's a reason the EE is produced in such limited quantities - it's just a money-skimming top-end chip from Intel for those who need to be on the (aptly named) 'bleeding edge.'


Living in Canada I think gives us a bit more perspective on this because our dollar is about 1.35 times lower than US currency, and because they love to price gauge cards up here, so the numbers get really high. An X800XT costs about $800 CDN ($590 US) in stores here for example, and thanks to our 15% sales tax (in Ontario, anyway), this works out to $920 after tax. That is close to a grand for an f**ing video card. The X800Pro is a more "modest" $600CDN (~$450 US); after tax this is $690cdn. That's more than a week's salary for me (student)!

For reference, the 6800GT is about $650CDN while the 6800Ultra is $850 CDN.

So do I think $500 is too much for a video card? No, it's way too much. Especially since it will be outdated so soon!

Originally posted by: Regs

But, the Intel CPU does a WIDE variety of things, whereas the Video gpu is specialized in one thing...graphics.

Whats the WIDE variety of things that a CPU does?


The CPU only knows how to calculate, end of story. 0's and 1's. I don't think a CPU can store up to 256 Megs of information locally, or split signals across 2 monitors and a TV. A Video card is a computer in of itself.

The CPU can be used as a server, for database applications, for gaming, for office use (waste of proccing power here), etc.

The $500 video cards in question have one primary application: games.

Your argument about storing information locally is irrelevant - both are just complex calculating devices, the difference is that video cards are much more highly parallelized and the fact that they come with expensive DDR memory (although CPU cache memory is more expensive still, and on a per megabyte basis, CPU cache memory costs way, way more to make than GDDR3).

 

[Regs]

A CPU and motherboard is the back bone of the computer yes, but how and why would it make it any cheaper then a 3D video card?

Are you trying to say 3D rendering isn't worth the cash? Fine, stick with 2D. And have run a server off your CPU.

 

[Rio Rebel]

Your point is dead on, but it is wrapped up in the opening paragraph:

Yes, $500 is WAY too much for a video card. The fact that the P4ee is over $750 just means that it's also overpriced.

When you compare this to a $120 9600 pro coupled with a $100 AMD xp2800+, I'd like to see you justify the difference. Four times the cost, for how much more performance?

 

[CVSiN]

not all together true... Ive had the company I work for buying these and putting them in High end workstations that run CAD and Geophysical applications that oxygen cards and other high end cards usually fill.. the 500 dollar 6800 and XT are a bargain yet perform in much the same ways as the much higher dollar specialized cards...

 

[flyboy84]

a P4 EE will last a whole lot longer than a GF 6800 UE PE

 

[Navid]

Originally posted by: Schadenfroh
The NV40 chip itself is more complicated than the pentium4 EE. The NV40 has 33% more transistors as the pentium 4 Extreme edition, check this out.

The cheapest P4 EE on pricewatch is 789, lowest price here. (OEM, not retail)

The NV40's MSRP is $500

With the pentium4 EE you get only the chip in a antistatic bag.

The NV40 proccessor comes with a PCB, onboard video proccessor, onboard TV encoder chip, 256mb of expensive DDR3 memory, a heat sink and fan.

but yet, there is a $289 price differance in favor of the NV40. So, the chip (NV40) is more complicated to make, has ram, has a pcb, and a video proccessor on it, but still is that much cheaper. Same way when you compare it to the Athlon FX53. (although im not sure if the FX53 is more or less complicated than the P4 EE)

is there any logic in what i have layed out? I know you can do more with the CPU, but im reffering to what goes into producing it, like the components and the cost of those components. Versus how much the consumer pays for it.

What you are saying may be 100% right. But, supply and demand and the market is what I take into account when I decide how much to pay for something. I just don't want to pay $500 for something that is going to lose half of its value in a few months. No matter how many transistors it has or how good it works. That depreciation rate is unacceptable in my books.

 

[Ackmed]

More transistors doesnt mean its more complicated.

The NV40 doesnt have 2meg level three of on die cache either.

 

[ScrewFace]

I, too, agree that $500 U.S. is way to much for the highest-end GPU or CPU. I've never bought a top-of-the-line videocard...until now! The reason I did this time? My Sapphire X800 Pro VIVO, 1.6ns GDDR3 (12 pipes, 475/900) soft-mods to a X800 XT PE (16 pipes, 520/1120) and I've managed to overclock it still more to 551/1182! So I consider the $763.22 Canadian I spent to be well spent. My games now run at 1600x1200 with 6x AA and 16x AF at 150+ fps that wouldn't even run at 1600x1200 at 100 fps without AF and AA like the original Unreal, Soldier of Fortune2: Double Helix, Clyve Barker's Undying, Jedi Knight2: Jedi Outcast and many more. I glad I did what I did. Will I ever spend that kind of money again? It all depends on how much more performance the nV50 or R500 provide.

 

[TStep]

Jack Nicholson on the subject: Son, we live in a world that has video games, and those video games have to be played by men with video cards. Whose gonna pay $500 to play Doom? You? You, Shadenfroh? We have more choices here than you could possibly fathom. You weep for nVidia, and you curse ATI. You have that luxury. You have the luxury of not knowing what they know. That the average video card, while tragic, probably saved you, the gamer, some dollars. And that cards existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, saves every gamer dollars. I know deep down in places you dont talk about in forums, you don't want that $175 card in that computer, you need that $175 card in that computer. We use games and benches like medal of honor, code creatures, loyalty to our promote our fanboy whims. We use these cards as the backbone of a gaming machine spent defending something. You use them as a punchline. I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain the need for an average video card to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very video card daddy provides, then question the manner in which daddy provides it. I prefer you said thank you daddy, and went on your way, and purchase that $500 video card. Otherwise, I suggest you pick up a weapon, and stand to get flamed in this post. Either way, I don't give a damn what video card you think you are entitled to!

 

[Schadenfroh]

ummmm, ok

 

[Corporate Thug]

vwey good points Schadenfroh, but i know for a fact that Best Buy pays $295 for their BFG 6800 GTs so it cant cost THAT much

 

[Regs]

The prices are inflated due to demand and yields. I never, however, expected 3D rendering hardware to be cheaper than a CPU. How expensive do you think Jurassic Park took to make? Or Shrek?

 

[VIAN]

I think it's more that CPUs are overpriced than VPUs are overpriced.

If you think about it, CPUs have basically one architecture per 5 years or so. VPUs have a new architecture every year. This means that CPUs require much less work, especially when you take the pipeline into consideration.

Not only that, but VPUs have less demand than CPUs.

So with these things in mind, it is most certain that CPU companies overcharge, probably because of all the demand that goes into it.

 

[kki000]

Lifecycle for the gpus are much smaller than cpus.
Nvidia/ATI have a much smaller window to recoup all those r and d costs. How long has the p4 core been around w/o much changes, athlon core...

Plus they have to add in the ddr memory, which they have no control over cost or availability.

It has always been prohbibively expensive to be a pc gamer.

Things'll get really fun to compare when doom comes out on xbox.
So you can compare 2000 vs 200. Will the experience be 10x better?

Is a Ferrari 10x better than an Accord? These are qualitative judgements, both get you where u need to go, but what will your experience be like?

I think the card prices are crazy too, but have you checked nvidias and ati financials, they're not exactly rolling in it.

Im happier to help finance faster and faster gpus i guess. Just the same, i dont think i'd ever pay over 500 for a vid card.
(lol, back in the gf2 days, i prob woulda said 250.)
K

 

[9ball]

Originally posted by: Vernor

500$ make no sense at all, when the only benefit is playing a few shooters at max res/detail.

and then there are $100 cards that can't play shooters at max res/detail, but can do just about everything else. If you don't play the games, then why would it matter to you how much the top end cards cost. It was not made for you.