GPU Pricing: wtf?

[yacoub]

I stopped watching GPU prices about a month ago because just prior to then the 8800GTS 640MB went up roughly $50 in price. Well I decided today to check again and wtf the prices are the same they were a month ago when they went back up. That means it wasn't simply a supply issue.

Is this what we get when one of the two big players in the GPU market can't offer products that truly threaten and defeat the other, which if they had would force a price war?

Or is this a result of something else, such as NVidia starting to 'work' the market by not releasing a solid mid-range product and only offering under-powered mid-range-priced parts and over-priced high-end parts, leaving gamers stuck between paying too much for something that isn't going to play their games and paying too much for something that's more than they need? It certainly was interesting that AMD did the same thing by releasing sub-par low end cards and one expensive high-end card.

GPU makers: Collude much?

Either way, it's a very disappointing marketplace these days for folks who've been waiting to replace their aging 7900GT, 7950GT, X1900XT, or 7900GTX, because the only commonly affordable (sub $300) choice of note is an 8800GTS with only 320MB of videoram which simply isn't enough when you want to play 1600x1200 or 1680x1050 with AA and AF at playable FPS in modern games, which is an average expectation in 2007.

Anyone else bitter about the price you have to pay for decent performance these days?

 

[Acanthus]

They are both under investigation for price fixing.

Id love to see them get fined to hell and back like the memory makers did. We need $300 flagships again.

 

[apoppin]

Anyone else bitter about the price you have to pay for decent performance these days?

no i got really lucky, i think ... i have had my 2900xt for over a month - love it
--especially because i got it for $320 ... i think that is a reasonable price to pay for a upper-mid graphics card

and even the Ultra is coming down in price ... 320MB GTS in the 250 dollar range ... i'd say "wait a bit" if you don't want to pay over $300 for a GTS 640

everything got "thrown off" by AMD's lateness ... nvidia just wants to make huge profits while it can - just like any other big corp
--lets hope AMD stays in the game

as to the 'price fixing' collusion charge ... i will wait a bit to see the evidence

 

[aka1nas]

I can barely remember the time where I could get by with a "regular" card for $150 every 18 months. Those $300 monsters were just for suckers with too much money.

 

[WT]

I've waited a month now .. got tired of waiting and dropped $439 today on a card
Its a nice card, but I had no idea these damn 8800GTS 640mb cards would be treated like ancient Chinese artifacts from the Ming dynasty.

 

[imported_Equinox]

Originally posted by: Acanthus
They are both under investigation for price fixing.

Id love to see them get fined to hell and back like the memory makers did. We need $300 flagships again.

Agreed. Prices are totally out of hand, and I think they are working the market.

 

[yacoub]

Originally posted by: apoppin

Anyone else bitter about the price you have to pay for decent performance these days?

i'd say "wait a bit" if you don't want to pay over $300 for a GTS 640

It's past the point of waiting for this generation to get cheaper. They should have been cheaper by NOW. The ONLY reason I'd buy a GPU right now is if mine died.
Now it's time to wait 'til the NEXT gen/refresh in the Fall, not year-old technology.

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: yacoub

Originally posted by: apoppin

Anyone else bitter about the price you have to pay for decent performance these days?

i'd say "wait a bit" if you don't want to pay over $300 for a GTS 640

It's past the point of waiting for this generation to get cheaper. They should have been cheaper by NOW. The ONLY reason I'd buy a GPU right now is if mine died.
Now it's time to wait 'til the NEXT gen/refresh in the Fall, not year-old technology.

you missed the important part of my post - the "why"

everything got "thrown off" by AMD's lateness

 

[yacoub]

Has nothing to do with what I replied to. You said we should wait even longer for prices to drop on these cards. I'm saying it's too late to wait any longer for this generation cards to drop in price since the 8800GTS is (in computer hardware age) old now. At this point if waiting, best to wait for next gen around the corner since the corner is not that far away.

 

[dreddfunk]

yacoub - I understand. I really do.

The confusing thing to me is that this generation is poised to go out without a really good $175-200 part, which is what I'm waiting for.

I paid about $165 for my x850xt, and I'd like to pay about that much when I upgrade, but neither the 2600xt nor the 8600gts is at all worth the upgrade, and $259 for an 8800gts 320 is just a bit much (and I'd like my next card to have 512MB of memory, at least, just in case I do get a 1680x1050 panel at some point).

It's just strange. The $200 price point went from being the most hotly contested to almost nonexistent (that's an overstatement, I know).

 

[GEOrifle]

Yes, that's CHEAPEST CHINESE STUFF, thise $300 cards cost just $30 for MF, left over
goes in pocket who's financing them: US FINANCIAL CORPORATIONS, you know they decided to move all jobs oversea for extra $$ and they got it : producing cost just couple
dozen $$. If thise kind of bussiness will continue thise $300 cards will cost very soon $400, then $500 and so on.
We need another manufacturer from diferent country to drope prices down!!!

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: yacoub
Has nothing to do with what I replied to. You said we should wait even longer for prices to drop on these cards. I'm saying it's too late to wait any longer for this generation cards to drop in price since the 8800GTS is (in computer hardware age) old now. At this point if waiting, best to wait for next gen around the corner since the corner is not that far away.

well, the 2900xt is not old .. and it is the GTS' competitor

IF the 2900xt was NOT late, we would have cheaper parts - right now
-as it was late, there was no competition

if you feel it is too late to buy now .. then wait for the next overpriced GPUs to drop in price .. it might be a faster drop ... depending on AMD's competing product

and you are assuming that the next iteration of the GTS/GTX is going to be MUCH faster ... i say you are in for a BIG disappointment and may end up kicking yourself for waiting
-or not ... my crystal ball is cloudy.

 

[lyssword]

Originally posted by: GEOrifle
Yes, that's CHEAPEST CHINESE STUFF, thise $300 cards cost just $30 for MF, left over
goes in pocket who's financing them: US FINANCIAL CORPORATIONS, you know they decided to move all jobs oversea for extra $$ and they got it : producing cost just couple
dozen $$. If thise kind of bussiness will continue thise $300 cards will cost very soon $400, then $500 and so on.
We need another manufacturer from diferent country to drope prices down!!!

Manufacturing is not the whole story. How are you going to develop new products without computer scientists/engineers working and whole lot of other expenses.

 

[bryanW1995]

Originally posted by: dreddfunk
yacoub - I understand. I really do.

The confusing thing to me is that this generation is poised to go out without a really good $175-200 part, which is what I'm waiting for.

I paid about $165 for my x850xt, and I'd like to pay about that much when I upgrade, but neither the 2600xt nor the 8600gts is at all worth the upgrade, and $259 for an 8800gts 320 is just a bit much (and I'd like my next card to have 512MB of memory, at least, just in case I do get a 1680x1050 panel at some point).

It's just strange. The $200 price point went from being the most hotly contested to almost nonexistent (that's an overstatement, I know).

It's not an overstatement, it's the truth! I was able to get an x1900 crossfire edition master card in january for 239 for a friend's computer, but I couldn't find anything reasonable at $200 a couple of weeks ago. It was either dx9 x1950xt for 150ar or 320mb 8800 gts for 260 ar, with nothing in between. I decided to go cheap for now and leave myself some flexibility for the inevitable future upgrade.

 

[lopri]

I think may people underestimate the power of GTS 320 just because of the benches from various sites that shows average FPS. I personally think it's a tremendous value at around $250 considering current market state. Yes, you will see a very lacking FPS at high resolution and anti-aliasing in graphs, but if you tweak the in-game settings a bit (as well as control panel setting), you can enjoy the power and image quality of G80 very close to that of GTX. I was admitedly skeptical at its power, but I am more and more impressed by GTS 320. The key is, again, to tweak the settings. Instead of just maxing out everything, try to minimize the possible bottlenecks in your games. A text book example is shadows. While many games have 'High' or 'Very High' shadow settings, but a lot of times the difference between those and mid-low shadow settings aren't that great when it comes to IQ. But the performance hit is enormous. Also, at high resolution, try 2AA instead of 4AA. 2AA can sometimes do wonders in high resolutions, I've learned. Also download RivaTuner and pay attention to the 'Non-Local Video Memory Usage'. From my observation, up to 40~60MB of system memory usage was OK. (It could vary per game or settings, I guess) There is a threshold that the system memory usage will affect the performance big time. For example, when I played Oblivion @1920x1200, system memory usage up to ~50MB didn't affect the performance. I still got the same/similar FPS. But once passed that threshold, the frame rate dropped below 10FPS. So watch how a game uses on-board and system memory, and configure the settings in such way that the game will not go past its limit.

But I do agree with others in a more general sense. No competition really sucks. And saddening. And the severely crippled mid-range cards from NV/AMD are.. maddening.

 

[Lonyo]

Originally posted by: lyssword

Originally posted by: GEOrifle
Yes, that's CHEAPEST CHINESE STUFF, thise $300 cards cost just $30 for MF, left over
goes in pocket who's financing them: US FINANCIAL CORPORATIONS, you know they decided to move all jobs oversea for extra $$ and they got it : producing cost just couple
dozen $$. If thise kind of bussiness will continue thise $300 cards will cost very soon $400, then $500 and so on.
We need another manufacturer from diferent country to drope prices down!!!

Manufacturing is not the whole story. How are you going to develop new products without computer scientists/engineers working and whole lot of other expenses.

They also cost more than $30 to make.

 

[Cookie Monster]

People seem to forget that the cost of current video cards are MUCh higher than it sue to be. Back in the days, 128mb was the norm where the PCB wasn't as complex and cooling was done away with a simple heatsink and a small 40~60mm fan.

Nowadays, we are lookign at 512mb worth of ram on board, PCbs to accompany 256bit/384 and now 512bit bus, dual slot heat pipe cooling systems, and to top that off GPUs that house 700 million transistors.

This is only the small part of the whole picture.

People dont realise that the 8800GTS 320mb is something nVIDIA wouldn't do because the margins on the 640nmb model was bad enough, the 320mb makes that a whole lot worse. This is why ATi has failed to compete with nVIDIA at an economic level. Sure for us its good but selling R580s so cheap how do you expect them to earn any profit at all?

Im barely describing the whole picture, but you get what i mean. It has nothing to do with colluding or price fixing. Sure there could be some, but to me prices only drops if they want to clear inventory, or the margins dont get a sever shaft, or competition between retailers, or if the company desperate.

I mean why does the GTS has to come down in price anyway? Part of the blame also can go toward ATi for providing such a lackluster product in YEARS. yes i mean Years.

Demand? supply? these are all part of the picture but you get my point.

 

[rmed64]

I won't be upgrading for a long time it seems. DX10 is not worthy right now, nor is vista. The cards are also nothing hot. The 2600 and 8600 cards stink as well. There are also no games coming out in the future that will tear me away from BF2 and counter strike source, which I run perfectly.

 

[MarcVenice]

Meh, the 8800gts 320mb delivers darn good performance compared to it's dx9 counterparts. It's only slightly overpriced, but not by much, the bang for your buck isn't much less compared to the fastest dx9 cards. And it delivers it's performance right now, and it will last longer.

 

[yacoub]

Originally posted by: apoppin

Originally posted by: yacoub
Has nothing to do with what I replied to. You said we should wait even longer for prices to drop on these cards. I'm saying it's too late to wait any longer for this generation cards to drop in price since the 8800GTS is (in computer hardware age) old now. At this point if waiting, best to wait for next gen around the corner since the corner is not that far away.

well, the 2900xt is not old .. and it is the GTS' competitor

Yeah but my focus is the 640MB GTS. I have no interest in the 2900XT. Too hot, loud, and costs too much these days.

if you feel it is too late to buy now .. then wait for the next overpriced GPUs to drop in price .. it might be a faster drop ... depending on AMD's competing product

Here's hoping!

and you are assuming that the next iteration of the GTS/GTX is going to be MUCH faster ... i say you are in for a BIG disappointment and may end up kicking yourself for waiting
-or not ... my crystal ball is cloudy.

I'm waiting for cooler, smaller, and performance of 640MB GTS for $299, not faster than 640MB GTS, though that would be okay too. It's certainly not my assumption though.
I also won't be kicking myself for waiting, as my 7900GT KO runs everything fine for now (the only recent game I own is SupCom). =)

 

[yacoub]

Originally posted by: bryanW1995

Originally posted by: dreddfunk
yacoub - I understand. I really do.

The confusing thing to me is that this generation is poised to go out without a really good $175-200 part, which is what I'm waiting for.

I paid about $165 for my x850xt, and I'd like to pay about that much when I upgrade, but neither the 2600xt nor the 8600gts is at all worth the upgrade, and $259 for an 8800gts 320 is just a bit much (and I'd like my next card to have 512MB of memory, at least, just in case I do get a 1680x1050 panel at some point).

It's just strange. The $200 price point went from being the most hotly contested to almost nonexistent (that's an overstatement, I know).

It's not an overstatement, it's the truth! I was able to get an x1900 crossfire edition master card in january for 239 for a friend's computer, but I couldn't find anything reasonable at $200 a couple of weeks ago. It was either dx9 x1950xt for 150ar or 320mb 8800 gts for 260 ar, with nothing in between. I decided to go cheap for now and leave myself some flexibility for the inevitable future upgrade.

Yup, $200-$300 - the entire mid-range (that used to run games well) is now missing.

 

[yacoub]

Originally posted by: lopri
I think may people underestimate the power of GTS 320 just because of the benches from various sites that shows average FPS.

But since the 320MB model is already running into limitations at higher resolutions (demonstrated most clearly by how much more performance the 640MB offers there), with new games that gap will only increase. Considering some of the big name titles coming out this fall, it would REALLY suck to buy that card now and then find out you don't have a chance at 1600x1200 with good AA/AF settings in those games because you don't have enough videoram.

Last gen's high end cards had 512MB. There's no reason anything in the GTS/GTX tier of this generation should have less than that. 320MB as a number is just silly. I'm glad it's there for everyone stuck needing a GPU that costs less than $300 that can actually play games well, but still, it shouldn't have less than 512MB of vram. While NVidia was off doing these abnormal bus and memory numbers in their products, AMD had a chance to crush them and demonstrate their leadership in the GPU market with their first release since acquiring ATi.

Considering last gen's 7950GT (which had 512MB) was available below $300 within a few weeks of release and that was when RAM prices were much higher, a new gen NVidia product could easily offer that quantity of RAM at a similar price point, given it's a year later and the R&D costs of the 320MB GTS were nearly non-existent since it's a copy of the 640MB product that came out six months earlier. And if NVidia had done that, AMD would have had to offer a competitive product at a similar price point. If AMD had their act together they would have released a product with the 2900XT's specs at a $300 price point with 512MB to completely crush the 320MB GTS market.

The product called the 2900XT would have been 768MB with a few more features, and kept the $420 price point to crush the 640MB GTS's market. Then the 2900XTX would have lined up against the GTX with a $500 price point (or whatever ridiculous price the GTX costs) and offered 1GB of RAM as its extra perk.

Given how insanely cheap RAM prices have gotten over the past six months (even more so for suppliers and bulk purchasers), this would have been a killer line-up for AMD without costing them much more and they would have regained a ton of marketshare. Instead they dropped the ball and now NVidia whores the consumers and AMD struggles to release and stay afloat.

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: yacoub

Originally posted by: apoppin

Originally posted by: yacoub
Has nothing to do with what I replied to. You said we should wait even longer for prices to drop on these cards. I'm saying it's too late to wait any longer for this generation cards to drop in price since the 8800GTS is (in computer hardware age) old now. At this point if waiting, best to wait for next gen around the corner since the corner is not that far away.

well, the 2900xt is not old .. and it is the GTS' competitor

Yeah but my focus is the 640MB GTS. I have no interest in the 2900XT. Too hot, loud, and costs too much these days.

if you feel it is too late to buy now .. then wait for the next overpriced GPUs to drop in price .. it might be a faster drop ... depending on AMD's competing product

Here's hoping!

and you are assuming that the next iteration of the GTS/GTX is going to be MUCH faster ... i say you are in for a BIG disappointment and may end up kicking yourself for waiting
-or not ... my crystal ball is cloudy.

I'm waiting for cooler, smaller, and performance of 640MB GTS for $299, not faster than 640MB GTS, though that would be okay too. It's certainly not my assumption though.
I also won't be kicking myself for waiting, as my 7900GT KO runs everything fine for now (the only recent game I own is SupCom). =)

then - if your 7900 is "fine" -- WHY are you complaining?

and the 2900xt nether runs "hot" nor "loud" ... so you might be missing out ...
-you seem to be "stuck" on the GTS ... they are really competitors

finally .. when you hold that 5 pound 2900xt in your hand, i DO see where some of that $320 went to ... it IS impressive .. far more so than any GPU of the past ... and quite expensive to make and design

ultimately the BLAME for the slow drop in pricing of nvidia cards is because of AMD's "lateness" with a competitor ... that is why only NOW are we seeing price drops - six months late - because the 2900xt was 6 months late
--"cause and effect" in the market

just keep waitin' ... my 2900xt runs my games better than "fine" ... my 2nd one will be better 'n that

 

[dreddfunk]

apoppin - I'd guess yacoub's not totally happy with 'fine', which is why he's brought up the dearth of good options for an upgrade. That's a pretty common outlook on these forums: many forum members are always looking for an upgrade, no matter how acceptably their current setup performs.

I think the issue is both lateness and lack of competition. The lateness of the 2900xt kept the GTS and GTX prices high. Though it competes well with the GTS 640, it certainly doesn't seem to leave it in the dust, which means that the prices the GTS and GTX stabilized at, pre-2900, were born out to be good prices, post-2900.

If you can get the 2900 for $320 like you did, I think it's a good deal. Mostly, it still seems to hover around $380, and neither the GTS 640 or the 2900 seem like they'll hit $300 or less anytime soon, if ever.

This has created a situation where you have to spend at least $350 to get more than 256/320MB of video RAM. I can't speak for yacoub, but this is one of my issues: that we haven't seen a 512MB or greater part in the $200-300 range, or have any models with less RAM enter the sub-$200 range.

I'd love to spend only $175 on a GPU, but there are no good options there. I'd be willing to spend $250 on a GPU, but only if it has 512MB or more of video RAM.

I haven't seen any signs that the GTS 320 will enter the sub-$200 market, nor any signs that the GTS 640/2900 will enter the sub-$300 market (let alone the $250 market).

I'm getting by, as I am sure yacoub is as well, I'd just love to upgrade to a better part.

You've been there with the x850xt, so you know!

Cheers.

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: dreddfunk
apoppin - I'd guess yacoub's not totally happy with 'fine', which is why he's brought up the dearth of good options for an upgrade. That's a pretty common outlook on these forums: many forum members are always looking for an upgrade, no matter how acceptably their current setup performs.

I think the issue is both lateness and lack of competition. The lateness of the 2900xt kept the GTS and GTX prices high. Though it competes well with the GTS 640, it certainly doesn't seem to leave it in the dust, which means that the prices the GTS and GTX stabilized at, pre-2900, were born out to be good prices, post-2900.

If you can get the 2900 for $320 like you did, I think it's a good deal. Mostly, it still seems to hover around $380, and neither the GTS 640 or the 2900 seem like they'll hit $300 or less anytime soon, if ever.

This has created a situation where you have to spend at least $350 to get more than 256/320MB of video RAM. I can't speak for yacoub, but this is one of my issues: that we haven't seen a 512MB or greater part in the $200-300 range, or have any models with less RAM enter the sub-$200 range.

I'd love to spend only $175 on a GPU, but there are no good options there. I'd be willing to spend $250 on a GPU, but only if it has 512MB or more of video RAM.

I haven't seen any signs that the GTS 320 will enter the sub-$200 market, nor any signs that the GTS 640/2900 will enter the sub-$300 market (let alone the $250 market).

I'm getting by, as I am sure yacoub is as well, I'd just love to upgrade to a better part.

You've been there with the x850xt, so you know!

Cheers.

you DO realize you are repeating what i said

-that i noted yacoub is unhappy even though he says everything is "fine"

-that i said "lateness" is the reason for lack of competition and hence no "normally" dropping prices.

-that i said i got "lucky" with my 2900xt - just as others got in on that $316 640GTS from Buy.com

-and yes, i HAVE been there ... and it was "fine"

and now -worst of all - you have me repeating myself

EDIT: in examining the "signs" .. you need to add something to your data that appears to be missing:
"when" 2950xt comes out everything changes !

September?