People shopping in the gtx950 aisle are not going to buy an R9-290 imo. They would cross shop a comparable "new" AMD card, like a 360/370.
Why cuz marketing/shill reviewers told the consumer that? When you go out to buy a new car, do you only cross-shop what the paid for reviewers tell you?
A non-brand washed consumer that can think for himself/herself is going to look at many NV/AMD options in a similar price range and look at where the cards stack, whether they are new or old. It doesn't have to be a $220 R9 290 but it can be any other cards like 750Ti, 960, 270X/280/285/280X/380.
As more and more objective reviews out of Europe start to come out, the horrible value of 950 is just going to get exposed even more.
Just to make things uber simple, I am going to use THE fastest 950 after-market card for 1080P comparisons coming out of Europe:
270X = is only 4% slower => costs substantially less than a 950
285 = 11% faster, costs similar or often less than a 950
960 reference = 13% faster, costs barely more $ in the US
Stock 380 / 960 after-market = 18% faster for similar prices in the US
http://www.computerbase.de/2015-08/nvidia-geforce-gtx-950-test/3/#abschnitt_tests_in_1920__1080
You keep repeating this mantra that someone cross-shopping for a 950 is only going to look at 360/370 cards. Why? Why is someone who is spending $170-180 on an after-market 950 not going to consider cards that cost just $20-30 more?
280X is 26% faster than the fastest 950 and has 50% more VRAM.
EVGA B-stock 770 can be had for $180 and it's 22% faster than the fastest 950.
http://www.computerbase.de/2015-08/nvidia-geforce-gtx-950-test/3/#abschnitt_tests_in_1920__1080
Your reasoning that "normal" gamers won't cross-shop a 950 with cards like 280/285/280X/290 or 960 rests on the assumption that most consumers are clueless BestBuy buyers or something?
$220 XFX R9 290 costs barely $40-50 more than an after-market 950. Guess how much faster it is than a 950?
69% faster, has lifetime warranty and double the VRAM.
All of a sudden the 950 is being defended as an HTPC card because it's obvious to any PC gamer that at $159 MSRP for reference and $170-180 for after-market versions, the card is an overpriced turd for
gaming.
The ref 950 has 3 DP connectors. Someone probably wants that, along with the rest of the stuff Maxwell 2 brings.
From almost all of your posts, I just get an impression you find some thing NV is better at and extrapolate it as the winning feature. Why in the world would the majority of gamers care about 3 Display port connectors? You think if someone can afford to hook up 3 displays can't afford to spend $5-10 more for a 960?
Next thing I see people using HDMI 2.0 as some major selling point. I guess those "gamers" would take a 950 over a Fury X then too because Fury X doesn't have HDMI 2.0?
But hey, let objectivity fly out the window and ignore reality.
Also, 950's performance is highly inconsistent. Look at
Trine 3 -- 950 gets face planted.
950 = 100% (Note: $160-180 950 is only 28% faster than the $95 750Ti in this game!)
vs.
$130 270X = +12% faster
$175 960 = +35% faster
$160 285 (aka 380) = +49% faster
$200 280X = +56% faster
$180 770 = +61% faster
$220 290 = +91% faster
http://www.computerbase.de/2015-08/trine-3-benchmark-grafikkarte/
It's amusing how some people are trying to say that Maxwell 2.0 > GCN 1.0/1.1 because it's newer architecture and has higher DX12 support but what difference does it make when in the real world cards like 285/280/280X are wiping the floor with the BEST 950 card? The only advantage for gaming here is purely from a marketing/sales pitch point of view. In practice, a $170-180 after-market 950 gets destroyed by cards like 960/285/280X.
================
Here is what TechPowerUp has to say about the sub-$300 GPU landscape as of today:
TechPowerUp $800 Build Guide
"NVIDIA simply cannot get the pricing of its sub-$300 lineup right and continues to offer nothing compelling until the $310 GeForce GTX 970. The company may yet make a ton of money with their mid-range line-up, but that's only because of its better sales-force. The Radeon R9 290 TurboDuo from PowerColor is a gem.
At just $249, the Radeon R9 290 TurboDuo offers current-gen tech. Our tests show that the R9 290 is a whopping 52 percent faster than the $50 cheaper GeForce GTX 960 at 1920 x 1080 pixels, our target resolution. It also offers 4 GB of video memory. PowerColor added a factory overclock on top of that. If this doesn't highlight NVIDIA's terrible pricing for the GTX 960, nothing will.
When you're building on a tight budget, brute frame-rates gain much more weight over other factors, like power and noise. The R9 290 certainly won't beat the GTX 960 at the two, which is both slower and $49 cheaper, but that's a small price to pay for 52% more performance, a crucial factor once your machine starts to show its age as newer games get increasingly more taxing. There could be situations where 52% more performance spells the difference between "playable" and "slideshow."
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/DIY_Shopping_Lists/USD_800_Build_Guide/3.html
It's amazing how suddenly the entire sub-$250 PC gaming market according to some posters on AT has become focused on HTPC, number of Displayport connectors and having HDMI 2.0 that's
only useful on 4K TVs. Somehow I doubt the majority of PC gamers are buying a sub-$250 GPU to use with a 4K TV for gaming. Even if they are, 950 makes no sense against a barely more expensive 960.
In any event, it has been quite an eye-opener this generation where I pretty much have 0 doubts anymore who is a loyal fan for a certain company on these forums after seeing an incredible defensive from certain posters about the horrendous value of cards like 750Ti/960 and now the 950.
Never in the history of AT since I joined in 2003 would any respectable PC gamer/enthusiast EVER recommend a card 20-70% slower in games just to save $30-50 because for someone gaming on a budget, every ounce of performance matters. Spending $170-180 on a card that's 50% slower than a card just $40 more expensive is a horrible strategy since it means the entire GPU upgrading strategy will cost this gamer even more $ on his next $170-180 GPU upgrade just to get to the same performance of a $220 card NOW. Some people on this forum are clearly oblivious to the concept of Total Cost of Ownership and Value.
I think AT needs to introduce a 4th sub-section in the Videocard sub-forum called
GPUs for HTPC use ONLY cuz it's getting ridiculous when
gaming performance of GPUs and price/performance are now brushed aside for HTPC features which only a small fraction of gamers care about.
It is truly astounding full Tonga never made it onto a discrete card but the cut down version did. Inexplicable...
It wouldn't have made any difference as you can see. Even when a cool and quiet after-market 290 isn't selling out at $220, do you honestly think a 2048 shader Tonga would sell even at $199? Nope.
---
Since some people are trying to downplay the crazy overpricing of the 950 in their home countries outside of North America, I'll throw some Canadian data then:
Asus Strix 950 =
$255 CDN + tax
Asus Strix 960 =
$285 CDN + tax but there is a $20 rebate
Asus Strix R9 380 =
$289 CDN + tax but here is a $10 rebate
It's 100% obvious now if some people still haven't seen the light which sites are 100% NV PR/shill sites in North America.
"If you or someone you know is using a GTX 650 class graphics card or older and is looking to improve their gaming experience on a 1920x1080 panel, the
GeForce GTX 950 is the best option for users that have a price ceiling of $170 or less." ~
PCPerspective
^ What unbelievable and disgraceful public shilling/paid PR.
R9 285 =
$155 US
Not to mention, the "sub-$170" statement is 100% arbitrarily made up. Gamers do not just say oh the budget PC gaming market ends at $170.00 dollars. It's far more reasonable to split the sub-$300 market into sub-segments of $100-149 and $149-200. In fact, I don't know any time any of my friends paid $170-180 for a card and didn't consider cards in the $200-220 range to see if stretching their budget just a bit could net them massive gains in performance. If not, sure they would get a $170 card but in this case 950 is grossly overpriced for gaming for what it offers.
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