[H]NVIDIA GeForce GTX TITAN 3-Way SLI Review

[willomz]

Using other extreme examples of pricing doesn't actually justify either of them. The only thing it does speak to is what happens when there is no direct competition in a particular sector. For all of those rooting for AMD to fail be prepared to see this type of thing become the norm rather than the exception. BS like these two examples need to be pointed out as extreme, not glorified as some sort of exquisite norm. Unless you work for the marketing department of either of these two companies, why condone it?

I'm not trying to justify it, I'm just pointing out that you should expect it.

Still someone has to part the rich from their money.

It's not like this sort of pricing is limited to the computing sector, you see it everywhere. Even where there is more competition.

 

[3DVagabond]

Hardocp is one of the worst reviewers out there. I mean seriously? LOL at this review
EDIT: BAH, I see they are using different settings, more demanding settings on the Titans. hahahaha, talk about skewing the review toward AMD. wow, just wow

Reading is fundamental.

This is how [H] does reviews. This is always how [H] does reviews. It's quite different from how everyone else reviews. You can look at the multitude of other reviews out there for direct A/B comparisons. [H] tells you if you can use higher settings on one card than the other and still give acceptable (subjectively) framerates. This is more important than X card is Y% faster than Z card at some arbitrary game settings.

 

[3DVagabond]

I'm not trying to justify it, I'm just pointing out that you should expect it.

Expect it? Nah. More like watch out for it and expose it when it happens. At the very least we should definitely not buy into it.

Still someone has to part the rich from their money.

Yes Mr. President. j/k
Seriously, that job is best left to the government.

It's not like this sort of pricing is limited to the computing sector, you see it everywhere. Even where there is more competition.

I have to disagree with you. It is purely the lack of competition that is creating this pricing. As soon as AMD releases a competitive product at less money the price will drop. Of course there is the possibility that with a duopoly they could just follow suite.

 

[willomz]

Expect it? Nah. More like watch out for it and expose it when it happens. At the very least we should definitely not buy into it.

Yes Mr. President. j/k
Seriously, that job is best left to the government.

I have to disagree with you. It is purely the lack of competition that is creating this pricing. As soon as AMD releases a competitive product at less money the price will drop. Of course there is the possibility that with a duopoly they could just follow suite.

Expose what? It's not exactly hidden. Sure it is your choice not to buy into it, and I'm certainly not going to either. But if people want to spend that kind of money then they are welcome to imo.

I really don't think that is best left to the government. If we can get the rich to enjoy filtering money down to the rest of us then that is far better than creating a punitive tax regime.

It isn't a lack of competition. There are dozens of manufacturers making luxury cars and yet no-one ever complains that a Ferrari is over priced or that a Ferrari ought to go 10 times faster than a family saloon because it costs 10 times as much.

 

[3DVagabond]

Expose what? It's not exactly hidden. Sure it is your choice not to buy into it, and I'm certainly not going to either. But if people want to spend that kind of money then they are welcome to imo.

I really don't think that is best left to the government. If we can get the rich to enjoy filtering money down to the rest of us then that is far better than creating a punitive tax regime.

It isn't a lack of competition. There are dozens of manufacturers making luxury cars and yet no-one ever complains that a Ferrari is over priced or that a Ferrari ought to go 10 times faster than a family saloon because it costs 10 times as much.

Expose the fact that they are boning us. Not talk it up like it's business as usual and accept it.

The Govt. part was a joke.

A Ferrari is a really poor analogy. Ferrari cars aren't built from the same off the shelf mass produced parts as a Fiat. They aren't built using the same labor techniques. That's why they cost many times more. Also you can't compare performance increases between the two. Without going into all of the physics, twice as much horsepower will not get you twice the performance. Where 2x the GPU power will.

 

[willomz]

Without going into all of the physics, twice as much horsepower will not get you twice the performance. Where 2x the GPU power will.

Without going into all of the physics you can't just double the size of a GPU and get double the performance for double the cost.

 

[sontin]

Without going into all of the physics you can't just double the size of a GPU and get double the performance for double the cost.

Bingo. GK110's die is nearly twice as big as the GK104's but the performance is only 50% higher.

Production cost for Titan are much higher and will inflate the price more than performance gain.

 

[3DVagabond]

Without going into all of the physics you can't just double the size of a GPU and get double the performance for double the cost.

Never said 2x the size. I said 2x the power. For example 2xGK104 (SLI) is 2x as fast as long as the drivers allow it. When it's not it's not because of the hardware not being powerful enough.

 

[Dribble]

The surprising thing for me is that, at least in Crysis 3, Titan x3 scales much better than 7970 x3 or 680 x3. A Titan on its own isn't twice as fast as either card, but in 3 way SLI it is.

Might be memory - a lot of the highest settings (like SSAA and very high res textures) will take a lot of of memory. Something titan has plenty of but 680 is lacking.

33 FPS minimums will suck.

I agree about [H] on FPS. They are willing to accept lower fps then most gamers would like. Many of us would prefer to drop the settings a bit if it gave us 60fps as we prefer the smoothness and responsiveness over the very slight graphical improvements the highest settings give.

 

[cmdrdredd]

Might be memory - a lot of the highest settings (like SSAA and very high res textures) will take a lot of of memory. Something titan has plenty of but 680 is lacking.



I agree about [H] on FPS. They are willing to accept lower fps then most gamers would like. Many of us would prefer to drop the settings a bit if it gave us 60fps as we prefer the smoothness and responsiveness over the very slight graphical improvements the highest settings give.

The whole reason I even play these games on the PC is because they look better. Why remove that for a number that has zero effect on the gameplay. Really, drop to 33fps one time out of 15minutes and if you didn't have the fps meter staring you in the face you wouldn't even see it. Too many people get hung up on numbers. Most games aren't bad to play below 60fps despite what elitists throw out on forums.

If your playing competitive it is different but for single player titles, not so much.

 

[bystander36]

Might be memory - a lot of the highest settings (like SSAA and very high res textures) will take a lot of of memory. Something titan has plenty of but 680 is lacking.

I doubt it is the memory in this case, as the 7970 and 680 perform close to each other, and the 7970 has an extra 1GB, though clearly the 680 does better with smoothness on that chart. Having a lack of memory has a way of dropping performance off a cliff. You either have enough or not enough, it doesn't scale with size. Though bandwidth may have some an effect.