How come we expect $500 PCs and accept $500 Video Cards?

[Vallybally]

I've been building and upgrading PCs for a bit now like most of us. And I just find it interesting that we've happily come to expect being able to buy budget PCs for ~$500 (some even with LCDs!), while at the same time we accept the notion that every year we need a top-end ~$500 video card to keep up with the newest games? While I do understand and appreciate the incredible complexity and cost to bring out such amazing video cards each year, I find it funny that console systems used to be $200 or less and the same with video cards...but now they are introduced at $500+...wha' happened?

 

[Gautama2]

Demand rose, supply actually rose with it, but well they thought they should bump the price anyway lol

 

[Elfear]

I think it's like a lot of things in life. There are always the budget products that will work just fine for their intended purpose but sometimes we like things to go above and beyond the norm. It's like saying that buying a Viper for $80,000 is silly because you can find cars that cost $18,000 easily enough. Well ya, but the $18,000 Civic won't come close to giving the visceral rush that a $80,000 Viper will. Same with video cards. Sure the $500 pc will bring you hours of word processing enjoyment, but it will wither and die if subjected to one of today's games with all the eye-candy. Just depends on what you want out of your machine.

 

[Nelsieus]

Nobody is preventing you from buying a $500 PC. So why do people have to biotch about those who choose to spend a bit more and go higher-end?

I'm not necisarily referring to you, but all the people who complain about GPU prices in general. I'll gladly pay $650 for a SLI system, or $499 for a top end GPU, because that's what it takes to run games at my desired settings on my desired resolution of 1680x1050. What's wrong with that? It's not like me paying more is going to limit your choice of spending less. And please don't tell me there's no decent budget GPUs. The Geforce 7600GS can be had for a little over a $100, and performs nearly as fast as highend GPUs from last generation (Geforce 6). And then there's the Geforce 7600GT is you opt to spend a little more. Both the Geforce 7900GT and Radeon x1800XT are at exceptionally well values, being had for less than the $300 mark.

All that's happening is the high end is getting just a little higher with things like multi-GPU setups and more expensive single GPUs (rightfully so). But it's not like that's deminishing the lower-end and mainstream levels.

 

[Sonikku]

It's not really the $500 video card people that are buying the $500 computer to go with it. Different demographics.

 

[Powermoloch]

Lol funny thing was that I built a $ 600 rig and added a $ 350 vid card last year. And it still run like a champ with todays games :thumbsup:

 

[akshayt]

one thing that you really need to thing about it that how can xbox 360 cost 299$ and yet have a better gpu and cpu than 500$ each stuff.

 

[Nightmare225]

But you have to realize that video cards are sold as a profit. All next-gen consoles are sold at a loss, M$ and Sony are hoping to get this loss back by selling games.

They don't make money for each console they build, they actually lose it, but they have games that can fix the losses. For the graphics card companies, their main business is graphics cards, nothing else. They don't have any other type of product to fall back on if they sold their GPUs at a loss.

Sony and Microsoft both make many other things besides consoles, so that is why consoles are so cheap compared to graphics cards these days.

Just my 2 cents.

 

[Avalon]

Originally posted by: akshayt
one thing that you really need to thing about it that how can xbox 360 cost 299$ and yet have a better gpu and cpu than 500$ each stuff.

Because console manufacturers sell their systems at a loss and make the money off games?

 

[erikistired]

Originally posted by: Avalon

Originally posted by: akshayt
one thing that you really need to thing about it that how can xbox 360 cost 299$ and yet have a better gpu and cpu than 500$ each stuff.

Because console manufacturers sell their systems at a loss and make the money off games?

that and it's a different setup. a console doesn't have to run office or mirc or burn cds or any of that stuff. it plays games. period. the console hardware is optimized to run games at tv resolutions and so it doesn't have to be quite as buff as pc hardware. this has been discussed to death already tho.

 

[Bull Dog]

Originally posted by: akshayt
one thing that you really need to thing about it that how can xbox 360 cost 299$ and yet have a better gpu and cpu than 500$ each stuff.

That is not true. Oblivion in a PERFECT case in point. An X1900XT will provide better performance than the Xbox360 at the same resolution (1280x720) and IQ settings (or so say the people that have both). The fact that the console be being sold at a loss makes the Xbox360 a respectable bang for the buck if all you are interested in is playing games.

 

[Jules]

Originally posted by: Bull Dog

Originally posted by: akshayt
one thing that you really need to thing about it that how can xbox 360 cost 299$ and yet have a better gpu and cpu than 500$ each stuff.

That is not true. Oblivion in a PERFECT case in point. An X1900XT will provide better performance than the Xbox360 at the same resolution (1280x720) and IQ settings (or so say the people that have both). The fact that the console be being sold at a loss makes the Xbox360 a respectable bang for the buck if all you are interested in is playing games.

Owning Both FTW

 

[zendari]

Well, for one, monitor size has increased.....people went from happily playing at 10x7 with 2xAA to playing at 19x14 or 20xsomething at 6-8x AA.

 

[Vallybally]

Excellent point Zendari.

 

[akshayt]

at what loss can they sell the console, let us assume they make for 400$ and sell for 300$.
100$ loss=cpu+gpu + etc

now let us assume core 2 duo + 1900XT = 300$ to be made, sell it around 400$, get the 100$ profit

 

[Pugnate]

God I hate it when people complain about $500 video cards. The fact is that only the extreme performer is priced at that level. You can always buy smart, and get something excellent for around $350.

Always.


The $500-$600 variety exist because there are always those with the money who don't care.

The rest of us just have to buy smart.

 

[akugami]

I contemplated the higher end $500+ video cards...felt it just wasn't worth my money. Spent $370 or $380'ish for my X1900XT and don't regret it though I haven't had the time to play games as much as I used to. My limit for video cards is $400. If it's higher than that, you can keep it. I also don't think a $500 system matched up with a $500 video card makes sense unless you got an insanely good deal on the system. From what I see on most people's system, the video card should be roughly 1/3 to 1/2 the cost of the system for the parts to be paired properly. Or at least the smart people do that if they're trying to minimize any major bottleneck and have a well matched system.

 

[Vallybally]

Couple of clarifications, I did not mean to imply any matchup or correlation with a $500 PC and $500 video card. Two separate things. Just found it interesting that baseline budget PCs used to be $1500+ over ten years ago while "high end" video cards used to be $200 or less 10 years ago. Secondly, I am not a complaining communist. I understand and appreciate capitalism and supply/demand. I just think it's interesting how gaming and video card technology has taken off so profoundly these days, when in the early 90s I was contemplating whether to get that 4mb video card for $50 in order to play Wing Commander...

 

[imported_Sincity]

I also find it upsetting. Especially with the price drops of an X2. You can get a decent X2, mobo, and RAM for less than you pay for a high-end video card. If you really want to play, figure at least 50% of the budget going towards a video card alone.

And I had to explain to my wife why I needed a $450 video card. And on top of it...she is a CPA! LOL :laugh:

IRS: It says here you have a $450 video card. It is our understanding that most business PCs can be had after rebates for $300......
Me: Well, with this video card, I can run multiple 3-dimensional spreadsheets for our clients and be able to scroll for efficiently

 

[sunzt]

There's a nice market that pays extra premium to have the fastest GPU around - the gamers with decent jobs.

 

[akugami]

Gamer's with decent jobs my rear end. Gamers with decent jobs usually are gamers with a significant other. So basically a gamers with a GF/Wife can just about forget spending money on a good video card. Heck, my GF doesn't know my video card costs nearly $400. And I intend to keep it that way. I got a lecture cause I tipped the waiter an extra $10. What the heck do you think $400 is going to do?

 

[imported_Sincity]

Originally posted by: akugami
Gamer's with decent jobs my rear end. Gamers with decent jobs usually are gamers with a significant other. So basically a gamers with a GF/Wife can just about forget spending money on a good video card. Heck, my GF doesn't know my video card costs nearly $400. And I intend to keep it that way. I got a lecture cause I tipped the waiter an extra $10. What the heck do you think $400 is going to do?

Hahaha...so true!

 

[Elfear]

Originally posted by: akugami
Gamer's with decent jobs my rear end. Gamers with decent jobs usually are gamers with a significant other. So basically a gamers with a GF/Wife can just about forget spending money on a good video card. Heck, my GF doesn't know my video card costs nearly $400. And I intend to keep it that way. I got a lecture cause I tipped the waiter an extra $10. What the heck do you think $400 is going to do?

Lol. QFT

 

[imported_Crusader]

Originally posted by: zendari
Well, for one, monitor size has increased.....people went from happily playing at 10x7 with 2xAA to playing at 19x14 or 20xsomething at 6-8x AA.

This is true to a point. But the smart gamers dont use 6x+ AA (unless its Nvidias 8xS mode, which yields noticable improvements above 4X AA.

Originally posted by: Digit-Life
But I'd like to note that the quality difference in modes higher than MSAA 4x goes down to zero, especially in dynamic games. While 8xS mode in GeForce cards still makes some sense (texture antialiasing and "side-effect" anisotropic filtering), you will have to use a magnifying glass to find differences between 6x and 4x modes in ATI cards. That's why it's hard to say whether all these crazy modes (like ATI CF 14x or NV SLI 16x) make any sense...

I run 4X AA in shooters, and 8xS in Warcraft 3, slower paced games (possibly WoW if I played that), and essentially all RTS and turn-based strategy games (TBS).
6X-16X AA is silly, and only "useful" if you have a large excess of GPU power and just want to feel good running that sort of antialiasing so you dont feel you wasted your investment.

Just my opinion, but Digit Life clued me in on it.. and I investigated it myself and I'd have to agree with their professional opinion.

 

[ronnn]

Mainly a bang for the buck thing. Extra money on a vid card makes a consistently noticable difference. A faster cpu, mb, hd or ram is often not as noticable and therefore seems wasteful to us cheap guys.