Is the GPU market doomed from a consumer point-of-view?

[Ion29]

Hello. I don't post here a lot mostly because I lurk and don't really have much to say. I don't understand everything and don't want to confuse or offend anyone by pretending I do. I mostly just try to learn and many of you here have been very helpful in that way. So, first off, I just want to say thank you to the people making recommendations and talking about technology in ways that is easy to understand. It can be really confusing even as a diehard PC gamer.

Now I have a question since 2016 is here and the anticipated 16 and 14nm GPUs are here with it. With the way people talked about these things before they released, I must admit I expected much better than what we got.

Everything I've been reading says a lot of bad things about where the industry is right now from what I can understand. 16/14nm are apparently very expensive, both Polaris and Pascal (architectures) are apparently not changed much from their predecessors, Vega is still a long way off, and Nvidia are selling their mid-range cards for $700 with only a not-full high-end card at $1200.

I guess my question, or rather the censored version of it, is what exactly is going on? Will prices keep rising and do AMD have plans to do better? I don't understand why AMD's architecture isn't doing much better in performance per clock than it did 5 years ago and I don't understand why people are all of a sudden okay with record-setting prices on Nvidia stuff. I mean, why didn't these companies price things so high sooner if there were always people willing to pay so much?

I guess I'm just frustrated because it seems like affordable 4K GPUs just aren't coming anytime soon and development really isn't interesting anymore. The 1080 is barely any faster than the year-old 980 Ti, yet is also more expensive, while the real 980 Ti replacement this year is selling for $1200 (almost twice!!! the 980 Ti's price). At the same time, new consoles are on the way and will just make it even harder for PC GPUs to keep churning out fast frames in the newest games.

Even with the GTX 1060 and the RX 480, I remember factory-overclocked 290s selling for about the same price that performed almost the same almost 2 years ago. Where are the real improvements in performance affordability?



So, basically, are we screwed? It does kind of feel like it to me.

 

[XavierMace]

Tech in general is focusing more on efficiency than pure performance. 1080 generally seems to be about 30% faster than the 980ti and uses substantially less power doing it. Faster and more efficient is a win-win.

I also have no idea why you think the console refreshes will have any effect on PC GPU's churning out good frame rates. Consoles have laughably weak GPU's compared to what you're talking about in this thread.

 

[Silverforce11]

We're not okay with these creeping prices upwards. But what can you do?

This is what happens when there's no competition.

 

[SpaceBeer]

Prices are ok, same (similar) as always. I don't remember people were complaining about Kepler (GTX 600 & 700) or GCN 1.0 (HD 7000) prices, which were even higher in some segments (Launch price for HD 7870 was 350$). Same was for older series. Yes, GTX 970 and R9 390 were "only" 330$, but production costs are also lower after 4 years at the same process node.
Though in last few years USD to EUR (and other currencies) rate has changed, so prices outside USA are actually higher. But nVidia and AMD are certainly not responsible for that

 

[Rannar]

an 290 would be too much for my mITX case with 500W power supply. RX 470 or 480 would be perfect. like xavier wrote big improvement in energy efficiency and not in pure performance.
we are in a point where every new generation will probably get more expensive or bring less perf improvement and more energy efficiency improvement. newer nodes being more expensive and discrete GPU market more niche - gamers/miners/professionals are there but most of regular consumers have moved to integrated.

 

[selni]

The original titan was a bit of a wake up call for nvidia I think - sales surprised everyone and really must have sparked discussion around just how much they could actually charge. Pricing atm is mainly due to AMD not having anything that competes with GP104/2 out yet - nvidia can and do tend to charge what they want in situations like that.

As for progress saying they're not changed much from their predecessors is pretty questionable - both pascal and polaris are pretty significant jumps forward.

 

[TidusZ]

Prices are ok, same (similar) as always. I don't remember people were complaining about Kepler (GTX 600 & 700) or GCN 1.0 (HD 7000) prices, which were even higher in some segments (Launch price for HD 7870 was 350$). Same was for older series. Yes, GTX 970 and R9 390 were "only" 330$, but production costs are also lower after 4 years at the same process node.
Though in last few years USD to EUR (and other currencies) rate has changed, so prices outside USA are actually higher. But nVidia and AMD are certainly not responsible for that

Prices are not the same, they've been increasing with every new major release since like 2012 or so. $350 of performance in like 2010 is equal to $600 of performance now I'd say (CDN currency)

 

[Arachnotronic]

We're not okay with these creeping prices upwards. But what can you do?

This is what happens when there's no competition.

It blows my mind that people keep saying that there's "no competition."

There is competition, but NVIDIA is just winning the fight.

Anyway, I have no problem with the prices creeping upward SKU to SKU because raw performance-per-dollar continues to skyrocket.

For $250 you can buy a GTX 1060 that delivers performance of a $550 GTX 980 launched in September of 2014. How on earth could anybody be unhappy with this kind of perf/$ improvement?

 

[coercitiv]

For $250 you can buy a GTX 1060 that delivers performance of a $550 GTX 980 launched in September of 2014. How on earth could anybody be unhappy with this kind of perf/$ improvement?

Was the 980 a card acclaimed for it's perf/$ proposition?

 

[linkgoron]

It blows my mind that people keep saying that there's "no competition."

There is competition, but NVIDIA is just winning the fight.

There is no real competition,as in AMD is competing badly. AMD have not even matched nvidia's 1 year old card yet. Seriously, it looks like It will take AMD 19 months to release a card that beats AIB 980TI, or 22 months to beat the Titan X

 

[Silverforce11]

For $250 you can buy a GTX 1060 that delivers performance of a $550 GTX 980 launched in September of 2014. How on earth could anybody be unhappy with this kind of perf/$ improvement?

For $299, you could have bought custom 970 for the past year that had GTX 980 performance, or ~$549 equivalent. -_- Heck, prior to the 1060's launch, they were going for $229 to $249.

For most of 2014 and 2015, you could have had ~GTX 980 performance with custom non-throttling 290X for $249 or even cheaper ($220) for custom 290s.

These GPUs haven't moved perf/$ at all, let's not pretend otherwise, it makes you look like somebody who has no idea about recent GPU histories.

 

[Flapdrol1337]

It's getting harder to make ever faster gpu's. And if you don't play games there's not really a reason to even have one. So prices have to go up a bit. Nvidia is also making record profits though, so lack of competition is also a part of it.

At least with gpu's you can still upgrade to gpu that's significantly faster for the same price, just takes longer and longer.

With cpu's the prices have also gone up, but the performance gain is only slightly more than the price increase.

 

[therealnickdanger]

When adjusting for inflation, the MSRP launch prices of Nvidia's top tier GPUs (as close to uncut as possible, excluding Titan/Tesla) went up 25% with the 780Ti, but only up 15% with the 980Ti. Given their market dominance and mindshare, it's actually not that out of line. If not for a handful of competitive moves by AMD over the years, it would probably be a lot higher.

What strikes me as the terrible offenders are the second tier GPUs (specifically the 780, 980, 1080). Prices for these cut-down cards have jumped up 30-60%!

These prices actually make me feel like an idiot for buying the ATI Rage Fury MAXX for $299 ($433 today).

Early 2010
GTX480: $499 ($551 today)
GTX470: $349 ($386 today)

Late 2010
GTX580: $499 ($551 today)
GTX570: $349 ($386 today)

2012
GTX680: $499 ($523 today)
GTX670: $399 ($419 today)

2013
GTX780Ti: $699 ($723 today)
GTX780: $649 ($672 today)
GTX770: $399 ($412 today)

2014-2015
GTX980Ti: $649 ($660 today)
GTX980: $549 ($559 today)
GTX970: $329 ($335 today)

2016
GTX1080: $599-699
GTX1070: $379-449

????
GTX1080Ti: $???

 

[frozentundra123456]

Just like in cpus, the huge increases in performance per dollar (and with each generation) are finished. New process nodes are much more difficult to research and produce, leading to less gain with each shrink. People seem to get upset when prices of cards in a certain "range" go up, but the performance of each range is increasing, so absolute performance per dollar is increasing in most cases, as well as power use is decreasing. The new generation 480 and 1060 are both very good values. The 1070 and 1080 are a bit expensive, but that should improve as supply finally catches up (and in 2017 when AMD will have a competitor). And the 1080, despite people insisting on calling it a "midrange" card, offers the highest performance of any single card solution, so obviously there is a price premium for that.

Another possible reason for somewhat high prices, relative to previous generational shrinks, is that igpus have pretty much eroded the low end of the market, so midrange and high end prices are higher to partially make up for that.

 

[railven]

Prices are not the same, they've been increasing with every new major release since like 2012 or so. $350 of performance in like 2010 is equal to $600 of performance now I'd say (CDN currency)

TIL: You could buy GTX 1080 performance in 2012 for $350.

There is a reason why these kind of arguments can't be held. If you want to say the cost of a specific GPU die-size went up, sure you got that right.

However, performance stack - it's some what still the same.

Halo Parts outside of "Prosumer" or whatever the hell Nvidia/supporters want to call it are still $500+

Mainstream are still $200-300
Performance/Enthusiast are still $300-500

Relatively the same dollar value still nets you the same tier within current performance brackets.

In 2012 you were paying $350 for a card slotted between the $300 and $400 card performance, not GTX 1080 performance, which by today's standards is a $100 card at best.

 

[Nhirlathothep]

Hello. I don't post here a lot mostly because I lurk and don't really have much to say. I don't understand everything and don't want to confuse or offend anyone by pretending I do. I mostly just try to learn and many of you here have been very helpful in that way. So, first off, I just want to say thank you to the people making recommendations and talking about technology in ways that is easy to understand. It can be really confusing even as a diehard PC gamer.

Now I have a question since 2016 is here and the anticipated 16 and 14nm GPUs are here with it. With the way people talked about these things before they released, I must admit I expected much better than what we got.

Everything I've been reading says a lot of bad things about where the industry is right now from what I can understand. 16/14nm are apparently very expensive, both Polaris and Pascal (architectures) are apparently not changed much from their predecessors, Vega is still a long way off, and Nvidia are selling their mid-range cards for $700 with only a not-full high-end card at $1200.

I guess my question, or rather the censored version of it, is what exactly is going on? Will prices keep rising and do AMD have plans to do better? I don't understand why AMD's architecture isn't doing much better in performance per clock than it did 5 years ago and I don't understand why people are all of a sudden okay with record-setting prices on Nvidia stuff. I mean, why didn't these companies price things so high sooner if there were always people willing to pay so much?

I guess I'm just frustrated because it seems like affordable 4K GPUs just aren't coming anytime soon and development really isn't interesting anymore. The 1080 is barely any faster than the year-old 980 Ti, yet is also more expensive, while the real 980 Ti replacement this year is selling for $1200 (almost twice!!! the 980 Ti's price). At the same time, new consoles are on the way and will just make it even harder for PC GPUs to keep churning out fast frames in the newest games.

Even with the GTX 1060 and the RX 480, I remember factory-overclocked 290s selling for about the same price that performed almost the same almost 2 years ago. Where are the real improvements in performance affordability?



So, basically, are we screwed? It does kind of feel like it to me.

the are big improvements, you must understand that the new tech is mobile or ws/servers.

pc gamers are many and there are more tricks to take their money (they always try to spend less, but can be easily tricked )

 

[railven]

For $250 you can buy a GTX 1060 that delivers performance of a $550 GTX 980 launched in September of 2014. How on earth could anybody be unhappy with this kind of perf/$ improvement?

Because halo cards are some how no longer affordable by the masses or something...?

Even on the AMD side, R9 390/390X performance for $200-240, AMD rang the bell loud as they could, but I guess people only look at the top and complain.

EDIT:

pc gamers are many and there are more tricks to take their money (they always try to spend less, but can be easily tricked )

Tricked? I'd say more some PC Gamers are the whales of the industry. Spending absurd amounts of money for whatever reason. Slap that GAMER-X hologram on a MB box and people think "man that must be good!" It's all marketing in the end.

But at least some of spending stupid money can admit it's stupid money and have no issues because we have stupid money to spend. Getting chaztised for (not accusing you of it) is turning this forum into a playpen. AMD lost the top so now the top is "for idiots who can easily part with their money" or some nonsense. Gets tiring. (again not aimed at you.)

 

[Yakk]

The "top" is actually not very high. This finfet half node shrink and HBM2 not being ready isn't helping.

So all these new GPUs are more a temporary stop gap than anything really IMHO. It's disappointing not seeing the effect of a full node shrink as we have seen in the past. But at least the new APIs are here and working well to help give an additional booat in performance.

 

[sm625]

You have to put it in perspective. It costs more money for a simple 10 minute visit to urgent care than it does for a brand new state of the art 14nm video card. So when you subtract the fact that our money is being completely destroyed, this new generation is actually quite impressive. But it is difficult to not be disappointed when you basically for all intents and purposes cannot really buy one of these new cards for much if anything under $250. Be it a 1060 or a 480, the barrier to entry is very close to $250. I was not expecting this at the end of July. I was truly expecting there to be actual real options for the $150 market. To make matters worse, I fear that when the RX460 finally does become available, the price is going to be jacked up so high that it isnt going to provide that much value over marked down previous gen cards.

 

[Beer4Me]

Yep, the sky is falling. The sky is falling...

 

[therealnickdanger]

I was truly expecting there to be actual real options for the $150 market. To make matters worse, I fear that when the RX460 finally does become available, the price is going to be jacked up so high that it isnt going to provide that much value over marked down previous gen cards.

Pretty sure the RX460 is targeting $100-120. RX470 will be the $150 option. With proper DX12/Vulkan support, these low end GPUs should actually perform really well. Aren't they touting the RX460 as a VR card? That's a bold statement given its price point. I think they'll be lackluster against the current DX11 (950/960) cards though.

 

[Madpacket]

Moore's law is dead, and this is essentially why dramatic improvements in performance have slowed down.

The excuse the industry has used is "performance per watt" is now the focus. That focus wasn't a choice, they were forced to go this route as die sizes shrunk.

I'm not saying performance per watt is bad metric to focus on, but it should have never been prioritized over faster performance. And this is why we still don't have adequate video cards that can handle 4K gaming without getting into stupid expensive price ranges.

 

[Sonikku]

It blows my mind that people keep saying that there's "no competition."

There is competition, but NVIDIA is just winning the fight.

Anyway, I have no problem with the prices creeping upward SKU to SKU because raw performance-per-dollar continues to skyrocket.

For $250 you can buy a GTX 1060 that delivers performance of a $550 GTX 980 launched in September of 2014. How on earth could anybody be unhappy with this kind of perf/$ improvement?

980 wasn't worth the money. "Now you can get the performance of an overpriced card for a lower price!" Nvidia always does this. They brag about how you're getting a $1000 Titan performance for $370 with the 1070. The thing is the Titan wasn't worth a grand (compared to the 980ti) and the 1070 can't be had for $370. Prices today suck but the propaganda and shaping of public perception suggests otherwise to the plebeians.

 

[Yakk]

Pretty sure the RX460 is targeting $100-120. RX470 will be the $150 option. With proper DX12/Vulkan support, these low end GPUs should actually perform really well. Aren't they touting the RX460 as a VR card? That's a bold statement given its price point. I think they'll be lackluster against the current DX11 (950/960) cards though.

The 460 will be VR capable, but not VR Premium.

Under DX12/Vulkan the 470 should be enough to matchup against the 1060 with the 480 standing 1 tier above. So for yesterday's games the 1060 is ok, but for today's and upcoming DX12/Vulkan games the 480 is the card to get for mainstream.

 

[Zstream]

Hello. I don't post here a lot mostly because I lurk and don't really have much to say. I don't understand everything and don't want to confuse or offend anyone by pretending I do. I mostly just try to learn and many of you here have been very helpful in that way. So, first off, I just want to say thank you to the people making recommendations and talking about technology in ways that is easy to understand. It can be really confusing even as a diehard PC gamer.

Now I have a question since 2016 is here and the anticipated 16 and 14nm GPUs are here with it. With the way people talked about these things before they released, I must admit I expected much better than what we got.

Everything I've been reading says a lot of bad things about where the industry is right now from what I can understand. 16/14nm are apparently very expensive, both Polaris and Pascal (architectures) are apparently not changed much from their predecessors, Vega is still a long way off, and Nvidia are selling their mid-range cards for $700 with only a not-full high-end card at $1200.

I guess my question, or rather the censored version of it, is what exactly is going on? Will prices keep rising and do AMD have plans to do better? I don't understand why AMD's architecture isn't doing much better in performance per clock than it did 5 years ago and I don't understand why people are all of a sudden okay with record-setting prices on Nvidia stuff. I mean, why didn't these companies price things so high sooner if there were always people willing to pay so much?

I guess I'm just frustrated because it seems like affordable 4K GPUs just aren't coming anytime soon and development really isn't interesting anymore. The 1080 is barely any faster than the year-old 980 Ti, yet is also more expensive, while the real 980 Ti replacement this year is selling for $1200 (almost twice!!! the 980 Ti's price). At the same time, new consoles are on the way and will just make it even harder for PC GPUs to keep churning out fast frames in the newest games.

Even with the GTX 1060 and the RX 480, I remember factory-overclocked 290s selling for about the same price that performed almost the same almost 2 years ago. Where are the real improvements in performance affordability?



So, basically, are we screwed? It does kind of feel like it to me.

The issue isn't that GPU technology is behind, it's the geek speak (us on these forums) that insist you run everything maxed. If I were to pick out 10 random individuals (gamers) and shows them a 4k game running medium settings vs max settings, I'd wager that they wouldn't be able to tell the difference.

Just my 2cents