1. Die size alone doesn't determine manufacturing costs, and 28nm wafers cost a lot more than 40nm wafers. Therefore, manufacturing costs probably aren't lower. That, and yields are also lower than 40nm.
I never said die size alone determined costs. GTX580's die is 520mm^2. HD7870's die is 212mm^2. Rumored estimates are that 28nm wafers are 20-30% more expensive. GTX580 die size is 145% larger.
Also, AMD is dropping MSRP for HD7950 to $399.
There goes your cost argument. If HD7950 is selling for $399 with a 365mm^2 die size, HD7870 for $349 with a 212mm^2 is a rip off.
2. It doesn't matter what you think it replaces. Pricing is dictated by competition or lack thereof, and that's that.
Great logic. Next stop, HD8790 for $699 because it's the fastest single GPU.
Like I said from a business perspective, they can price it at for $999. If consumers start buying GPUs for $999, is it reasonable pricing? It would be. That doesn't change the fact that technology is different - performance gets cheaper / and or faster over time. HD7870 replaces HD6870. So it's not cheaper. Similarly, if you compare it to HD6970, given the time span, the 8-10% performance increase isn't sufficient given the $349 price. Again, it's overpriced. The fact that someone out there is willing to pay $349 doesn't mean it's great value.
3. Whether the 6950 could be unlocked or not doesn't matter. A 6950 is a 6950, and a 6970 is a 6970. If it could be unlocked that doesn't matter in terms of pricing.
It does matter. If 1 year from now we can't get faster performance in technology for a similar price (barring inflation), then something has changed about the industry. But this is a moot point now since HD7950 dropped to $399. That just supports the view many have held that HD7900 series was overpriced.
HD 7870 needs no price drops, except if NVIDIA comes out with a card that's just as fast or just a bit faster (probably GTX 670 or GTX 660) and costs less.
Really, so if there is no competition companies should be able to price products as high as they want? So Intel could be selling 2500K for $299 then because it destroys every Bulldozer chip. Why isn't Intel using AMD's predator pricing strategy? I understand that companies feel pressure to lower prices when there is more competition. But HD7870's pricing from a consumer perspective didn't make sense from day 1, regardless of competition because
it replaced HD6870. A $350 card is not a replacement for a $239 card. Just because a company was raising prices unreasonably, doesn't make it rational to consumers.
4. Your point is? GK104 and Tahiti have very comparable IPC, and they also overclock similarly.
Not exactly. GTX680 needs 1536 SPs and 70GB/sec lower memory bandwidth to accomplish the same feat that it takes a 2048 SP chip. But IPC for GPUs is a moot point. It's too complex to compare since GPU tasks are parallel in nature. So comparing IPC for GPUs is largely irrelevant. Still HD7970 for $470 is too expensive since the reference blower is loud, it consumes more power, requires a huge overclock just to hang with a stock 680. In other words, still overpriced.
The difference is that Tahiti has better clock scaling, and you gain more from an overclock than with Kepler. In other words, the gap is closed to nothing or goes a bit in favor of the HD 7970 if both are heavily overclocked.
Yes, it can be closed and you can even surpass the 680. For that, you'd want an after market quiet 7970. Once those cost $499, they start to make sense. Good luck using your reference 7970 @ 1200mhz though.
Reference HD 7970s at $470 are just fine given their performance. As was already said, the performance difference to the GTX 680 is only 5-10%.
You can believe what you want. It's your choice. The information is there and it shows otherwise.
15-16% supports the notion that it takes a 1050-1070 7970 to keep up.
a GTX 680 that can clock to 1100MHz stock and another one that does 1200MHz stock because of GPU Boost.
More misunderstanding on how GTX680s GPU Boost works. Yes, because 1 card did it in 1 review in 1 game, than most 680s can do 1200mhz out of the box.
BTW, almost no one plays Batman: AC, so not a very good argument for NVIDIA's superiority.
Batman AC sold 6 million units
Why don't you mention Metro 2033, too? That's one of the most intense games out there. Oh, it just so happens to favor AMD.
You can look at any popular modern games, SKYRIM, BF3, Witcher 2, Batman, etc. GTX680 wins in all of them.
Metro 2033 is good benchmark. Sure it runs faster on AMD cards, but it's still unplayable on any single GPU with everything maxed out. It's also a worse game than SKYRIM, BF3, Witcher 2 and Batman games.
How does that argument work for lowering the HD 7870's price but yet you keep saying at $470 the HD 7970 is overpriced when the GTX 680 probably costs less to manufacture?
It's not just cost that determines the product's pricing. If AMD can't design and sell a product that's profitable and performs as well as the competition, they should work harder. You keep looking at it from a business' perspective. Consumers don't care if it costs AMD $x to make the 7970. If they can buy a faster, quieter card for $30 more, it makes more sense for most people.
Speaking of which, the way NVIDIA was able to make the GTX 680 as fast as it is is by voiding it of almost any compute performance whatsoever.
The HD 7970 is 2-4x faster in compute, as is the older GTX 580, yet you don't mention that either.
Why would I? No one brought up Nvidia's GPGPU superiority when they were recommending HD4870/4890/5850/5870/6950/6970 cards for 3 full generations. Suddenly GPGPU is at the forefront of discussions? :sneaky:
If you need GPGPU compute, that's different. But since most people buy cards to play games, I think the crowd that cares for GPGPU would buy HD7970 even at $550. So should AMD price the 7970 to cater to 0.1% of these customers?
7. The HD 7850 provides HD 6970 performance for $240.
With overclocking, yes. Otherwise, no.
13% slower at 1080P @
Computerbase
The HD 6970 was $340, so you're flat-out wrong.
I was discussing MSRP. It was
$369.
If you're gonna overclock, even on stock voltage, at its max clocks it's faster than both the HD 6970 AND GTX 570 also overclocked at max stock voltage.
So wait, you include overclocking which is luck of the draw for 7850 but ignore overclocking or unlocking for 6950? :sneaky:
Ya, there have been deals for $180-$210 GTX560Ti 448. That's better value than HD7850. So what's your point exactly? HD7850 needs a 20% overclock to beat HD6950 @ 6970 by
5%, 15 months later? If that impresses you, we just have different standards. Not to mention GTX570 offered all of this as well for $250-270 for months before 7850 launched.
Oh, HD7850 also performs
worse than HD6870 in certain games. Glad you mentioned that.
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