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nVidia and AMD... how they both screw the customer

taltamir

taltamir

Lifer
So nvidia just comes out with the spiffy new GT... last years performance for this years price... being slightly lower that is. This is pretty bad considering the 8800 prices haven't gone down at all in the year since they were released... mainly because ATI simply did not release a compedative product...

We were hoping it would change with the 3870... but in fact is gonna get worse as now BOTH companies will be screwing us in different ways... While nvidia price gouges like crazy, the new AMD cards will be only slightly cheaper (currently a GT is 270$ and a 3870 can be preordered for 250$)...

The 3870 is 17% (low res ati favorable game) to 40% (1920x1200 res with AA/AF, or 30% without AA/AF) slower but it still costs almost the same... driving prices on the GT up... and the 3870 is NOT going to go down in price... because it was released with one thing in mind.. quadfire...

EDIT: OOPS, I should have said that the GT is 17%-40% FASTER... which makes the 3870 15% slower (thats how percentages work.. it depends on which one you show first)

In a few days AMD releases their new fusion platform... bringing us four card video "solutions".... with the atrocious performance you get from a single card more and more people are moving to multi card situations... and thats exactly what they want... the new 3870 costs that much not because it is worth it by itself... but because it is meant to be placed with 2 or 3 others of its kind inf a quadfire system running a new phenom on a new ATI chipset... paying over 1000$ for the video cards alone... finally giving you playable performance..

Without single card competition nvidia will keep jacking their card's prices up, and ati and will hold the multi-gpu speed crown.
 
I blame lack of competition from ATI's part; their HD series and now this new 3870 isn't really compelling Nvidia to produce some good cards. Competition breeds technological innovation; Nvidia's in top and has a comfortable position with their 8 series cards, and it makes them good money from where they are at now.

Let's all hope ATI can come back and provide some adequate competition; remember the 9700/9800 days? Both GFX card companies were at each others' necks and tried to stomp the competition with new cards coming out all the time.
 
what I am saying though is that ATI does compete... but in a different field...

Do you want the fastest rig out there?
1. buy 4 3870 for 250$ each (despite then performing 17-40% worse then a GT).
2. buy a new AMD motherboard thats the only thing allowing 4 video cards.
3. buy a new AMD phenom cpu (despite it being only a few percent better then the X2) because it will probably be the only thing with a socket to fit their new motherboards...

Fusion is the right name for the new architechture... it is gonna be like a nuclear explosion in your wallet...

If you want the best FPS (ie, playable on max settings) on the newest titles you are probably gonna have to go that route... it will sell the phenoms despite them failing compared to intel since GPU is the big determinant of gaming performance... it will sell new overpriced chipsets... it will sell 4 video cards per person... oh and it will probably sell more power supplies and the like but I doubt amd will see money from that... unless they use a special power plug that requires PSU makers to pay them royalties... which they could actually... maybe they should!
 
First I don't think you can blame Nvidia for the price gouging entirely. This is more of the retailer/distributer is raking in the profits on these cards as I doubt EVGA/MSI/XFX and etc is asking for more than what they listed as the MSRP.

ATI, which are the 2 high end cards that I run (X1900s), if they could compete I think they would. What advantage to them is it to hold back a product if they could win/compete? So I don't think ATI is sitting on killer card. The only option for ATI is to put up some good numbers using a multi GPU solution. May look good on paper, but nobody will go this route unless your a reviewer or have money to burn. Similar to SLI, only a few run high end cards with SLI. So in summary ATI is just marketting this crossfire to hide a lesser product.

So really the issue as you mentioned, and as other have pointed out, is the lack of competition. What motivation is there for Nvidia to release another card if they can still make money on older technology? None. Until sales start to decline on the current models, and they remain unchallenged, is the only time I can see them releasing the new model.

What is bad about this scenario is that Nvidia can now release the next gen at a premium. You want a performance increase from an 8800? Well your going to pay for it.
Can't really blame Nvidia, as if it were ATI I would feel they would do the same. I agree competition is a good thing.

A similar matchup is imagine if Intel didn't have AMD? You think we would get quad cores for 265$?
 
how hard is this to figure out? RV670 is a VALUE card. 8800gt is a VALUE card. Nobody is claiming these cards are top end. 8800gt looks better on paper right now b/c nvidia significantly bumped up their clocks to steal amd's rv670 thunder, but it falls further and further behind gtx as resolutions increase. Also, 8800gt, by all accounts, is much louder and needs a better cooling solution than 3870(can anybody say dual-slot?). If you could just get an 8800gt with an 8800gts cooling fan you would be golden. 3870 looks to be somewhere between 0-10% faster than 2900xt, it will be MUCH quieter, produce less heat, AND you will be able to use the traditional crossfire solution with it on a TON of high end intel mobos including all 975 and x38/48 mobos and most high end p35 and 965 mobos. Quad fire is going to be a lunatic fringe - type application for a generation at least, by which time we'll have r700 and g100 kicking some serious A$$ in the high end in mid 08.
 
please until you crack open their books you have no proof of price gouging on the manufacturer level.

just because the new midrange part (8800gts) happened to include more memory, a wider memory bus, and a much more powerful GPU that transitioned from fragment pipelines to new architecture, while all on the SAME manufacturing process (compared to 7800/7900gt) does not mean that nvidia can offer this incredible performance boost compared to the 7900 at the same price point.

why is the 8800gt cheaper? because they can fit more dies on that same wafer of silicon. the price per core drops. the memory bus width drops. the memory size drops. get it?

couple this with a weaker US dollar compared to that period and suddenly it makes sense since i am sure many parts on those video cards originate somewhere other than the US.

anyway please cry more and try to dig deeper than just the skin of the onion next time.
 
The performance difference varies from review to review, with the 3870 beating the GT in some games (please read more than just the Legionhardware review)...so if it's priced cheaper, it's a decent card.

You're getting 2900 performance for much less. Same with the GT, you're getting >GTS performance for less...so what's bad about that?
 
I also read that AMD has shipped in large quantity and Nvidia hasn't. That will keep the Nvidia cards priced higher, but might mean that the AMD cards fall in price. Maybe not though, depends on whether people just buy the AMD card if they can't get the Nvidia.
 
the fact it isn't MUCH less, and it has been more then a year since this original performance level was reached?

I am getting last years performance for 70% of the price... whoopdeedo... oh wait... I can do multi gpu... and lock myself to a chipset / cpu combo sold by that same company... lovely. (not to even mention power and heat and whatnot)

And nVidia had 50,000 units at lunch, and shipped more since... amd will have 200,000 at lunch...
I don't think nVidia anticipated the DEMAND for their cards... the shelves were stacked in every store, and the selections were wide on etailers everywhere... they just sold out in a feeding frenzy of people using 2 year old cards who wanted last years performance for less then 500$.



It all boils down to this... is AMD really forgoing single cpu/gpu performance to focus on bringing up their fusion plans where they will be selling you a PACKAGE containing their own chipset, cpu, and 2-4 gpus? I think so... The 3870 seem to be annihilated by the GT and absolutely not worth it to anyone doing single or duel card... but that will not be enough... you want crisys or new games afterwards? you need 3 or 4 video cards..
I am estimating 4 3870 cards in quadfire will be 50% more powerful then two 8800Ultra in SLI. AND force you to buy an underperforming/overpriced AMD chipset and CPU (both are under performing and over priced that is).

I gotta hand it to them... I am impressed... as an aspiring businessman I have to say that this is what -I- would do in their shoes, and it is pure genious (in a field I don't have a personal interest in that is... ) As a gamer though, I loath the very idea... (I want to play games faster and better so I wouldn't do it in computer performance...)
 
Gee whiz I hope I do not give away my age. Many years ago, If you were a phone customer you could only use proprietory hardware and be limited to one handset.
However people being what they are tried to add and mod their layouts. So
what did the whiz bang spin doctors of the phone company offer: to rewire the house for free and if everyone put an average of 4 new phones- Sales of phones would go up 400%!
Perhaps the AMD/Nvidia cartel gleened a lesson here. They do not owe anything to the final consumers they are accountable to their shareholders. This year saw the Vista free for all hype as corporations tried to cash in on "new" Vista products (notably DX10). As for costs , there is the is a long understood cost structure to consumer electronics; for every penny spent on production the end user pays a dime.(Quality takes a back seat to mass production.) This accounts for transport and middlemen etc. and it also accounts for rush to market. What is happening is that the new cards are occupying the price points of last years so called mid -range cards. Yes the 8800GT should be seen as a 8600GTS replacement. Thats why Nvidia is protecting the badge plates of the 8800GTS in its new re-incarnation, but engineering a shortage. This is the continued cherry picking /riding the demand curve of higher cards. The 8800GT is a break from this so far as it is meant to be part of a multiple gpu solution. People will try to push it it to its limits and lament that what it really is cheap and meant for the masses. Also if last year you bought a $250 card and this year they get you to buy a similar "better" $300 one then they have upscaled your willingness to pay more (which flies against better and cheaper value). The market has moved to healthier margins( this pleases the shareholders, managers get bonuses which come out of bottom line you pay). What is happening we are seeing corporate re-engineering of what was the traditonal gamer setup ie a modest effective mid-range card and a modest mildly warmed over CPU/motherboard combo. Sorry to the marketeers but that PS3 is looking better every day.!
 
don't let taltamir confuse you. He still doesn't understand that this launch from both camps missed him.

btw, taltamir, please look at anand's article. 3870 is btwn 83.1% and 87.6% the performance of 8800gt. That should avg out to...um, about 85%, so 15% less. Go ahead and call anand a liar. I'm sure that he wouldn't mind :evil:
 
I was basing my figures on the reviews that were out earlier... they were obviously not as reliable as anand, but the new figures don't change or invalidate anything... The point of this release was crossfire-x... 4 video cards running at once... they even fixed the multi display bug...
The idea is to sell you 4 video cards, an AMD chipset, and an AMD cpu...
The fact it is 15% instead of 30% just means that amd does't fail as badly in the single card market... not that it is somehow adequate as a single card, or that they are not trying to sell you on multiple gpus.

Also, I made a mistake in the original post in regards to PERCENT... I said it is 17%-40% SLOWER then GT rather then saying that the GT is 17-40% FASTER!

The way percent works is that it is not the same percentage depending on which figure is compared to which.

100 is 200% OF 50
100 is 100% MORE THAN 50
50 is 50% OF 100
50 is 50% LESS THAN 100

it is the same two numbers we compare, 50 and 100... but based on the comparison you can get 200%, 100%, and 50%

So similarly Anand found that the 3870 is 15% SLOWER... I should have said that the GT is ~30% FASTER. I can make no excuse to such a hefty violation of the sacred rules of the mathes.

Anand found that on crysis, the worst ATI performer. The 3870 got ~30fps and the GT about 40fps. (as far as I can read from the chart)
That makes the 3870 25% slower then GT on that test...
Or it makes the GT 33.3% faster then the 3870, if you decide to read it that way.
Same exact FPS on each card, but different perceived advantage due to magics of math.
 
@ Belles Toaster - great post. Very informative... I am disillusioned, I thought the marketing guys finally came up with some ingenious scheme.. only to find out they are ripping off the telecom ripoff from years back...
 
well ATI needs an ace up their sleeve. We need some amazing performance out of an under the radar card in development at their labs. LIKE when the 9700pro came out! Hopefully they have a secret team of electrical engineers and computer hardware designers underground in nevada somewhere working on the R1000 design.
 
Originally posted by: jaredpace
well ATI needs an ace up their sleeve. We need some amazing performance out of an under the radar card in development at their labs. LIKE when the 9700pro came out! Hopefully they have a secret team of electrical engineers and computer hardware designers underground in nevada somewhere working on the R1000 design.
Click to expand...


Im guessing no, i dont think ATI/AMD are as intrested as they used to be, they could easily bring out a card that wupps the 8800Ultra but for some reason have chosen not to, Why ? God knows.
 
taltamir:

I don't think AMD is trying to push the 4-GPU setup as much as you're trying to imply. For all the positive things you can say about the 3800 series, the fact is that it is the best AMD currently has to offer......and it doesn't even draw even with NVidia's low-end performance card.

The truth of the matter is that marketing departments don't ever want to admit defeat. You're never going to hear them say "OK, well maybe we're not the fastest out there....." Instead, what they'll do is put a spin on things, and say something like:

"AMD is the only company which currently has quad-GPU support. With AMD quad-Crossfire, we offer the best gaming performance available, anywhere!"


See how it works? I don't think AMD actually expects the masses to run 4-gpu setups. It's all just to save face.


 
Originally posted by: SniperDaws
Originally posted by: jaredpace
well ATI needs an ace up their sleeve. We need some amazing performance out of an under the radar card in development at their labs. LIKE when the 9700pro came out! Hopefully they have a secret team of electrical engineers and computer hardware designers underground in nevada somewhere working on the R1000 design.
Click to expand...


Im guessing no, i dont think ATI/AMD are as intrested as they used to be, they could easily bring out a card that wupps the 8800Ultra but for some reason have chosen not to, Why ? God knows.
Click to expand...

Perhaps ATI/AMD could have brought out an ultra-high end card which sold for around $500 which means only the top few percent of gamers could afford to buy it.

Instead they bring out a mid-priced card which the market has sorely been lacking in for the last couple of years. It uses less power, it's quiet, it's competitive with the 8800GT and it costs less. There are a lot more people that are going to buy this card then the very high end. At this price point you will see a lot of them in OEM machines.

Financially, it makes a lot more sense.

My only question is, how much is Nvidia paying some of the posters here to bash their competition?

 
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