How about AMD milking us through-out the history with their small sub 400, sub 300mm2 dies?
I am pretty sure that behaviour used to be called - engineering marvel, efficiency, AMD die-size advantage over brute-force NVidia with their huge monolithic dies (what ever that means LOL).
Now that Nvidia does it - all of sudden that's MILKING IT, and ripping off their customers.
So which one is it?
Large monolith die strategy for Nv has been described in many reviews since G80. It is not something people in our forum made up. This is in contrast to AMD's strategy before 290 where they used a midrange die to compete with NV. That strategy didn't work which is why AMD is trying to regain the performance crown by making even larger die GPUs as we have seen with 7970 and then 290 vs. 4870/5870.
You insinuated that AMD's chips are underperforming but the reality is they barely lost to Nv despite a major disparity in price at the high end, except when NV really outperformed with Kepler and AMD scrambled late with 290 series:
AMD practically made Nv pick up their jaw off the floor when they launched 4850 for $199 and 4870 for $299. It was so embarrassing for Nv that their $399 260 was slower than a $299 4870 and they had to not only lower the price but release a 260 216 shaders to compete. That's to say nothing of the stupidly overpriced $649 280 at launch that dropped to $499 1 month after release.
Let's keep going. 5850 overclocked easily outperformed the 285 OC and cost just $259. I mean looking in hindsight this was a ridiculous value since 5850 OC gave 95% of the performance of 5870 OC for $259 and this time AMD beat Nv to market by 6 months!! Ok 470/480 long term did end up much better due to more VRAM and tessellation performance but by then many moved on to next gen 40nm cards. I mean why wouldn't they since one could ride for 2 years on a 5850 OC $259 instead of buying 480 for $499, and then use the money to get 7950/7970/670, etc.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/2841
Now 3rd generation in a row AMD delivered smoking value in the 6950 2GN. When I got my 6950 2GB it was only $230 and I remember 580 1.5GB cost $450! Are you kidding me? Dual unlocked 6950s mopped the floor with a 580, and you had to spend $550 to get a 3GB 580. Ya guess what happened to all those 1.28Gb 570/ 1.5GB 580 cards 2.5 years? VRAM limits galore. Worse yet the 580 barely beat the 6970 at 1600p (which is to say it barely beat a $230 6950 since they were more or less same card for a year+).
So we have 3 consecutive generations where AMD delivered a whopping 80-90% of the performance of NV and really when you look at price/performance you could almost always save a lot or get 2 AMD cards for nearly the price of a 480/580.
Now 4th generation we are at 7970 vs. 680. No doubt Kepler is a more efficient architecture for NV and AMD used a lot if die space for DP performance on Tahiti that is not useful for gamers but heck NV charges $3k for Titan Z because of DP. AMD miscalculated on including so much DP while NV went the other way, which is what made the gap in efficiency even greater in favor of NV.
Ok, but anyway what many here don't want to acknowledge is that 680 OC could never really beat the 7970 OC on average and especially not at 1600p. Of course with Nv one had to pay more for 4GB version or go with a 2GB version, which as we know today is a compromise in a few high profile games. Once again NV found a way to overcharge for what is a small cost for extra VRAM.
Now sure AMD raised prices to $550 with the 7970 and if we ignore Bitcoin mining which made 7970 free, 7970 still remains a smoking card 2.5 years after even if one paid the full price for it, especially in the 7970 OC CF configuration. Look at 780Ti SLI/R9 290X CF vs. 280X CF:
http://www.sweclockers.com/recension/18944-nvidia-geforce-gtx-titan-z/17#pagehead
^ Look how much you have to pay to significantly beat those 280Xs.....ouch.
Guess what for people who got 7970 + OC + CF on single monitors, you have to spend an exorbitant amount to get what 40-50% more performance 2.5 years later? Unlike 680 2GB SLI, 7970 OC CF keeps going, enough to skip 780Ti/R9 290X entirely until 880/390 series since 3GB of VRAM is enough for Wokfenstein, Titanfall, Watch Dogs at 1080/1440p.
And that's the point: not only have performance increases slowed down, but both AMD and NV raised prices. The difference is in how they did it and how they have responded since 7979 vs. 580 launched.
Luckily for us AMD came down to earth and gave us 290 for $400 which more or less makes 780Ti's price of $700 look unjustified at this point. You see a trend? Even after 7970, AMD is still giving you 80-85% of NV's flagship card for $400. What's Nv doing? They keep waiting on AMD to release new cards and adjust prices around them. $650 780 vs. $399 R9 290 for crying out loud. Until AMD forces NV's hand, they keep prices high as long as possible. If 290 didn't come out for $400, NV would have kept 780 at $650 for 5 months longer.
Grooveriding is right I believe that now Nv and AMD are splitting a real generation into 2. What used to be a $350 midrange launched along a $500-700 flagship (+50-70% faster) is now being split into 2 half generations of +30-45% and each of these cards launches at $500+. Essentially midrange moved up to $500-550.
We either have to skip some releases or keep upgrading for 30-40% 2x in a generation. With 880, at least on paper many are already seeing issues such as possible memory bandwidth and ROP limitation for high Rez gaming. The question is if Nv is purposely holding back GM210 to milk 880 at $500 or are they really limited by 28nm design/wafer costs that it's too expensive for them to launch a 500mm2+ chip right away? At least based on history we can bet more than 50% chance that AMD will release a chip with 80-85% of performance of Nv for hundreds of dollars less. Don't forget that many Nv
Loyalists just wait for AMD cards to put pressure in Nv to lower prices only to later buy a reduced in price Nv card anyway.
Other than 680 vs. 7970, NV hardly cares to bring a lot more performance to gamers at reasonable prices because they now realized that people will buy Nv anyway. Since 4870 generation, it has been AMD that forces NV to reduce prices. Look at buyers guides across the web. For the last 3-4 months it's nearly all AMD recommended cards but market share for AMD is hardly improving. Problem is NV's customers don't switch which is one of the key reasons Nv can pull $500+ midrange card all day long with the 880,
even if 390X were to beat it by 20% or even 30%. Of course if 880Ti surprised with amazing performance, I will be pleasantly surprised and reward Nv with a purchase
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