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Over 500 bucks for a graphic card? When is the madness going to stop?

G

Gozu

Banned
A couple of years ago, the "top of the line" graphic cards cost about $300.
Last year, the "cutting edge" graphic cards cost about $400.
this year, the "bleeding edge" graphic cards cost over $500.
next year, I can see some "stiched edge" graphic cards costing $600.
The year after that, how about some "infected wound" graphic cards costing $700.
and the year after, you'll have some "amputated edge" graphic cards costing $800
followed by some "lawsuit" cards costing $900
and most probably some "settlement" cards costing $1000.

What the hell is going on here?

Just my 2 cents.
 
Um, GeForce 2 Ultras hit $500, and initial GeForce 3s were well up to or over $400. There really isn't anything special about the high prices, I remember when TNT2 Ultras were $250+

Just don't flip out and get what's best for your money. Just don't be upset when someone with money has a card slightly faster than you, they paid an absurd premium and you didn't. Who cares? It isn't that big of a deal.
 
Agree with Bunnyfubbles,

Buy something which is a compromise between good performance and cost. No need to feed the silicon monster.

There are always folks out there with $$ burning a hole in their pocket and want the best thing on silicon. But most of us know better than to play that game. uh... I can't afford to play that game actually. But I can afford to get hardware that does what I need it to.
 
bs geforce 3 ws never $400 I got mine like a week after it came out for like $300-$350 not exactly sure but it was somewhere in their
 
It'll stop when people won't buy them...which will probably be never since there's always going to be a few that will pay the price to have the fastest card on the planet.
 
I remember GeForce 256 was about £200 tops (Christmas 1999), not long after release. ($300 at very most, probably less because of UK taxes being higher)
 
Prices are economy/market driven. There is a demand for cards, and people willing to pay $500. I think it is absurd. I'd rather buy a new bike with $500, but thats just me.

My computer will last me a long time (see sig 😀). I don't forsee buying anything new until Matrox comes out with a new video card or some of my higher-end programs require more juice. But that will be a while.

~Aunix
 
What the hell is going on here?
Click to expand...

Your assumptions are simply wrong, prices/selection have never been better/cheaper for the consumer. Its not like you need the top of line card, even <$100 US budget cards can play current games at excellent frame rates.
 
Hmm, I totally forgot about the SLI voodoo 2 . But that's an exception. See, in my view, there was nothing wrong with the tnt2 ultra at $250. And I firmly believe that price should have stayed the standard for stiched edge videocards. Let me explain. A high end video card should cost a certain percentage of the total cost of a computer and right now, that percentage is way too high (I'd say about 25% of the cost of a killer PC when it ought to be something like 10-12.5% max). Let's see what other things cost between $500 and $550:

3.5 Gb of pc4000 ram
1 P4 3.1GHz 800FSB
1 nice 22" monitor or LCD 19"
between 600 and 700Gb of HD storage


 
"Trickle down" technology has ceased in the vid card market, expect prices to stay in the $500 range for high end board for the forseeable future due to it.

It used to be that today's high end boards became tomorrow's mid line and then budget offerings with nigh no differences except the age of the part. Since the GeForce 1 hit, this has ceased to be the way things are done. IHVs design a high end part to be a high end part and then have other castrated versions of the chip to occupy the mid and low end markets or even use a modified version of an even older core. The TNT2 served nVidia for many years and based on the last number I saw was still the single best selling chip for add in graphics ever, there is nothing today that will come close to threatening that.

The FX5900 and R9800 are never going to trickle down to the low end, they need to recover their respective R&D costs in the upper echelon of pricing which is of course much lower volume so their margins need to start high and stay high. When the NV40/R400 hit those boards will be phased out/replaced by either lower cost varriants of the new parts or they will have a 'less castrated' version built for the mainstream market. With R&D costs being what they are, this trend isn't going to change.

Let's see what other things cost between $500 and $550:

3.5 Gb of pc4000 ram
1 P4 3.1GHz 800FSB
1 nice 22" monitor or LCD 19"
between 600 and 700Gb of HD storage
Click to expand...

Look at it another way, what device can you purchase now where you see a several hundred percent difference in performance amongst mainstream parts? Compare a R9200 to a R9800Pro running 1600x1200x32x4x16, or a FX5200 to a FX5900U at the same settings even running something as old as Quake3. Processors have a comparable pricing structure to graphics cards however they do not have nearly the same performance difference as there is in the GPU market. Current GPUs are more complex then CPUs and also come with 128MB/256MB of RAM that offers bandwith far beyond anything in the consumer market outside of vid cards.

Another way to think of it, which would you rather have for a gaming rig?

P4 2.4/XP2400
1GB RAM
100GB HD
R9800Pro/FX5900U

or

P4 3.2/XP3200
4GB RAM
600GB HDs
R9200/FX5200?

I think it's a no brainer when it comes to gaming.
 
The Voodoo3 3000 was less than $200 when it debuted, and it was pretty much the fastest next to the 3500.
 
Originally posted by: BenSkywalker
"Trickle down" technology has ceased in the vid card market, expect prices to stay in the $500 range for high end board for the forseeable future due to it.

It used to be that today's high end boards became tomorrow's mid line and then budget offerings with nigh no differences except the age of the part. Since the GeForce 1 hit, this has ceased to be the way things are done. IHVs design a high end part to be a high end part and then have other castrated versions of the chip to occupy the mid and low end markets or even use a modified version of an even older core.
Click to expand...

Very true. And it seems nVidia does this more than Ati. BAD nVidia! BAD!
 
Originally posted by: ShotgunEd
bs geforce 3 ws never $400 I got mine like a week after it came out for like $300-$350 not exactly sure but it was somewhere in their
Click to expand...

I bought my First GeForce 3 (non Ti) for 400 dollars when it first came out. I then paid 400 again when I got my Ti4600. I am waiting for the next gen video cards (along with Prescott and PCI-Express) before I do a massive upgrade/build a new comp.
 
Originally posted by: Gozu
A couple of years ago, the "top of the line" graphic cards cost about $300.
Last year, the "cutting edge" graphic cards cost about $400.
this year, the "bleeding edge" graphic cards cost over $500.
next year, I can see some "stiched edge" graphic cards costing $600.
The year after that, how about some "infected wound" graphic cards costing $700.
and the year after, you'll have some "amputated edge" graphic cards costing $800
followed by some "lawsuit" cards costing $900
and most probably some "settlement" cards costing $1000.

What the hell is going on here?

Just my 2 cents.
Click to expand...
You haven't checked out the "REAL" high end graphics market have you?

If you had you would think that a 9700 pro for $400 is not bad for a card.

Go price a 3dlabs Wildcat VP990 Pro.
 
It ends when you want it to. I used to always buy the best equipment and had an awesome machine for years. Did I use it? Not really. I now run a P4 1.6 with an ATI 9000, and I am perfectly happy. My big splurge was my $600 17" LCD from Eizo Nanao, which is the best looking screen I have ever seen to date.

I think I bought a "top-of-the-line" card once for around $275, and I realized that it lost its value so quickly that I pissed away about $100 or so by not waiting a few months. Now, I have more important things to spend my money on like scuba equipment!
 
I used to buy the biggest and best in graphics card technologies soon as they were released, simply because I wanted the best.

I've got the GeForce4 4600 at the moment and don't intend to upgrade again for a long time because my gaming activities have died down in the last 18 months and I've realised that shelling out over £300 on a video card with a shelf life of less than 12 months is plain and simply wasteful (and owning your own house eats every penny I have!).

At the end of the day £400+ video cards will continue to come out as long as there's a market for them. If people want to buy such technology, good for them but the days when I shell out so much cash, so often for such items are well and truely over.
 
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