Pricing, buying strategy, and the medium size (mid range) vs big chip (high end)

[moonbogg]

Not to get emotive about this, but it is worth pointing out again that they simply can't do this with their current product release strategy without cutting their own throats.

If it went medium top card at 350-400 for 12 months, top card (big) at 6/700 for 12 months, top card (medium) at 350-400 for 12 months etc, then who on earth would buy the big cards?!

They'd have to revert to releasing entire ranges of cards as one block to make it possible to change the pricing, and that seemingly just isn't possible/desirable nowadays.

They could release the big die card first for full price. They would get to sell them at that price for a full year. Then they release the mid range cards and let people get a good deal for less money but still good performance. They won't do it unless forced to by competition or unless people simply stop buying the cards in sufficient numbers.
Those mid range cards would have to sell for much less money with something faster already on the market. That's how things used to be. It makes much more sense for the consumer, for the gamer, for the enthusiast. Its much better for all of us.
Main stream gamers get a fast card at a good price and enthusiasts get REWARDED for spending top dollar in the form of holding the performance crown for a longer period of time. That used to be our reward for being willing to spend the big bucks. We were the core customer, the die hard loyalists and fanboys, the ones who longed for the great performance to be had at a price that reflected the privilege of owning the top performer.
You know that performance would be the best or damn close to it for a good while, but now we don't get rewarded for that. Instead they rip the performance crown from the heads of their loyal customers, undercut their purchase value by releasing a faster card in a year or less, and then have the guts to ask you to buy another one if you want to remain at enthusiast levels of performance.
That early performance crown was somewhat available for Titan X purchasers, but it now cost $1,000.00 and climbing. Even they didn't get a full generation of performance crown bliss. The 980ti came shortly after and undercut their purchase value really hard. A slap in the face it was to NVidia's own BEST customers more so than it was to their competition.

 

[Lepton87]

But it is worse for NV. Besides as much as I'd like those days to return there are more things than just profits responsible for that. Every node shrink price per transistor used to become lower even right at the beginning of the new node ramp up. Unfortunately that's no longer true and the price per transistor actually increases.

I have no argument there, I know its not doable. Just funny how many there are who still vehemently argue that the 680, 980, 1080 are midrange cards and should therefore be priced accordingly. Whether they believe that or not, I dont know. More likely simply finding anything to criticize a vendor they do not like and using the midrange argument out of desperation.

It's not about liking a vendor. Don't be stupid, most people don't have attachments to GPU vendors... They would say same the same thing if AMD launched a chip this large with same performance. They say mid-range because GP100 is the high-end. It is already released.

It's just a label anyway, point is that this is the middle chip in the pascal family. It might still be more expensive to produce than the biggest chips in the previous families hence the price aside from towering margins.

 

[moonbogg]

Don't forget the brand new tax for using SLI. You must PAY an additional cost for an SLI bridge! I never thought I'd see that day come. I'm sure there was no possible way to let people just use two regular SLI connectors. Maybe you can. But $30.00 for an SLI bridge...

ITS FOR AN ESS EL EYE BRIDGE!

 

[Qwertilot]

Also I really doubt if we'd have got the 980ti we did had they launched it say 12 months earlier. Either a bit slower or maybe just terrible availability for months on end or something.

They definitely couldn't launch a workable big Pascal chip for consumers now. Maybe in ~6 months if they were purposefully pushing it and prepared to risk ragged edge stuff. 9-12 for the sort of really organised launch that they're been doing for years now.

 

[Lepton87]

Don't forget the brand new tax for using SLI. You must PAY an additional cost for an SLI bridge! I never thought I'd see that day come. I'm sure there was no possible way to let people just use two regular SLI connectors. Maybe you can. But $30.00 for an SLI bridge...

ITS FOR AN ESS EL EYE BRIDGE!

I heard it's the same bridge. For example wouldn't my current 3-way bridge work as a 2-way bridge? It has two fingers and I already used it as 2-way bridge and it worked on the Titans. The most greedy tax is the actual SLI certification. It's absurd....

 

[railven]

Am I the only one remembering 6-8 month refreshes and losing the performance crown on your >$500 card?

I was blowing a megaton more money than I am now to keep a crown.

Hell just a stroll down memory lane:
Radeon 9700 - 7/18/2002
Radeon 9800 - 3/6/2003
Radeon 9800 XT - 10/1/2003
Radeon X800 XT PE - 4/4/2004
Radeon X850 XT PE - 12/1/2004
Radeon X1800 XT PE - 10/5/2005

I can see why I'm use to upgrading almost yearly haha. I got conditioned pretty early for it.

 

[Lepton87]

Am I the only one remembering 6-8 month refreshes and losing the performance crown on your >$500 card?

I was blowing a megaton more money than I am now to keep a crown.

I just try to keep a fast card and I leave crowns to kings.

What is the sense of upgrading the X800XT PE to the X850XT? It's like 5% and after OC the new card could even turn out to be worse depending on chip lottery. the 9700 to the 9800? Same thing.
the 7800 to the 7800GTX 512 was probably the only time when such a refresh made sense.

 

[railven]

I just try to keep a fast card and I leave crowns to kings.

What is the sense of upgrading X800XT PE to X850XT? It's like 5% and after OC the new card could even turn out to be worse depending on chip lottery. 9700 to 9800? Same thing.
7800 to 7800GTX 512 was probably the only time when such a refresh made sense.

I'm just remembering how it was back then. I mean, for loyal customers who wanted to keep the crown - it was rather expensive. Haha.

 

[tential]

Am I the only one remembering 6-8 month refreshes and losing the performance crown on your >$500 card?

I was blowing a megaton more money than I am now to keep a crown.

Hell just a stroll down memory lane:
Radeon 9700 - 7/18/2002
Radeon 9800 - 3/6/2003
Radeon 9800 XT - 10/1/2003
Radeon X800 XT PE - 4/4/2004
Radeon X850 XT PE - 12/1/2004
Radeon X1800 XT PE - 10/5/2005

I can see why I'm use to upgrading almost yearly haha. I got conditioned pretty early for it.

I've jumped back into regular upgrades. The only reason I don't upgrade regularly is because I pick up Dota. When I'm playing Dota no reason to upgrade. I just started playing single player games which made me upgrade to the 290 and I need a 4k capable gpu now.

 

[railven]

I've jumped back into regular upgrades. The only reason I don't upgrade regularly is because I pick up Dota. When I'm playing Dota no reason to upgrade. I just started playing single player games which made me upgrade to the 290 and I need a 4k capable gpu now.

I hear ya. I don't even need to upgrade. I need to upgrade my monitor first but it seems I'm stuck with G-sync since NV doesn't want to be a good sport.

I set my Rig budget yearly. I snag a few extra hours at work and funnel money from my "spending" account. I don't have Haswell-E/QUAD-SLI funds, but I got enough to keep me happy.

 

[tential]

I hear ya. I don't even need to upgrade. I need to upgrade my monitor first but it seems I'm stuck with G-sync since NV doesn't want to be a good sport.

I set my Rig budget yearly. I snag a few extra hours at work and funnel money from my "spending" account. I don't have Haswell-E/QUAD-SLI funds, but I got enough to keep me happy.

I don't need to upgrade but it's 2016.
Its time for 4k gaming in my mind. I can't play at these small resolutions and be happy. I'm happy I could fiddle the settings for overwatch and still hit 4k resolution on a single card.

I need vega though not Polaris cf. I don't need another stopgap card.