Realistic price drop expectations?

[RussianSensation]

Blasting, you didn't adjust HD7850. It already sells for $260 right now.

OR AMD's CEO just might do nothing at all, like selling Bulldozer FX8150 for more than 2500K

 

[badb0y]

AMD needs a 100$ price cut across the board. Yes I'm srs.

 

[RussianSensation]

AMD needs a 100$ price cut across the board. Yes I'm srs.

XFX HD7950 with lifetime warranty is $490.

GTX680 beats HD7950 by 47% in Crysis 2 at 1080P

An outlier for sure, but still $10 more for GTX680? Yes, please.

 

[SolMiester]

LOL, missing a few comments from the regulars............

 

[DeeJayeS]

Assuming 680 is at $500, I predict:

7970 to 500
7950 to 425
7870 stays at 350
7850 stays at 250

until NV releases something other than a $500 card. 680s will sell out at launch, limited availability will allow AMD to sell at these prices. AMD might also hold off on a 7950 1.5gb version.

 

[BallaTheFeared]

Are we going to see a wide range of reviews tonight?

 

[RussianSensation]

Assuming 680 is at $500, I predict:

7970 to 500
7950 to 425

You can't be serious? HD7950 is looking to be at least 30% slower! I mean AMD can do nothing at all and go down the path of Faildozer FX-8150 for $269 vs. $225 2500K, but then how many cards are they going to sell?

They can't rely on NV having stock issues forever. HD7970 simply won't make any sense at $500 except for a handful of people who are running HD7970 CF in Eyefinity where 3GB actually makes sense. But most of those people have already bought their HD7970.

 

[Silverforce11]

If gtx680 doesn't beat the 7970 in 1600p and 3x 1080p resolutions, its not going to force a significant price-drop. These price points tend to be bought by enthusiasts with big 30' monitors or triple displays. Here, the 3gb vram and more bandwidth becomes a necessary "feature".

 

[ocre]

That sound quite correct.

I'm still not convinced the MSRP actually is $499, but if it is, AMD prices have to drop pretty significantly. The 7970 might get away being sold at the same price, but as you said, from what we know so far, it only wins in particular situations (higher resolutions). At 1080p, I don't see many people buying the 7970 over the 680 at the same price.

A 7970 slightly less expensive would then make sense. Of course, if one drops, they all have to.

but according to the toms review the 680 was still faster than the 7970 at 1600p. I dont get why ppl keep saying the 7970 is faster. Worse case is the 680 will only match the 7970 at high resolutions but the data leaked shows its 10% faster.

 

[RussianSensation]

If gtx680 doesn't beat the 7970 in 1600p and 3x 1080p resolutions, its not going to force a significant price-drop. These price points tend to be bought by enthusiasts with big 30' monitors or triple displays. Here, the 3gb vram and more bandwidth becomes a necessary "feature".

HD7970 cannot provide playability in most modern games maxed out @ 3x1080P screens without getting 2 of them. In fact, HD7970 is a joke at 3x1080P resolutions unless you like playing games at 25-37 fps.

I'll let you think about it for a second. My HD6970 is too slow for Metro 2033, Witcher 2 Uber, BF3, Crysis 2, etc. How much faster is HD7970 vs. HD6970? 45% without overclocking.

Now add 3x the workload increase over my 1080P screen. :awe:

Ya right, it's a slideshow at 25-28 fps in those games just as Bit-Tech shows. So now you are talking about people who spend $1,000 on GPUs or some select group of people who load up every texture mod under the sun in SKYRIM.

Most people confuse "required" VRAM with pre-caching of VRAM in a game. GTX570 beats HD6970 in BF3 despite BF3 supposedly needing 2GB of VRAM. How does that happen? BF3 just precaches the textures but GTX570 still runs the game faster with 4xMSAA. Very few games actually need 2GB of VRAM. Your card will run out of GPU power before that most of the time.

Also, using your logic, 99% of gamers in the world have useless videocards since they don't have 3GB of VRAM.

 

[Silverforce11]

but according to the toms review the 680 was still faster than the 7970 at 1600p. I dont get why ppl keep saying the 7970 is faster. Worse case is the 680 will only match the 7970 at high resolutions but the data leaked shows its 10% faster.

Tom's game selection is weak and his Dirt 3 benchmark has wrong numbers. Wait for further reviews.

 

[Silverforce11]

HD7970 cannot provide playability in 3x1080P screens without getting 2 of them.

In fact, HD7970 is a joke at 3x1080P resolutions.

I'll let you think about it for a second. My HD6970 is too slow for Metro 2033, Witcher 2 Uber, BF3, Crysis 2, etc. How much faster is HD7970 vs. HD6970? 45% without overclocking.

Now add 3x the workload increase over my 1080P screen. :awe:

Ya right, it's a slideshow at 25-28 fps in those games just as Bit-Tech shows. So now you are talking about people who spend $1,000 on GPUs. They already purchased HD7970 a long time ago.

I didn't say a single 7970. I said the 3gb vram and bandwidth is an advantage. 1600p and triple display users tend to go multi card as well.

If you had these setup, which would you get? CF 7970s or SLI gtx680? Let's factor in the known variable, 7970s are crazy good overclockers with excellent scaling. That ~45% lead over a 6970 becomes near 80% lead.

 

[tviceman]

I didn't say a single 7970. I said the 3gb vram and bandwidth is an advantage. 1600p and triple display users tend to go multi card as well.

If you had these setup, which would you get? CF 7970s or SLI gtx680? Let's factor in the known variable, 7970s are crazy good overclockers with excellent scaling. That ~45% lead over a 6970 becomes near 80% lead.

There have been pretty strong indications that gtx680 is going to overclock very well, too.

 

[Silverforce11]

There have been pretty strong indications that gtx680 is going to overclock very well, too.

I hope so. If it can do 30% OCs, i'm sold. I don't need the 3gb vram, not doing 3 monitors, too luxurious/hardcore i couldn't justify it with the wife. "You're always on the PC gaming and now you have 3 times the immersion?! WTF!!"

 

[RussianSensation]

If you had these setup, which would you get? CF 7970s or SLI gtx680?

Is that a serious question? How are those HD7900 CF drivers doing from all the problems on various forums? I've seen HD6990 flop on its face in so many reviews, it'll require hours of linking. Also once AMD releases a new generation, their CF support falls off a cliff (HD4870X2, HD5970, HD6990 to come next). For games, GTX680 SLI no doubt.

Actually, if you go back to more recent reviews now, GTX590 beats HD6990. That just goes to show that NV worked harder on making sure SLI profiles were updated and performance was improved since initially HD6990 actually beat the GTX590. I expect GTX680 SLI scaling to be superior in much the same way over time.

Let's factor in the known variable, 7970s are crazy good overclockers with excellent scaling. That ~45% lead over a 6970 becomes near 80% lead.

Ya, you said 3x 1080P. 80% more performance with 300% higher GPU load.

 

[Silverforce11]

I've just come from using CF 5850s, I don't see these problems in fact. BF3 worked flawlessly at release. I have NOT played Batman and I know it had issues but its fixed quite quick.

Since you love your graphs, charts and stats, perhaps when you have time, you can compile the list of PC games of recent that did not have CF or SLI support and see how it turns out. I've had a quick look, and both are furbar on many titles at launch.

I challenged Balla to prove his claims that NV has superior support for multi cards in games, he couldn't rise to it after i gave him a few benches where SLI tanked hard. Perhaps you can back up your claims.

 

[tviceman]

I hope so. If it can do 30% OCs, i'm sold. I don't need the 3gb vram, not doing 3 monitors, too luxurious/hardcore i couldn't justify it with the wife. "You're always on the PC gaming and now you have 3 times the immersion?! WTF!!"

I really, really wish this 30% overclock being normal thing would stop. Normal hd7970's aren't overclocking 30%. Good hd7970 chips under water are getting +30%, which basically means very, very few. There are two msi lightning hd7970 reviews (the creme de la creme of overclocking cards), and neither one could hit 1200mhz with volt mods.
http://www.hardwareheaven.com/revie...rd-review-power-temps-noise-overclocking.html
http://www.hardocp.com/article/2012/03/20/msi_r7970_lightning_video_card_review/3
Then there is this nice chart here: http://forums.anandtech.com/showpost.php?p=33168638&postcount=10 that doesn't have one single hd7970 review card hitting 1200mhz.

20% - 60% of the time.
25% - it happened 3 times out of the 14 reviews the two lightnings and chart encompass. And Anand's XFX DD hit 1125mhz, less than 25%. So now that is 3 out of 15 reviews that were able to manage 25% overclocks.

 

[SolMiester]

Opens beer....!

 

[RussianSensation]

Since you love your graphs, charts and stats, perhaps when you have time, you can compile the list of PC games of recent that did not have CF or SLI support and see how it turns out. I've had a quick look, and both are furbar on many titles at launch.

Like I said it would take hours to do. I don't need to prove anything. Just go read the forums of people with HD7970 CF having multiple issues.

Either way, I find it amusing you are trying to justify the $500 price of HD7970 by using such a tiny fraction of people running 2x HD7970s in CF using 3x 1080P monitors and ignoring the fact that in Tom's review GTX680 still beat HD7970 at 1600P.

It's funny that GTX580 still beat HD6970 at 1600P despite only having 1.5GB of VRAM and yet now you are trying to claim that 2GB of VRAM is insufficient for gaming at 1600P.

What's next HD7950 3GB is better than GTX680 2GB? AMD might as well raise the price of HD7950 to $499 then for 100 people in the world running HD7950 in Tri-Fire with 8K texture mods in SKYRIM across 3x 1600P monitors with 8xMSAA.

 

[tviceman]

It's funny that GTX580 still beat HD6970 at 1600P despite only having 1.5GB of VRAM and yet now you are trying to claim that 2GB of VRAM is insufficient for gaming at 1600P.

And I'm telling you, this is one of the many sales pitches AMD is going to use to price match gtx680 instead of dropping the price lower to coincide with performance.

 

[RussianSensation]

And I'm telling you, this is one of the many sales pitches AMD is going to use to price match gtx680 instead of dropping the price lower to coincide with performance.

That's great. Same logic they used on $270 FX8150 for 100 people running 7-Zip 24/7.

Here is the best part, GPUs handle memory demands differently. For example in 1 game GTX580 actually uses more VRAM than HD6970 and in another it uses less. To start with we can't even assume similar VRAM usage in the same game across 2 different videocards.

^ See the 2nd game. Here is where the HD6970 user might try to claim on forums that people running this game at 2560x1600 with a GTX570 might experience stuttering because they are approaching 1280mb VRAM usage limit, or someone with an HD6950 playing at 1080P might claim that GTX560Ti 1GB will run out of VRAM....without even realizing that this particular game uses less VRAM on Fermi cards.

I remember when my 8800GTS 320mb ran out of VRAM in Dirt 1. It was 2-3 fps at 1080P 4AA and > 60 fps with HD4890 1GB in exact same track. That's a VRAM limitation

 

[badb0y]

7970 need to drop to 400-450$ any higher makes no sense anymore.

 

[blastingcap]

Blasting, you didn't adjust HD7850. It already sells for $260 right now.

OR AMD's CEO just might do nothing at all, like selling Bulldozer FX8150 for more than 2500K

Good point, let's say $230 for that one.

 

[Grooveriding]

Like I said it would take hours to do. I don't need to prove anything. Just go read the forums of people with HD7970 CF having multiple issues.

Either way, I find it amusing you are trying to justify the $500 price of HD7970 by using such a tiny fraction of people running 2x HD7970s in CF using 3x 1080P monitors and ignoring the fact that in Tom's review GTX680 still beat HD7970 at 1600P.

It's funny that GTX580 still beat HD6970 at 1600P despite only having 1.5GB of VRAM and yet now you are trying to claim that 2GB of VRAM is insufficient for gaming at 1600P.

What's next HD7950 3GB is better than GTX680 2GB? AMD might as well raise the price of HD7950 to $499 then for 100 people in the world running HD7950 in Tri-Fire with 8K texture mods in SKYRIM across 3x 1600P monitors with 8xMSAA.

lol. Getting rough up in here. 7970 needs a price cut because the 680 is faster at common resolutions and costs less.

580 and 480 both beat 5870 and 6970 at 1600P, VRAM or no VRAM. In the here and now though, it's not looking like the same is going to play out for the 680 vs 7970 @ 1600P. The 680 is half the performance increase over the 580 that the 480 was over the 285, so it's not going to give the 1600P gains that the 480/580 delivered.

The 680 is a boss because it's better than the 7970 and cheaper, it's still as much a rip-off as the 7970 was though, considering it's not giving a better perf. increase than the 7970 did. If you're a 1080P gamer you may not notice this as much, but if you use a 30" monitor or 3 monitors you're going to look at the GTX 680 and shake your head at the meager 20% gain it is offering over the GTX 580. I know I am.

About the only place 3GB does matter is eyefinity/surround where you can exceed 2GB. Still not enough to justify 7970's current pricing anymore though. You're now trying to address 5% of the 1% that will buy a 680.

Looking forward to computerbase.de and HWC reviews later tonight. I am hoping they will prove Tom's to have a busted up review (Tom's reviews generally suck)

GTX480 gave 64% more performance at 2560x1600 with 4XAA over the 285. There is no way the 680 will do the same over the 580. If it can manage 40% though, I'll buy two. :thumbsup:

 

[blastingcap]

If gtx680 doesn't beat the 7970 in 1600p and 3x 1080p resolutions, its not going to force a significant price-drop. These price points tend to be bought by enthusiasts with big 30' monitors or triple displays. Here, the 3gb vram and more bandwidth becomes a necessary "feature".

30 foot, huh? My what a big monitor you have there.

I split up my guesses by VRAM because of the point you're making. If you're running, say, 3x27" or bigger, you will probably want something like x2 7970 rather than x2 680 if only for VRAM reasons.

But the lower-VRAM variants? Fuggedaboudit.