Realistic price drop expectations?

[BallaTheFeared]

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.

You did? With your indie games?

http://forums.anandtech.com/showpost.php?p=33172872&postcount=86

I responded in full with major CF issues in, Skyrim, BF3, Batman: AC, and deus ex hr.

Maybe if you dig a bit deeper you'll discover some more issues with SLI in games like frogger, farmville, and zuma.

 

[Silverforce11]

You did? With your indie games?

http://forums.anandtech.com/showpost.php?p=33172872&postcount=86

I responded in full with major CF issues in, Skyrim, BF3, Batman: AC, and deus ex hr.

Maybe if you dig a bit deeper you'll discover some more issues with SLI in games like frogger, farmville, and zuma.

All of those issues were resolved quickly, BF3 was actually resolved at game launch. Batman was furbar until the patch, it tanked on dx11 on both hardware. So no, those problems are fixed, while "indie" games are still problematic on SLI whereas CF works for those.

@ Russian, reading forums, there's a ton of people with SLI troubles as well, that's not a scientific standard. Show benches.

ps. "Indie" games are one of the great perks of PC gaming, some of the most creative and great games come from indie developers.

 

[RussianSensation]

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:

That chart you posted is great for a point I want to make before we get into any more HD7970 vs. GTX680 debates: Whatever performance delta existed among GTX275/4890/GTX285 at the time just about evaporated later (i.e., if HD4890 became too slow in modern games, so did GTX285). I'll present my case that essentially when GTX285 cost $350 and HD4890 cost $269 the $90 extra in future-proofing didn't really help.

The same can be applied to today. If your GTX480 is choking in games, GTX580 is unlikely to alleviate the performance issues you are having. So in 2 years from now the 5-15% performance advantage GTX680 might have will evaporate into "Guys, I want the shiny new GTX780/HD8790, etc." Basically the whole point with "future-proofing" of 3GB of VRAM vs. 2GB might not matter that much since in 18 months $500 GPU users will have migrated to the next generation.

Every generation we end up splitting hairs over 15% performance differences and then deem that entire generation too slow when we upgrade.

The real "GPU crusher" AKA GK110 isn't here but at least we are seeing some price drops, even if it's $50.

Do we get official benchmarks tomorrow?

 

[MrTeal]

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

Agreed. Get it done, I need to buy 20 7750s.

 

[DeeJayeS]

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.

Obviously once 680s are in stock consistently and/or TSMC ramps up 28nm production all bets are off. Until then, I stand by my predictions :biggrin:

 

[RussianSensation]

Obviously once 680s are in stock consistently and/or TSMC ramps up 28nm production all bets are off. Until then, I stand by my predictions :biggrin:

OR Tom's benches are canned
OR GTX680 is a dud overclocker.

 

[MrK6]

Assuming real world benches come close to Tom's, why would they care? It's a niche product for a niche market. As usual, AMD's card's will stay for the high-res crowd, and the price won't change. I see a large discrepancy in marketing a $500+ card to people who can only afford a single 1080p monitor.

 

[RussianSensation]

Assuming real world benches come close to Tom's, why would they care? It's a niche product for a niche market. As usual, AMD's card's will stay for the high-res crowd, and the price won't change.

But in Tom's benches GTX680 still beat HD7970 at 1600P. I am still yet to see any official benchmark where GPUs plummet in performance with 1.5GB of VRAM, nevermind 2GB of VRAM at 2560x1600.

Shogun 2 had a memory leak but that was fixed with a patch. I really can't think of any game that actually tanks with 2GB of VRAM at 1600P. If some game out there actually needs 2GB of VRAM, HD7970 doesn't stand a chance of playing it at 60fps.

I see a large discrepancy in marketing a $500+ card to people who can only afford a single 1080p monitor.

There are also PC gamers who use 120Hz monitors, play on larger 1080P LCD/LED/Plasmas, want 60 fps minimums, etc. There are also people who use SSAA at 1080P. GTX480/580 flew off the shelves at $500 despite 1.5GB of VRAM. Nvidia is giving 2GB VRAM cards. I am pretty sure 2GB of VRAM is not the limiting factor at 2560x1600, but GPU speed is. Also, HD7970 chokes with 3x 1080P monitors. That's 3x the GPU load from a single 1080P screen with just 80% more performance from HD6970 when HD7970 is overclocked to 1200mhz. So really, now you are talking about people who spend $1000 on GPUs to drive 3x 1080P monitors in modern games. For them, sure HD7970 is a clear winner.

 

[MrK6]

But in Tom's benches GTX680 still beat HD7970 at 1600P. I am still yet to see any official benchmark where GPUs plummet in performance with 1.5GB of VRAM, nevermind 2GB of VRAM at 2560x1600.

Except the benchmarks from Tom's have been debunked and it's been demonstrated that they provide artificially lowered performance of the 79xx cards some 10-15% from their previous reviews, so clearly something is awry. Furthermore, I'd imagine real world gaming will behave very differently from canned benchmarks with the introduction of nvidia's boost technology. I'm going to be placing even more stock in [H]'s benchmarks this time around.

Shogun 2 had a memory leak but that was fixed with a patch. I really can't think of any game that actually tanks with 2GB of VRAM at 1600P. If some game out there actually needs 2GB of VRAM, HD7970 doesn't stand a chance of playing it at 60fps.

I'm not sure why you're so focused on vRAM, but there's a lot more to high resolution gaming than simply having enough vRAM. Furthermore, there are games that use over 2GB of vRAM and my 7970 plays them fine, at 60FPS+. Also, that seems like a biased qualifier, doesn't it? Even if a 7970 handily beats the competition in a game, it "doesn't count" because it's not at 60FPS? Come on .

There are also PC gamers who use 120Hz monitors, play on larger 1080P LCD/LED/Plasmas, want 60 fps minimums, etc. There are also people who use SSAA at 1080P. GTX480/580 flew off the shelves at $500 despite 1.5GB of VRAM. Nvidia is giving 2GB VRAM cards. I am pretty sure 2GB of VRAM is not the limiting factor at 2560x1600, but GPU speed is. Also, HD7970 chokes with 3x 1080P monitors. That's 3x the GPU load from a single 1080P screen with just 80% more performance from HD6970 when HD7970 is overclocked to 1200mhz. So really, now you are talking about people who spend $1000 on GPUs to drive 3x 1080P monitors in modern games. For them, sure HD7970 is a clear winner.

I'm not sure what point you were trying to make here. Again, I agree that the 79xx cards are good for high resolution gamers.

 

[MJK4Y]

Now that the 680 has finally hit, how long do you think it will take for AMD to respond with price cuts?

I am antsy as hell to finally buy. I'm hoping the 680 forces a price drop in the 79xx, which likewise drops the price of the 78xx. I had initially intended on going for the 7850, but I think I may try to stretch my budget for the 7870 instead.

 

[blastingcap]

That chart you posted is great for a point I want to make before we get into any more HD7970 vs. GTX680 debates: Whatever performance delta existed among GTX275/4890/GTX285 at the time just about evaporated later (i.e., if HD4890 became too slow in modern games, so did GTX285). I'll present my case that essentially when GTX285 cost $350 and HD4890 cost $269 the $90 extra in future-proofing didn't really help.

The same can be applied to today. If your GTX480 is choking in games, GTX580 is unlikely to alleviate the performance issues you are having. So in 2 years from now the 5-15% performance advantage GTX680 might have will evaporate into "Guys, I want the shiny new GTX780/HD8790, etc." Basically the whole point with "future-proofing" of 3GB of VRAM vs. 2GB might not matter that much since in 18 months $500 GPU users will have migrated to the next generation.

Every generation we end up splitting hairs over 15% performance differences and then deem that entire generation too slow when we upgrade.

The real "GPU crusher" AKA GK110 isn't here but at least we are seeing some price drops, even if it's $50.

Do we get official benchmarks tomorrow?

+1

Futureproofing doesn't work well when you have fast increases in price/perf (and thus fast-depreciation for older stuff) of the thing you are trying to future-proof. GPUs are continually getting faster and depreciate at a shocking rate.

 

[taltamir]

I future proof by buying cheaper and filing the cash I saved under "future proofing". When the future arrives, I use it to pay for an upgrade (sell old hardware, buy new)

 

[DeeJayeS]

OR Tom's benches are canned
OR GTX680 is a dud overclocker.

:awe:

680s already sold out basically everywhere...and I get the impression AMD isn't sitting on a mountain of 7800s/7900s :'( Got a bad feeling prices aren't gonna budge much at all.

 

[MJK4Y]

Kinda the feeling I got. I guess I'm just gonna have to bite the bullet and buy my 7870 at $360.
It will suck when I do see prices go down, but knowing what I know now, and being unsure about the timeframe for cuts, I think (read: hope) it's a fine decision.

 

[sandorski]

The 7970's will likely drop $100 methinks. Probably no moire than that...but that's going to depend on Supply.

 

[vailr]

Moving down to the sub-$200 PCIe 3.0 cards, what about competition between the yet-to-be-released Radeon HD7790 (the lowest priced AMD 7xxx series GPU with a 256-bit memory interface) and an equivalent-in-performance (and also yet-to-be-released) nVidia GTX 6xx card?

 

[Piano Man]

AMD needs to drop the 7970 100 bucks, or its pointless. Even if the benchies are identical, nV has the power/thermal/db advantage.

What i'm really looking at is how this will affect the 7950 and 7870. If the 7870 goes down to 280ish, that's an instant buy for me.