Steam: 4800 series most popular card for Feb

[v8envy]

According to http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/videocard/

Not absolutely correct, though. This is where NV's restickering bites it in the ass: if you add the 9800GTs to the 8800GTs nv still has the GPU lead among Steam survey takers. I saw no GTS250s there either (being recognized as a 9800GTX+?)

Still, interesting to see how many people taking Steam's survey last quarter are now DX10 capable.

 

[OCGuy]

They have the lead no matter what they call the cards, the $$ coming in is still the same.

What this does show is that while us enthusiasts like to squabble over bleeding-edge products as if it is life and death, they really dont mean much to the bottom line of these companies.

 

[RussianSensation]

OCGuy is right. It's mind boggling to think that a piece of crap GT220 was still able to get 0.6% market share in 1 month (who in the world would pay $60 for a 48 shader GT200 architecture in 2010?)

Also, in the top 10, there are some awful graphics cards like GeForce 8500, 8600 and 9500. Skip 10th spot 5870, and again you see a bunch of useless PCBs including 8400, 9400 and 7300. It is interesting that in the top 20 most popular graphics cards, the slowest ATI card is 5700 series, which is decent. I guess this goes to show if you put NVIDIA branding on a card, you can sell anything! Now, I feel confident Fermi will sell well even if it's slower than 5870 series...

 

[cbn]

The adoption rate for HD5xxxx looks pretty steady.

 

[v8envy]

Many of those "awful" and "do not buy" cards probably shipped with OEM boxes people got for xmas. Not interesting to the point I'm about to make.

I look at it more from a developer's vantage. Customers with lots of disposable income (those who buy high end GPUs) seem to increasingly dispose it on ATI hardware. Support (or lack thereof) for game features on said hardware suddenly becomes more important than if sales of that particular product were shrinking.

But after staring at that chart for a bit a few inconsistencies lept out. Why pack 4830/4850/4870/4890/4870x2 into one product group yet break out 260/280/275/295 separately? From a cursory glance it looks like sales of the GTX260 were fairly brisk but not growing as fast as the 4 series. But were the 4800 sales for SKUs which compete with the 9800GT or the GTX275?

 

[Lonyo]

Many of those "awful" and "do not buy" cards probably shipped with OEM boxes people got for xmas. Not interesting to the point I'm about to make.

I look at it more from a developer's vantage. Customers with lots of disposable income (those who buy high end GPUs) seem to increasingly dispose it on ATI hardware. Support (or lack thereof) for game features on said hardware suddenly becomes more important than if sales of that particular product were shrinking.

But after staring at that chart for a bit a few inconsistencies lept out. Why pack 4830/4850/4870/4890/4870x2 into one product group yet break out 260/280/275/295 separately? From a cursory glance it looks like sales of the GTX260 were fairly brisk but not growing as fast as the 4 series. But were the 4800 sales for SKUs which compete with the 9800GT or the GTX275?

I think it's more because that's how ATI and NV do it than anything Steam related.
My HD4850 shows up as "ATI HD4800 series" in GPU-Z, the ATI control panel etc.
A 260GTX would show up as just that, and a 280GTX would show up as 280GTX.
So while you know what card you have, the name that gets reported for ATI is more general and for NV is product specific.

 

[bunnyfubbles]

OCGuy is right. It's mind boggling to think that a piece of crap GT220 was still able to get 0.6% market share in 1 month (who in the world would pay $60 for a 48 shader GT200 architecture in 2010?)

Also, in the top 10, there are some awful graphics cards like GeForce 8500, 8600 and 9500. Skip 10th spot 5870, and again you see a bunch of useless PCBs including 8400, 9400 and 7300. It is interesting that in the top 20 most popular graphics cards, the slowest ATI card is 5700 series, which is decent. I guess this goes to show if you put NVIDIA branding on a card, you can sell anything! Now, I feel confident Fermi will sell well even if it's slower than 5870 series...

You're forgetting your own observation... there are lots and lots of terribad cards that sell well, and those cards are generally pretty cheap, something Fermi will not be, at least not right away.

Many of those "awful" and "do not buy" cards probably shipped with OEM boxes people got for xmas.

While that's certainly true, its is pretty disturbing to actually look at the effort many manufacturers put into the package design of some of these lower end cards to try and push them on ignorant consumers. Just browsing any B&M retail store makes me chuckle at some of the cards. Some cards will tout an 'astounding' 1GB of memory, but tacked right next to it is DDR2, and they probably won't even advertise that its likely only 128bit or even 64bit. The worst part is how such a card will often be priced just as high as a card 4 times as fast/powerful but has 'only' 512MB of ram.

 

[CurseTheSky]

I think it's more because that's how ATI and NV do it than anything Steam related.
My HD4850 shows up as "ATI HD4800 series" in GPU-Z, the ATI control panel etc.
A 260GTX would show up as just that, and a 280GTX would show up as 280GTX.
So while you know what card you have, the name that gets reported for ATI is more general and for NV is product specific.

Oddly enough, while the some are reported as the "HD 4800 series" and "HD 5800 series," they also have a single slot each for the HD 4670 and HD 4650, rather than just "HD 4600 series."

 

[ronnn]

Halo effect for the cheapies.

 

[Ackmed]

OCGuy is right. It's mind boggling to think that a piece of crap GT220 was still able to get 0.6% market share in 1 month (who in the world would pay $60 for a 48 shader GT200 architecture in 2010?)

Also, in the top 10, there are some awful graphics cards like GeForce 8500, 8600 and 9500. Skip 10th spot 5870, and again you see a bunch of useless PCBs including 8400, 9400 and 7300. It is interesting that in the top 20 most popular graphics cards, the slowest ATI card is 5700 series, which is decent. I guess this goes to show if you put NVIDIA branding on a card, you can sell anything! Now, I feel confident Fermi will sell well even if it's slower than 5870 series...

Well, my 8600GT was in my laptop I bought last year. Just got a new one with a 260m. You dont get near the highend card in a laptop normally.

But yeah, steam isnt the best way to judge hardware. So many crappy systems playing CS still.

 

[BD231]

 

[Zap]

It's mind boggling to think that a piece of crap GT220 was still able to get 0.6% market share in 1 month (who in the world would pay $60 for a 48 shader GT200 architecture in 2010?)

How about everyone who has a "big box" computer that has bad airflow and a 250W PSU? They just want to be able to casually play a couple games without breaking the bank.

 

[Voo]

How about everyone who has a "big box" computer that has bad airflow and a 250W PSU? They just want to be able to casually play a couple games without breaking the bank.

People with 250W PSUs and crappy cases usually don't build their own systems, but buy a new one when their old gets too slow.

 

[nemesismk2]

I bet people are still waiting for their game to download using Steam and it was started when they bought their GeForce 2 years ago lol

 

[Lonyo]

Oddly enough, while the some are reported as the "HD 4800 series" and "HD 5800 series," they also have a single slot each for the HD 4670 and HD 4650, rather than just "HD 4600 series."

That's because the HD4650 and HD4670 have their own entries, while the HD4800's show up as just that.
The only odd thing is that ATI have their cards reporting like that, but it's up to them I guess.

 

[RussianSensation]

How about everyone who has a "big box" computer that has bad airflow and a 250W PSU? They just want to be able to casually play a couple games without breaking the bank.

Ya that makes sense but lighter games. However, you can get a 400 watt corsair PSU for usually $30 after MIR. I mean come on, $30! Also, for casual gaming I would say a console hands down beats a PC since it is a lot cheaper and lasts 5-6 years imo.

 

[v8envy]

Installing a small, wimpy card into e.g. a Dell 510 is a far easier proposition than "get a new PSU, bend/cut/modify your case, then get a GPU and bend/cut/modify your case some more."

That's exactly why a co worker is getting a $62 GT240 DDR5 on my recommendation. The intended application (second life) will savage that card -- I got 25 fps on my 8800GT -- but it's worlds better than the several seconds per frame she is getting with the current GMA.