The [s]rent[/s] GPU prices are too damn high!

VirtualLarry

No Lifer
Aug 25, 2001
56,327
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Just saying. All the sales, like GTX 1650 for $105 after promo and rebate, and RTX 2060 for $280 after promo and rebate have all dried up.

MSRPs for today's cards SUCK!

It wasn't so long ago that a 1GB GTX 460 which is roughly the class of RTX 2060, went for only $200.

Sorry, just had to vent. Guess I may be buying from the used / refurb GPU market for the near future.
 
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Borealis7

Platinum Member
Oct 19, 2006
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GTX 460? that was like 9 years ago. that is between 5 and 7 generations of technology, and thats a lot of time for technology costs to rise and inflation to take its course.
we, as consumers, don't have much choice when it comes to Video cards. there are 2 main brands, and 1 more that (for now) makes only IGPs.
if one of the brands positions itself as a "premium" brand, then its going to demand premium prices. don't like that? don't buy premium, but also don't expect the performance of a super computer from you cheap video card. that is the price of living in market ruled by a duo-poly (and a half).
 

Dribble

Platinum Member
Aug 9, 2005
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Black Friday is approaching, which is the cheapest time of the year to buy gpu's.
 
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Hans Gruber

Platinum Member
Dec 23, 2006
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I am waiting for the AMD 5700XT to be around $250. What good is competition if AMD is going to have a 2080Ti killer available sometime in 2020. That is not how the computer technology business works.
 
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maddie

Diamond Member
Jul 18, 2010
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GTX 460? that was like 9 years ago. that is between 5 and 7 generations of technology, and thats a lot of time for technology costs to rise and inflation to take its course.
we, as consumers, don't have much choice when it comes to Video cards. there are 2 main brands, and 1 more that (for now) makes only IGPs.
if one of the brands positions itself as a "premium" brand, then its going to demand premium prices. don't like that? don't buy premium, but also don't expect the performance of a super computer from you cheap video card. that is the price of living in market ruled by a duo-poly (and a half).
There are additional choices, sometimes simply only this. Do I choose to buy or not. Anyone who thinks prices will not reflect a 20-40% drop in sales volume is fooling themselves.
 

BenSkywalker

Diamond Member
Oct 9, 1999
9,140
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The 460 was a 330mm part, the 480($500 MSRP) was a 520mm part, the 2060 is a 440mm part.

We keep hearing about how newer nodes are more expensive, so I'd say it's likely safe to assume that margins aren't hugely different in that class of cards.

The 1660 is 280mm and about the same price as the 460 was, it's just the high end has gotten absurdly large and expensive.
 
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VirtualLarry

No Lifer
Aug 25, 2001
56,327
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Well, I grabbed an MSI Ventus GTX 1660ti for $269 @ Walmart.com, of all places. Sold by Walmart. Probably drop-shipped by MSI directly, who knows. Hopefully, Walmart's warehouse minions won't screw up the order and send me a regular 1660 by mistake, if they're not drop-shipped.

That was about the max that I could afford. Couldn't really find any RTX 2060 cards for $300 or less at the time.

Edit: Also grabbed one of those Sapphire RX 580 refurb cards that Newegg had for ~$125. I don't know how many that they had, but they sold out rather quickly. That's for a build I'm working on. Hopefully, maybe I can get $600-700 for it. (Ryzen 6C/12T CPU, 16GB RAM, 256GB M.2 NVMe SSD, have to still add a HDD to taste for the purchaser. Also has decent RGB bling-bling.)

Edit: I just checked Amazon.com, same price on the MSI Ventus GTX 1660ti, maybe Walmart was price-matching them.

Edit: Got the MSI Ventus 1660ti installed. In the top slot, with an RX 470 in the bottom slot, temps have stabilized at 85C for the 1660ti, and 73C for the bottom slot for the RX 470. Mining-wise, they're not too different, I think that the Ventus is thermal-throttling, to maintain temp limits. Around $0.27/day, with bursts for the 1660ti to $0.33/day.

Power-wise, at least according to the NH profitability calculator, the 1660ti makes around $1-2/mo, after electricity costs.
 
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amrnuke

Golden Member
Apr 24, 2019
1,181
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Just saying. All the sales, like GTX 1650 for $105 after promo and rebate, and RTX 2060 for $280 after promo and rebate have all dried up.

MSRPs for today's cards SUCK!

It wasn't so long ago that a 1GB GTX 460 which is roughly the class of RTX 2060, went for only $200.

Sorry, just had to vent. Guess I may be buying from the used / refurb GPU market for the near future.
$200 9 years ago is $235 now by CPI inflation. You can get a Sapphire Pulse RX 570 for $119 which would beat the pants off the GTX 1650 and the GTX 460.

I'm not sure why everyone is surprised by the prices, though. When you're looking at a specific category of car, like, say, Audi A4, started at $32,000 in 2010. Now it starts at $39,200 $1500 more than inflation would suggest, but the base model comes with better safety features, better gas mileage, dual clutch transmission rather than a CVT, wood trim, etc.

Same with graphics cards, add more features, price goes up more than inflation for similar class of graphics cards. Except unlike with the A4 or 3-series, which the base models are actually the same acceleration or slower now than they were before, as above, the RX 570 is half the price (inflation-adjusted) of the 460 and yet much much faster.
 
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hoorah

Senior member
Dec 8, 2005
755
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I've been fortunate that I've been able to avoid or delay most of my GPU purchases with these high prices, and snag one every once in awhile when they're cheap.

I recently needed to find a GPU for someone to play iracing, which doesn't require much compared to AAA games of today. Fortunately was able to pick up a 7850 and a R9 380 from PCs dropped off at my local electronics recycling center which should work well.

WIth the exception of maybe PUBG, there havent been too many wildly popular games that also require heavy hitting GPUs. Fortnite runs on potatoes, and AAA games I feel are skewing further and further towards being preferred on consoles.
 

RadiclDreamer

Diamond Member
Aug 8, 2004
8,622
40
91
GTX 460? that was like 9 years ago. that is between 5 and 7 generations of technology, and thats a lot of time for technology costs to rise and inflation to take its course.
we, as consumers, don't have much choice when it comes to Video cards. there are 2 main brands, and 1 more that (for now) makes only IGPs.
if one of the brands positions itself as a "premium" brand, then its going to demand premium prices. don't like that? don't buy premium, but also don't expect the performance of a super computer from you cheap video card. that is the price of living in market ruled by a duo-poly (and a half).

We have been living with only 2 manufacturers for quite some time, but in the last 3-5 years they have decided to stop using lube....
 

whm1974

Diamond Member
Jul 24, 2016
9,460
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We have been living with only 2 manufacturers for quite some time, but in the last 3-5 years they have decided to stop using lube....
Isn't that mostly Nvidia? I mean AMD has offered some decent mid-range dGPUs at lower prices then Nvidia has. They even managed to designed iGPUs in the Ryzen 2200G and 2400G that has playablity in many games.
 

ArchAngel777

Diamond Member
Dec 24, 2000
5,223
61
91
I was super lucky... A friend at work purchased a 1080ti 2 years ago, and sold me his 1080 founders edition for $350 cash. This was days before the hyper inflation (from GPU mining) took place and launched the 1080 into the $650+ territory.

It has been a great card. I love it. I have owned a ton of high end video cards in my time and I only have 1 consistently bad experience and that was a run of flaky GTX 280s. The memory controllers kept failing. I went through 3 RMA'd cards until I finally had one that worked for more than 6 months. I wasn't sure if the 280 itself was bad, or I kept getting crappy replacements from eVGA. That said, eVGA was good to work with.

ANYWAY... <3 my 1080.
 
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Feb 25, 2011
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Well, I grabbed an MSI Ventus GTX 1660ti for $269 @ Walmart.com, of all places. Sold by Walmart. Probably drop-shipped by MSI directly, who knows. Hopefully, Walmart's warehouse minions won't screw up the order and send me a regular 1660 by mistake, if they're not drop-shipped.

That was about the max that I could afford. Couldn't really find any RTX 2060 cards for $300 or less at the time.

Edit: Also grabbed one of those Sapphire RX 580 refurb cards that Newegg had for ~$125. I don't know how many that they had, but they sold out rather quickly. That's for a build I'm working on. Hopefully, maybe I can get $600-700 for it. (Ryzen 6C/12T CPU, 16GB RAM, 256GB M.2 NVMe SSD, have to still add a HDD to taste for the purchaser. Also has decent RGB bling-bling.)

Edit: I just checked Amazon.com, same price on the MSI Ventus GTX 1660ti, maybe Walmart was price-matching them.
Summer sales are over. Inflating prices so they can "slash" them again in a couple months for Christmas.

I picked up a 1660Ti for $269 at MicroCenter a few months ago, to replace a GTX 970. Glad I did, too. Enjoy!

It's the first time in a decade that I spent less money on a GPU than I had spent on its predecessor, and I feel like I've been shopping in that same bang-for-the-buck-midrange-gaming market segment since I had a Radeon 8500LE.
 

Ranulf

Platinum Member
Jul 18, 2001
2,348
1,165
136
Labor day sales are over and they're going to mark up prices till the holiday sales hit.
 

Kyron71

Member
Sep 5, 2019
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Lots of makers coming out. Plus the PlayStation 5. Rumors suggest it will be very PC Like.
 

CP5670

Diamond Member
Jun 24, 2004
5,510
588
126
I might get something from the next video card generation but don't plan to buy anything before then. The only thing I would really like in my games at this point is HDMI 2.1 and 4K at 120hz, which would also require getting a newer version of my TV. At 60hz, my 1080 Ti is good enough for almost everything I play.
 

SteveGrabowski

Diamond Member
Oct 20, 2014
6,865
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Can't believe it was only five years ago when a GTX 970 was the second best card on the market for $330. Ever since my 970 died a couple of months ago I haven't been too motivated to replace it, especially with how many killer exclusive games have been coming out on PS4 and Switch the last few years.
 

DamZe

Member
May 18, 2016
187
80
101
I somehow got "lucky" by snagging a Gainward RTX 2080 with 3 free games for $700 back in march as the shop was pretty much clearing inventory of these models, and I suspect Gainward/store knew the Supers were coming?

I ordered this PNY RTX 2060 a few days ago. It won't ship until the 13th and is already sold out again. Its a mini, but still for $289.99 I feel I got a good deal. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07SRZ9HSB/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

6gb of framebuffer and 192-bit bus would for me be out of the "the good deal" equation, for around $250 I would call it somewhat fair for what looks to be a subpar cooling solution on that PNY card. Raytracing is just about useless on a 2060 and perhaps an RX 5700 would have given some extra oomph down the road?
 
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Leyawiin

Diamond Member
Nov 11, 2008
3,204
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I somehow got "lucky" by snagging a Gainward RTX 2080 with 3 free games for $700 back in march as the shop was pretty much clearing inventory of these models, and I suspect Gainward/store knew the Supers were coming?



6gb of framebuffer and 192-bit bus would for me be out of the "the good deal" equation, for around $250 I would call it somewhat fair for what looks to be a subpar cooling solution on that PNY card. Raytracing is just about useless on a 2060 and perhaps an RX 5700 would have given some extra oomph down the road?

I still have a 25.5" 1920x1200 60 Hz monitor so a 6GB frame buffer is fine for me. This is basically a RTX 2060 for the current price of an average GTX 1660 Ti. Even with the small cooler its a good $40 to $60 less than other low end RTX 2060 models at the moment.
 

DamZe

Member
May 18, 2016
187
80
101
I still have a 25.5" 1920x1200 60 Hz monitor so a 6GB frame buffer is fine for me. This is basically a RTX 2060 for the current price of an average GTX 1660 Ti. Even with the small cooler its a good $40 to $60 less than other low end RTX 2060 models at the moment.

As long as you plan to hold on to 1080/60 then that is fair!