What are todays "mid-range" cards?

[fleshconsumed]

The last true midrange cards were RX480 and GTX 960/970. After that everything went to shit with nVidia and AMD continuously pushing prices up. 1070/2070/5700/5700XT is what should be the new low-high end midrange, instead it is being sold at what was historically high end card price. Right now I don't even know what midrange is, IMO there is no midrange anymore, you either pay through your nose for overpriced cut down budget chips, or you pay through your nose for overpriced enthusiast card. There is no reasonable midrange anymore, it's gone.

 

[Thala]

1070/2070/5700/5700XT is what should be the new low-high end midrange, instead it is being sold at what was historically high end card price.

Why do you compare to historical prices at all? They do not matter when looking at todays midrange. As long as these cards are technically in the middle of the range - price and performance wise - that should qualify them as midrange. So if the whole range is moving up - so must do "midrange".

 

[AtenRa]

Mid-Range used to be from $200 up to $300, from $300 and up was the High-End. That was when top cards where at $500-$700 range.
Today with top High-end cards at $999+ , the mid-range should be from $400 up to $500.

 

[fleshconsumed]

Why do you compare to historical prices at all? They do not matter when looking at todays midrange. As long as these cards are technically in the middle of the range - price and performance wise - that should qualify them as midrange. So if the whole range is moving up - so must do "midrange".

Because historically speaking going all the way back to GeForce2GTS this is what midrange has been for the past 15 years, and after accounting for inflation it hardly changed until recently. Looking only at the past 2 years is a very myopic outlook.

Rather than looking at prices, look at chip sizes/number of transistors for each process node, there is small chip, medium sized chip, and large sized chip. Going by transistor count for the RTX20XX series 2070 is a midrange chip, similarly Navi will have a smaller chip, and a larger chip incoming making 5700/5700XT a mid-range card. The fact that both nVidia and AMD charge $200 more than they used to is in fact a new reality, but we shouldn't forget that this is not how it's been historically.

 

[Thala]

Because historically speaking going all the way back to GeForce2GTS this is what midrange has been for the past 15 years, and after accounting for inflation it hardly changed until recently. Looking only at the past 2 years is a very myopic outlook.

Still historic midrange pricing has no relevance when discussing todays midrange. My point was that the whole range was moving up and as consequence mid-range as well.

, but we shouldn't forget that this is not how it's been historically.

As i said, historic mid-range prices are irrelevant today, so what would it help to remember yesterdays mid-range prices?

 

[fleshconsumed]

Still historic midrange pricing has no relevance when discussing todays midrange. My point was that the whole range was moving up and as consequence mid-range as well.



As i said, historic mid-range prices are irrelevant today, so what would it help to remember yesterdays mid-range prices?

I did acknowledge that the new pricing "is in fact a new reality". I'm simply pointing out that this new pricing broke historical norms that have held steady for the past 15 years.

The catalyst that spurred higher pricing has been crypto mining. Nvidia and AMD are still riding the crypto wave. The path forward for cryptos is either ASIC mining or Proof of Authority/Proof of Stake neither of which requires video card hashing power. It remains to be seen if consumers accept higher pricing or if nVidia/AMD will eventually have to lower price to historical norms. For my own, I'm still using RX480 because I refuse to pay what I consider inflated mid-range prices. I hope enough of the fellow PC gamers feel the same and force the prices down, but it is not up to me to decide. The market will speak, even if it takes a few years to figure itself out.

 

[Stuka87]

I did acknowledge that the new pricing "is in fact a new reality". I'm simply pointing out that this new pricing broke historical norms that have held steady for the past 15 years.

Well, thats not true regarding the 15 years bit. In 2008 when the 4870 launched, it was sold for $299. The midrange 4770 was $109.

If we move up to the 5870 in late 2009, its MSRP was $379 while the 5770 was $159.

Yes, pricing is most definitely higher now, and thats partly a result of the chips being significantly more expensive to produce. But also a result of there being people willing to pay it. but its wrong to think we had some level pricing for 15 years straight.

Lets not forget that way back in 2004 we had $500 cards in the form of the GTX 6800 Ultra and X800 Pro.

 

[DeathReborn]

There is mid range in the product stack and mid range in price terms, ne'er the two shall meet again. Trying to argue that they still marry up is like pushing a boulder up a hill.

 

[amrnuke]

There is mid range in the product stack and mid range in price terms, ne'er the two shall meet again. Trying to argue that they still marry up is like pushing a boulder up a hill.

Exactly. Mid-range in price terms would be in the $400s for AMD and $600s for Nvidia. Mid-range in performance terms is the 1660 ti. Which is substantially cheaper than its performance would suggest if price scaled with performance.

 

[fleshconsumed]

Well, thats not true regarding the 15 years bit. In 2008 when the 4870 launched, it was sold for $299. The midrange 4770 was $109.

If we move up to the 5870 in late 2009, its MSRP was $379 while the 5770 was $159.

Yes, pricing is most definitely higher now, and thats partly a result of the chips being significantly more expensive to produce. But also a result of there being people willing to pay it. but its wrong to think we had some level pricing for 15 years straight.

Lets not forget that way back in 2004 we had $500 cards in the form of the GTX 6800 Ultra and X800 Pro.

Yes, the prices did oscillate over time based upon market conditions and cost of production, but overall $200-300 has been the traditional mid-range. I remember buying my GeForce 2 GTS for $179, I paid <$200 for ATI 8500, I think I paid between $200 and $300 for 6800GT, 8800GT, GeForce 260c216, AMD 7950, AMD 290, and latest one RX480. Over last 15 years the midrange has steadily increased largely in line with inflation from just under $200 to almost $300 range, but that's where it's been for the past 15 years.

Your examples just prove my point. If you recall AMD 4870 and 5870 were top of the line AMD cards at the time and they commanded appropriate premium - back in the day when high end was $300-400. Just below those were $199 4850 and $259 5850 that were the midrange cards at the time - squarely in the middle of the $200-300 bracket. 6800 ULTRA, again, was top of the line card, that was the Titan of that time, and you could buy high-midrange 6800GT for a bit under $300, which historically speaking was on the high side, but not outrageously so. Same with X800 PRO, that was high end, and you could buy high midrange X800 XL for much more reasonable $300.

Over the last two years both nVidia and AMD shifted pricing up by 50-100%. As I said, it remains to be seen if gamers accept new price brackets or force the price down to historical norm.

 

[happy medium]

I remember a 5970,5870,5850,5770,5750 cards.
5970's $699
5870's $400
5850's were selling for $300.
5770's$179
5750's $150

$300 midrange 334mm 5850.
https://www.anandtech.com/show/3587

 

[Headfoot]

Mainstream to me is no more than 2/3rd the price of the latest fastest console. Enthusiast is any time your card costs more than a whole console.

 

[maddie]

Guys, it hit me. We are too old for this. The younger generation are being trained to accept the new prices as the norm.

Goodbye my fellow gaming travelers, our time has passed, but if you can change your expectations, welcome to the new definitions of price/performance. You have to be reborn as a babe with an open suggestible mind. Cast aside your old beliefs and accept the new reality.

 

[Headfoot]

Guys, it hit me. We are too old for this. The younger generation are being trained to accept the new prices as the norm.

Goodbye my fellow gaming travelers, our time has passed, but if you can change your expectations, welcome to the new definitions of price/performance. You have to be reborn as a babe with an open suggestible mind. Cast aside your old beliefs and accept the new reality.

IMO as long as there are consoles, that is the real competition and price point floor. The % of people who will pay more than the cost of a console to play a game on PC instead of the latest flavor of Playstation or Xbox just isn't that big

 

[DrMrLordX]

One would be price. For AMD an entry-level RX570 can be had for $120, and the Radeon VII for $799. The mid-point between those two is $460.

Bollocks. First off, Radeon VII isn't $799 (it's $699, and prices are falling). Secondly, just because they release a substantially more-expensive top-range card doesn't mean my expectation on what to pay for a midrange card should change at all. Before Radeon VII came out, the most expensive consumer card was Vega64, and nobody was paying $499 for that thing anymore anyway. Radeon VII coming out shouldn't change what anyone would be willing to pay for Navi!

IMO as long as there are consoles, that is the real competition and price point floor. The % of people who will pay more than the cost of a console to play a game on PC instead of the latest flavor of Playstation or Xbox just isn't that big

Exactly! Console prices are not going up in 2020. Sony is going to charge substantially less for PS5 than they did PS3. AMD and nVidia have no reasonable excuse as to why they should be jacking up consumer dGPU prices when consoles are delivering more and more value with each generation. AMD will be selling heavily-discounted Navi in all the next-gen consoles. Why do they expect anyone to pay $449 for Navi on the desktop?

 

[Saylick]

Bollocks. First off, Radeon VII isn't $799 (it's $699, and prices are falling). Secondly, just because they release a substantially more-expensive top-range card doesn't mean my expectation on what to pay for a midrange card should change at all. Before Radeon VII came out, the most expensive consumer card was Vega64, and nobody was paying $499 for that thing anymore anyway. Radeon VII coming out shouldn't change what anyone would be willing to pay for Navi!



Exactly! Console prices are not going up in 2020. Sony is going to charge substantially less for PS5 than they did PS3. AMD and nVidia have no reasonable excuse as to why they should be jacking up consumer dGPU prices when consoles are delivering more and more value with each generation. AMD will be selling heavily-discounted Navi in all the next-gen consoles. Why do they expect anyone to pay $449 for Navi on the desktop?

While I agree that PS5 prices maybe within reason, I wouldn't necessarily say that console prices are an accurate reflection of what a GPU should sell for. Margins on consoles for both AMD and Sony are small, especially for Sony since they want to get as many costumers onto their platform and are willing to take a loss on the sale of the console to do so. Additionally, if better than console levels of performance are what you seek, buying discrete hardware is never going to look favorable in perf/$ compared to a console. It never has and it probably never will; the economies of scale simply don't allow it to be as such. Also, the higher up on the performance ladder you go, the less bang for buck it gets. This has been largely true for years.

 

[DrMrLordX]

While I agree that PS5 prices maybe within reason, I wouldn't necessarily say that console prices are an accurate reflection of what a GPU should sell for.

Allegedly, MS will be selling a 12 Tflop Navi variant for $499 next year. That's for the entire system. PS5 will have 8 Tflop Navi for ~$400 (again, for the entire system). The consumers buying consoles will get a much better deal on Navi than desktop buyers in 2019! At that point, what consumer cares about the margins?

 

[Ranulf]

I remember a 5970,5870,5850,5770,5750 cards.
5970's $699
5870's $400
5850's were selling for $300.
5770's$179
5750's $150

$300 midrange 334mm 5850.
https://www.anandtech.com/show/3587

Heh, I remember the debate I had with myself over the 5850 or a 5770. 5850 was the better buy given I used it for 3 years. The highest I paid for a card was $300 or so until the 970 at $350 and that came with 2 free games and later a $30 lawsuit check. I picked up a R9 290 in late 2014 for $265 with free games too.

 

[Shivansps]

Exactly! Console prices are not going up in 2020. Sony is going to charge substantially less for PS5 than they did PS3. AMD and nVidia have no reasonable excuse as to why they should be jacking up consumer dGPU prices when consoles are delivering more and more value with each generation. AMD will be selling heavily-discounted Navi in all the next-gen consoles. Why do they expect anyone to pay $449 for Navi on the desktop?

No to mention a 8C Zen 2 as well... Sony and MS are getting one hell of a deal while we are getting robbed over here.

 

[amrnuke]

Bollocks. First off, Radeon VII isn't $799 (it's $699, and prices are falling). Secondly, just because they release a substantially more-expensive top-range card doesn't mean my expectation on what to pay for a midrange card should change at all. Before Radeon VII came out, the most expensive consumer card was Vega64, and nobody was paying $499 for that thing anymore anyway. Radeon VII coming out shouldn't change what anyone would be willing to pay for Navi!

I agree - and yes, my price on Radeon VII was wrong, but it doesn't change my point. Even if the mid-price were $409, you're correct, that is a bad metric because of the premium on top-tier cards. That's why I specifically said the better metric was the mid-point performance-wise! I am not sure if you read that part of my post, the next paragraph.

But for performance, the mid-point between RX570 and Radeon VII is a gap between the RX590 and the Vega56. Since both the Navi 5700 and 5700XT fall a fair amount above the Vega56 (purportedly), they are NOT the direct mid-range cards (like the 1660/1660ti are).

Further, if people want to cry about the high prices of a mid-range card, then they'll need to specify what performance is required to call a card mid-range, and why they think that should be the dividing mark, because I think people have not really clarified what performance would qualify a card as mid-level. If it's 1440p60, or 1080p144, whatever, but we need to really start clarifying what we are talking about, because people are just acting like children, and not really specifying why they're so upset about it. And that's not really productive. It just leads to a circle-jerk mentality.

 

[maddie]

I agree - and yes, my price on Radeon VII was wrong, but it doesn't change my point. Even if the mid-price were $409, you're correct, that is a bad metric because of the premium on top-tier cards. That's why I specifically said the better metric was the mid-point performance-wise! I am not sure if you read that part of my post, the next paragraph.

But for performance, the mid-point between RX570 and Radeon VII is a gap between the RX590 and the Vega56. Since both the Navi 5700 and 5700XT fall a fair amount above the Vega56 (purportedly), they are NOT the direct mid-range cards (like the 1660/1660ti are).

Further, if people want to cry about the high prices of a mid-range card, then they'll need to specify what performance is required to call a card mid-range, and why they think that should be the dividing mark, because I think people have not really clarified what performance would qualify a card as mid-level. If it's 1440p60, or 1080p144, whatever, but we need to really start clarifying what we are talking about, because people are just acting like children, and not really specifying why they're so upset about it. And that's not really productive. It just leads to a circle-jerk mentality.

I see that both times you ignored the RX560 but included the similarly performing GTX1050. If you did the avg for AMD would be less.

 

[Glo.]

Its done deal for me. iPad Pro for mobile stuff, on the go. Desktop for E-Sports, 144 Hz gaming, and Console, for eveything else. I can get used Xbox One X for around 275€, with 450€ 4K, 43 inch Monitor.

And all of this will fit my needs perfectly.

 

[Glo.]

Exactly! Console prices are not going up in 2020. Sony is going to charge substantially less for PS5 than they did PS3. AMD and nVidia have no reasonable excuse as to why they should be jacking up consumer dGPU prices when consoles are delivering more and more value with each generation. AMD will be selling heavily-discounted Navi in all the next-gen consoles. Why do they expect anyone to pay $449 for Navi on the desktop?

The reason why AMD and Nvidia are charging more for GPUs is very simple. Manufacturing costs, design costs, and shrinking dGPU market.

We complain about RTX 2070. But lets think about it. The GPU costs just 10% less to manufacture, in best case scenario, than manufacturing of GTX 1080 Ti, because of its die size, and because of the cost of GDDR6 compared to GDDR5X which is around 25% more. Design costs are not as high, for 12 nm process, but Nvidia did GT102, GT104, GT106, GT116 and GT117. Each design between 100 and 150 mln USD.

AMD? Design costs are around 250 mln for the GPU alone. The die is relatively small, but each wafer costs 12500$, compared to 6500 for 12 nm, and we do not know the yields. Effectively each N7 GPU can cost AMD the same, as it costs Nvidia 12 NM FFN. Plus there is GDDR6 memory cost. Each GPU die costing 10$, makes 80$ in just memory chips, alone. Explain to me. If each GPU, with its PCB, shroud, packaging, etc costs 200$ to make, how do you expect that AMD and Nvidia will sell those GPUs for 300$ in shrinking, or flat market? The only hope for us is that manufacturing costs will go down, and alongside, the prices will go down, for GPUs.

Consoles, can cost 500$, because even if they have 12 memory chips, you get 120$ for GDDR6 memory, and you get SINGLE die designed, and yielded on the process. Which effectively can cost 60-80$. So 200$ for WHOLE system, not counting the SSD prices. And consoles are actually not shrinking. Heck, current projections say that market can even grow more in upcoming 2-3 years for consoles, and both Sony and Microsoft may see growth in this space.

And last thing. 3 000 000 000 000 $ did it cost TSMC to develop N7 process. Two times more than it cost them development of 16 nm FF process. 5 nm process will cost 5 000 000 000 000 $. Where do you guys think TSMC will get that money back from, eh?

 

[Shivansps]

The reason why AMD and Nvidia are charging more for GPUs is very simple. Manufacturing costs, design costs, and shrinking dGPU market.

Rule number 1 for new products: cost does not define price, price is not cost IN ANY WAY. Typical error. Nvidia and AMD are killing the market with those prices and has nothing to do with costs.
Quick example: Apple, their prices has nothing to do with costs.

Price is based on supply and demand and what clients are willing to pay, a shrinking dGPU market should create lower prices not higher due to low demand and clients not willing to pay that much, skyrocketing prices on a shrinking market is a indication of illegal price fixing due to duopoly and it accelerates the shrinking of that market.

 

[Glo.]

Rule number 1 for new products: cost does not define price, price is not cost IN ANY WAY. Typical error. Nvidia and AMD are killing the market with those prices and has nothing to do with costs.

When you say something, it wise to say why you think that way.

What you have said is this: "Nvidia and AMD are killing the market with those prices, because thats what I believe in".

Read the whole post. Because you appear to have read the first paragraph and immediately responded.

P.S. Are you sure, that if Manufacturing costs have nothing to do, with product price, AMD and Nvidia should sell their products at a loss? .