Question What's up with GPU pricing?

[Magic Carpet]

Competition is badly needed in this segment. Just looked up, GTX 580 8 years ago was ~$500 and now Titan is nearly 3 grand. AMD is not much better, the 270 I bought was $175 and now the current equivalent 5700 is ~$400. Pretty sure it's not all down to inflation and the increased cost of manufacturing.

A friend recently upgraded to an ultra wide monitor (3x1440) and even 2080 ti can't drive RDR2 at 60 fps. Maan, this market is really **********, no wonder people are migrating to consoles. Wish 3dfx had still been around and not bought up by nVIDIA. Tough times.

About a hundred of ex-3dfx employees continued to work for nVIDIA.

 

[Ottonomous]

Easy
1 - The mining crisis proved that there would be overwhelming demand even at exhorbitant rates
2 - PC gaming became a bit more mainstream and people ignorant of gpu pricing history are now buying
3 - Virtually no competition at the high-end allowing nvidia to dictate pricing
4 - The prohibitive cost of 7nm and big dies at 12nm
5 - The general creep up of electronics pricing from mobile phones to tablets to laptops because of this somehow unrelenting consumer demand
6 - The transfer of prosumer/commercial GPU components to consumer parts like Tensor/RT cores
7 - God was asleep and Satan-incarnate Jen Hsen Huang decided to take his chance
8 - The fact that pursing raw rasterization power i.e. 8K was futile and needed lateral approaches that needed subsidization with higher costs
9 - The fact that because of the lower returns on performance with each node/generation, people are willing to pay more for incremental, smaller jumps in performance
10 - The american government doesn't regulate the GPU market because congressman don't know what GPUs even are

 

[Ottonomous]

Competition is badly needed in this segment. Just looked up, GTX 580 8 years ago was ~$500 and now Titan is nearly 3 grand. AMD is not much better, the 270 I bought was $175 and now the current equivalent 5700 is ~$400. Pretty sure it's not all down to inflation and the increased cost of manufacturing.

A friend recently upgraded to an ultra wide monitor (1440) and even 2080 ti can't drive RDR2 at 60 fps. Maan, this market is really **********, no wonder people are migrating to consoles. Wish 3dfx had still been around and not bought up by nVIDIA. Tough times.

Nobody is talking about that, democracy in the Middle East is waaaaaaaaay more important.

Time to break up these monopolies Nvidia, Google, etc

The Israeli-Palestine conflict is more likely to be resolved before GPU prices fall back to previous generation levels

 

[mohit9206]

Prices are fine if you wait for good deals. Don't pay premium launch day prices. Or stay one generation behind as older cards have the best deals.

 

[Kippa]

I had a TITAN X that just died on me. It managed to play my games at 4K with AA off and was bloody good value for money seeing as I had the card 4 and 1/2 years. As for the moment I have a basic card in my system but am hoping that AMD are going to drive competition in the GPU sector just as they have done in the CPU sector. Even if they don't and they sit on their hands, it is going to start getting interesting when Intel join the fray in a few months time.

I am holding off buying another card at the moment, does anyone know when there is going to be a AMD high end card released any time soon?

 

[Newbian]

Competition is badly needed in this segment. Just looked up, GTX 580 8 years ago was ~$500 and now Titan is nearly 3 grand. AMD is not much better, the 270 I bought was $175 and now the current equivalent 5700 is ~$400. Pretty sure it's not all down to inflation and the increased cost of manufacturing.

A friend recently upgraded to an ultra wide monitor (3x1440) and even 2080 ti can't drive RDR2 at 60 fps. Maan, this market is really **********, no wonder people are migrating to consoles. Wish 3dfx had still been around and not bought up by nVIDIA. Tough times.

Rdr2 last I checked is very buggy and still suffers horribly at the moment for the most part.

 

[Insert_Nickname]

Prices are fine if you wait for good deals. Don't pay premium launch day prices. Or stay one generation behind as older cards have the best deals.

I don't know about the US, but here in Denmark on Black Friday, there are head-splitting deals on RX580/590's to be had. If you can live with the slightly higher power consumption*, the value there is of the charts. It's basically about half of launch prices.

*At those prices you can. Provided your PSU is up for it.

 

[SteveGrabowski]

I had a TITAN X that just died on me. It managed to play my games at 4K with AA off and was bloody good value for money seeing as I had the card 4 and 1/2 years. As for the moment I have a basic card in my system but am hoping that AMD are going to drive competition in the GPU sector just as they have done in the CPU sector. Even if they don't and they sit on their hands, it is going to start getting interesting when Intel join the fray in a few months time.

I am holding off buying another card at the moment, does anyone know when there is going to be a AMD high end card released any time soon?

If RX 5700 and RX 5700 XT are any indication, any upcoming AMD gpu will be expensive as hell too, considering those are Polaris replacements at approaching 1.75x the price.

 

[Magic Carpet]

Thanks guys, I really appreciate all the time and trouble you have gone thru. Some very quality responses I have seen in a good while.

Rdr2 last I checked is very buggy and still suffers horribly at the moment for the most part.

*from a consumers point of view*

It's not just RDR2, that's the thing. The performance deficit is quite big where it matters. And that's their top dog, dammit. Somehow for the money, I have expected a little bit more ; I just dont get why 4K/UW gaming is still so in its infancy, mind you 4K/21:9 monitors have been on the market for quite a while now, won't even mention the high Hz models. I doubt AMD would be able to solve this and should they release a competing product, more than likely it's going to cost just as much, maybe a few hundred less and Intel isn't even on the horizon yet.

Unfortunately, these cards just aren't fast enough for 4K/UW gaming yet, even if you are ready to pay good money. We have plenty of 1080p cards, a good selection of 1440p cards but that's about it. Both 2080 Super and 2080 Ti can't do 4K 60+ fps in "heavy" games. Maybe the full chip that Titan has, performs a little better but for $3k it's definitely not worth it for me. Cyberpunk 2077 comes out next year with ray tracing support, likely to be quite demanding but hopefully it will run better than Control does.

 

[Head1985]

Competition is badly needed in this segment. Just looked up, GTX 580 8 years ago was ~$500 and now Titan is nearly 3 grand. AMD is not much better, the 270 I bought was $175 and now the current equivalent 5700 is ~$400. Pretty sure it's not all down to inflation and the increased cost of manufacturing.

A friend recently upgraded to an ultra wide monitor (3x1440) and even 2080 ti can't drive RDR2 at 60 fps. Maan, this market is really **********, no wonder people are migrating to consoles. Wish 3dfx had still been around and not bought up by nVIDIA. Tough times.

About a hundred of ex-3dfx employees continued to work for nVIDIA.

View attachment 13789

its because competition in GPU space dont work.AMD and NV should compete with each other, but in reality its more like duopoly/price fixing.I think it wont change untill someone sues them or 3rd player like intel enter market.

 

[fleshconsumed]

I don't know about the US, but here in Denmark on Black Friday, there are head-splitting deals on RX580/590's to be had. If you can live with the slightly higher power consumption*, the value there is of the charts. It's basically about half of launch prices.

*At those prices you can. Provided your PSU is up for it.

580/590 is a refresh of a 3 year old rx480. I don't know about you, but I find it hard to get excited about sale on a midrange card from 3 years ago.

 

[maddogmcgee]

4k is as much about encouraging people to spend money as improving visuals so why game at 4k if money is an issue? 1440p looks great and requires way less money for the GPU.

 

[Insert_Nickname]

580/590 is a refresh of a 3 year old rx480. I don't know about you, but I find it hard to get excited about sale on a midrange card from 3 years ago.

Who cares if it's a refresh of a 3 year old midrange card at those prices? The 470/480/570/580/590 still has enough performance for 1080p gaming (and 1440p with reduced settings), and fully modern features with the exception of ray tracing.

That performance level basically cost twice as much 3 years ago. Just as an example, I bought my 1060 on launch day in 2016 for 2699DKK. If I needed to replace it, I could get slightly better performance for 1379DKK. Or settle for a 580 at 1099. I think that's a pretty good deal. But each to his own.

 

[Magic Carpet]

its because competition in GPU space dont work.AMD and NV should compete with each other, but in reality its more like duopoly/price fixing.I think it wont change untill someone sues them or 3rd player like intel enter market.

Agreed. They will need a killer app, definitely smth better than i740 was.

 

[amrnuke]

If RX 5700 and RX 5700 XT are any indication, any upcoming AMD gpu will be expensive as hell too, considering those are Polaris replacements at approaching 1.75x the price.

Here is a list of AMD GPUs, info from Techpowerup review of 5700 XT so mature Polaris and Vega drivers:

Name	Year	MSRP	Cost as % of 5700XT	% 5700XT @ 1440p	W @ peak gaming	Perf/W @ 1440p
RX570	4/2017	$169 (4GB)	42.4%	45%	178W	59%
RX580	4/2017	$229 (8GB)	57.9%	52%	208W	58%
RX590	11/2018	$279 (8GB)	69.9%	58%	249W	55%
Vega 56	8/2017	$399	100.0%	76%	237W	73%
Vega 64	8/2017	$499	125.1%	84%	303W	63%
RX 5700	7/2019	$349	87.5%	88%	180W	116%
RX 5700XT	7/2019	$399	100.0%	100%	227W	100%
Radeon VII	2/2019	$699	175.2%	108%	313W	88%

Compared to 2017's top-end offerings (Vega 56/64), AMD are offering 10-20% performance increases for 10-25% less cost, which is essentially the same scaling you get when you look at Ryzen 1700X -> 3700X price and performance over the same 2017 -> 2019 time frame.

Now since so many people seem so hell-bent on comparing Navi to Polaris, let's do so.

The 5700XT is the "high end" part and the 5700 is the "mid range" part, with the 5500/XT coming out soon, it only makes sense to tier them this way.

So let's compare 5700XT to the RX590.
Price: $279 -> $399 (43% increase)
1440p: 58% -> 100% (72% increase)
Perf/W: 55% -> 100% (82% increase)
W usage at peak gaming: 249W -> 227W (9% decrease)

Let's compare 5700 to the RX580.
Price: $229 -> $349 (52% increase)
1440p: 52% -> 88% (69% increase)
Perf/W: 58% -> 116% (100% increase)
W usage at peak gaming: 208W -> 180W (14% decrease)

Performance outstrips cost increase, with an insane efficiency boost. It's not even worthwhile to try to compare Vega to Navi on a price to performance or efficiency scale. It's not even close. Navi kills it.

Now, more about progress...

On the CPU side, at release 3700X was $329, 1700X was $399. 3700X beats the 1700X by 22.4% in CPU tests and 18.4% in gaming. So the 3700X is ~20-25% cheaper, with a 18-23% increase in performance.

All in all, I don't think AMD have been missing the mark much on their GPU performance gains -- if Navi really is a Polaris replacement, the fact that they were able to increase performance 69-72% over Polaris while only increasing cost 43-52% is not far off from the progress they're making on the CPU side.

To match that progress from Zen to Zen2, with their Polaris->Navi (20-25% cheaper, 18-23% performance boost), AMD need:

RX 570 replacement at an RX 590 level, for $135.
RX 590 replacement at a 1660 Ti level, for $225.

I think that's at least plausible. We know from TechPowerup's review that the 5500 is 10% faster than the 570, so if we then make it even 10% more cheap (30-35% cheaper) then it needs to be released at about $119. I think that's in the realm of possibility.

We will see how things shake out, but it seems like it would be silly to call AMD's CPU gains as remarkable (which many are) while also criticizing the progress they've made on the GPU front, which has been nearly as remarkable. If Navi can scale down and keeps similar performance/price metrics as the 5700 and 5700XT have exhibited then I think we will be able to state with authority that AMD are doing very well on the GPU front.

 

[fleshconsumed]

Here is a list of AMD GPUs, info from Techpowerup review of 5700 XT so mature Polaris and Vega drivers:

Name	Year	MSRP	Cost as % of 5700XT	% 5700XT @ 1440p	W @ peak gaming	Perf/W @ 1440p
RX570	4/2017	$169 (4GB)	42.4%	45%	178W	59%
RX580	4/2017	$229 (8GB)	57.9%	52%	208W	58%
RX590	11/2018	$279 (8GB)	69.9%	58%	249W	55%
Vega 56	8/2017	$399	100.0%	76%	237W	73%
Vega 64	8/2017	$499	125.1%	84%	303W	63%
RX 5700	7/2019	$349	87.5%	88%	180W	116%
RX 5700XT	7/2019	$399	100.0%	100%	227W	100%
Radeon VII	2/2019	$699	175.2%	108%	313W	88%

Compared to 2017's top-end offerings (Vega 56/64), AMD are offering 10-20% performance increases for 10-25% less cost, which is essentially the same scaling you get when you look at Ryzen 1700X -> 3700X price and performance over the same 2017 -> 2019 time frame.

Now since so many people seem so hell-bent on comparing Navi to Polaris, let's do so.

The 5700XT is the "high end" part and the 5700 is the "mid range" part, with the 5500/XT coming out soon, it only makes sense to tier them this way.

Your classification is way off. 480/470/580/570 were all midrange 14nm parts, the Vega 56/65 were the high end 14nm parts. 5700XT is not a high end card, both the 5700XT and 5700 are midrange cards on the 7nm process. The 7nm AMD flagship is yet to be released. 5700XT is the 480/580 equivalent and 5700 is 470/570 equivalent.

 

[amrnuke]

Your classification is way off. 480/470/580/570 were all midrange 14nm parts, the Vega 56/65 were the high end 14nm parts. 5700XT is not a high end card, both the 5700XT and 5700 are midrange cards on the 7nm process. The 7nm AMD flagship is yet to be released. 5700XT is the 480/580 equivalent and 5700 is 470/570 equivalent.

Where is the issue? The 5700s represent massive performance upgrades, out of proportion to the price increase, with incredibly improved efficiency.

I specifically compared the 5700 series to both Vega and Polaris for the exact reason that I couldn't give two poopies about how anyone wants to classify them, as mid-range or high-end.

But I'll bite:

First, these classifications I bolded above - they are according to whom? I never get a clear answer. I assume you're saying that we should look at 14LPP/LP+ as one group, and 7FF as another. Except there are some 14LPP/LP+ on GCN4, some on GCN5. There are 7FF on GCN5 and on RDNA1. So the classifications are immediately bunk no matter how you try to make them fit because they're on different uarch, different processes. IMO we should be classifying these cards based on performance, in order to determine the merits of their price.

Second, it seems to me that people especially like to label that these two 5700 Navi cards are mid-tier when they want to get their panties in a bunch about them being "Polaris replacements" and complain about their price (and the general price of top-tier GPUs today). Well, why does it really matter what line they are supposed to replace? Their release has made Vega defunct, not Polaris. So calling them Polaris replacements is just... it seems useless to even consider, unless you really just like getting worked up about things, IMO.

Third, let's compare the parts you consider equal:

RX570 vs 5700
Price: $169 -> $349 (106% increase)
1440p: 45% -> 88% (96% increase)
Perf/W: 59% -> 116% (97% increase)
W usage at peak gaming: 178W -> 180W (1% increase)

RX580 vs 5700XT
Price: $229 -> $399 (74% increase)
1440p: 52% -> 100% (92% increase)
Perf/W: 58% -> 100% (72% increase)
W usage at peak gaming: 208W -> 227W (9% increase)

Functionally same power usage at each tier.
5700 price increase and performance increase within 10% of each other.
5700XT price increase is less than performance increase.

What am I supposed to be getting upset about? Should we not expect to pay more when we get more? The fact that AMD priced the parts linearly for the increased performance is something Nvidia and Intel simply DO NOT due on the CPU or GPU side. And here AMD are, giving us equal performance increase for equal price increase at the same power usage.

 

[guachi]

5700XT is the 480/580 equivalent and 5700 is 470/570 equivalent.

No, it isn't. The 480/580 were 1080 gaming cards. The 5700XT is a 1440 card. The equivalent of a 5700 or 5700XT is the 1070, which AMD had no real equivalent to in 2016. The 5700XT is about 50% faster than the 1070 in current 1440 gaming. That's a healthy increase in 3 years.

Compare a 5700XT with a Ryzen 3600 to a 1070 and whatever you could get for $200 in 2016 in modern games and the current generation would stomp all over it. The 5700XT all by itself makes up for all the other over priced and/or energy hog GPUs out there. It's a card I'd basically recommend to anyone.

 

[Mopetar]

Where is the issue? The 5700s represent massive performance upgrades, out of proportion to the price increase, with incredibly improved efficiency.

I specifically compared the 5700 series to both Vega and Polaris for the exact reason that I couldn't give two poopies about how anyone wants to classify them, as mid-range or high-end.

It's a fair comparison in the sense that the numbers don't lie. But there's more to it than that. Vega was awful as a high-end gaming card and the potential gains that might emerge from magical driver updates never came to pass.

It's a little bit like when your football team has an awful QB (feel free to use sports analogy more appropriate for your own country or tastes) and then they get one who's somewhere between average and good (and it's hard to tell because it's still early) and this new guy looks like Joe Montana by comparison. But part of why he looks so good by comparison is because what you're comparing him to isn't all that great.

Before the mining craze, a 4 GB RX470 was going for $130 with some even closer to $110 with rebates. I know this because I figured that I'd wait another month and snag one once they hit $100 and it would make a worthwhile upgrade. I probably should have bought a couple of them at $130 just to dink around with crossfire like I had considered doing, especially since I could have easily sold one or both at double that price, if not more, just a few months later.

The RX570 isn't a substantial upgrade over the RX470 either. The base clocks were raised quite a but for sure, but the boost hardly budged. Memory clocks crept up a little as well, but the gains weren't anything you could achieve on your own as the power largely came at the result of a pushing the TDP up to where the RX480 had previously resided.

All of that aside, the prices for an RX570 are only just coming down to those levels after all of this time. It's almost as though time stood still for well over two years as far as pricing in that market segment is concerned. Despite all of that AMD still looks good for offering better value for dollar than NVidia in the market segments where there's competition.

And I won't fault AMD for charing higher prices either because people are clearly willing to pay them. If anyone could get a similar increase to their own salary there would be no reason not to demand it when there's someone else lining up to meet your much higher price.

 

[alcoholbob]

Thanks guys, I really appreciate all the time and trouble you have gone thru. Some very quality responses I have seen in a good while.



*from a consumers point of view*

It's not just RDR2, that's the thing. The performance deficit is quite big where it matters. And that's their top dog, dammit. Somehow for the money, I have expected a little bit more ; I just dont get why 4K/UW gaming is still so in its infancy, mind you 4K/21:9 monitors have been on the market for quite a while now, won't even mention the high Hz models. I doubt AMD would be able to solve this and should they release a competing product, more than likely it's going to cost just as much, maybe a few hundred less and Intel isn't even on the horizon yet.

Unfortunately, these cards just aren't fast enough for 4K/UW gaming yet, even if you are ready to pay good money. We have plenty of 1080p cards, a good selection of 1440p cards but that's about it. Both 2080 Super and 2080 Ti can't do 4K 60+ fps in "heavy" games. Maybe the full chip that Titan has, performs a little better but for $3k it's definitely not worth it for me. Cyberpunk 2077 comes out next year with ray tracing support, likely to be quite demanding but hopefully it will run better than Control does.

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The main problem is a quarter of the 2080 Ti die is just dead weight specialized cores that have nothing to do with 3D rasterization. If the 2080 Ti was simply a 980 Ti -> 1080 Ti leap in terms of MOAR CORES, it would be ~80% faster than the 1080 Ti. Instead because of all that unused fixed function hardware it's only around 30% faster.

 

[Magic Carpet]

The main problem is a quarter of the 2080 Ti die is just dead weight specialized cores that have nothing to do with 3D rasterization. If the 2080 Ti was simply a 980 Ti -> 1080 Ti leap in terms of MOAR CORES, it would be ~80% faster than the 1080 Ti. Instead because of all that unused fixed function hardware it's only around 30% faster.

Glad, now that you have mentioned it. I don't quite understand this approach though, why would I need two sets of tyres if I never go to the race track?

This ray tracing is of course... very nice, but if I can only use it in some specialized apps and not common ones, essentially I am buying something that I don't need and/or want, at the expense of extra power consumption, let alone the price?

All of that, just to play Quake 2, seriously? /sarcasm.

I would have much preferred to have Crysis 3 running @ 4K w/ 8x MSAA with good fps, tbh.

 

[alcoholbob]

Glad, now that you have mentioned it. I don't quite understand this approach though, why would I need two sets of tyres if I never go to the race track?

This ray tracing is of course... very nice, but if I can only use it in some specialized apps and not common ones, essentially I am buying something that I don't need and/or want, at the expense of extra power consumption, let alone the price?

All of that, just to play Quake 2, seriously? /sarcasm.

I would have much preferred to have Crysis 3 running @ 4K w/ 8x MSAA with good fps, tbh.

Well the only reason that die space was reserved for RT on top of the Tensors that were already added for Volta was because of the Tesla market: Nvidia wants to get as much market share as possible before ASICs take over the market like they did for cryptocurrency mining and hope their ecosystem of business partnerships and dynamic libraries is worth it to their clients.

I guarantee you RTX would not exist if the card was just going to be made for the pure gaming market. It's a 754mm2 die for a reason. If all they were going to do was refresh the 1080 Ti it would just be a slightly bigger die, from the 471mm2 1080 Ti to say a hypothetical 550mm2 2080 Ti and would probably be the same speed as the 2080 Ti we ended up getting--however it would cost what the 2080 Super does now at $699 and not $1199. At $1199 the 2080 Ti is a problem because alot of the die space is useless to gamers. All of the RTX tiers in Geforce only exist because there's a business need in the Tesla market. Otherwise they'd just be smaller dies with only CUDA cores, because the rising cost of larger dies makes them uneconomical if just used for gaming.

So really, Nvidia just used their gamers to amortize the cost of their Tesla products IMO. Since Microsoft and AMD had been working on DXR for a while now, ray tracing was eventually coming, just not on specialized hardware.

 

[Arkaign]

I think it's extra painful for enthusiasts at any level, because great deals and tuned performance are really hard to replicate in modern times.

Eg; someone who bought a 4790K on launch, and runs it at 4.8+ honestly has zero reason even today to replace it for gaming. Even a 9900KS, 3950X level would only show boosts in niche examples when combined with extremely high end GPUs (say 1080ti/2080 and up WITH high details and VRR+HRR displays sub-4k).

Or someone bought an RX 480 AIB on launch for $229, UV+OC it's easy to get ~580 performance levels. That was THREE years ago, and is barely beatable today at any worthwhile level without paying significantly more $. 2060/5700 minimum to be noticable.

Nvidias competition against themselves with Pascal v Turing is well documented as well.

Pricey time to chase higher performance.

 

[fleshconsumed]

I think it's extra painful for enthusiasts at any level, because great deals and tuned performance are really hard to replicate in modern times.

Eg; someone who bought a 4790K on launch, and runs it at 4.8+ honestly has zero reason even today to replace it for gaming. Even a 9900KS, 3950X level would only show boosts in niche examples when combined with extremely high end GPUs (say 1080ti/2080 and up WITH high details and VRR+HRR displays sub-4k).

Or someone bought an RX 480 AIB on launch for $229, UV+OC it's easy to get ~580 performance levels. That was THREE years ago, and is barely beatable today at any worthwhile level without paying significantly more $. 2060/5700 minimum to be noticable.

Nvidias competition against themselves with Pascal v Turing is well documented as well.

Pricey time to chase higher performance.

I'll disagree on the CPU front. While there has been no single core performance improvements over the past 5 years, we can now get 8 cores for the same price we paid for 4 cores just two years ago. It's a very welcome change for those of us who could use more cores.

The GPU situation however, is dire. We've had zero improvement in the performance per dollar metric over the past 3 years. I've skipped Fury because I decided to wait for Vega. Vega didn't move performance/dollar metric so I decided to wait for Navi. Well, Navi didn't move performance/dollar metric either. So I guess I'm waiting again? I don't have high hopes for Intel disrupting the market, but maybe nVidia 30XX series will finally bring some pricing relief. Maybe by same time next year I'll be able to get aftermarket 5700 for $200 and flash it with XT BIOS and finally get a worthy upgrade to my aging RX480.

 

[Ranulf]

Nvidia 3000 series won't bring pricing relief unless they have competition from AMD.