When will 128-bit be the standard for budget video cards?

[magreen]

It seems to me, with the release of the 9600GT in the $175 range and new HD3750 pricing probably going to be in the $150 range, it should make a cascade effect on pricing.

The 1950PRO should fall down to $120 ($100 on a hot deal), knocking the 8600GT down to $80 ($50 on some hot deal), knocking the 8500GT 128-bit and 7300GT 128-bit down into the $30 and under budget range (with hot deals in the $10 range AR).

This ought to mean that 6200TC and 7300LE and 8400GS fall below the low end of discrete video and go the way of the MX400. Y'all agree with me? When should we see this pricing? I'm hoping in the next month or so.

 

[Acanthus]

Although id love to see it, at the low low end cost comes into play, the additional traces for 128bit over 64bit adds layers to the card which adds cost.

 

[SlowSpyder]

It's probably cheaper for card manufacturers to keep a narrower memory path but use faster memory then the opposite.

 

[magreen]

Originally posted by: SlowSpyder
It's probably cheaper for card manufacturers to keep a narrower memory path but use faster memory then the opposite.

That's an interesting idea to save cost. Has it ever been done? A 64-bit card with 700 or 800MHz GDDR3 memory (1.4 - 1.6GHz effective) instead of a 128-bit card with a 350MHz or 400MHz memory clock... never heard of such a thing. Would they perform equivalently?

 

[SlowSpyder]

Originally posted by: magreen

Originally posted by: SlowSpyder
It's probably cheaper for card manufacturers to keep a narrower memory path but use faster memory then the opposite.

That's an interesting idea to save cost. Has it ever been done? A 64-bit card with 700 or 800MHz GDDR3 memory (1.4 - 1.6GHz effective) instead of a 128-bit card with a 350MHz or 400MHz memory clock... never heard of such a thing. Would they perform equivalently?

The Radeon 3870 went to a faster GDDR4 memroy over a 256bit bus from the 2900 that used slower GDDR3 over a 512bit bus.

 

[Demoth]

If your talking about the vid card upgrade market, yeah, it will make no sense to go low-low end. However, you'll still see a lot of these cards around because the super cheap prebuilts, like the Dell Inspirons, only offer low-low vid cards as an option. Partly because they buy these cheaper in bulk and partly because the PSUs used by Dell and E-machines are less likely to keep stable on a higher end card.

 

[tcsenter]

Originally posted by: magreen
This ought to mean that 6200TC and 7300LE and 8400GS fall below the low end of discrete video and go the way of the MX400. Y'all agree with me?

Sure, in about three years when the feature set of these cards is as out-dated as the MX400 was three years ago. NV43/44 is second generation DX9 GPU, G72/73 is third generation DX9 GPU, and G84/86 is first generation DX10 GPU. MX400 is DX7, which was more out-dated five years ago than these GPUs are today.

The only reasons these GPUs are possible to do profitably in the $40 and under budget range are cost-saving board configurations using 64-bit memory, DDR2, and lower clocks.

 

[magreen]

While what you're saying in terms of feature sets and manufacturing costs makes sense, in simple terms of market value something's got to give. Are they going to sell the 8500gt and 7300gt for the same price as the 8600gt? They can't. And same goes for 8600gt vs. x1950pro. And with the 8800gs going for $125 now, there's just no pricing room for the 6200tc/7300le/8400gs.

 

[Engineer]

Interesting to note that you can get a PNY 9600GT for $151.xx + shipping (no rebate) from MicroCenter and an Apollo HD3850 512MB card for $144.99 after rebate + shipping. Card prices are dropping pretty quickly right now.

(PS - eVGA 8800GT for $179.99 after rebate + shipping - $5.00 pricegrabber rebate <--- Nice price)

 

[tcsenter]

Originally posted by: magreen
While what you're saying in terms of feature sets and manufacturing costs makes sense, in simple terms of market value something's got to give. Are they going to sell the 8500gt and 7300gt for the same price as the 8600gt? They can't. And same goes for 8600gt vs. x1950pro. And with the 8800gs going for $125 now, there's just no pricing room for the 6200tc/7300le/8400gs.

That assumes all current parts will be available in their current form for the next several months to one year. Historically, this assumption has not played out. We will most likely see a couple parts disappear and a couple parts respun.

e.g. Rather than let Radeon 9600 move down into the pricing segment of Radeon 9250, ATI released the Radeon 9550, which was nothing more than a cost-saving die shrink of Radeon 9600 with lower clocks. Radeon 9600 stayed where it was and Radeon 9550 filled the spot just beneath it, co-existing with Radeon 9250 for at least one year.

e.g. Rather than move GF6600 non-GT down in its current form, NVIDIA respun it as 6600LE with half the pixel shaders and texture units.

Those are just two examples, I could go on. There is no reason why we could not see an 8500GS, 8600LE, and whatnot. In fact, there is already an 8600GS produced for select OEM customers. The GPU alone is not deterministic here, the board configuration plays a role as well. There are now 7300GT boards with 64-bit memory.

There is always some irrational pricing in the $25 ~ $50 segment due to the number of parts and board configurations crammed into a smaller range. The cost savings of 64-bit v. 128-bit, and DDR2 v. DDR3, will continue to define the bottom because this is precisely the segment where the pressure is highest to shave nickels, dimes, and quarters from the cost of every board.

 

[magreen]

That's interesting, we might see respun die-shrinks of the current lower mid-range cards.

But I don't understand something. If the 9600 was being pushed down into the 9250 price range, then how did the 9250 and 9550 coexist? The 9550 certainly would have fallen to the 9250 price range since it was weaker than the 9600. And I assume it was more powerful than the 9250 was? Or did marketing artificially inflate the price of 9550 cards even though they didn't have the performance to match?

See where I'm going is, if we see a 8600LE or gs or something then it should beat an 8400gs and be in the < $40 range (even if it is only 64-bit like you said).