Which GPU do you think have aged the worst in the last 3 years?

[Mondozei]

And no, you can't nominate the Titan Z

So here are the ground rules:

1. So from 2012 until today. I'm not counting when a GPU was announced but rather when it became available to buy for the mass market.

2. Also, let's look at mainstream cards. So I'm ruling out the Dual GPU/Titan-esque cards for $1000 or above. Same as for the ultra-low end cards. It has to have had a MSRP of 150 dollars or above.

3. Look at launch date MSRP only and compare to how it stacks up today.

4. Finally, ignore factors which couldn't be controlled and just try to look at it objectively if you bought the GPU from the day it became available until today.

I'll start: I think the 780 is a good contender. It launched at 650 dollars and within half a year it was equalised by the 290(non-reference) at 450 for the Tri-X Sapphire card. So it lost around a 1/3rd of its value in 6 months already.

Add to this the driver performance post-Maxwell hasn't been great. The card used to run neck and neck with 290 but it's now so bad that Sweclockers have even stopped benchmarking the card.

If you spent 650 dollars 2 years ago you'd think that it would hold up around where the mid-range GPU of the current generation is. That has been the historical pattern yet it is about 25% slower than the 970 when you look at 1080p(which is what it can play today on ultra settings at a stable 60 fps).

So the 780 deviates from this pattern significantly and it did so selling for a MSRP that is where the 980 Ti is today.

 

[Arachnotronic]

GTX 780 seems like a good bet to me, too.

 

[RussianSensation]

I can't decide between these 4: Q2 2012 $580 GTX680 4GB, May 2013 GTX780 $650 (not $700), and also a $450 GTX770 4GB or a $700 780Ti.

I am hesitant to call 780 the worst though because with a solid overclock, it'll still perform rather well relative to say a 290 and provide good performance for 1080P. OTOH, a $580 680 4GB looks far worse in comparison to a $180 960 4GB / R9 380 4GB.

Also, while someone could have enjoyed the overclocked 780 from May 2013, the loss of value on a 780Ti was horrendous in an even shorter time frame. It lost half of its value in 10 months (Nov 2013->970 on Sept 2014) and now it's possible to buy an EVGA B-stock 970 for $250 or R9 390 for $265-280.

I guess if I had to vote, I'd establish some basis of comparison that made sense to me -- in this case I'd ask myself what's the minimum I have to spend today to roughly match or come very close to the performance of the older card:

1. $580 680 4GB => $180 R9 380/960 4GB (so $180 / $580 = 31% of the original price of a 680 4GB gets that level of performance today)
2. $650 780 3GB => $245 R9 290 guarantees that level of performance ($245/ 650 = 38%)
3. $700 780Ti => $280 R9 390 / 970 ($280 / $700 = 40%)
4. $450 770 4GB => $180 R9 380 / 960 4GB ($180 / $400 = 40%)

Using that basis, 680 4GB aged the worst, in terms of performance and value. This kinda makes sense since it's the oldest card / architecture, the slowest and it has a large premium for extra VRAM in 2012 which means it's going to be the most penalized.

Now, I am using $580 for the 680 4GB but that's because it's what I remember off the top of my head around when I got my 7970 when hunting for deals and cross-comparing. AT has EVGA FTW+ 680 4GB at $629 and EVGA Classified 680 4GB for $659. If you substitute those prices into my short analysis above, the 680 4GB takes the cake hands down. And if we really want to crucify the 680, then we could compare the EVGA Classified 680 4GB for $659 against a $150 R9 280. That would be game over for the $659 680 4GB ($150 / 659 = 23% of its original value). :biggrin:

It's no wonder so many of us keep repeating that if a gamer cannot afford to buy a flagship $650 card every generation by recouping some of the resale value on the nxt upgrade OR one is financially healthy to not care about the cost of ownership, it's probably best to stay clear of those expensive cards. I suppose sometimes you have no choice if you need to have the best performance (i.e. want the fastest single GPU for 4K); and of course some people buy based on emotions not mathematics/logic.

 

[Zodiark1593]

Without a doubt, the GTX 680 aged very horribly. The 960 trades blows with it. It's original competition, the 7970 (Tahiti), outstrips it by a fair amount nowadays. Nough said.

 

[Silverforce11]

Why not Titan? It was made obsolete by the 780 and 780Ti.

 

[Piroko]

I know that you're trying to exclude the 1.000$ cards, but it's the - and I quote Nvidias own website - "GeForce GTX TITAN Black Gaming Graphics Card". That card together with the Titan Z killed the Titan brand value for me. And killing your own brand value within the same generation that you launch it is quite the feat.

Apart from that, I'm starting to think that the 960 is lagging behind more and more, it seems to be the worst x60 card Nvidia has launched from an absolute performance perspective.

 

[alcoholbob]

Why not Titan? It was made obsolete by the 780 and 780Ti.

Titan is valued for DP and still routinely sells for $500-600. The Titan Z still sells used in the $1000 range.

The consumer cards are the ones that have lost a ton of value. As far as the 780 goes it did drop to $499 after Hawaii so if you bought it then it wasn't a terrible deal.

780 Ti at $750 was just as bad really as the 780 launch price.

 

[Mondozei]

Why not Titan? It was made obsolete by the 780 and 780Ti.

Not a mainstream card.

May 2013 GTX780 $650 (not $700)

Yeah I remember I looked at that in AT's review but Wiki says otherwise. Then again they are using Bit-Tech as a source so I guess we can go with AT over BT.

The GTX 780 looks slightly better but not by much.

As far as the 780 goes it did drop to $499 after Hawaii so if you bought it then it wasn't a terrible deal.

Right, but as the rules provided, only judge cards by their MSRP's and the assumption is that you buy it the same exact day it came out on the market.

 

[Silverforce11]

Not mainstream? Titan and Titan X sold very well according to NV's own statements, it was advertised for gaming primarily.

780/Ti class is certainly not mainstream at all given their launch prices. They are all enthusiast grade.

Titan X is one of the worse in recent history since it has gimped DP and its one advantage, extra vram, its way overkill compared to the 4/6GB required for gaming for the past year and foreseeable future. So the Titan X was neutered utterly with the 980Ti, so quickly, at least the Titan kept its DP advantage despite 780/Ti.

With the 780/Ti, it took AMD bringing the competition to make them lose their value. The Titan X? Nv did it themselves with the 980Ti very quickly after launch (certainly the Titan was overtaken 780Ti but that was a long time after its initial release).

 

[Mondozei]

I can't decide between these 4: Q2 2012 $580 GTX680 4GB, May 2013 GTX780 $650 (not $700), and also a $450 GTX770 4GB or a $700 780Ti.

I am hesitant to call 780 the worst though because with a solid overclock, it'll still perform rather well relative to say a 290 and provide good performance for 1080P. OTOH, a $580 680 4GB looks far worse in comparison to a $180 960 4GB / R9 380 4GB.

Also, while someone could have enjoyed the overclocked 780 from May 2013, the loss of value on a 780Ti was horrendous in an even shorter time frame. It lost half of its value in 10 months (Nov 2013->970 on Sept 2014) and now it's possible to buy an EVGA B-stock 970 for $250 or R9 390 for $265-280.

I guess if I had to vote, I'd establish some basis of comparison that made sense to me -- in this case I'd ask myself what's the minimum I have to spend today to roughly match or come very close to the performance of the older card:

1. $580 680 4GB => $180 R9 380/960 4GB (so $180 / $580 = 31% of the original price of a 680 4GB gets that level of performance today)
2. $650 780 3GB => $245 R9 290 guarantees that level of performance ($245/ 650 = 38%)
3. $700 780Ti => $280 R9 390 / 970 ($280 / $700 = 40%)
4. $450 770 4GB => $180 R9 380 / 960 4GB ($180 / $400 = 40%)

Using that basis, 680 4GB aged the worst, in terms of performance and value. This kinda makes sense since it's the oldest card / architecture, the slowest and it has a large premium for extra VRAM in 2012 which means it's going to be the most penalized.

Now, I am using $580 for the 680 4GB but that's because it's what I remember off the top of my head around when I got my 7970 when hunting for deals and cross-comparing. AT has EVGA FTW+ 680 4GB at $629 and EVGA Classified 680 4GB for $659. If you substitute those prices into my short analysis above, the 680 4GB takes the cake hands down. And if we really want to crucify the 680, then we could compare the EVGA Classified 680 4GB for $659 against a $150 R9 280. That would be game over for the $659 680 4GB ($150 / 659 = 23% of its original value). :biggrin:

It's no wonder so many of us keep repeating that if a gamer cannot afford to buy a flagship $650 card every generation by recouping some of the resale value on the nxt upgrade OR one is financially healthy to not care about the cost of ownership, it's probably best to stay clear of those expensive cards. I suppose sometimes you have no choice if you need to have the best performance (i.e. want the fastest single GPU for 4K); and of course some people buy based on emotions not mathematics/logic.

Good post, but a few quibbles. While the GTX 680 has aged the worst, you also have to normalise for the amount of time it has been out on the market. That has to soften the judgement.

The reason why I chose the GTX 780 over the GTX 680 is that the GTX 770 was roughly equal in performance to the GTX 680 when it came out, plus the GTX 680 has same amount of GB in VRAM. Finally, it cost $580 dollars at MSRP, not $650(or $700 if you follow Wikipedia) like the GTX 780 did.

The GTX 780 by contrast was beaten pretty significantly by the GTX 970 - instead of being equal - and it has less VRAM, too. And it was also more expensive than the GTX 680 at MSRP. So by that count, it aged worse than the GTX 680 much faster compared to the next-gen midrange GPU, at higher price. Surely that must make it the worse GPU of the two, no?

 

[alcoholbob]

Not mainstream? Titan and Titan X sold very well according to NV's own statements, it was advertised for gaming primarily.

780/Ti class is certainly not mainstream at all given their launch prices. They are all enthusiast grade.

Titan X is one of the worse in recent history since it has gimped DP and its one advantage, extra vram, its way overkill compared to the 4/6GB required for gaming for the past year and foreseeable future. So the Titan X was neutered utterly with the 980Ti, so quickly, at least the Titan kept its DP advantage despite 780/Ti.

With the 780/Ti, it took AMD bringing the competition to make them lose their value. The Titan X? Nv did it themselves with the 980Ti very quickly after launch (certainly the Titan was overtaken 780Ti but that was a long time after its initial release).

If you are on water and you want the fastest cards and aren't on a budget, I think the Titan Xs are still viable. Consider your typical Titan X will hit around 1450-1475 on water you will need a 980 Ti that hits 1610MHz+ to match it. A lot of 980 Ti HOF/Kingpin card's really don't do much better than 1525-1550 with custom power delivery. So if you don't wanna flash your BIOS and aren't on LN2, Titan X is still viable for a multi-GPU no expenses spared system.

 

[Mondozei]

Not mainstream? Titan and Titan X sold very well according to NV's own statements, it was advertised for gaming primarily.

Yeah I remember that

780/Ti class is certainly not mainstream at all given their launch prices. They are all enthusiast grade.

Mainstream here is defined as a product which is aimed at the mass market, the Titan cards were/are niche.

Even within the mass market you have segmentation. Flagship GPUs like the 780/980 or the 780 Ti/980 Ti are still sold in much higher volume than the Titan cards. Look at any website which ranks how well they sell and you'll see the Titan cards oceans behind the high-end GPUs.

In Sweden right now, the 980 Ti is the 3rd best-selling GPU according to Prisjakt.nu(a website aggregating all of the sales from all our e-tailers), so it's selling quite well. It is mass market. The closest Titan card I can find is at number 33.

The story repeats itself if you look at North American websites. If you look at Newegg and look at "most reviewed"(a proxy for how many bought the GPU) you see many $550 MSRP GTX 980 in the top 15 and quite a few of 980 Ti.

How many Titans do you see at all?

 

[NTMBK]

GTX 970, it started out with 4GB and now only has 3.5 :awe:

 

[happy medium]

the 150$ gtx650 1gb or similar priced AMD card with 1gb of memory.
Can you even play games with 1gb of memory any longer?


I don't think we should use flagship cards, they always demand a premium and it depends on how fast the competition is at the time of release.

example:
Company A releases a card first for 600$ company B has no competing card = C company A releases at a super high price to grab some early profits.
Company B finally releases a competing card so company A lowers the price on said 600$ card to 450$ to compete with company B.

In this scenario company A will always have the more expensive card at release, and age the worst.

OR

company A releases a new architecture every 18 months which lowers power consumption ,raises stock clocks, adds new features, and gives way better overclockability. And company A will charge more for this and focus on new drivers for newer cards with different features. While company B changes the name of the cards adds clocks all on the same architecture for over 3 years and has no choice but to tweak there drivers for the same cards year
after year.

If it wasn't for company A we'd all have company B's 300 watt+ cards, with the same feature set for years to come with a different name but long lasting drivers.

My point is there is too many variables and this thread is clickbait.

 

[flopper]

780/970/980ti
Old technology when they come out.

 

[RaistlinZ]

Titan, 960, 680.

 

[Techhog]

the 150$ gtx650 1gb or similar priced AMD card with 1gb of memory.
Can you even play games with 1gb of memory any longer?


I don't think we should use flagship cards, they always demand a premium and it depends on how fast the competition is at the time of release.

example:
Company A releases a card first for 600$ company B has no competing card = C company A releases at a super high price to grab some early profits.
Company B finally releases a competing card so company A lowers the price on said 600$ card to 450$ to compete with company B.

In this scenario company A will always have the more expensive card at release, and age the worst.

OR

company A releases a new architecture every 18 months which lowers power consumption ,raises stock clocks, adds new features, and gives way better overclockability. And company A will charge more for this and focus on new drivers for newer cards with different features. While company B changes the name of the cards adds clocks all on the same architecture for over 3 years and has no choice but to tweak there drivers for the same cards year
after year.

If it wasn't for company A we'd all have company B's 300 watt+ cards, with the same feature set for years to come with a different name but long lasting drivers.

My point is there is too many variables and this thread is clickbait.

Wow


Woooooooooooooooooooooooooooow

I agree with the actually on-topic part of your post, but what is even with the rest of this post? You're just obsessed with AMD bashing at this point.

 

[skipsneeky2]

the 150$ gtx650 1gb or similar priced AMD card with 1gb of memory.
Can you even play games with 1gb of memory any longer?

Yup you can for the most part,i sold a rig to a buddy which had a 1gb gtx650 and even games as recent as GTAV the 1gb held up.Sure he had to run low settings and 768p but actual performance was good.BF4 ran fine on low too,most recent games simply run out of performance before the vram is a issue on that card.

Today the 650 really doesn't look all that fantastic cause for just a bit more then what the 650 went for a few years earlier,you get 2gb of vram and twice the performance with a 750 ti.

 

[happy medium]

AMD bashing

where did I use AMD? I don't get it.

"Flagship cards"?

 

[Head1985]

All nv cards

 

[Ferzerp]

2Gb cards

 

[Zanovar]

My card in 8 months.i kid.

 

[Seba]

R9 290/290X with reference cooler. Maybe not the worst case, but those deserves to be mentioned, just to balance this thread.

 

[skipsneeky2]

2Gb cards

My entire library runs short of performance before the 2gb on my 770 becomes a issue.Performance with all the cards i have bought since 2006 honestly just fell short of performance before vram became a issue.Now if i lower the resolution,then vram could be a issue but for 1080p nope.

Only except was when i owned a 320mb 8800gts,i quickly exchanged it for the 512mb version .I know the 320mb 8800gts could certainly play CS:GO today on low settings.:awe:

 

[frozentundra123456]

Yup you can for the most part,i sold a rig to a buddy which had a 1gb gtx650 and even games as recent as GTAV the 1gb held up.Sure he had to run low settings and 768p but actual performance was good.BF4 ran fine on low too,most recent games simply run out of performance before the vram is a issue on that card.

Today the 650 really doesn't look all that fantastic cause for just a bit more then what the 650 went for a few years earlier,you get 2gb of vram and twice the performance with a 750 ti.

Yes, my gaming card is a HD7700 1gb. I do play mostly older games. DA:I and even more so Witcher 3 really struggled, but they were playable at 1080p.

I got the card almost 3 years ago for 90.00, it is pretty efficient for its time and I have been very happy with it until recently. I dont feel it was a bad value at all.