Who/What do YOU blame for this extreme lull for enthusiasts?

[RussianSensation]

I ask you to show me the guarantee and you can't. These are priced according to supply, demand, and performance. That's it.

I think his point is that while GPU increases have been pretty good, AMD/NV are asking more vs. historical pricing. It's true because HD5870/6970 were $369 while it took more than 1 year for HD7970/GE to hit that level. On the NV side, GTX780 should have been priced at $499-650 when 680 came out and 680 should have been 660Ti at $259-279. I don't disagree with you on the pricing. I think Silver's comment is that prices of flagship GPUs skyrocketed this gen. It'll be interesting to see if flagship Maxwell will also occupy the $1000 level.

 

[guskline]

I checked the Economy on the poll but not so much because of the weakness overall. Rather the "economy" that cpu and gpu makers are facing long term.

The sunami-like move toward mobile devices has, in my opinion drained tons of $$$$ and interest away from staic (desktop) devices.

5 yrs ago, a computer was a Desktop, a few powerful laptops and servers. Have you listened to the newest generation of "Geeks" (I'm one at 62 -so be it)? They rarely talk about the newest cpu, how much memory, the size of hardrive or a new video card. They're too busy on their latest smartphone on Facebook etc.

We are not a dying breed yet but our number of new members as computer enthusiasts is dropping because the "economy" has moved to portable devices.

 

[Gikaseixas]

There are 2 main reasons for the stagnation. One is no demanding software, the other is the snail's pace that monitor resolutions are increasing. The mainstream resolution used to improve at a steady pace. It has been stuck at 1080p for quite a few years.

Agree with this.
If we had software that could really push hardware to it's knees we would see more frequent product updates. Another good point is the resolutions we use. I mean, i've been using 1080p since 2008. Got to 1200p 3 years ago and went back to 1080p this year (27 inch LED)

 

[cmdrdredd]

I think his point is that while GPU increases have been pretty good, AMD/NV are asking more vs. historical pricing. It's true because HD5870/6970 were $369 while it took more than 1 year for HD7970/GE to hit that level. On the NV side, GTX780 should have been priced at $499-650 when 680 came out and 680 should have been 660Ti at $259-279. I don't disagree with you on the pricing. I think Silver's comment is that prices of flagship GPUs skyrocketed this gen. It'll be interesting to see if flagship Maxwell will also occupy the $1000 level.

There could be many factors we are not privy to. Maybe the cost at the fabs have increased more and pricing is in line to make up the costs. Low yields can cause the manufacturers to ask more to make up for their losses too.

I think expecting a titan for $500 is unrealistic though.

 

[Dribble]

I think many of the reasons proposed play a role. To this list I would add the lack of innovation in the world of PC monitors.

They have innovated, just not in the area of resolution. 120hz + light boost have made more of a difference then upping resolution again ever would. That said personally I'd like to see some super wide monitors - say 3840*1080, most be 120hz, preferably slightly curved as well

 

[CZroe]

Seeing people seriously game on Mac Book Air with an APU and on similarly-capable phones/tablets tells me that we are in for a long and boring stretch on the PC side of things.

 

[SickBeast]

I've actually found that GPU innovation has remained quite good. Look at how slow CPU progress has been, and then complain.

We have had AMD and nVidia engaged in very healthy competition for a long time now. I'm excited about the new Radeons and about nVidia's response. Even if all nVidia does is drop prices I will be very excited about that.

I have read about people hitting 1400mhz+ on a GTX 780 with a small volt mod. I think that nVidia still has a lot of headroom to work with. That overclock represents 40% more performance and I really doubt that AMD can compete with that, even with the new cards.

 

[PrincessFrosty]

Ever since the 580's the incremental steps have slowed, more rebranding and less genuine steps up in power in the 2x range we were used to only years prior.

The reason I think is largely to do with GPUs becoming a hard sell on graphics alone due to the stagnation in the industry due to consoles.

This current generation of consoles was the first where we transitioned from separate development on each platform, to unified development across both platforms. The majority of the last 7 odd years has been building the same games for the same engines with little to no increase in quality.

We've seen GPUs in the PC space easily handle the console games and we've seen an increase in extras from Nvidia and AMD to help actually find a use for this wasted power, AMD pushed Eyefinity quite hard as an easy way to require 3-5x more GPU power, and Nvidia pushed PhysX and 3D to require at least 2x the power.

But even with 3D, 120hz, Multi-monitors at Full HD its nothing modern cards can't cope with easily, in fact we're already in a good position to power 4k which is 4x more pixels than HD...

I considered upgrading my old 580 recently, a few games aren't reaching 120hz on my new HD monitor, or struggling to hit 60fps on my 2560x1600 montor, after looking at my options to jump 2 generations straight into a GTX 780 for roughly 2x increase in power for £550...I simply grabbed a 2nd hand 580 and added that in SLI for pretty much the same increase but for £150

We held out hope the new consoles would breathe life back into the cycle but the disappointing GPU specs they have are worrying, they're already woefully out of date and they're not even released yet, so I'm sure we'll see a bit of improvement in the first few years of multi-platform games for the next generation consoles, but the following 5-6 years is likely to be more stagnation.

Sigh.

 

[RussianSensation]

I think expecting a titan for $500 is unrealistic though.

After-market 780s are faster than the Titan and cost $650. $500-550 for Titan's performance is not far off from that point.

 

[cmdrdredd]

After-market 780s are faster than the Titan and cost $650. $500-550 for Titan's performance is not far off from that point.

Maybe...we have to wait and see but the 780 still isn't a full titan chip. For games performance I do not disagree.

 

[Jacky60]

George W. Bush. It's fairly clear that until we went into Iraq in 2003 Moore's Law was being obeyed. Since then things have slowed. If the 9970 isn't alone faster than my 6990's together I will be annoyed.

 

[SickBeast]

Moore's Law is dead. Haswell officially killed it.

 

[Subyman]

I hate to see game developers thrown under the bus, I think it has more to do with "fast enough" hardware. The rise of indie games has also given people a low-spec way to get great games and feel they are staying current with game development. The only way to tax a high end card these days is to pump up the resolution. Anything can be played maxed at 1080p, which is what the majority of people play at.

 

[frozentundra123456]

I agree with Russian Sensation. I don't really see the purpose of super high resolutions on a mobile device. I have a 15.6 in , 1080p laptop, and I think that resolution is fine. In fact I can't imagine doing any type of productivity work at higher res because text is somewhat small already. On the other hand, I would love to have a 24 in or larger 1440p desktop monitor for spreadsheet real estate.

For gaming, I am happy with 1080p, just because I don't want to pay the cost for gaming at higher res.

 

[monkeydelmagico]

The sunami-like move toward mobile devices has, in my opinion drained tons of $$$$ and interest away from staic (desktop) devices.

This

Follow the money. Temple run made Imangi big money. EA's been booking profit in the mobile space over the past couple years too. I'm sure there are several others and it's growing.

Conversely, console market share has been shrinking and their take home pay has been dwindling. PC gaming is probably getting even further marginalized. As a target demographic we are becoming what marketers like to call "boutique".

And I'm fine with that. There is a big difference between putzing around on angry birds and starcraft.

 

[BrightCandle]

This
Conversely, console market share has been shrinking and their take home pay has been dwindling. PC gaming is probably getting even further marginalized. As a target demographic we are becoming what marketers like to call "boutique".

This keeps getting said but it doesn't match the data. An articl published in the last week shows increasing spend on graphics cards and EA just 2 weeks ago showed that the PC is continuing to climb as a platform and now for them at least outperforms the consoles in revenue. I don't see this marginalisation represented in the data, all the information points to the exact opposite conclusion, PC gaming has never had as many players as it does today.

I am not doubting the growth of mobile, but it has not been at the expense of PCs and I think its unlikely its been at the expense of the consoles. Its more likely it just grew and people played more games on more platforms and the console decline is far more to do with being very late in the console cycle.

 

[BallaTheFeared]

GK110 was exciting, since for awhile I was aruging with people weather existed let alone if it would ever come to GeForce or not and argued countless times that $500 GK104 was just a joke.

And then Titan came out and I wept.


As far as I'm concerned high end was delayed nearly a year by Nvidia for no real reason other than they could, and things are moving along besides that as they should. Maxwell in 2014 ~80% faster than Titan. Or mid-range again, lulz...

 

[blackened23]

I blame a combination of PC sale stagnation, stagnation of resolution increases (most still use 1080p), increased R+D costs, iGPU sales eating into low end GPU profits, PC ports being tied to 10 year old consoles, and most importantly, the NSA and Obama.

 

[Blitzvogel]

I blame cheap computing. Cheap consumer computing is what people want for everyday stuff with phones and tablets, where people are gravitating to for their basic everyday consumption and communication.

Luckily enough, we have pretty advanced multicore architectures which can be scaled to multiple cores easily enough for both cheap and expensive products with predictable levels of performance. I'd hate to think how complicated and how long a 1 billion transistor core would take to develop. It seems that software is where the real work and excitement is, since OSs and high end software must be able to scale to multiple cores and possibly different architectures and OSs.

We may have tablets and phones, which possibly may be truly the next PCs (with better consumer level creation and work capabilities), we will still need massively multicore processors for servers, scientific computing, and high end creation. The basic PC setup be it desktop or laptops is too useful and practical for work and it's still an incredibly flexible and viable outlet for emerging software paradigms and hardware technologies. Architectures may converge, but for the most part, a desktop will still have a massive processing advantage, thanks to multicore.

 

[Blitzvogel]

Mod, please delete this post.

Thanks

 

[Bateluer]

I would vote for developers. They've been developing for ancient hardware for nearly a decade, and we're getting to the point for IGPs on the PC have more capabilities than the current console GPUs. And the CPU comparison isn't even in the same ballpark. There's simply not much need for devs to develop for Radeon HD 7000s or GTX 600s when the console baseline is a Radeon X1800 and GF 7800GTX.

There's be a renewal early next year, when the new consoles drop. But given that the GPUs in the Xbone and PS4 are are 2011's midrange, we can expect to be in the same lull again by 2016.

 

[electronicmaji2]

Here's a better question.

Why do people one the Sell/Buy forum think that their used Video Cards are worth the same or more than a brand new one from newegg?

 

[desprado]

Really hardware get upgrade every year but it is the lol software to be blame.Really can anyone name the game that push the limits of GTX titan for example crysis 3 only in my mind right now.Developers are getting lazy and they just concentrate on crap console.

 

[RU482]

I do not see Apple on the list

 

[VulgarDisplay]

I blame a combination of PC sale stagnation, stagnation of resolution increases (most still use 1080p), increased R+D costs, iGPU sales eating into low end GPU profits, PC ports being tied to 10 year old consoles, and most importantly, the NSA and Obama.

I came here to post this exact thing. I blame lack of innovation in display tech for the lull in the GPU industry.

I voted for Consoles on the poll though.