Backstory:
I'm a working stiff. I make enough to cover my bills and save a fair amount every month. At the beginning of this year, I set out to put together a new PC by purchasing one component at a time; each at the right time. I've never taken this approach and it's worked out well. I've replaced everything except for the case, one hard drive, my old and familliar keyboard and mouse, and... the graphics card. (1900GT)
So what's new? A 2ms GTG LCD monitor, a 700W ~87% efficient modular power supply, a couple new SATA drives & DVD, an AW9D MAX mobo, an E6600 (@ 3.2Ghz that idles at ~28C w/ aftermarket cooling), a matched pair of 1 gig DDR2 800 sticks- (@ 900 4-4-4-12 w/ 2.1v) and I even bought an air cooled 5.25" to 3.25" conversion bay to move all my hard drives from where Im expecting a long graphics card to be, also added sommore case fans.
So here I am- all my old parts are long gone; passed off to friends or sitting in a PC "junk" drawer... except that same 1900GT is still sitting there where a newer, faster, better, harder card should be. Lately I've been wondering why that old card is still there; I've been tossing and turning for a couple weeks now on whether to grab an 8800 series card; and which one- etc. Last night the prudent consumer inside me rebelled and fueled a long night of searching the web, reading reviews, tech forum threads, and shopping for prices to settle the matter.
Why I Didn't Buy an Nvidia 8800 Series Card:
The most obvious thing to me at my hesitance to grab one of these were the prices. The 8800GTS 320MB from one of the more reputable manufactuers is hovering around $290. Pricing Info
This is the best bang for the buck the 8800 series has to offer- and for future proofing purposes; the deal may not be sweet enough. There are instances in benchmarking reviews of this card; where it gets beaten by less powerful or less expensive cards with more texture memory. Benchmark here: Benchmark and also here:Benchmark (Check Oblivion, FEAR, + Quake4.)
Benchmarks will vary from game to game; and with a multitude of settings- but if games already on the market are easily chewing up 320MB of texture memory; DX10 games will not be any gentler. Another review echoes this sentiment here: Conclusion @ Firing Squad
Beyond the 8800GTS 320MB in the 8800 series, the price increases much faster relative to the performance increase. 8800 Series Comparison The 8800 Ultra offers a vary narrow lead over an 8800GTX for an extra ~250 dollars or more, and only offers a 30% increase in performance over an 8800GTS 320MB for ~500 dollars more. Pricing Info
I'm also leery of some of the largest and power hungry cards to date. While the architecture of the G80 is real progress- they've chosen to stick with the 90nm fabrication process- this is the reason for the size, power consumption, and possibly the cost of these cards. Some excerpts from a review on the G80 that can be found in full here: Full Review
"The thing is, the G80 isn't manufactured on a next-generation chip fabrication process. After some bad past experiences (read: GeForce FX), Nvidia prefers not to tackle a new GPU design and a new fab process at the same time. There's too much risk involved. So they have instead asked TSMC to manufacture the G80 on its familiar 90nm process, with the result being the single largest chip I believe I've ever seen."
"Nvidia's isn't handing out exact die size measurements, but they claim to get about 80 chips gross per wafer. Notice that's a gross number. Any chip of this size has got to be incredibly expensive to manufacture, because the possibility of defects over such a large die area will be exponentially higher than with a GPU like the G71 or R580. That's going to make for some very expensive chips."
"The chip is still too large and consumes too much power at idle, but this architecture should be a sweetheart once it makes the transition to a 65nm fab process, which is where it really belongs."
Another concern is how "future proof" are these cards against their cost? There is already some evidence out there to suggest Nvidia is basically sitting on the next refresh of cards in the 8900 series that will be available on an 80nm process with faster GDDR4 memory for less money. Leaked Info
I don't know about you; but if I'm going to spend around 600 dollars on a graphics card- I'd be plenty pissed off if a new version makes not just a small step; but a leap ahead in peformance AND at a lower price in less than six months.
Lastly- in the news it seems like AMD and Nvidia are facing over 50 lawsuits that allege price fixing. There are snips and reposts of the news all over enthuiast hardware sites. News Repost
There's also a forum discussion on suspected price fixing that dates back a while here: Price Fixing? With so many lawsuits pending concerning price fixing it is very likely at least one of them will have some effect on the market in the consumer's favor.
Lack of Suitable Alternatives Or Intermediary Transitions:
So I've decided I'll pass on the 8800 series cards, I then set out to find a card that would provide a significant improvement over my 1900GT at a low price. To my dissapointment, it seems prices on older models aren't dropping as fast as you'd think. Pricing Info
An x1950 crossfire which gets outperformed in most benchmarks by an 8800GTS 320MB, still costs just as much and in some cases more than the lower tier 8800 GTS 320MB cards. The higher end 7900 series of cards are still floating above 200 dollars; that's too much to pay for an intermediary card to transition from in the short term. Ideally I was looking at spending no more than $100-$150 for something that will kick the ass out of my 1900GT and hold me over until a new series of cards arrive that offer real value.
What's available for about a 150 bucks? For my needs, nothing really. The 8600GT series cards are in that price range; but they are about on par with my x1900GT. Though I could not find a direct comparison- the 8500 and 8600GT were compared to a x1950 PRO- (which you can see here only trumps the x1900GT by a small margin: 1950Pro + x1900GT) and the x1950 PRO outperforms the 8600GT here: Benchmarks
In Conclusion:
While there are plenty of options- none of them truely feel like a smart upgrade path for their costs. There's the 8800GTS 320MB model that costs around 300 dollars that may end up struggling with new DX10 games. For around 100 dollars more, the 640MB model offers only the extra memory and no extra processing power. Beyond the 8800GTS 640MB model- the costs are ridiculous as you can easily buy an E6600 and motherboard of your choice for the same price or less. (When they almost undoubtedly cost more to produce) There is also extremely foreboding news on the horizon that casts very credible doubt on the long-term value of any card in the 8800 line-up.
Intermediary cards that offer a significant increase in performance over an x1900GT are still too pricey. If you have a card from less than 3 generations ago- it is simply not worth it to buy an intermediary card as most of the ones that offer real gains are still too close in price to the low end 8800GTS 320MB.
Still irritating- new 8600GT cards that can cost as much as when I purchased my x1900GT almost 2 years ago; can barely outperform it- and in some benchmarks; a x1900GT can probably still beat an 8600GT. There's no value to the consumer for new cards that offer 2 year old performance at the brand new price level.
I understand the nature of the market in the traditional sense... What's really wrong with today's graphics card market is this: Instead of seeing current generation cards replacing those of the last generation at the same price; there has been a trend of increasing price ceilings over the past few years.
What's worse is that not only are the best cards getting pricier- (Fetching 1,000 dollars or more in some instances) but every card in every new generation's series is getting to be a little costlier than it's equivalent in the last generation.
If there was a real industry-bound reason for this situation beyond ATI's and Nvidia's seeming lack of interest in competitive pricing- why is it only affecting the graphics card market? Why doesn't an E6300 cost 500 dollars? Etc.
I'm a working stiff. I make enough to cover my bills and save a fair amount every month. At the beginning of this year, I set out to put together a new PC by purchasing one component at a time; each at the right time. I've never taken this approach and it's worked out well. I've replaced everything except for the case, one hard drive, my old and familliar keyboard and mouse, and... the graphics card. (1900GT)
So what's new? A 2ms GTG LCD monitor, a 700W ~87% efficient modular power supply, a couple new SATA drives & DVD, an AW9D MAX mobo, an E6600 (@ 3.2Ghz that idles at ~28C w/ aftermarket cooling), a matched pair of 1 gig DDR2 800 sticks- (@ 900 4-4-4-12 w/ 2.1v) and I even bought an air cooled 5.25" to 3.25" conversion bay to move all my hard drives from where Im expecting a long graphics card to be, also added sommore case fans.
So here I am- all my old parts are long gone; passed off to friends or sitting in a PC "junk" drawer... except that same 1900GT is still sitting there where a newer, faster, better, harder card should be. Lately I've been wondering why that old card is still there; I've been tossing and turning for a couple weeks now on whether to grab an 8800 series card; and which one- etc. Last night the prudent consumer inside me rebelled and fueled a long night of searching the web, reading reviews, tech forum threads, and shopping for prices to settle the matter.
Why I Didn't Buy an Nvidia 8800 Series Card:
The most obvious thing to me at my hesitance to grab one of these were the prices. The 8800GTS 320MB from one of the more reputable manufactuers is hovering around $290. Pricing Info
This is the best bang for the buck the 8800 series has to offer- and for future proofing purposes; the deal may not be sweet enough. There are instances in benchmarking reviews of this card; where it gets beaten by less powerful or less expensive cards with more texture memory. Benchmark here: Benchmark and also here:Benchmark (Check Oblivion, FEAR, + Quake4.)
Benchmarks will vary from game to game; and with a multitude of settings- but if games already on the market are easily chewing up 320MB of texture memory; DX10 games will not be any gentler. Another review echoes this sentiment here: Conclusion @ Firing Squad
Beyond the 8800GTS 320MB in the 8800 series, the price increases much faster relative to the performance increase. 8800 Series Comparison The 8800 Ultra offers a vary narrow lead over an 8800GTX for an extra ~250 dollars or more, and only offers a 30% increase in performance over an 8800GTS 320MB for ~500 dollars more. Pricing Info
I'm also leery of some of the largest and power hungry cards to date. While the architecture of the G80 is real progress- they've chosen to stick with the 90nm fabrication process- this is the reason for the size, power consumption, and possibly the cost of these cards. Some excerpts from a review on the G80 that can be found in full here: Full Review
"The thing is, the G80 isn't manufactured on a next-generation chip fabrication process. After some bad past experiences (read: GeForce FX), Nvidia prefers not to tackle a new GPU design and a new fab process at the same time. There's too much risk involved. So they have instead asked TSMC to manufacture the G80 on its familiar 90nm process, with the result being the single largest chip I believe I've ever seen."
"Nvidia's isn't handing out exact die size measurements, but they claim to get about 80 chips gross per wafer. Notice that's a gross number. Any chip of this size has got to be incredibly expensive to manufacture, because the possibility of defects over such a large die area will be exponentially higher than with a GPU like the G71 or R580. That's going to make for some very expensive chips."
"The chip is still too large and consumes too much power at idle, but this architecture should be a sweetheart once it makes the transition to a 65nm fab process, which is where it really belongs."
Another concern is how "future proof" are these cards against their cost? There is already some evidence out there to suggest Nvidia is basically sitting on the next refresh of cards in the 8900 series that will be available on an 80nm process with faster GDDR4 memory for less money. Leaked Info
I don't know about you; but if I'm going to spend around 600 dollars on a graphics card- I'd be plenty pissed off if a new version makes not just a small step; but a leap ahead in peformance AND at a lower price in less than six months.
Lastly- in the news it seems like AMD and Nvidia are facing over 50 lawsuits that allege price fixing. There are snips and reposts of the news all over enthuiast hardware sites. News Repost
There's also a forum discussion on suspected price fixing that dates back a while here: Price Fixing? With so many lawsuits pending concerning price fixing it is very likely at least one of them will have some effect on the market in the consumer's favor.
Lack of Suitable Alternatives Or Intermediary Transitions:
So I've decided I'll pass on the 8800 series cards, I then set out to find a card that would provide a significant improvement over my 1900GT at a low price. To my dissapointment, it seems prices on older models aren't dropping as fast as you'd think. Pricing Info
An x1950 crossfire which gets outperformed in most benchmarks by an 8800GTS 320MB, still costs just as much and in some cases more than the lower tier 8800 GTS 320MB cards. The higher end 7900 series of cards are still floating above 200 dollars; that's too much to pay for an intermediary card to transition from in the short term. Ideally I was looking at spending no more than $100-$150 for something that will kick the ass out of my 1900GT and hold me over until a new series of cards arrive that offer real value.
What's available for about a 150 bucks? For my needs, nothing really. The 8600GT series cards are in that price range; but they are about on par with my x1900GT. Though I could not find a direct comparison- the 8500 and 8600GT were compared to a x1950 PRO- (which you can see here only trumps the x1900GT by a small margin: 1950Pro + x1900GT) and the x1950 PRO outperforms the 8600GT here: Benchmarks
In Conclusion:
While there are plenty of options- none of them truely feel like a smart upgrade path for their costs. There's the 8800GTS 320MB model that costs around 300 dollars that may end up struggling with new DX10 games. For around 100 dollars more, the 640MB model offers only the extra memory and no extra processing power. Beyond the 8800GTS 640MB model- the costs are ridiculous as you can easily buy an E6600 and motherboard of your choice for the same price or less. (When they almost undoubtedly cost more to produce) There is also extremely foreboding news on the horizon that casts very credible doubt on the long-term value of any card in the 8800 line-up.
Intermediary cards that offer a significant increase in performance over an x1900GT are still too pricey. If you have a card from less than 3 generations ago- it is simply not worth it to buy an intermediary card as most of the ones that offer real gains are still too close in price to the low end 8800GTS 320MB.
Still irritating- new 8600GT cards that can cost as much as when I purchased my x1900GT almost 2 years ago; can barely outperform it- and in some benchmarks; a x1900GT can probably still beat an 8600GT. There's no value to the consumer for new cards that offer 2 year old performance at the brand new price level.
I understand the nature of the market in the traditional sense... What's really wrong with today's graphics card market is this: Instead of seeing current generation cards replacing those of the last generation at the same price; there has been a trend of increasing price ceilings over the past few years.
What's worse is that not only are the best cards getting pricier- (Fetching 1,000 dollars or more in some instances) but every card in every new generation's series is getting to be a little costlier than it's equivalent in the last generation.
If there was a real industry-bound reason for this situation beyond ATI's and Nvidia's seeming lack of interest in competitive pricing- why is it only affecting the graphics card market? Why doesn't an E6300 cost 500 dollars? Etc.
The EVGA 8800GTS 640mb Superclocked is IMO the best buy. It's got just a bit less memory and fewer shaders than the GTX, but it's clocked the same and costs considerably less. It's priced right and comes with Dark Messiah, if you're into that type of game.
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