GTX 580 - Will 590 / 6990 Releases Lower Price?

[UnknownSoldier]

Having been shopping around in the high-end video card market for the past couple weeks, I'm giving serious consideration to buying a GTX 580. The only stiff point for me is the performance increase over the GTX 570 / Radeon 6970 vs the price increase.

So this got me to thinking about the imminent release of the GTX 590 & Radeon 6990. Now obviously we don't know how much they cost, but I was hoping to hear some opinions from some people who have been paying attention to the market trends for video cards over the past few years. When these flagship dual-GPU cards have been released in the past, have the then top-end video cards had price reductions?

 

[renz496]

the thing is 590 and 6990 were aim at different level of market. this cards are ultra high-end and they will be priced arcodingly to their performance. unless AMD decides to sell 6990 for cheap (lets say in 500-600 price) then nvidia might drop GTX580 price

 

[niz]

the thing is 590 and 6990 were aim at different level of market. this cards are ultra high-end and they will be priced arcodingly to their performance. unless AMD decides to sell 6990 for cheap (lets say in 500-600 price) then nvidia might drop GTX580 price

AMD will have to keep their prices for 6990 around 600-700 if they want to sell more than a few, because the 590 is going to own it performance-wise.

At least since nVidia's GTX8800, (5 years?) AMD's fastest GPUs don't ever compete with nVidia's fastest just on sheer perfomance, unless you compare AMD cards with 2 GPUs to nvidia's single GPU cards, which in my opinion is kinda cheating, as nVidia still could (and occasionally does) put 2 GPU's on a card too and what then?

AMD's only way to still be competitive has always been to be cheaper (i.e. better bang for the buck) than equivalent Nvidia products. AMD is like Ford and nVidia like Ferrari. Most people can only afford a Ford and they are fine for cost-effective everyday use, but for those that can afford more there is a faster, better engineered option.

If your budget is an issue and your main concern is performance per $, then AMD is nearly always gonna be better. If you just want the best outright performance and you're OK with spending a few more $, then nvidia is nearly always the better choice.

Especially if you are a Linux user nVidia is pretty much the only choice as nvidias Linux drivers are solid, fast and provide support for things like VDPAU and CUDA. AMD's own Linux drivers are still at best a token gesture, mostly involving the middle finger.