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No Lower GPU Prices Despite Reduced GPU Demand

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  • Graphics Cards
  • AMD
  • Nvidia
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a b U Graphics card
June 17, 2014 12:20:36 PM

Worst case, the market will reset when 20-22nm products come to market and everyone will be trying to dump their 28+nm stock.
Score
5
June 17, 2014 12:29:00 PM

The overpricing due to currency mining has lasted to far in the cycle. Gamers are waiting for the new series especially due to full dx12 compliance. Being the support statement could mean less than half the full code set ill wait.
Score
-4
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a c 204 U Graphics card
a b À AMD
a b Î Nvidia
June 17, 2014 12:31:31 PM

I think it is worth pointing out that mainstream buyers, the bulk of the market, were never buying high-end mining cards.
Do you have more specific information on what the $50-$75 and $100-$125 segments are doing? Cards in these ranges are able to play any game, even if on lowered settings. With the economy as it is, I wouldn't expect kids asking for "gaming" cards to get any better than this; as you say, those wanting more are probably finding second-hand deals.
Score
10
June 17, 2014 12:53:41 PM

...And this is why i'm still using my SLI GTX680s @ 1300Mhz/7000Mhz bios clocked. 1080p always over 60FPS maxed. Nvidia nor AMD can show me something that makes me drop a load.
Score
-6
a c 92 U Graphics card
a b Î Nvidia
June 17, 2014 1:25:44 PM

They also forgot that this past cycle has been especially boring. sure the 290X and 780Ti are great cards, but then what? both companies almost rebranded an entire generation of cards for the past cycle, including some of the high-end (280X and the 770). this leaves little reason for most gamers to upgrade
Score
14
June 17, 2014 1:58:43 PM


Pity this kind of market/pricing manipulation isn't regarded as something that
should be unlawful...

Ian.

Score
-7
a c 204 U Graphics card
a b À AMD
a b Î Nvidia
June 17, 2014 2:05:47 PM

While it does seem a little sneaky, this time the rebrands did come with some tweaks, and I'm not sure I've observed anyone lying about the products. As gsxrme and vmem point out, there just isn't any reason to "automatically" upgrade. For those consumerist mall-rats who think they always need the latest just because it is the latest, oh well too bad for them. Rational people upgrade when something no longer performs well.
Score
2
June 17, 2014 2:08:00 PM

I'm with @vmem on this one. I'm soldiering on with a 6950 just because the geek in me just can't justify $400 or even $500 on re-baked Kepler and Taihiti cards that run obscenely hot, and only improve marginally on the previous generation. Unless i see some significant price shift I'm holding out for an Improved Volcanic Islands or an amped up Maxwell card (imagine what that chip can do at 3x/180w TDP? bring on the 880s!)
Score
1
June 17, 2014 2:10:48 PM

If only people would be excited about crunching Folding@home for science on their GPUs, but most people are selfish or don't know the program exists.

The key to reduced GPU prices is to buy them used.
Score
-4
a b U Graphics card
June 17, 2014 2:22:10 PM

I am hanging onto my GTX570 a bit longer as it is still more than good enough for 1080p gaming (even if I could use a bit more RAM for Skyrim).

Once 4K gains more adoption and prices start to drop then I will pick up whatever card is equivalent to my 570 in the lineup that can push 4K at decent settings. Maybe a GTX 970 in two years or so? That is going to be an expensive year for my computer... new monitor, new GPU, and a new core system for Skylake processors. I typically like to space out my upgrades, but this time it is looking like everything is going to hit all at once.... it's going to hurt and my wife is going to hate me in 2016-17

Mark my words, this kind of pricing is going to become the norm going forwards. Computer parts are finally hitting that point of 'good enough' to last more than a year or two, and the PC market is fairly saturated. Companies still need the income, but customers will not need the units. Rather than dropping $250 on a new GPU each year we will be dropping $500 every 2-3 years. We may not need the yearly upgrade, but they are still going to need the income, so we are going to pay it one way or another. I am half surprised we are not seeing this in other parts of the PC market already.
Score
-3
June 17, 2014 3:18:14 PM

In Pakistan, the HD 7000 series is still where it was when it launched and the R7-R9 series has been placed above the 7950! The R9-295X is selling for $1990! The level of inflation is unprecedented! That's why I will be sitting on my HD6950 for at least this year.
Score
7
a b U Graphics card
June 17, 2014 3:51:56 PM

CaedenV said:
Mark my words, this kind of pricing is going to become the norm going forwards.

I would guess the opposite: while Intel has been raising CPU prices by ~$10 with each generation since Sandy, people's attachment to the traditional PC is starting to weaken with all the non-PC computing devices floating around. With Android, ChromeOS, FFOS, etc. devices becoming a fair bit more powerful each year, there will be a point where mobile platforms will have enough resources to become a real threat to desktops... in many cases, they already are but are still missing adequate software to make it happen. Intel is going to have a hard time selling $200-300 CPUs and a $40 chipset when people can get a device designed around a $30 Atom or ARM SoC that also gets the job done well enough.

On the GPU side, the mid/high-end is not really in danger since both AMD and Nvidia introduce at least one thing worth considering each year that will be enough to make most enthusiasts start to itch for upgrades at least every other year. At the low-end though, you have IGPs that are currently good enough to obsolesce most discrete GPUs below $100 and will likely claw their way up, which is going to make a pretty big dent in revenue from sub-$100 products. On the plus side, this may force people into shopping in a bracket $25-50 above what they otherwise would and offset lost mid-range sales from people who are stretching their current ~$150 GPUs an extra year. Not necessarily a bad thing.
Score
0
a b U Graphics card
June 17, 2014 6:05:17 PM

for really i can't see any difference from a gtx 670 to a Amd r7 260x. 260x is a rebranded 7790 i play all the games maxed 1080P with no problem at all. all i get my 260 dollar back to my pocket!
Score
1
June 17, 2014 6:45:11 PM

Quote:
If only people would be excited about crunching Folding@home for science on their GPUs, but most people are selfish or don't know the program exists.

The key to reduced GPU prices is to buy them used.


Selfish for not folding? You obviously do not pay electrical bills.

Prices are exactly what the market demands. Sometimes you can get more relative performance for dollar, sometimes not. There is no conspiracy, and people owning cards and not folding is far from selfish.

Expecting free energy from graphics card owners is the only thing that is selfish. Altruism in science is a fallacy.
Score
7
a b U Graphics card
June 17, 2014 8:38:57 PM

I don't think some people here understand if they started slashing prices, why would you buy their 20nm cards soon if you already got a GREAT card now for cheap? What people are asking them to do is BAD for business, profits and next gen R&D.

We need them to price products at what the market will handle period, or start losing money in both camps which kills all future cards. Anyone stop to think the rebadging happens because they have to milk the cow longer since NEITHER side is making what they did even back in 2007 (and AMD well, even worse)? If they give away cards you'll get NOTHING next gen. They have to make money for R&D or we'll be getting cards every 3-4 years. Also, they didn't have much else they could do with the 20nm delays. A rebadge from both sides was essentially forced on them. If they kept up production and lowered prices they just lose money. You have to stop production to avoid flooding the market killing what little profits they do have (NV makes 1/2 what they did in 2007, see the point?). What good is selling 10mil cards if you make nothing vs. selling 1mil cards that make money on each one? Get a grip people, this is business. Not "I'm here to make everyone happy". Sure they want customers happy too, but if they're not making much money what is the point?

IF AMD hadn't made a least a little money on consoles they'd be still losing money hand over fist (and it is barely keeping them up, but this R&D cost them phase3 drivers, freesync way behind, enduro problems, bad 290x launch for retail cards etc etc). The problem for AMD is they don't make a good enough product (or driver to help it) to charge more vs NV, so they sell cheaper and get screwed even more than NV. We need both stronger! This isn't fanboy junk here, it's being a FAN of BOTH companies making REAL money to R&D the next round etc forever. Broke companies put out crap. I fear if both don't start making more we will start getting worse stuff than now, though in fairness both make great cards. If you have anything over 3-4yrs old you have some serious upgrade power at any price related to your old gpus price. We can't really complain here.
Score
5
June 17, 2014 9:17:43 PM

Quote:
Quote:
If only people would be excited about crunching Folding@home for science on their GPUs, but most people are selfish or don't know the program exists.

The key to reduced GPU prices is to buy them used.


Selfish for not folding? You obviously do not pay electrical bills.

Prices are exactly what the market demands. Sometimes you can get more relative performance for dollar, sometimes not. There is no conspiracy, and people owning cards and not folding is far from selfish.

Expecting free energy from graphics card owners is the only thing that is selfish. Altruism in science is a fallacy.


Your right, the world revolves around money. I suppose nobody buys video cards to help find cures to cancer their families are affected by. Some bitcoin farmers may find that their GPU time is being wasted, making little money and instead give them a new use that actually does beneficial math.

Bitcoin farmers are selfish, using up electricity to run math that doesn't give any useful results to humanity and just happens to make them money. Some can be said about some scientific distributed computing projects whose results are unlikely to find anything or anything useful (Seti@home, Dnetc).

Selflessness from science is not bad reasoning! A lot is, like drug companies but some people like to improve humanity and may decide to work somewhere that pays less but contributes more to the future for others.
Score
-5
June 17, 2014 9:28:58 PM

Quote:
The problem for AMD is they don't make a good enough product (or driver to help it) to charge more vs NV, so they sell cheaper and get screwed even more than NV. We need both stronger! This isn't fanboy junk here, it's being a FAN of BOTH companies making REAL money to R&D the next round etc forever. Broke companies put out crap. I fear if both don't start making more we will start getting worse stuff than now, though in fairness both make great cards. If you have anything over 3-4yrs old you have some serious upgrade power at any price related to your old gpus price. We can't really complain here.


AMD had a better offering with the r9 290 cards. They have a weaker position as far as nvidia and its anti-competitive ways but I would go with an R9 over a 770 or 780 (that i could afford) any day. More ram and faster. Only real problem is power consumption.

as far as your other comments, you are right to some extent. The thing is though, new products are supposed to warrant purchase. The next cards should offer so much that even people with the best of the last gen would want something new, and its not much to ask when these guys have been using the same stuff for years now.
Score
1
June 17, 2014 9:32:24 PM

You can pick up a 290 and 290x for 200-325 on ebay. Given they are miner cards but hey cheep power.
Score
-1
June 17, 2014 9:39:30 PM

The article missed an important fact: APU

For us gamers we will always want dedicated GPU hardware but as the general population will want to keep their costs down so will focus on APU systems. So it's going to be driven by market demands in general that brings in the most money for the company. APUs in terms of graphics performance aren't bad for general use and not too shabby for games but anything hardcore we won't be getting the best and latest greatest stuff anymore in terms of dedicated GPUs. It's just business.
Score
0
June 17, 2014 10:43:27 PM

Quote:
Worst case, the market will reset when 20-22nm products come to market and everyone will be trying to dump their 28+nm stock.

I hope you're right. But I worry that AMD and NVidia will instead jack up the prices just like they did with the last generation. To upgrade your $150-200 6850 to a 7850 cost you $250-300, and to upgrade your 7850 to an 8850 (or whatever they name the next 200mm2 256bit board) will cost you $400 (decreasing with each rebadging before the next shrink, 6 years down the road).
Score
-2
June 18, 2014 12:43:07 AM

The problem is PC gaming is dead none of big box stores have pc games even places like EB/Gamestop has stopped carrying pc games there is noting to drive the market now that gpu is worthless for bitcoin mining the difficulty is too high.
All that is left is online games in my store i sell 1 high end video card every 6 months the speed has not changed much in past 3 years and who would buy a video card for $3000+ titan x is too overpriced bet the sales on that card are VERY low.
Score
1
June 18, 2014 1:17:12 AM


Quote:
CaedenV said:
Mark my words, this kind of pricing is going to become the norm going forwards.

I would guess the opposite: while Intel has been raising CPU prices by ~$10 with each generation since Sandy, people's attachment to the traditional PC is starting to weaken with all the non-PC computing devices floating around. With Android, ChromeOS, FFOS, etc. devices becoming a fair bit more powerful each year, there will be a point where mobile platforms will have enough resources to become a real threat to desktops... in many cases, they already are but are still missing adequate software to make it happen. Intel is going to have a hard time selling $200-300 CPUs and a $40 chipset when people can get a device designed around a $30 Atom or ARM SoC that also gets the job done well enough.

On the GPU side, the mid/high-end is not really in danger since both AMD and Nvidia introduce at least one thing worth considering each year that will be enough to make most enthusiasts start to itch for upgrades at least every other year. At the low-end though, you have IGPs that are currently good enough to obsolesce most discrete GPUs below $100 and will likely claw their way up, which is going to make a pretty big dent in revenue from sub-$100 products. On the plus side, this may force people into shopping in a bracket $25-50 above what they otherwise would and offset lost mid-range sales from people who are stretching their current ~$150 GPUs an extra year. Not necessarily a bad thing.


I think mobile parts are still leagues behind the desktop parts. One can easily judge them by running appropriate benchmarks on even the lowest sepc'ed i3 for each platform. I have a 2nd gen i3 PC which I have seen being faster than a 4th gen i5 notebook in almost all benches I threw at them , except for compression, with all power saving features disabled (which is unfair as what is mobile without mobility).
Score
0
June 18, 2014 2:05:29 AM

I am not buying GPU more than $300 these days. Nvidia/AMD can charge whatever they want. I vote with my wallet.
Score
2
June 18, 2014 2:51:02 AM

techguy911 said:
... in my store i sell 1 high end video card every 6 months ...


If you're running a normal store (physical high street shop), the more likely reason for only the occasional
sale is that it would be very unusual for a normal store to price a GPU better than any typical online source.
I also find that normal stores tend to be horribly out of date in the cards they stock, usually many months
behind what is available to buy online. I was amazed recently when visiting a 'typical' electronics store to
see they still had 4870s on the shelf.

Ian.



Score
0
June 18, 2014 3:36:09 AM

......
Idiot miners. They got so ahead of themselves, buying up every damn thing in sight, they likely screwed gamers for another 6 months, after the craze died down.

Bring on Maxwell.
Score
1
a b U Graphics card
June 18, 2014 4:06:05 AM

techguy911 said:
The problem is PC gaming is dead none of big box stores have pc games even places like EB/Gamestop has stopped carrying pc games

Almost every game out there is available for digital download these days, often at a substantial discount from their physical counterpart. There is no need for physical distribution and all the cost overheads that come with it anymore except maybe for special/collector editions.
Score
3
June 18, 2014 4:07:39 AM

I certainly don't believe that a lull in coin mining could drop the graphics card market by 40%. That's hilarious to me. No way in hell is mining a big enough part of the sector (compared to actual graphics) to crash it that hard. That's just scare mongering.

Sure, there has been some cooling off in that market. And that comes around the same time that most sane gamers (the ones with more sense than money) are looking at the PS4 and the XOne and deciding that they can probably live without a new graphics card for the time being. Since most big releases will be optimized for the consoles first, people know they can get decent performance on their current rig.
Score
2
a b U Graphics card
June 18, 2014 4:21:49 AM

fpga123 said:
I think mobile parts are still leagues behind the desktop parts. One can easily judge them by running appropriate benchmarks on even the lowest sepc'ed i3 for each platform.

They do not need to beat desktops at everything. They only need to be good enough that people will have to start thinking twice before picking a $300 desktop CPU+chipset over a $30 SoC. It will take a few more years for Atom to get there but it will - it has to if Intel does not want to risk losing any more ground to ARM. When it does, Intel's ability to inflate prices will be considerably reduced.
Score
1
June 18, 2014 4:31:21 AM

mapesdhs said:

Pity this kind of market/pricing manipulation isn't regarded as something that
should be unlawful...

Ian.



The retail STORES are the one wanting to manipulate the prices, not the companies. They don't want to make any changes to the prices. How do you manipulate something when they're doing NOTHING? lol
Score
1
a b U Graphics card
June 18, 2014 4:57:08 AM

tomfreak said:
They don't want to make any changes to the prices. How do you manipulate something when they're doing NOTHING?

If you actually read the article, when board manufacturers asked AMD and Nvidia to reduce prices on the GPUs chips, AMD and Nvidia responded by reducing chip production to maintain current chip prices. That definitely counts as doing something to keep prices up.
Score
1
June 18, 2014 5:00:11 AM

1) PC gaming isnt dead... with steam and origin (i know, i know lol) making insane sales and looking at steams most popular games you can see that people indeed still do play PC games. This arguement is the same ever freaking year, blah blah blah, consoles are killing PC's. Its just not true.

2) I would never buy a computer from any store unless it was Microcenter, They price match to amazon and newegg and they always have crazy deals, I literally got 40 off my SSD for buying a Mobo, Then received a 50 off for buying an intel and mobo combo. AT NEWEGG or AMAZON Pricing.

3) Consoles are getting stronger every year, however so are pc's consoles are just dumb downed computers with limited OS's. I bought a Wii U becuase its fun, and any game i need or want to play is on the PC with a great community full of people.

4) The market is changing, and SoC and IGP are being very strong. I refuse to buy an 800 non gaming laptop when i can get a 450 dollar tablet that has a better resolution and a longer battery life and isnt 8000lbs lol. Its just unfair to deny these facts.

5) High end card like titan z and Titan, and even 780ti to some extent are designed to be bragging rights, Yes its over priced, but if your friend bought one and has a tri-1440p setup play watch dogs or wolfenstien, you would probably drool everywhere. I know i would lol. (im mid range pc builder spend about 400 on vc and 800 on everything else.)
Score
2
a b U Graphics card
June 18, 2014 5:04:30 AM

Tem B said:
Quote:
The problem for AMD is they don't make a good enough product (or driver to help it) to charge more vs NV, so they sell cheaper and get screwed even more than NV. We need both stronger! This isn't fanboy junk here, it's being a FAN of BOTH companies making REAL money to R&D the next round etc forever. Broke companies put out crap. I fear if both don't start making more we will start getting worse stuff than now, though in fairness both make great cards. If you have anything over 3-4yrs old you have some serious upgrade power at any price related to your old gpus price. We can't really complain here.


AMD had a better offering with the r9 290 cards. They have a weaker position as far as nvidia and its anti-competitive ways but I would go with an R9 over a 770 or 780 (that i could afford) any day. More ram and faster. Only real problem is power consumption.

as far as your other comments, you are right to some extent. The thing is though, new products are supposed to warrant purchase. The next cards should offer so much that even people with the best of the last gen would want something new, and its not much to ask when these guys have been using the same stuff for years now.


It's too much to ask when AMD is barely breaking even and NV is about 1/2 what they made in 2007. You're not getting the point I'm making here I guess. If they don't make money, how do they make your next great product? AMD has lost $6Billion in 10yrs. Read that again please and understand what I'm saying. NV would probably be in the same shape if they had paid 3x the price for a company like ATI which broke AMD's back in one shot. They have never recovered from that mistake. Worse they sold the mobile gpu division to Qcom for $65mil...Big mistake. That is what happens when your entire company goes on fire sale to cover stupid management mistakes. They should have paid $2B tops for ATI and they might still have fabs with less debt or no debt like NV. NV's debt and cash is the (low debt lots of cash) is what helps them through rough spots in either a product or the market. When that happens to AMD they lose money and sell more stuff (pretty much out of stuff to sell at this point).

AMD's 290x launch had throttle issues on all retail cards. That isn't a success. Then they had the 290 launch and via drivers had to up the speeds of the fans and in some cases (asus according to toms, at least them) caused the shipping fans to be out of spec (someone paid to fix that). On top of this, they had to ask reviewers to re-benchmark their cards because the fans being sped up would avoid the throttle that surely was affecting benchmarks BEFORE they did this and they wanted to avoid the same thing with 290 that they had with 290x.

You can choose to ignore reality if you'd like, but things like this on major launches are what happens without funding to do PROPER R&D. I don't think AMD is stupid, they just ran short of the R&D funds to make a proper launch of either card, thus you end up re-jigging your crap in the last hours before reviews hit the pages. Explain to me how either case was a "GREAT" launch? You do read tomshardware articles correct?

AMD didn't have a better offering with 290, they FINALLY had one that could force NV to put out big kepler which we ALL thought we would get before. How long did it take to catch 780? A LONG time. How long did it take to put out 780ti in response? Not long. What you're seeing is the difference between having 3.7B in the bank and having more debt than cash on the other side (IE, negative cash). It's the difference between freesync (maybe one day) and Gsync here now. AMD is still trying to fix their old drivers (old cards seem abandoned for the new), since they can't seem to afford to fix both. They had to fix the new ones, but let me know when all the issues are fixed for older cards than r7/r9.

I'm running a radeon 5850, but there's a slim chance I'll be buying AMD again next round after watching the last 3yrs take place. AMD would have to put out a card that puts NV's maxwell to shame at this point to even get me to ponder potential driver hell. I'll probably have to see them do good for another gen before coming back. I can't afford to buy a $500-1000 card and roll craps. Well I could, but what for? I'd like to help AMD but not that badly.

I don't see either side being any more anti-competitive than the other. Both have proprietary tech etc. IF anything AMD is being anti-competitive by pricing their cards where they themselves can't make money. Jen has said he wishes they would stop trying to price him to death as that is impossible, and he'd rather have them both making more money. Well, duh. AMD doesn't seem to get it. If their rep, and their product was as good as you say they wouldn't have to price it so low to sell correct? You're not making sense. Both sides make mistakes, but there is a premium paid for NV stuff because they make less of them.

Power leads to more heat. More ram is stupid if you can't hit 30fps MINIMUM when using it. Quick, so me 10 cases where MORE ram than NV cards have vs. their AMD counterparts can be used and STILL be above 30fps min. I'll be waiting for your list. Heck can you give 5? So me some 290/290x benchmarks where they use MORE than NV's ram and are above 30fps min. That's your claimed price range so show me the data. NV knows the ram at this point is useless, so they pocket the different in profits WISELY. AMD gives you more than they can use without being under 30fps so they make less per card hurting profits. See the point? That's not love or hate for either, just the facts and reality. NV isn't shafting users, they're allowing themselves to profit more in a situation where giving you more memory and taking less profits gains you nothing but bragging rights about having more memory. I'd rather have AMD give the amount required to hit 30fps in the res 98% of us are using (not pitching more for a res nobody can hit 30fps with anyway and only 2% play there). AMD's management needs to stop blowing profits. No profits as noted leads to all the other crap I mentioned.
Score
1
a b U Graphics card
June 18, 2014 5:17:58 AM

InvalidError said:
tomfreak said:
They don't want to make any changes to the prices. How do you manipulate something when they're doing NOTHING?

If you actually read the article, when board manufacturers asked AMD and Nvidia to reduce prices on the GPUs chips, AMD and Nvidia responded by reducing chip production to maintain current chip prices. That definitely counts as doing something to keep prices up.


Who cares, neither is making as much money as 2007. What do you expect them to do? NV break even and AMD lose even more than usual per year? I'd rather have them keep pricing a bit higher and AMD maybe make some cash (or break even with the fine coming from GF soon), and NV make more than now. They are both far weaker than desired based on previous years. AMD will be in worse shape shortly as ARM races up the ladder and Intel races down the ladder. AMD gets crushed in the middle (the only place they exist). Explain why they should comply with board makers asking for price drops? "MR company, could you make less money or please lose some so I can have more?" ROFL. Jim, that's just not logical. Sorry my best spock impression ;)  You get the point. I commend BOTH companies for not bowing and blowing whatever earnings they have a shot at getting this year. It's not rocket science, board makers can keep pricing the same also. No profits will be had from next gen if they discount the price so much EVERYONE can afford one this gen at a price they make NOTHING from. That's suicide for a few years in a row on profits until we NEED a new card down the road.

Housing works the same way. OODLES of people lost homes. But the banks put very few out there so we don't shop them to death asking for low pricing due to there being so many available. On top of that, they don't want to lend you money at current rates as the risk is too high for return. IF interest was 6% right now there be far more homes on the market, but at 3.5-4% they don't see the point in giving you a house for not much return over time and a large chance in this economy they'll just be taking it back again later at more even more cost. I'm not sure you have a firm grasp on how business works or more importantly how it fails. ;) 
Score
1
a b U Graphics card
June 18, 2014 5:29:07 AM

vipboy28 said:


3) Consoles are getting stronger every year, however so are pc's consoles are just dumb downed computers with limited OS's. I bought a Wii U becuase its fun, and any game i need or want to play is on the PC with a great community full of people.

5) High end card like titan z and Titan, and even 780ti to some extent are designed to be bragging rights, Yes its over priced, but if your friend bought one and has a tri-1440p setup play watch dogs or wolfenstien, you would probably drool everywhere. I know i would lol. (im mid range pc builder spend about 400 on vc and 800 on everything else.)


Consoles are not getting stronger every year. Wiiu sales are terrible (6.7mil in almost two years?), vita sales suck, 3ds is ok, ps4/xbox1 dropping momentum (already both off 50% just 1Q after release, we'll see how much more off in this Q shortly), MS won't even admit SELL-THROUGH numbers. Based on the rate they are dropping per month sony will be lucky to hit 11mil+ and MS won't hit 10mil this year. Devs ran from consoles and went to PC and mobile at last years GDC and this years 2014 GDC as the survey shows. So games will be massively on the PC/mobile vs. consoles and that won't help sales either. Until you hit 10mil only the big dogs can play in the console world which slows game releases and hurts sales.

Titan/TitanZ both have a purpose you're missing. PRO APPS with DP that is 1/2 the cost of TESLA (or same cost but double perf). They are not aimed at PURE gamers. Sure a few buy them for bragging rights, but most buy because they can't afford a tesla/quadro and want to get some work done at home AND play games. 95% of the people buying them know exactly WHY they are doing it and that it's a great deal.
Score
0
a b U Graphics card
June 18, 2014 5:40:56 AM

somebodyspecial said:
I'd rather have them keep pricing a bit higher and AMD maybe make some cash (or break even with the fine coming from GF soon), and NV make more than now.

That only works if sales keep up. If sales drop by a larger amount than the extra margin per sale they are trying to maintain, net margin still goes down.
Score
1
June 18, 2014 5:44:41 AM

somebodyspecial said:
vipboy28 said:


3) Consoles are getting stronger every year, however so are pc's consoles are just dumb downed computers with limited OS's. I bought a Wii U becuase its fun, and any game i need or want to play is on the PC with a great community full of people.

5) High end card like titan z and Titan, and even 780ti to some extent are designed to be bragging rights, Yes its over priced, but if your friend bought one and has a tri-1440p setup play watch dogs or wolfenstien, you would probably drool everywhere. I know i would lol. (im mid range pc builder spend about 400 on vc and 800 on everything else.)


Consoles are not getting stronger every year. Wiiu sales are terrible (6.7mil in almost two years?), vita sales suck, 3ds is ok, ps4/xbox1 dropping momentum (already both off 50% just 1Q after release, we'll see how much more off in this Q shortly), MS won't even admit SELL-THROUGH numbers. Based on the rate they are dropping per month sony will be lucky to hit 11mil+ and MS won't hit 10mil this year. Devs ran from consoles and went to PC and mobile at last years GDC and this years 2014 GDC as the survey shows. So games will be massively on the PC/mobile vs. consoles and that won't help sales either. Until you hit 10mil only the big dogs can play in the console world which slows game releases and hurts sales.

Titan/TitanZ both have a purpose you're missing. PRO APPS with DP that is 1/2 the cost of TESLA (or same cost but double perf). They are not aimed at PURE gamers. Sure a few buy them for bragging rights, but most buy because they can't afford a tesla/quadro and want to get some work done at home AND play games. 95% of the people buying them know exactly WHY they are doing it and that it's a great deal.


I was referring to Hardware in the consoles not growth in sales or popularity. I was referring to the fact that Consoles are just low budget gaming machines. You are correct and i agree, consoles arent doing well.

As for Titan the card is design for non-gamers however your missing the bragging rights. I have A LOT of single friends (lol) that bough this card and sli'd this card just to have that OMG Drool factor. The actual purpose for the titan/z is much more suited for non-gaming applications and its secondary function is for gaming :D 
Score
0
June 18, 2014 6:41:09 AM

I've got my EVGA 670GTX FTW card and its still going strong. I will not pay another $400-500 to get a marginal increase in performance and fps. They need to be more competitive and lower their prices to attract business instead of staggering supply to keep making money hand over fist.
Score
1
a b U Graphics card
June 18, 2014 8:31:53 AM

vipboy28 said:
somebodyspecial said:
vipboy28 said:


3) Consoles are getting stronger every year, however so are pc's consoles are just dumb downed computers with limited OS's. I bought a Wii U becuase its fun, and any game i need or want to play is on the PC with a great community full of people.

5) High end card like titan z and Titan, and even 780ti to some extent are designed to be bragging rights, Yes its over priced, but if your friend bought one and has a tri-1440p setup play watch dogs or wolfenstien, you would probably drool everywhere. I know i would lol. (im mid range pc builder spend about 400 on vc and 800 on everything else.)


Consoles are not getting stronger every year. Wiiu sales are terrible (6.7mil in almost two years?), vita sales suck, 3ds is ok, ps4/xbox1 dropping momentum (already both off 50% just 1Q after release, we'll see how much more off in this Q shortly), MS won't even admit SELL-THROUGH numbers. Based on the rate they are dropping per month sony will be lucky to hit 11mil+ and MS won't hit 10mil this year. Devs ran from consoles and went to PC and mobile at last years GDC and this years 2014 GDC as the survey shows. So games will be massively on the PC/mobile vs. consoles and that won't help sales either. Until you hit 10mil only the big dogs can play in the console world which slows game releases and hurts sales.

Titan/TitanZ both have a purpose you're missing. PRO APPS with DP that is 1/2 the cost of TESLA (or same cost but double perf). They are not aimed at PURE gamers. Sure a few buy them for bragging rights, but most buy because they can't afford a tesla/quadro and want to get some work done at home AND play games. 95% of the people buying them know exactly WHY they are doing it and that it's a great deal.


I was referring to Hardware in the consoles not growth in sales or popularity. I was referring to the fact that Consoles are just low budget gaming machines. You are correct and i agree, consoles arent doing well.

As for Titan the card is design for non-gamers however your missing the bragging rights. I have A LOT of single friends (lol) that bough this card and sli'd this card just to have that OMG Drool factor. The actual purpose for the titan/z is much more suited for non-gaming applications and its secondary function is for gaming :D 


I get your point now, that's true on the hardware of consoles but unfortunately for them they shot too low on that front and mobile will catch them at 14nm probably with a few tricks to help them out doing it (faster ram, stacked ram, faster clocks, more gpu cores etc). Well you must have a special group of friends, but most buy for DP and are repeat buyers yearly according to jen (cheap workhorse, just no driver support for pro apps) and I did say:
"Sure a few buy them for bragging rights, but most buy because they can't afford a tesla/quadro and want to get some work done at home AND play games." Noting the bragging rights. ;)  I guess you know most of the few I mentioned :)  Dang, tell them send me one or two...LOL.

Many good points here; enjoy your day.
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0
June 18, 2014 8:34:16 AM

InvalidError said:
If you actually read the article, when board manufacturers asked AMD and Nvidia to reduce prices on the GPUs chips, AMD and Nvidia responded by reducing chip production to maintain current chip prices. That definitely counts as doing something to keep prices up.


Yup, that's what I was referring to. RAM manufacturers do the same thing, ie. cut supply to raise prices,
and in the last year they did it bigtime. An 8GB/1600 kit today costs more than an 8GB/2133 cost 18
months ago.

Ian.



Score
1
June 18, 2014 9:40:16 AM

mapesdhs said:
InvalidError said:
If you actually read the article, when board manufacturers asked AMD and Nvidia to reduce prices on the GPUs chips, AMD and Nvidia responded by reducing chip production to maintain current chip prices. That definitely counts as doing something to keep prices up.


Yup, that's what I was referring to. RAM manufacturers do the same thing, ie. cut supply to raise prices,
and in the last year they did it bigtime. An 8GB/1600 kit today costs more than an 8GB/2133 cost 18
months ago.

Ian.





While there might be some truth to that, I thought RAM prices initially spiked due to the fire at one of the largest manufacturers plants going up in smoke.

http://www.theguardian.com/business/2013/sep/06/china-f...

While prices should come down eventually (hopefully) it's kind of the same thing that happened to HDD's when all that flooding occurred.
Score
0
a b U Graphics card
June 18, 2014 9:54:34 AM

mapesdhs said:
RAM manufacturers do the same thing, ie. cut supply to raise prices,
and in the last year they did it bigtime.

Many of them converted lines to more profitable NAND and some of them have started converting lines to DDR4. They had very little choice to do something to raise DDR3 prices since most of them were making losses on DDR3 chips back then - so much so that Elpida went bankrupt.

DRAM manufacturing is a pretty harsh business and manufacturers have to take whatever profit they can while they can if they want to recover their losses from the previous lull and survive the next one.
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0
June 18, 2014 1:24:45 PM

Quote:
vipboy28 said:


3) Consoles are getting stronger every year, however so are pc's consoles are just dumb downed computers with limited OS's. I bought a Wii U becuase its fun, and any game i need or want to play is on the PC with a great community full of people.

5) High end card like titan z and Titan, and even 780ti to some extent are designed to be bragging rights, Yes its over priced, but if your friend bought one and has a tri-1440p setup play watch dogs or wolfenstien, you would probably drool everywhere. I know i would lol. (im mid range pc builder spend about 400 on vc and 800 on everything else.)


Consoles are not getting stronger every year. Wiiu sales are terrible (6.7mil in almost two years?), vita sales suck, 3ds is ok, ps4/xbox1 dropping momentum (already both off 50% just 1Q after release, we'll see how much more off in this Q shortly), MS won't even admit SELL-THROUGH numbers. Based on the rate they are dropping per month sony will be lucky to hit 11mil+ and MS won't hit 10mil this year. Devs ran from consoles and went to PC and mobile at last years GDC and this years 2014 GDC as the survey shows. So games will be massively on the PC/mobile vs. consoles and that won't help sales either. Until you hit 10mil only the big dogs can play in the console world which slows game releases and hurts sales.

Titan/TitanZ both have a purpose you're missing. PRO APPS with DP that is 1/2 the cost of TESLA (or same cost but double perf). They are not aimed at PURE gamers. Sure a few buy them for bragging rights, but most buy because they can't afford a tesla/quadro and want to get some work done at home AND play games. 95% of the people buying them know exactly WHY they are doing it and that it's a great deal.



Wii U sales sucked because they failed to have any killer games at launch, combined with a lot of consumers thinking the "Wii U" was just a controller for the Wii due to poor advertising. But now that nintendo is rolling out a lot of new killer titles and staple franchise games, the sales are skyrocketing. Mario Kart 8 alone increased Wii U sales by 600% lol.

When consumers can get their hands on the latest Smash Brothers, Zelda, Mario Kart and can see a growing library of interesting games, Wii U's are going to fly off the shelves.

You're right about a lot of devs moving to PC though, and the titan Z uses. Just wanted to note that the Wii U will do fine, and 3DS sales are beyond "ok". 3DS system and game sales alone could keep nintendo afloat for the next 5+ years without any issues lol.
Score
0
a b U Graphics card
June 18, 2014 8:13:21 PM

mapesdhs said:
InvalidError said:
If you actually read the article, when board manufacturers asked AMD and Nvidia to reduce prices on the GPUs chips, AMD and Nvidia responded by reducing chip production to maintain current chip prices. That definitely counts as doing something to keep prices up.


Yup, that's what I was referring to. RAM manufacturers do the same thing, ie. cut supply to raise prices,
and in the last year they did it bigtime. An 8GB/1600 kit today costs more than an 8GB/2133 cost 18
months ago.

Ian.


I got two sets of 16GB DDR3 1.5v for new PC's for my dad and I just waiting on Broadwell and to see who rises to the top of the Z97 boards (maybe not z97 now that OCing is coming to other chipsets). I got them both for $75-80 thinking there was going to be a shortage created due to tech news sites reporting it was coming (digitimes etc). It went down a bit more first but then wham, happy we bought near the bottom before they did the supply reductions. Unfortunately they are 4x4GB kits but I don't care, we're still saving nearly $70 per kit or more. It sucks that they do this manipulation but prices were so low I can see why as they can't make a much at $60 for 16GB (I think our kits went a bit lower even IIRC). Tough to make money on such low pricing due to the flooding of the chips then, exacerbated by the win8 rollout not selling any pc's they THOUGHT would be rolling off shelves immediately shipped with lots of it or needing more ram.
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June 19, 2014 2:27:43 AM


Interesting idea there, that RAM makers would prepare production on the assumption that Win8 would drive
new PC sales. Hard to know if that was really a factor, but it wouldn't surprise me.

I wish I'd bought more 8GB/2133 kits when they were el cheapo (45 UKP or below);
the same kit today is about 67. Oh well, I did at least manage to win a few such
kits on eBay for reasonable prices, eg. item 111338530922.


Ian.

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0
June 19, 2014 8:22:35 AM

somebodyspecial said:
vipboy28 said:
somebodyspecial said:
vipboy28 said:


3) Consoles are getting stronger every year, however so are pc's consoles are just dumb downed computers with limited OS's. I bought a Wii U becuase its fun, and any game i need or want to play is on the PC with a great community full of people.

5) High end card like titan z and Titan, and even 780ti to some extent are designed to be bragging rights, Yes its over priced, but if your friend bought one and has a tri-1440p setup play watch dogs or wolfenstien, you would probably drool everywhere. I know i would lol. (im mid range pc builder spend about 400 on vc and 800 on everything else.)


Consoles are not getting stronger every year. Wiiu sales are terrible (6.7mil in almost two years?), vita sales suck, 3ds is ok, ps4/xbox1 dropping momentum (already both off 50% just 1Q after release, we'll see how much more off in this Q shortly), MS won't even admit SELL-THROUGH numbers. Based on the rate they are dropping per month sony will be lucky to hit 11mil+ and MS won't hit 10mil this year. Devs ran from consoles and went to PC and mobile at last years GDC and this years 2014 GDC as the survey shows. So games will be massively on the PC/mobile vs. consoles and that won't help sales either. Until you hit 10mil only the big dogs can play in the console world which slows game releases and hurts sales.

Titan/TitanZ both have a purpose you're missing. PRO APPS with DP that is 1/2 the cost of TESLA (or same cost but double perf). They are not aimed at PURE gamers. Sure a few buy them for bragging rights, but most buy because they can't afford a tesla/quadro and want to get some work done at home AND play games. 95% of the people buying them know exactly WHY they are doing it and that it's a great deal.


I was referring to Hardware in the consoles not growth in sales or popularity. I was referring to the fact that Consoles are just low budget gaming machines. You are correct and i agree, consoles arent doing well.

As for Titan the card is design for non-gamers however your missing the bragging rights. I have A LOT of single friends (lol) that bough this card and sli'd this card just to have that OMG Drool factor. The actual purpose for the titan/z is much more suited for non-gaming applications and its secondary function is for gaming :D 


I get your point now, that's true on the hardware of consoles but unfortunately for them they shot too low on that front and mobile will catch them at 14nm probably with a few tricks to help them out doing it (faster ram, stacked ram, faster clocks, more gpu cores etc). Well you must have a special group of friends, but most buy for DP and are repeat buyers yearly according to jen (cheap workhorse, just no driver support for pro apps) and I did say:
"Sure a few buy them for bragging rights, but most buy because they can't afford a tesla/quadro and want to get some work done at home AND play games." Noting the bragging rights. ;)  I guess you know most of the few I mentioned :)  Dang, tell them send me one or two...LOL.

Many good points here; enjoy your day.


100% Agree with you here. I will tell my friends... but they love that single life lol shoot I want them to toss one my way. Its funny because they are EXTREMELY casual about it. "Hey, I did a minor upgrade on my pc.. I sli'd my Titan and bought 3 new 27 monitors..."

... COME ON!
Score
0
a b U Graphics card
June 19, 2014 8:56:02 AM

airborne11b said:
Quote:
vipboy28 said:


3) Consoles are getting stronger every year, however so are pc's consoles are just dumb downed computers with limited OS's. I bought a Wii U becuase its fun, and any game i need or want to play is on the PC with a great community full of people.

5) High end card like titan z and Titan, and even 780ti to some extent are designed to be bragging rights, Yes its over priced, but if your friend bought one and has a tri-1440p setup play watch dogs or wolfenstien, you would probably drool everywhere. I know i would lol. (im mid range pc builder spend about 400 on vc and 800 on everything else.)


Consoles are not getting stronger every year. Wiiu sales are terrible (6.7mil in almost two years?), vita sales suck, 3ds is ok, ps4/xbox1 dropping momentum (already both off 50% just 1Q after release, we'll see how much more off in this Q shortly), MS won't even admit SELL-THROUGH numbers. Based on the rate they are dropping per month sony will be lucky to hit 11mil+ and MS won't hit 10mil this year. Devs ran from consoles and went to PC and mobile at last years GDC and this years 2014 GDC as the survey shows. So games will be massively on the PC/mobile vs. consoles and that won't help sales either. Until you hit 10mil only the big dogs can play in the console world which slows game releases and hurts sales.

Titan/TitanZ both have a purpose you're missing. PRO APPS with DP that is 1/2 the cost of TESLA (or same cost but double perf). They are not aimed at PURE gamers. Sure a few buy them for bragging rights, but most buy because they can't afford a tesla/quadro and want to get some work done at home AND play games. 95% of the people buying them know exactly WHY they are doing it and that it's a great deal.



Wii U sales sucked because they failed to have any killer games at launch, combined with a lot of consumers thinking the "Wii U" was just a controller for the Wii due to poor advertising. But now that nintendo is rolling out a lot of new killer titles and staple franchise games, the sales are skyrocketing. Mario Kart 8 alone increased Wii U sales by 600% lol.

When consumers can get their hands on the latest Smash Brothers, Zelda, Mario Kart and can see a growing library of interesting games, Wii U's are going to fly off the shelves.

You're right about a lot of devs moving to PC though, and the titan Z uses. Just wanted to note that the Wii U will do fine, and 3DS sales are beyond "ok". 3DS system and game sales alone could keep nintendo afloat for the next 5+ years without any issues lol.


www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2014/05/07/nintendo-mis...
455mil loss for the year (more than 343mil predicted by nintendo), and even this last Q of that they lost 229mil. Not sure how you keep afloat on losses, they have to turn that around. But yes games can increase sales, no argument there. 1.18B in losses for the last 3yr total. Not sure they've sold 7mil yet in almost 2yrs for wiiu and that's not good. The 3DS as noted in the article has also missed sales targets. They predicted 18mil for the year then revised that to 13.5mil but in the final result actually only got 12.25mil. So off by ~50% (even though they have sold quite a few) from your own projections is not success is it? When you say 18mil, revise to 13.5mil and get 12.25...I say OUCH. :)  That spike in sales isn't for long on any single game either, and a spike from next to nothing in sales for a quarter is still a small spike right? If I'm selling 1 unit today and sales go up to 6 units tomorrow it's still a small increase ;)  Overall they said sales increased 4 fold (666% in UK though...LOL@666) but comments just say that gets you out of the basement not much more, it will take more hits than this to even crack 10mil wiiu's sold by xmas (and I doubt this).

I also see 3ds going down, and most of what they got came due to the fact they got out of the game before mobile gaming really got going (as in past angry birds crap) as you can see from what happened to Vita who came after mobile was far past Angry Birds. Clearly from the sales tanking people are looking elsewhere already. You can do so much more with a unit like shield r1 ($200 now) and r2 is a month away. The specs on R1 blow away both vita and 3ds, and K1/shield2 is a whole other ballgame. NV will wash rinse repeat yearly on this too, as will ouya moving to T4 soon probably (or maybe just skip to K1), and all other android consoles will do the same if they have any success at all. I expect a full fledged ~125w android console at some point to directly compete with xbox1/ps4 as in 2x 20nm M1's (or whatever they call maxwell tegra), SSD or cheap HD, 8-16GB 125w psu etc. A steamOS/Android dual boot on it would be pretty awesome and cause even more problems for everyone else, assuming at some point NV or Valve ports steamos to android. This is a no-brainer IMHO, as valve surely wants to sell android games too so why leave all that to google? I think steam's store is better anyway than googleplay (difficult to find the great stuff on there compared to steam). I don't even have a steam account but go there to check stuff out at times. Great game stats (sales, info etc), forums, easy to search for what you're after etc. It's useful even if you don't have an account. Look out Google ;) 

Also note nintendo is only predicting 3.6mil in wiiu sales even with all the titles you mention. That would barely be 10mil or so after more than 2yrs. With 20nm SOCS coming shortly your android tablet will be more powerful by quite a bit than a wiiu. That's a tough sell at that point games or not as some great stuff is already out or coming for them with 50% of devs paying attention per GDC 2014 (you have to or you're brain dead with 1.2B units sold yearly). The only thing beating that mark is PC's barely at ~51%. Wiiu isn't even on the map for devs, it's only nintendo which isn't good either. They'll need to cross 10mil before anyone looks at them especially smaller devs who can't wait for 5-7yrs of console sales (like an EA/Activision/Blizzard can). Games aimed at shield r2 (any kepler console) and even T4 etc should start to show more console like experiences. Once the 20nm versions all hit on SOCs everything will be kepler power level or more and with the engines all working on mobile (unreal4, unity etc) everything can be ported or made for these mobile units, again making life rough for all consoles. Sheer units will cause games to be aimed at mobile and pc. Mobile expected to grow to 2.5B in 2016. Consoles might have 20mil by then each. Hard for devs to look away from mobile, if not PC.

I'm not sure tons of people will by a new wiiu just for a title or 3 etc (I won't, not enough to woo me) with what is going on in mobile and xbox1/ps4 both at $400 and much more powerful. Their life is just going to get more difficult. I'm sure they'll get sales pops for each game you mention but I'm not sure they'll get enough to matter. Devs showed 60% making stuff for android last year and 40 for PC so it looks like ~10% switched back to PC but consoles didn't get much help. For another year or two games if aimed at consoles at all will mostly be aimed at xbox360/ps3 since there are already ~100mil each in the market (again especially small devs who require a huge audience for quicker returns). Clearly PC's making a major comeback if someone can even claim they ever left (more software money on PC now than console at $15.2B vs. 15B).

It will be an interesting next 12 months that's for sure. It will be very interesting to see the 20nm SOC effect on all consoles/handhelds (qcom/nv/apple all have great gpus inside and Arm's mali isn't bad either). To be honest I'd rather see nintendo port their games to mobile, and start making the new stuff for there and PC's. They could make a TON of more money doing this as they have GREAT games themselves, just not enough hardware to sell copies to. You're literally buying nintendo to play NINTENDO games, as most everything else looks better on other platforms and is already there too. We should have this conversation again after xmas :)  We'll all know a LOT more by then. All the devs that were making mobile games during GDC 2013 should start to show up this xmas (1-2yrs dev cycles) along with a lot of new hardware (few T4 consoles, Shield2 and maybe other K1 based consoles/handhelds, even phones/tablets with 20nm socs etc). If the consoles/handhelds survive xmas/Q1 without tanking another 50% all around and all cross 10mil maybe they have some shot. Otherwise...It's going to get really ugly fast for them all.
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June 20, 2014 5:45:59 AM

When addictive games are still using light graphics, when majority is still using 1366x768 on their desktops/laptops, when people still feel no advantage having a video card in their computers, like games, 3D apps (VR for the help!), or webpages having advantage on video cards, then they'll never upgrade or get a video card, ever.
Maybe facebook buying oculus is a super idea, which will put graphically intense stuff into facebook, so people would maybe use PC more for the immersion.
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a b U Graphics card
June 20, 2014 6:27:51 AM

BlasterX said:
Maybe facebook buying oculus is a super idea, which will put graphically intense stuff into facebook, so people would maybe use PC more for the immersion.

Most people I know who used to use Facebook have sworn to reduce if not completely eliminate their use of it after all the privacy and content ownership BS from the past two years. Inserting ads in feeds also annoyed quite a few.

My own FB account has very little use beyond keeping track of family birthdays and general announcements.
Score
1
June 20, 2014 10:28:04 AM

vipboy28 said:
As for Titan the card is design for non-gamers ... The actual purpose for the titan/z is much more suited for non-gaming applications and its secondary function is for gaming :D 


Unfortunately some pro markets cannot use the Titan because it does not have ECC RAM, eg.
financial transaction processing. Also, as a gamer variant card, it lacks some of the features of
Tesla cards which are important for certain types of pro task, eg. full speed PCI return path,
caching mechanism, etc.

Ian.

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