Just Buy It: Why Nvidia RTX GPUs Are Worth the Money

[apiltch]

Some enthusiasts are upset about the price of the Nvidia RTX 2080 / 2070, but the opportunity cost of sticking with old technology is higher.

Just Buy It: Why Nvidia RTX GPUs Are Worth the Money : Read more

 

[Cryio]

"you won't be able to take advantage of key RTX features like real-time ray tracing"

You actually can. If your GPU can do DX12, it can do ray tracing. It's just that the option itself will be more heavy on older GPUs than on new GPUs. The same with how tessellation was a heavy effect on HD 5000/GTX 400 compared to really low cost on current Vega 64 or GTX 1080.

 

[feelinfroggy777]

While I do tend to agree with the philosophy as a whole, this is a very different launch than before. Given this is really a new way to run games, I believe it is wise to see some unbiased performance information.

While you wont see prices fall below MSRP, after supply catches up in several months, these RTX cards can be had at MSRP. This happens with every launch. When the 1080 was launched prices were sky high for the first few months due to limited capacity and high demand.

The only real advantage for pricing yo may have is the resell value of your current hardware. Barring another Crypto craze, the 10xx series used cards wont be worth more than they are today. As every day and month passes, the value of those cards will drop. So if you can flip your 1080 or 1080ti for a decent price today, it may be worth taking the risk of selling and preordering a RTX card.

But for me, I will wait till I see unbiased performance data before dropping 1k+ on a PC component.

 

[siuwarren]

Not if you just like playing Anime games

 

[btmedic04]

Avram, I bet you bought a physix card when they were released. How did that turn out for you? Nobody can enjoy an RTX card until September 20th, so why spend so much on a card that nobody has an apples to apples performance comparison yet? This article is awful and peddles uninformed buying decisions for the consumer

 

[JimmiG]

TU104 isn't that big a chip, it's the cut-down, mid-range, gaming oriented chip, just like GP104 and GK104 before it. Don't be so eager to throw money at Nvidia and fuel their monopoly, their profit margins are already insane. Wait until the excess stock of Pascal-based cards has been sold off. Around the holidays or Q1 2019, Q2 at the latest, you should be able to buy an RTX card for a more reasonable price.

 

[Biga101011]

Depends on what the actual rtx performance is. I can with my 1080ti hey 100+ fps in all games at high settings in 1440p. I would not be willing to except lower frame rates to make a game look better, I will always turn down settings to keep my frame rate up.

Since rtx appears to be all or nothing, if the new cards can not hit 100+ fps at 1440p with rtx there is literally no advantage for me. I won't ever turn it on and sacrifice the performance. So the argument of it having anything over the 1080ti doesn't really apply to me. Stuttering gives me a headache, and all the demos were stuttering like crazy. New games and better optimization may help some, but I don't think I would turn it on anyway until the hardware got more powerful to do raytracing at a high frame rate.

Maybe the next gen will hit a reasonable frame rate with rtx. If so I will probably buy into it then, because the games look fantastic with it. Despite my disagreement about it being the better card in the long run, I am genuinely excited about the technology.

 

[GeoffCoope]

Marketing has a way of sounding better than it is, take Magic Leap for instance. Yes they are selling out in many places, maybe the initial batch was very low to make it appear this way. Another batch will come. Where are the independent game benchmarks why was this not shown. The Siggraph demos were OK but not amazing. This is an era where FPS seems more important than eye candy yet all we have so far is eye candy and marketing.

It is wiser to hold off until they are in the wild and real users and independent reviewers have hands on experience rather than buying blind just because, I find this article a bit reckless to suggest otherwise.

 

[tooterfishes]

wait for AMD to respond

 

[timf79]

It would be great to see real benchmarks with games like DOTA 2 (where I doubt an RTX will do better than a Titan XP) and X-Plane (which is single GPU hungry)

 

[lomaxrobert]

i dont think i have ever read a more poorly thought out reason to buy a new component with no data to back it up, "its just a dont think buy it now approach". myself im getting a bit tired of the power creep from nvidia bleeding gamers dry

 

[Hetzbh_]

Avram,
I wouldn't recommend *ANYONE* to buy a GPU, no matter *what* GPU and from whatever vendor, until at least the reviews will be out. Sure, nVidia claims that the new RTX 2080 is 50-125% faster, compared to the 1080Ti.
That's great, but nVidia is a business company would like to push as much as it can it's GPU, while reviewers care about their integrity and real results.
So I suggest: Wait for the results, then decide if you want to purchase or not.

 

[-Fran-]

Not an article I'd expect from an Editor in Chief of Tom's Hardware to be honest...

What I read here is "buy first, think later" approach and it gives very little to the wise words of "wait for reviews until you spend your hard earned dollar".

So, what gives? Should we expect an update or follow up of this? Is there information you're touting after seeing the numbers themselves without breaking the NDAs?

Cheers!

 

[Patrick_1966]

https://www.canadacomputers.com/search/product.php?cPath=43_1200_557_559&item_id=115325 is 1699 add tax and GST @13% and we get 1919.87. and that is for a card that in the US is going for $USD 699 https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125989 Multiplyer of 2.43. Now a RTX card is about $1100 with the 2.43 makes it $CDN $2673 all costs included. I factored a market allowance to give me $CDN2500 as an average figure. That is how I came up with my figures. Considering this is a new product and there are not going to be any discounts for tier one vendors I don't see my numbers being that far off. Partner vendors may flex things 5 or 6% in either direction but I think the card will still be North of $2000 Canadian as a minimum and much more likely to be over $2250 And if the Bitcoin miners strip the market again we could see $2500 as a starting price. This follows the logic of the market for the last year or so. If Nvidia can't meet demand then we will be back to much higher prices for the RTX-2080 at perhaps just below what a quadro -1000 retails for maximum. I truly hope my numbers are off but I really don't see any of the factors listed being mitigated for quite sometime. Economics of technology suggest that pricing won't be adjusted for 12 to 24 months. Given historical supply shortages and extereme demand There is no reason for any vendor to lower the prices in the short run. Maybe when the 7nm chips come out we might see a 10% adjustment but I don't think the 7nm chips will be out on time and are likely delayed for 12 to 18 months.?https://www.polygon.com/2018/8/20/17760038/nvidia-geforce-rtx-2080-ti-2070-specs-release-date-price-turing is my reference for the $USD1199 price tag for the top end model RTX-2080Ti.?

 

[steve15180]

let's see. Ryzen preorder started, Tom's recommended never preorder, wait for reviews,
Threadripper, ditto. Threadripper 2, ditto. Nvidia? Jump now, don't wait, sold out,
might not get in on the ground floor. How much of your advertising comes from
Nvida and it's partners? Nothing like having a grounded editorial stance to inspire
confidence in a website.

 

[nathan.david.rice]

I'm not that concerned about the level of graphical realism in games, and I just got a GTX 1080, so I won't be an early adopter of RTX. Besides, I kind of read your piece as being sort of a peer pressure argument. I really don't respond well to those. It actually comes down to value; do the new cards offer enough of a boost for what I'll pay? Nvidia's own test info tells me they don't. At the very least, I'll be waiting for independent benchmarking.

 

[Baggotry]

1.) That $526 GTX 1080 Ti you linked is a scam, btw.

2.) Very few people have 4k monitor, not much cost to "buying outdated tech", as very few games will support RTX on launch.

3.) By the time more than 11 games support RTX features, new cards will likely be out. Horrible argument to buy a 2XXX card and "hope" magically more than 11 games within the next year or two support it.

4.) If the 1080 Ti is outdated in 2020, then we can just buy the probably-better-value 3XXX series, lol.

This is a horribly unpersuasive opinion piece.

 

[GeoffCoope]

I think this new GPU pricing will make users decide that the rest of the system needs an upgrade first. As a result Ray Tracing is not going to get the consumer demand NVidia want. Yes it may be great, wonderful and the future but its going to be a slow take up so no need to rush is there?

How many here since siggraph have decided to upgrade everything but the GPU instead?

As for CPU's, AMD are forcing Intel to drop prices, the graphs that show this are great for consumers, all due to competition. NVidia has no competition yet so charge what they want for a new technology we didn't know we wanted until a few weeks back. A solution to a problem we don't really care about...yet.

 

[Jay_29]

Heh, I've upgraded every generation. The whole "DSR" bs got me on the Pascal hype train. Guess what? Overwatch stutters when running in DSR on 4K resolution using a 1080 Ti. That's with render scaling at 100%.

There are already online posts saying RTX 2080 Ti manages to produce sub 40 FPS performance with Ray Tracing enabled in Tomb Raider. So no, Mr. Editor in Chief. I'll wait my 30 days and decide whether I should buy that GPU or not.

 

[quilciri]

Life is short, blow your wad.

...yeeaaaaaahh. Gonna hang on to my 1070 a while longer, thanks.

 

[bloodroses]

"Life is short. How many months or years do you want to wait to enjoy a new experience? You can sit around twiddling your thumbs and hoping that an RTX 2080 gets cheaper, or you can enter the world of ray-tracing and high-speed, 4K gaming today and never look back. When you die and your whole life flashes before your eyes, how much of it do you want to not have ray tracing?"

The problem with this statement you made is that you actually can't have ray-tracing, high-speed, and 4k gaming at the same time on a RTX2080 according to the preliminary benchmarks shown (nothing even reaches 60fps). By the time enough titles are out there taking advantage of these features, this card will be a couple generations old and woefully under-powered.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for new tech like ray-tracing. However, early adopters usually end up losing in a long run with a product that doesn't quite meet expectations. And at that price, that's a loss I can live without.

 

[shrapnel_indie]

However, what these price-panicked pundits don't understand is

Seriously? Start name calling/labeling? how disingenuous. It undermines the whole argument, weak as it is.

that there's value in being an early adopter.

Usually early adopters pay extra $$$, and have to sit through and put up with the manufacturer fine tuning after release... and in some cases, will never see the results of that until a later revision of the product is released. It isn't like NVidia will be like "Oh, we were able to tweak the hardware configuration/board layout and improve upon it, let's upgrade you for free." NEVER has this happened in computer parts. There has been cases also of early adopters becoming owners of orphans. I don't think that will be the case here, but don't pretend that being an early adopter is so risk-free

And there's a cost to either delaying your purchase or getting an older-generation product so you can save money.

What cost? The cost of "you're lame because you don't have the latest and greatest?" Keeping up with the Jones' is EXPENSIVE and is one of the reasons society is so debt enslaved. Yeah, you don't get to enjoy the Ray Tracing immediately (something else that society has quickly adapted: instant gratification, at any cost.)

While we don't have final benchmark results, the new features and enhanced performance of the Turing cards make them worth buying now, even at sky-high prices.

This is very true. We only have what NVidia marketing is telling us... and we all know how truthful marketing always is. What they've shown us is already known to be cherry-picked, and under specific conditions. I say we wait at least until 3rd party benchmarks are released... where we can see a bigger and better picture of its true performance. I just doubt its worth the extra $$$ to pre-order with a chance of underwhelming performance in my current library of games.

 

[Gurg]

"How many months or years do you want to wait to enjoy a new experience?"

24 months or two years until the next generation comes out and there are lots of interesting new games to play.

I've played this game before with beta vs vhs

 

[shrapnel_indie]

Avram,
I wouldn't recommend *ANYONE* to buy a GPU, no matter *what* GPU and from whatever vendor, until at least the reviews will be out. Sure, nVidia claims that the new RTX 2080 is 50-125% faster, compared to the 1080Ti.
That's great, but nVidia is a business company would like to push as much as it can it's GPU, while reviewers care about their integrity and real results.
So I suggest: Wait for the results, then decide if you want to purchase or not.

Unfortunately, not every reviewer cares. Look how many so-called reviews are out on the net that just regurgitate what marketing says, sometimes verbatim.

I do agree on waiting until we get real reviews and not the results of the company's product as passed on from their marketing department.

 

[reneuend]

I'm sure the author got a free GPU for reviewing. Bias review anyone?
At that price, there are a lot of other entertainment options available. I don't need the best graphics to enjoying gaming, as long as the game play design is good.