Discussion Rant: The Wait for GPUs is Really Painful

[sitehostplus]

1. Do you think the next generation will be better?
2. Do you also want to upgrade, but choose to wait for one more gen because of how terrible this gen is? If yes, what is your current GPU?
3. What are some single player games that can be played well by the GTX 1070?

1. Yeah it will be.
2. No. My GTX 1060 died, and I was using the IGP packed in the 7950x3d when it literally overheated and almost melted down playing 'Command and Conquer: Red Alert 2'. That's when I knew I was racing against time to get a video card, and I simply bought the very best thing I could find in the store (RTX 4080). If they had been selling a RTX 4090, I probably would have bought it.
3. Just about anything than be played well by a 1070, you just have to get the graphics setting in the game right so it can.

 

[thestryker]

The only thing that will normalize pricing is people truly stop buying new cards or if Intel can cover the performance of everything up to the $700-900 price point but with 25% less cost.

Personally I wouldn't buy a halo card as I've thought they've been too expensive since pretty much forever, but the $100 increase from RTX 3090 to RTX 4090 versus the huge performance delta is the only reasonable price shift this generation. Everything else is just nvidia picking a price point and AMD playing to those price points.

 

[DSzymborski]

I see absolutely NO evidence whatsoever that inflation has affected the selling price of silicon over the past six years, let alone just the past three. There has been no pricing explosion in CPUs which means that there's no excuse for one in GPUs.

You're using a baseline without any particular argument justifying it as the baseline. The data you've provided only demonstrates that GPUs went up in price more in nominal dollars than CPUs did. It can just as easily be argued that GPU prices are an artifact of inflation and CPUs prices are *less* in real dollars than a few years ago; it's not a particularly hard argument to make either since we know for a fact that inflation exists. In addition, given that AMD's far more competitive in CPU market share than GPU market share, the CPU market is far more competitive, so there's a reason to believe that there are more downward price pressures in the CPU market than the GPU market in whatever inflationary scenario.

 

[BFG-9000]

Fat chance prices will ever come down. See, video cards are technically too cheap as it is.

The average person can still afford to buy the fastest GPU or smartphone in the world. Sure, they may have to sacrifice some luxuries to do it and it will only be the fastest for about a year so is a bad investment, but it can be done by most people if it is a priority for them to have that.

In contrast, the average person will never be able to afford the fastest car, the best house, or the hottest wife no matter how long they live. Such things are just not meant for mere mortals. Given human nature, I expect it won't be long now before Ultra Super Deluxe Extreme Edition GPUs will arrive for 5 figures and people will still buy them. We would already have them if SLI/Crossfire had only worked better, but now they seem to have solved the interconnect bandwidth issue with chiplets.

 

[MrN1ce9uy]

The ~$600 price point is actually good right now. The power hungry RX 6950 XT or the more efficient RTX 4070 are some of the best price-to-performance GPUs out right now. It really depends on your display resolution.

At 1080p the RX 6650 XT is priced fair at $245. It's in between $250 and $600 where there is a gap and the RTX 4060 Ti just pooped on that gap and made it smell even worse. The RX 6700 XT is decent, but it's right in between a performance level that I personally don't like for 1440p. I like the RX 6800 XT and it's decent at $500, but I'd rather see it at $400.

 

[IDProG]

I think people get the wrong idea here. I am not here to be convinced that this generation's pricing is reasonable.
In my opinion, this generation's pricing is OBJECTIVELY not reasonable and there is nothing you can do to convince me otherwise. You can disagree, but you are wrong.

I do follow these companies' earnings calls. Nvidia keeps reporting record profits.

It's actually depressing how there are so many people defending this garbage. I'm going to post multiple comments to respond to the trash opinions some people have here, though I won't do all at once, because I have a life.

I do wonder if these people actually have Nvidia or AMD stocks, that's why they're such a corporate shill.

The inflation rate is only around 23% from 2017 to 2023.

I'm going to ignore halo products (the 90 series). I'm also going to ignore Ampere because Ampere is a fluke because of the dirt cheap pricing of Samsung 8LPP.

This is the calculation of some of the most popular segment products.

The 4080 costs $1200. $1200 equals to $969 in 2017.
Compare this to other 80 prices.
The 2080's MSRP is $800 (Before we continue, look at that crap. 50% price increase in 4 years. iNfLaTiOn, am I right). $800 equals to $724 in 2017.
The 1080's MSRP is $500.
$500 -> $724 -> $969. That's not how inflation works.
Let's be generous and give 10% increase to the normalized pricing every gen.
The 2080 should've cost $575.
The 4080 should've cost $820.


The 4070 Ti's MSRP is $800. $800 equals to $646 in 2017.
The 2070 Super's MSRP is $500. $500 equals to $479 in 2017. Technically, this is not 2070 Ti. This is what the 2070 should've been.
The 1070 Ti's MSRP is $380.
$450 -> $473 -> $646.
Let's apply the same 10% increase.
The 4070 Ti should've cost $740, and it should've had 16GB VRAM for the pricing, since the 70 series has always had the same amount of VRAM as the 80 series.

The argument does not make sense, anyway. If the price is reasonable, then explain why Nvidia keeps reporting record profits.

"Because of crypto mining"
Oh yeah? Then explain this

https://images.anandtech.com/doci/17578/JPR_AIB_Gross-Margin_575px.png

 

[BFG-9000]

"Whatever the market will bear" pricing has absolutely no relation to inflation, cost of manufacture or profits. Except that if it costs more to manufacture than they can sell it for, then it will simply not be made because it would be unprofitable to do so. The only relevant variable is what enough people are willing to pay. You can complain about it all you like but it's literally their job to maximize profits and not to be reasonable. That's the spirit of free enterprise.

The only constraints are if it is really too high, either competitors may spring up, or the market itself will be killed.

 

[DSzymborski]

I think people get the wrong idea here. I am not here to be convinced that this generation's pricing is reasonable.
In my opinion, this generation's pricing is OBJECTIVELY not reasonable and there is nothing you can do to convince me otherwise. You can disagree, but you are wrong.

Price reasonability is literally a subjective standard.

I might as well say the key lime pie I made this weekend was objectively delicious.

 

[hotaru.hino]

In my opinion, this generation's pricing is OBJECTIVELY not reasonable and there is nothing you can do to convince me otherwise. You can disagree, but you are wrong.

Is there any point to this topic then if you refuse to basically consider any other viewpoint other than "companies are greedy and this is absurd"?

Echo chambers aren't fun other than for stroking your own ego.

 

[IDProG]

but do you truly expect the prices to go down ??
do you expect magically as if this gen is overpriced either Nvidia or AMD is going to drop prices ??

How old are you?

This literally happened in 2015-2016. Maxwell was such a terrible gen that Nvidia launched Pascal, regarded as Nvidia's best generation ever.

The data you've provided only demonstrates that GPUs went up in price more in nominal dollars than CPUs did. It can just as easily be argued that GPU prices are an artifact of inflation and CPUs prices are *less* in real dollars than a few years ago

No. Because just like the GPU, the CPU also uses better and better node. They put more and more transistors into a single core and each core keeps increasing in IPC.

There is no excuse. GPU prices increasing that much is the work of greed.

Fat chance prices will ever come down. See, video cards are technically too cheap as it is.

The average person can still afford to buy the fastest GPU or smartphone in the world. Sure, they may have to sacrifice some luxuries to do it and it will only be the fastest for about a year so is a bad investment, but it can be done by most people if it is a priority for them to have that.

In contrast, the average person will never be able to afford the fastest car, the best house, or the hottest wife no matter how long they live. Such things are just not meant for mere mortals. Given human nature, I expect it won't be long now before Ultra Super Deluxe Extreme Edition GPUs will arrive for 5 figures and people will still buy them. We would already have them if SLI/Crossfire had only worked better, but now they seem to have solved the interconnect bandwidth issue with chiplets.

No way. No way you actually made this comment.

That's right, guys. The food that you eat every day, that's too cheap, you know. $5 is not expensive enough.

Food should cost four figures so that the average person can never pay for it.

"Whatever the market will bear" pricing has absolutely no relation to inflation, cost of manufacture or profits. Except that if it costs more to manufacture than they can sell it for, then it will simply not be made because it would be unprofitable to do so. The only relevant variable is what enough people are willing to pay. You can complain about it all you like but it's literally their job to maximize profits and not to be reasonable. That's the spirit of free enterprise.

The only constraints are if it is really too high, either competitors may spring up, or the market itself will be killed.

And you're just going to give up?

This argument is similar to this:
"It's literally a thief's job to take your money and not be reasonable".

Yes, but that doesn't mean we should give up and not fight back.

Price reasonability is literally a subjective standard.

I might as well say the key lime pie I made this weekend was objectively delicious.

No. Why? Because there is an objective chart that can show whether or not something is reasonably-priced, objectively. It's called the supply-demand equilibrium chart.

Nobody really buys the 4080, the 4070 (Ti), and the 4060 Ti 8GB. I follow the supply leaks. You can also buy one of those easily, unlike the 4090.

Nvidia is clearly far away from the equilibrium. That's how you know the price is not reasonable.

 

[Crosslhs82x2]

It's all going to boil down to
Pay $$$$ For What You Want or Don't

I Will stay with my watercooled Evga 2080 Ti Ftw3 until it :
Gives up the ghost
Or
I feel the current generation at the time is worth it or not and or look to the used market again.

Kinda makes me wonder if there was more of a untold story for evga to get out.

Have A Good Safe Memorial Day Weekend Everybody!!!!!!

 

[DSzymborski]

No. Why? Because there is an objective chart that can show whether or not something is reasonably-priced, objectively. It's called the supply-demand equilibrium chart.

Nobody really buys the 4080, the 4070 (Ti), and the 4060 Ti 8GB. I follow the supply leaks. You can also buy one of those easily, unlike the 4090.

Nvidia is clearly far away from the equilibrium. That's how you know the price is not reasonable.

"Reasonable" is literally subjective. That's all I'm saying. You can *argue* that a price isn't reasonable, but to pretend that this is an objective standard is a gross misapplication of the English language. You say that "reasonable" is an objective standard: show your model and show your work, don't simply assert it loudly and repeatedly.

 

[thestryker]

Reasonable is by definition a subjective word. A more accurate way of looking at it would be getting less for your money which is certainly accurate if one checks generation on generation performance improvements.

Launch MSRP (approx CPI inflation):
GTX 770 $399 ($520)
GTX 970 $329 ($420)
GTX 1070 $379/449 FE ($480/565)
RTX 2070 $499 ($600)
RTX 3070 $499 ($585)
RTX 4070 $599

just going by some TPU 1080p numbers:
GTX 770 26% slower than GTX 970
GTX 970 36% slower than GTX 1070
GTX 1070 25% slower than RTX 2070
RTX 2070 28% slower than RTX 3070
RTX 3070 17% slower than RTX 4070

Objectively you're getting less performance for your money over previous generations, but that doesn't necessarily make it unreasonable to everyone (though I think it very much is).

 

[BFG-9000]

That's right, guys. The food that you eat every day, that's too cheap, you know. $5 is not expensive enough.

Food should cost four figures so that the average person can never pay for it.

Let's get something straight--every card mentioned in this thread is an ultra-luxury item that nobody needs to live. You may believe that the government should supply foie-gras stuffed lobster for free or $5 as nobody can live without it, but I can distinguish between a luxury item and a necessity even when both are food.

I expect everyone here agrees that the prices are pretty unreasonable this gen for the performance, it's just that nVidia have no reason to price them any less, given the state of the competition. nVidia are pissing on us and calling it rain, and YOU are the one hoping that maybe next gen you can drink up.

"It's literally a thief's job to take your money and not be reasonable".

Yes, but that doesn't mean we should give up and not fight back.

Fighting back is giving them money if they ever offer slightly better value?
nVidia isn't going to see a dollar from me, but not because I think they are too expensive. It's because 20 years of "The way it's meant to be played" has proven that their "assistance" to game developers with free tools is primarily to ensure their games artificially use pathways that are intentionally slow on both AMD cards and older nVidia cards, in order to make their newest cards look better. I'll be damned if I'm going to subsidize that kind of reprehensible behavior, but you can go right on ahead.

I think they have every right to be a-holes, just as I have every right to not give them any of my money, and that is a perfectly reasonable viewpoint. Thinking that they should violate their fiduciary responsibility to their shareholders, just to give gamers a discount is not reasonable--that actually could be considered stealing from the shareholders and should rightly get them fired.

 

[renz496]

Nah don't think too much about complicated things and just enjoy playing the games. So what if things are expensive? Just don't spoil yourself too much with high res, high refresh rates and what not if you don't want to pay the expensive price.

 

[Moonstick2]

In 1987 the flagship Ferrari F40 cost about $1,000,000 in today's money. Today the top-of-the-range Daytona SP3 starts at $2,250,000. Is that right? Wrong? "Reasonable"? Does it mean that multimillionaires are being ripped off?

The 4090 reportedly gets 140 fps in Cyberpunk 2077 at 4K with max settings and maximum ray tracing. Nobody needs that. Top of the range graphics cards have always been about benchmark-waving and nothing else. They're not a necessity. Nobody notices the difference in performance unless they turn on FPS and measure it.

Yet people still choose to pay their money for them. I choose not to, they do. I don't begrudge them, but for anybody complaining they can't afford one of the top graphics cards I have about as much sympathy as I would for anyone complaining they can't afford one of the top Ferraris.

I spent what was acceptable to me. I wanted to upgrade a couple of years ago, but scalping and lack of supply put me off so I lived with my R9 290. When I finally did upgrade I looked at 6600XT, 3060Ti, 6700XT, 3070. The 6700XT was decently cheaper than either of the nVidia so I went with that. I'd probably have done fine with a 6600XT but after eight years I'd decided to treat myself. That's how economics works. I didn't then sulk or obsess about benchmarks and whether other people who spent more money might have better FPS than me.

For those complaining about company greed and talking of fighting back, I'm not sure what I was supposed to do. Not buy my 6700XT in the hope that they'd get to pay less for their 4090?

 

[MrN1ce9uy]

In 1987 the flagship Ferrari F40 cost about $1,000,000 in today's money. Today the top-of-the-range Daytona SP3 starts at $2,250,000. Is that right? Wrong? "Reasonable"? Does it mean that multimillionaires are being ripped off?

The 4090 reportedly gets 140 fps in Cyberpunk 2077 at 4K with max settings and maximum ray tracing. Nobody needs that. Top of the range graphics cards have always been about benchmark-waving and nothing else. They're not a necessity. Nobody notices the difference in performance unless they turn on FPS and measure it.

Yet people still choose to pay their money for them. I choose not to, they do. I don't begrudge them, but for anybody complaining they can't afford one of the top graphics cards I have about as much sympathy as I would for anyone complaining they can't afford one of the top Ferraris.

I spent what was acceptable to me. I wanted to upgrade a couple of years ago, but scalping and lack of supply put me off so I lived with my R9 290. When I finally did upgrade I looked at 6600XT, 3060Ti, 6700XT, 3070. The 6700XT was decently cheaper than either of the nVidia so I went with that. I'd probably have done fine with a 6600XT but after eight years I'd decided to treat myself. That's how economics works. I didn't then sulk or obsess about benchmarks and whether other people who spent more money might have better FPS than me.

For those complaining about company greed and talking of fighting back, I'm not sure what I was supposed to do. Not buy my 6700XT in the hope that they'd get to pay less for their 4090?

That was an increase of 225% over 36 years... In 2017 the flagship GTX 1080 Ti cost $699 and in 2022 the flagship RTX 3090 Ti cost $1,999 which is 285% increase in price over 5 years. Something isn't adding up...

 

[IDProG]

In 1987 the flagship Ferrari F40 cost about $1,000,000 in today's money. Today the top-of-the-range Daytona SP3 starts at $2,250,000. Is that right? Wrong? "Reasonable"? Does it mean that multimillionaires are being ripped off?

The 4090 reportedly gets 140 fps in Cyberpunk 2077 at 4K with max settings and maximum ray tracing. Nobody needs that. Top of the range graphics cards have always been about benchmark-waving and nothing else. They're not a necessity. Nobody notices the difference in performance unless they turn on FPS and measure it.

Yet people still choose to pay their money for them. I choose not to, they do. I don't begrudge them, but for anybody complaining they can't afford one of the top graphics cards I have about as much sympathy as I would for anyone complaining they can't afford one of the top Ferraris.

I spent what was acceptable to me. I wanted to upgrade a couple of years ago, but scalping and lack of supply put me off so I lived with my R9 290. When I finally did upgrade I looked at 6600XT, 3060Ti, 6700XT, 3070. The 6700XT was decently cheaper than either of the nVidia so I went with that. I'd probably have done fine with a 6600XT but after eight years I'd decided to treat myself. That's how economics works. I didn't then sulk or obsess about benchmarks and whether other people who spent more money might have better FPS than me.

For those complaining about company greed and talking of fighting back, I'm not sure what I was supposed to do. Not buy my 6700XT in the hope that they'd get to pay less for their 4090?

It's easy to find flaws of your argument.

Ferrari is a terrible example to be used as.
Ferrari is like Nvidia if Nvidia only sells servers and Quadro cards.

 

[Moonstick2]

It's easy to find flaws of your argument.

Only if you miss the point, which is that luxury items cost whatever those selling them feel they can charge for them. Not cost of parts + forever fixed sociably-acceptable % as profit.

In a world where you don't even need a discrete GPU to get decent HD performance, graphics cards that give 4K/Ultra/raytracing/100+ FPS are luxuries.

But according to you...

IMO, only buy GPU "right now" if the GPU is literally going to die while waiting, and I don't think you should even do that. Just wait with an iGPU, find another hobby or use the time you usually game to work harder...

...I shouldn't have bought a 6700XT but instead be sitting around playing old games, or new games at low settings, or even just doing more work, because that might then help people like you buy a 7900XTX for $900 instead of $999.

Not exactly an inspiring cause to get behind.

 

[IDProG]

Only if you miss the point, which is that luxury items cost whatever those selling them feel they can charge for them. Not cost of parts + forever fixed sociably-acceptable % as profit.

In a world where you don't even need a discrete GPU to get decent HD performance, graphics cards that give 4K/Ultra/raytracing/100+ FPS are luxuries.

But according to you...

...I shouldn't have bought a 6700XT but instead be sitting around playing old games, or new games at low settings, or even just doing more work, because that might then help people like you buy a 7900XTX for $900 instead of $999.

Not exactly an inspiring cause to get behind.

I don't know why you brought up RDNA 2. I kept saying "this generation". IMO, RDNA 2 cards are currently priced very well.

 

[DSzymborski]

This thread has run its course. If one wishes to berate people who disagree with their opinions, one has the need to start a congregation, not a thread in a forum.