News Sales of Desktop Graphics Cards Hit 20-Year Low

[sizzling]

The GPU companies are killing themselves... With a MSRP of $1200 for a GPU and street price of $2500... I think there's a problem somewhere and someone is making a lot of money...
People like me are waiting a few generation to buy a old GPU that is capable of playing older games at max and current games at minimum.
Today is to buy an old GTX 1680 at very low price and in a few years to buy a RTX 3080 for maybe $250-300 ...
The secret is to keep the resolution low, ex: 1080P and not going for 4K

I think a large part of the problem, especially for NVidia is the desktop gpu market is mature with little opportunity for any material growth, and shareholders don’t like that. The massive revenue opportunities are in AI and commercial use. It’s fairly common for a business to milk the mature market dry while investing heavily in the areas where future revenues will come from.

 

[MrN1ce9uy]

Well it's not hard to figure the reasons

• even a relatively old GPU can play games acceptably for most people (30-60FPS)
• miners are selling their rigs
• new cards are extremelly expensive. Few years ago 300-500$ was flagship tier. now for this price you get low-middle range.
• consoles are more popular for gaming than PC. PC Gaming was on a rising 10 years ago thanks to the MMO trend. not so anymore

The new cards are good mostly for VR, 4K gaming and Ray Tracing , but those technologies are not used by a majority of gamers which find former generations sufficient (1660ti is still very popular because it just works)

Gamer Nexus made a good video on the subject of the 4080, but some reasons still applies to the whole generation

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OCJYDJXDRHw

+1

Mid-range GPUs from 2016-2019 are still holding their own. Most games I see have hardware requirements of a GTX 1060 or similar. At least video game makers aren't requiring $1,000+ GPUs to comfortably play their games. Games simply aren't fun enough to make me want to pay $1,000 for any single component of a gaming computer.

 

[nocteratus]

I think a large part of the problem, especially for NVidia is the desktop gpu market is mature with little opportunity for any material growth, and shareholders don’t like that. The massive revenue opportunities are in AI and commercial use. It’s fairly common for a business to milk the mature market dry while investing heavily in the areas where future revenues will come from.

Yeah people don't have $$$ any more and neither do I. I'll stick with my RTX 3060 @ 1440P for the next few years.
According to Steam, their survey shows that the most used GPU for gaming is a GTX 1650 @ 1080P

 

[pf100]

The major reason for such poor sales is because AMD and Nvidia still think people will pay crypto mining prices for gpu's. Let these cards rot on shelves until they finally figure out to lower prices.

This, or I'd pick up a RTX 3080 for $500 or so. At current prices, forget it.

This is the way to go - buy used. I waited for the right moment and got a 3080 for $450 on ebay a few weeks ago.

 

[digitalgriffin]

You're moving the goal posts. Your quote was the prices increases weren't justified based on the increase in production costs. Whether or not you liked the prices last generation is irrelevant to the point you made.

They aren't. 1080ti was the best of the best for it's day. It was true flagship. It was $700. Back then people balked at that price. Adjusted for inflation, you have to increase prices by over 12% every year since release the get near flagship today.

Nvidia just got greedy. So did AMD. Let them suck eggs.

 

[MrN1ce9uy]

I hope this is the proper place for ranting.. because I would like to iterate in that no gaming graphics card is worth $1,000 to me. I paid $769 for a GTX 1080 Ti back in its day,.. and TBH it wasn't any better of a gaming experience than my GTX 1070 it replaced. It looks like that might be the first and only flagship GPU I will ever buy. Indeed, let them suck eggs.

 

[ohio_buckeye]

There are deals out there. In June I paid 400 bucks for a 6700xt. However I got Christmas money this year, and bought a used rtx 3080 for 600. This card was used but the guy said it was new, pulled from a cyberpower pc. So there are deals out there.

One thing I’ve learned is how to resell my old hardware. Case in point, the 6700xt I bought is now listed on eBay and is currently at $325 bucks bid with about 3 hours to go. So effectively I rented the card. So essentially it’s like getting the 3080 for half price. I’m just learning to sell my old equipment while there’s value and pick up an upgrade. I figure the 3080 should be good at least a couple of years or so for 1440p.

The rest of the system is a ryzen 5800x on a b350 board with 32gb ddr4 3200mhz ram. Maybe when they release the ryzen 8000 series or a new Intel socket I’ll then upgrade the platform and keep the 3080 until time to upgrade that again. One thing I do like with amd though, I’ve had parts of this pc since 2017-18 and it’s still pretty close to top of the line.

 

[spongiemaster]

They aren't. 1080ti was the best of the best for it's day. It was true flagship. It was $700. Back then people balked at that price. Adjusted for inflation, you have to increase prices by over 12% every year since release the get near flagship today.

Nvidia just got greedy. So did AMD. Let them suck eggs.

The person I quoted already agreed with my point. Doesn't make any sense to me why you would step in after the fact and argue otherwise.

 

[bit_user]

Look at the chart of money printed (And that was before the Ukraine war)

That exactly coincides with what I said: monetary policy undertaken during the pandemic. And you can see the downtick, during 2022.

Second, contrary to your claim, that plot appears to include data through Oct 2022.

Finally, if you check the "Forcecast" tab, on that page:

​

"In the long-term, the United States Money Supply M1 is projected to trend around 12400.00 USD Billion in 2023 and 13200.00 USD Billion in 2024, according to our econometric models."​

​

So, the answer is "no". What's currently fueling inflation is not monetary policy.

That chart is fiction.
Here is an actual .gov page and the amount of currency is just a tad bit over $2T.

I think the discrepancy could be that the former page includes electronic funds, whereas your source refers specifically to printed paper bills.

 

[bit_user]

the GTX Titan Z came with a launch price of $2,999 in 2014.

That was a dual-GPU card, having 2x of the same GPU in the $1k Titan Black! So, obviously it was going to cost > 2x as much.

I don't have a car or smartphone though,

Wow, that's pretty hardcore. I was the last of my friends to get a smartphone, but already felt weird for not having one until I did. My current phone cost about $350 and I've had it for 4 years (second battery). My plan costs about $300/year. So, it's costing me about $1/day. Compared to my other expenses (housing, food, transportation), that's nothing. Even my electricity costs are multiple times that!

If/when you get a phone, I'd advise to look for deals on higher-end models from the previous generation or so. You'll get a better device and it'll probably last longer than if you go for a low-end model that's more recent. I keep the "battery saver" setting to medium, in order to squeeze more life from it, and keep the GPS off unless I need it.

in particular when many are happy to stick to 1080p gaming.

I think why a lot of people give up on 1080p gaming is they get a higher-res monitor for other things. Going from 1080p -> 1440p is revolutionary for web browsing, spreadsheets, coding, etc. Going from 1440p -> 4k is life-changing, at least if it's 32" or bigger. You can find decent 32" 4k monitors (but not necessarily great for gaming) in the neighborhood of $300. So, it's no longer even a high-end thing.

 

[bit_user]

1080ti was the best of the best for it's day. It was true flagship. It was $700. Back then people balked at that price.

No, it was actually cheaper than expected! It launched ~9 months after the GTX 1080, which had a launch price of $600 (founders edition was $700).

The GTX 1080 Ti launched ahead of Vega, which was running behind schedule. I suspect what happened is that Nvidia priced it to compete with Vega, expecting a repeat of the Fury vs. GTX 980 Ti matchup. Sadly, Vega under-performed and the 64 instead could only contend with the regular GTX 1080.

BTW, the launch price of the GTX 980 Ti was $650, and that was almost 2 years earlier and had actual competition from AMD. Before that, the GTX 780 Ti was $700. So, again, I think the only surprise about the pricing of the 1080 Ti was pleasant surprise that it wasn't even higher.

I paid $769 for a GTX 1080 Ti back in its day,.. and TBH it wasn't any better of a gaming experience than my GTX 1070 it replaced. It looks like that might be the first and only flagship GPU I will ever buy.

Well, at least it probably lasted longer than the GTX 1070 would've. I remember when the RTX 2000-series launched and people were still snapping up GTX 1080 Ti's for being a relative bargain in perf/$.

 

[helper800]

@bit_user is and was on point with everything he has said in this news article. Cheers.

Personally I got an EVGA 3080 FTW3 for 770 dollars 3 weeks after release because of the queue system, I feel and felt like I did pretty great for myself. It has met and exceeded my expectations in every game so far. Anyways, I believe this will be the last GPU I buy for years with these kinds of prices. If I didn't get that 3080 for MSRP I would still be on my 970 with my 4k monitors, big ooofs that would have been.

 

[Deleted member 14196]

They have a Que system?

 

[helper800]

They have a Que system?

They had a que system based on when people clicked the auto-notify me button on their card(s) of choice.

 

[chalabam]

That exactly coincides with what I said: monetary policy undertaken during the pandemic. And you can see the downtick, during 2022.

Inflation is not instantaneous. It takes years for printed money to cause all the inflation.

It has just started.

 

[bit_user]

Inflation is not instantaneous. It takes years for printed money to cause all the inflation.

It has just started.

It hasn't "just started". In fact, it looks like we're already through the worst of it.

https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/inflation-cpi

 

[RodroX]

The person I quoted already agreed with my point. Doesn't make any sense to me why you would step in after the fact and argue otherwise.

Sorry but I didn't agree with your point. I agreed that I was going off topic (my original topic), and so it was a good idea to go back.

Going back I still feel that the RTX 4080 price is way higher than it should be considering the performance it offer.

I don't care if the production cost is higher than the RTX 3080 (which should be its a new smaller node and more transistors), it does not justify its MSRP. At least not for me. Its a nice card, but not the right price.

You and everyone else can agree, or not, its fine, it wont change my mind on this particular gpu.

Hope everyone have a great new year.

 

[umeng2002_2]

There is a perfect storm. Government mandated lock down affecting the supply chain. Crypto bubble. Lots of stimulus money out there. Poor competition from AMD and Intel to challenge nVidia. Absolutely no competition for TSMC to keep wafer prices in check.

Luckily demand is greatly decreasing now, and wafer orders are being slashed. nVidia isn't dumb, they know most of their demand was from crypto bros. They have all jumped off of structures by now. Keeping prices sky-high is just milking consumers.

 

[helper800]

Sorry but I didn't agree with your point. I agreed that I was going off topic (my original topic), and so it was a good idea to go back.

Going back I still feel that the RTX 4080 price is way higher than it should be considering the performance it offer.

I don't care if the production cost is higher than the RTX 3080 (which should be its a new node, a bigger die and more transistors), it does not justify its MSRP. At least not for me. Its a nice card, but not the right price.

You and everyone else can agree, or not, its fine, it wont change my mind on this particular gpu.

Hope everyone have a great new year.

The 4080 has a significantly smaller die than the 3080, and thus, should cost significantly less in this respect.

 

[RodroX]

The 4080 has a significantly smaller die than the 3080, and thus, should cost significantly less in this respect.

I meant to say in the +++ number of transistors. But I changed the line a few times, and so it doesn't say what I meant 100% right. I will fix it, thank you.

 

[Flayed]

I just did an upgrade for a friend of limited means. He is super happy with his budget gamer 1080p rig with a 5600 and an RX6600. The whole upgrade including a decent PSU cost half of a new GTX 4080

 

[drivinfast247]

Somehow I got an EVGA 3060TI for $430 twelve months ago, I guess since I got on the waiting list. So once I received it, went to Best Buy and purchased a 43" 4K monitor for $300. I mean, the gaming is just amazing.
I don't even understand your post, but if you aren't considering gaming at 4K, at least consider your life choices.

A 43" 4k monitor for $300? That's gonna have terrible picture quality no real HDR and no VRR. Definitely not a gaming monitor whatsoever! Also, that 3060ti is gonna crap the bed trying to push any sort of respectable framerates @ 4k.

 

[Colif]

no advancement in performance per dollar

I must be old. Before I started reading reviews of the new GPU I bought, I had never seen this metric used and yet it seems to be the most important one to people.

Maybe because I am from Australia and the prices of most cards is just silly. $3300 for a 4090. Only cards that exist in stores from current generations are either 4090/4080 models or reference 7900 XT. Most top tier previous gen cards are being sold from less that trustworthy sites. DO you want to play lucky dip for a GPU?

I couldn't tell you how long ago that a top tier card was below 1000 here. Let alone $300. 2080 TI was $1500 from memory, from last time I was looking at a new card.

You stop thinking about value for money, and just buy the best you can afford. right now the only way to get anything other than a 7900 XT non reference card is scalpers, I can see an XFX XTX for 3k which is just silly as you can buy 4080 for 2500 or a 4090 for just a little more. Why would you do that.

I expect those sales figures are just USA anyway?

I bought a card cause I needed one, not based on its price beyond having a cap.

 

[RodroX]

I just did an upgrade for a friend of limited means. He is super happy with his budget gamer 1080p rig with a 5600 and an RX6600. The whole upgrade including a decent PSU cost half of a new GTX 4080

Awesome choices!

There are some very nice options for 1080p (used and new), and depending on the market you may even get discounts every now and then (not where I live, everything gets more expensive, and never the other way around.).

Budget 1440p gets more complicated, specially if you are like me and you want full eye candy, and it gets even worst if fast refresh rate gets involved into the equation (and thats not even considering RT).

FSR 2.x and DLSS 2.x have become very good options in some games. But I feel those options should be saved for the future, when future games gets really hard on your ex-brand new GPU.

Cheers!

 

[InvalidError]

I must be old. Before I started reading reviews of the new GPU I bought, I had never seen this metric used and yet it seems to be the most important one to people.

Performance per dollar has been around for pretty much as long as graphics accelerators and CPUs have been around and the "value per dollar" proposition has practically always been present in the "should you buy" discussion - no point in bothering with upgrading when the extra performance is almost linear with increased pricing over previous parts and you already bought a GPU near your budget comfort limit.