NVIDIA Founders Edition Cards - Yea or Nay? @ [H]

If the Founder Edition cards are just reference and nothing more then early adopter are going to be kicking themselves when the MSI lightning and Asus Matrix Platinum versions release for around the same price. Assuming the forementioned aftermarket cards release for the usual $100ish premium over MSRP.
 
Only reason I buy Ref cards is because I always watercool my cards. Ref cards are easier to find water blocks for. I am going to be pissed off if I have to pay higher price now just because I want the Ref board but do not care about the cooler.
 
schizo said:
Please read the article. Founders Edition cards are not binned. They are reference cards that cost an extra $100 because you can buy them before the end of June. That's it.

I have no problem paying the extra $100 if I get something substantial out of it. It isn't the money that turns me off, it's the knowledge that I'm paying an extra $100 to get it a month early. I picture my grandmother in my head calling me a sucker.

Really sucks that NV is doing this. Puts a bad taste in my mouth.
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Although it could be ideal for certain people as it is a blower-vent type cooler with a vapor chamber, in theory ideal for making sure heat from the GPU is not pumped back into the PC case.
Some will prefer these in SLI.
The other consideration is have they improved the quality over the blower+vapor chamber found on the 980ti, no idea but they would add further cost to the design.
Cheers
 
Prod1702 said:
Only reason I buy Ref cards is because I always watercool my cards. Ref cards are easier to find water blocks for. I am going to be pissed off if I have to pay higher price now just because I want the Ref board but do not care about the cooler.
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I'm sure there will be AIB cards closer to $600 with the reference board design. Most of them, actually, in the first wave.
 
so much for binned items:

the article said:
Founders Edition cards will come with reference clocks. Generally if enthusiasts are paying a premium for cooling and build, they also get a clock bump, and the Founder Edition will not supply that. For true enthusiasts though, I do not think this will be a problem.


Confusing your customers is never good.


The Founders Edition cards are not going to be GPUs that are binned to run at any particular speed beyond stock clocks. These GPUs are not being culled or cherry-picked in any way as per NVIDIA.
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oh well.
 
schizo said:
I'm sure there will be AIB cards closer to $600 with the reference board design. Most of them, actually, in the first wave.
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Yeah that is a risk to begin with they will not compete for a little while on pricing against each other, and we may find more of a status quo on pricing based on the type of OC boost-design they are releasing.
Cheers
 
I meant that most of them will have a reference board design in the first wave, simply because redesigning the circuitry takes time. Prices will of course vary-- I doubt we see many at $600 in the first wave, simply because the GPUs and GDDR5x are in short supply and they can get more.
 
athenian200 said:
I'm surprised to hear anyone say a reference card is a good or high-quality design. I always thought they were supposed to be inferior to cards produced by companies like MSI and ASUS because they used an inferior cooler and weren't binned in any way.
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Oh no. NVIDIA *DEFINITELY* bins their product.

And, in some cases, yes, a reference card can be of better make than an OEM card.
Some OEMs will take the reference and try to make it better. Sure.
Others will take the reference and basically try to cut as many corners as they can to maximize profit.
 
Brent_Justice said:
Well you don't have to buy it, you can wait for AIB cards which honestly will not be far behind. As with most things in life, if you are opposed to it, vote with your wallet.
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True, but I have to agree that it's kind of a shitty practice.
 
If I were to get a 1080 I'd wait for the non-founder's versions to come out. They'll be cheaper and potentially have better coolers and overclocking ability. Now if the founder's edition cooler ends up being better than most of the third party coolers then it might be worth it. The founder's edition cooler does look really nice to me but I feel that changing the name from "reference" to "founder's" is a way of making it sound like something special therefore increasing the price. We'll just have to see how the cooler stacks up against third party coolers.
 
cageymaru said:
I can see Asus adding a second 8 pin, completely custom cooler, upgraded board layout, etc. Then they tell their customers that they can only sell it at $599 because their engineers aren't as good as Nvidia's reference design. I see $699+ OC Super Edition with minimum speeds of 1800.

Also I consider this to be the Water Cooling Enthusiast's tax as they are the ones that get stuck searching for reference boards when they want to expand their loop with a second or third card. Instead of just having to spend $120 on a water block, now you have to spend that and another $100 extra for a reference board.
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Unless the cooler design is markedly more efficient than the reference design, I'm sticking to that understated elegance OF the FE design, even (if not especially) for the GTX1070.
Otherwise, it plain and simply isn't worth it.
First off, the cooler design - yes; including all the angularity - is elegant as all get-out.

Secondly, the green of the LED of the GPU itself will sit between the blue of the window fan and the red LED from my Fata1ity Professional (top and bottom of the windowed view, respectively) which is ALL the bling of my entire case. Hence "understated".

I want FE for that reason - the lack of bling. (Besides, the plan is for the GTX1070 to be the core of a daily-driver - it's not about fancy, and it's not about pricey, either. 16GB of DDR3-1600, Haswell Core i5K, and the aforementioned GTX1070 - all driving a single 4K display day in and day out - without any of the hardware - or their sum - costing a mint. The 4K version of the everyday PC - that is actually buildable.)
 
I cannot see this as anything other than an Nvidia tax.
I'm praying on hands and knees that AMD will be competitive this time but from what I hear Nvidia is going to have the high-end market on lockdown.
 
Ph.D said:
I cannot see this as anything other than an Nvidia tax.
I'm praying on hands and knees that AMD will be competitive this time but from what I hear Nvidia is going to have the high-end market on lockdown.
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While I'll probably be on the Nvidia bandwagon for the next few iterations (judging by how things are going and my real concerns as to whether AMD will even be around in the next few years) I, too, am hoping AMD launches worthwhile competition to keep prices competitive.
 
Again it's not the money that really grinds my gears, it's that the only thing you get for that extra $100 is a card a month early. And people that wait a single month will get better hardware with better cooling for less.
 
schizo said:
Please read the article. Founders Edition cards are not binned. They are reference cards that cost an extra $100 because you can buy them before the end of June. That's it.

I have no problem paying the extra $100 if I get something substantial out of it. It isn't the money that turns me off, it's the knowledge that I'm paying an extra $100 to get it a month early. I picture my grandmother in my head calling me a sucker.

Really sucks that NV is doing this. Puts a bad taste in my mouth.
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Ok, I'm sorry then, my bad. There was talk about higher binned chips earlier.

It takes a big man to admit his mistakes, and I am that big man.
 
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I believe Nvidia is testing the waters so to speak, pushing the boundaries to see how much people are willing to pay. $699 for a reference card based on a mid size chip. If you don't like it, vote with your wallet. Personally I'm waiting for "big Pascal" as the gains here don't look to be worth upgrading my OC 980 Ti.
 
Couldn't this be a move to appease their partners? I remember when the Surface tablets came out there was a lot of talk about manufacturers possibly being miffed that Microsoft would be manufacturing PCs and encroaching on their turf.

Sounds to me like Nvidia will be selling direct for the life of the product and they want to keep their partners happy by charging more. Imagine a world where you could buy a ref card direct from Nvidia for $100 less than anywhere else and have a custom cooler industry pop up where $50 buys you some sweet-ass cooler so you're ahead $50+ over buying a evga card or something.

If that's the case its less a tax and more a way to maintain the status quo from an industry perspective.
 
Rather than "Yea or Nay", I'm at maybe. I rate the Step-Up program at EVGA, but won't activate it until I see reviews/testing of the 1080.
 
Trying to write a positive comment about this but am coming up blank...Good luck with that NV.
 
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So will Nvidia will have a true reference card at $599 vice the Founder's Edition $699 BS? Also can be bought through Nvidia?

I thought AIB can charge what ever they want for a non-reference card, or can they?

If the performance or whatever reason is there to buy one, then it would be nice that one could purchase one. So far none are available to buy, so we can't get the initial feedback on new users on the new product. If Nvidia does not have competition in that space then they will reap the rewards for being first. AMD always made out when they where first and had a better top end product first (a.k.a 9700pro, HD 5970 etc.) with great sells. On the high end the audience is not large, most once they buy the next generation will not turn around and buy again when the other company catches up or even surpasses a little. In other words AMD looks like they will be too late.

Now I was surprise no statement about a Paper Launch, so to me that means reviewers actually have some cards for testing, does HardOCP have one? It would be nice that the reviewers are given a sufficient amount of time to properly analyze a new product and give back findings/feedback before the NDA is up - would be a great QC check, public relation and a very coordinated review release.
 
noko said:
So will Nvidia will have a true reference card at $599 vice the Founder's Edition $699 BS?
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No, they will not. The founders edition is the reference. It's just priced $100 over MSRP, with no other justification other than being available a month earlier.

Yes, everybody that NV flew to Austin left with two 1080s in their hot little hands. Embargo is rumored to be over on May 17, so expect a slew of reviews then.
 
noko said:
So will Nvidia will have a true reference card at $599 vice the Founder's Edition $699 BS? Also can be bought through Nvidia?
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There is no longer a "reference card" at 1080 and 1070 levels.

noko said:
I thought AIB can charge what ever they want for a non-reference card, or can they?
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For all intents and purposes the answer to this is yes.

noko said:
Now I was surprise no statement about a Paper Launch, so to me that means reviewers actually have some cards for testing, does HardOCP have one? It would be nice that the reviewers are given a sufficient amount of time to properly analyze a new product and give back findings/feedback before the NDA is up - would be a great QC check, public relation and a very coordinated review release.
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Sometimes it is about having drivers rather than having hardware. We are not sure if we will be doing a "preview" or a full review at this point.
 
Drivers aren't great yet, eh? Hopefully NV gets a move on there.
 
schizo said:
with no other justification other than being available a month earlie
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FWIW, that is 100% your opinion and not an objective statement, but surely you are entitled to your opinion, might just be better to state it that way. There seem to be a lot of folks commenting in this thread that did NOT read the article in its entirety.

schizo said:
Yes, everybody that NV flew to Austin left with two 1080s in their hot little hands
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Guess I should not have driven in.
 
Why is Nvidia involved in selling directly to consumers? That seems like more of a PITA than it's worth for them. I knew they support and sell Professional cards directly, but those are marked up. Even with the marked up founder edition, I wouldn't bother if I was Nvidia.
 
What's going to be interesting is the performance of the founders cooler and whether the headroom that gets you makes the factory over clocked AIBs less attractive. Seems like they are really proud of that cooler.
 
I'm getting 3 Founders cards, All my cards are for sale so I need replacements!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 
225w card i doubt the AIBs will be able to give cards that OC any better on air or cool any better, I'm betting that reference board and cooler is more than enough. That being said I'm sure they'll rework the boards and change the cooler so it's cheaper for them to produce. I'm guessing there will be one unnecessary card with an added 6 pin so you can volt the gpu to death.
 
It is odd to me that a lot of folks only see the cooler to have any value in paying the premium. That said, if you don't keep your video cards for a long time, maybe longevity through higher quality components is not an issue.
 
I've been an early adapter for both AMD and Nvidia for a long time. I always end up with reference cards.

With Nvidia moving to 16nm ..... I am guessing aftermarket 3rd party coolers are going to do an amazing job cooling. In fact, I bet they are going to pull out all the stops in designing these coolers to a different level not normally seen. There is so much headroom that whoever can do the best job is going to sell a lot of video cards.

And that's the video card I want.

I have $1,800 set aside. This is going to 2 x 1070's or 2 x 1080's or ... the new 10/20 Intel 6950x. I also have a 980 ti reference I hope to sell in the coming days for $475.

I have 63 x 290's that I picked up from a bitcoin miner last year for super cheap that I've only made time to sell 10 or so. I have no problem using one of these for a few months.
 
NV have not put out a release date for non-reference cards ($599+), they were very careful to only list the date available for their own built cards with a premium. In effect, NOBODY knows when the cheaper variant launches as such, anyone who wants to upgrade don't know how long they need to wait.

Thus, it's an Early Access tax.

Reference boards since ages have always been built well and built to last, but in general terms, custom boards are of superior quality. They have better VRMs/Mosfets, Caps, Chokes etc. You can actually compare the components yourself if you take a look at the PCB and find the cost and specs online. Something from MSI or EVGA advertising military grade components is true, these costs more, VRMS are more efficient, last longer, can deal with higher temps (175C vs 125C) etc.

This is why in the past, custom GPUs cost more than the reference because they use superior components and more of it (more VRMs, more stable and higher power delivery, higher OC potential).

It is a money grab to charge $100+ for a reference card, and they will pull it off because folks have already waited a long time and without an ETA for custom boards, folks are impatient and will pay that tax.
 
It seems that this Founder's Model to me is a good thing.
I generally always buy the "reference" model when the GPUs are first released and then watercool them as soon as someone has the blocks made.
This time around though, I did wait for the Ti, but bought two the day they were released, both from NVidia directly.

I like that I can essentially buy a Founder/reference anytime after release, mainly because it will be built always the same and I'll be able to get a block for it without worrying about fit.

I honestly have not been impressed by the fifteen superclocked editions EVGA makes or the minimal speed bumps you get from ASUS. Now the Lightning editions from MSI do seem to be pretty stout, but honestly the
Founder's cards being built to spec are going to be good competition for all these cards.
 
I can't wait to see Kyle's review of these cards. I am really pushing what I can do with my 960 2GB. The card just doesn't cut it pushing 2 4k monitors.
 
From a system builder standpoint, I can understand the approach. (Even if in the end, the consumer will still pay for the premium.)

From an end user point of view I see it differently. As of right now based on the schedule, it's a reference design sold for a premium those that want one on day 1. Watching the presentation I couldn't shake off the feeling that this was Nvidia's take on Apple and the way they price and sell their products. In the end, NVidia must make a profit and has no reason to sell a product a loss. NVidia has been playing games with pricing (8800 GTX, Titan(X), Titan Z) which complicates things further.
 
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