Price Warriors Are Vandalizing GeForce 1080 Reviews

Lunas said:

matrox, 3dfx, ati, SiS... Amd may keep putting out the radeon brand but they are not ati. Ati like 3dfx was eaten by a bigger fish...

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ATI was an acquisition that cost AMD 5.6 billion USD. 3Dfx just collapsed and nVidia picked up the pieces in a fire sale.

heatlesssun said:

ATI was an acquisition that cost AMD 5.6 billion USD. 3Dfx just collapsed and nVidia picked up the pieces in a fire sale.

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That's true. nVidia paid around $70 million for everything 3Dfx had...except for their graphics board manufacturing division.

Semantics said:

Then just don't buy from resellers on amazon or ebay and wait for in-stock from a better channel. Price gougers will be Price gourgers complaining about them won't stop them because it's easy money for them and it's not like they need to move large volumes.

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DING DING DING!

Price gouging only affects those who deserve to be affected the most... the "ZOMG I MUST HAVE IT NAO!!!!!" crowd.

Lunas said:

Nvidia is not the only offender amd/ati has in the past oversold the cards they have because there is only 2 companies doing it well enough the price is artificially set higher than it could be if say 10 sources for gpu all equally capable. For a long time now the top end has been 600-800$ dollar range. The 1080 is supposed to be equal to the 490 in terms of where the card sits in the lineup for price where the 1070 would be the 480.

Amd is setting the price on the low side due to the market is stagnating they want the pool of people who buy vr games to grow and the number of good vr games to grow.

Nothing competes with the 1080 atm so in efforts to remove potential customers they rushed the card out the door so they could beat amd at the pass.

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Isn't the operative words there "supposed to be equal"? I haven't seen any 490 reviews yet (I thought they were still under NDA). Until AMD allows reviews or actually releases samples NVidia gets the benefits of the performance crown (one of which is they get to launch at the higher price points). NVidia also gets to leverage their position with around 70% of the market for maximum pricing until such a time as AMD presents a material threat to them. Such is the law of supply and demand and market position.

People should be complaining about the medical drugs that cost $50000 a course but only $500 anywhere else in the world.

Its the same thing when I get downvoted on reddit for explaining price vs supply/demand. The founders edition move was crap by nvidia, but in the end who cares. people still complained about the msrp's even though adjusted for inflation they are right on target with what they should be. Give it another month or two and you will find cards all over the place for MSRP or less depending on how well Polaris does against Pascal. I fully realize it's not designed to compete directly with nvidia as it's a lower price segment, but it can still take a bite out of their pie under the right conditions.

The simple fact is anyone can get a Pascal GPU if they have the right combination of money/patience. Don't have a ton of money? Have a lot of patience and you can still get one.

The people that have neither are the ones that write negative reviews and/or act like dickwads.

I have a Diamond Viper 770 VII I am willing to let go at the bargain basement price of only $$275 shipping included. Nothing beats a legacy board.

There have been at lease several models available over here in the UK pretty steadily since launch (I was able to choose between 6 AIBs yesterday when I got my 1080). The gouging has been there, but nothing egregious most places, somewhere around 10%.

That said, prices are edging up due to the value drop in the point this morning. A couple sites have removed there listings, then they've shown back up with a £30-50 increase. That's more of a adjustment due to fx than gouging though...

daglesj said:

People should be complaining about the medical drugs that cost $50000 a course but only $500 anywhere else in the world.

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I thought "Americans" regarded that as socialism and supposedly that is bad

Pieter3dnow said:

I thought "Americans" regarded that as socialism and supposedly that is bad

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Hey, as I have found living in the UK, people will swallow any lies and bullshit if they think it is 'patriotic'.

I'll never give up my seat for an old person ever again!

daglesj said:

Hey, as I have found living in the UK, people will swallow any lies and bullshit if they think it is 'patriotic'.

I'll never give up my seat for an old person ever again!

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That sounds like the US. It's really nice to know we don't have a monopoly on stupidity.

As for the bad reviews, why are some of the people here outraged? Do you have stock in Nvidia, or is having a miscategorized review that is for the item and not the seller that incredibly annoying to you? I figure anyone with some brain cells can read the bad reviews and see what's going on and really, pointing out the prices is a nice public service that is really helping any less savvy people who might consider buying a card as a gift. I bet all the really pissed off people in this thread are those very scalpers getting the bad reviews.

sfsuphysics said:

DING DING DING!

Price gouging only affects those who deserve to be affected the most... the "ZOMG I MUST HAVE IT NAO!!!!!" crowd.

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It's not my fault Nvidia has such limited stock. Now if you want this here 1080, I'm asking for $2k, and the price is firm. You don't like it? You could always buy a PS4 like the console peasant you are.

Pieter3dnow said:

I thought "Americans" regarded that as socialism and supposedly that is bad

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Bernie is a socialist and he nearly grabbed 50% of the votes against Hillary. I'd say Americans are warming up to the idea.

I assume I'm not alone as I'm just going to wait for the HBM2 cards to come out in 2017? The price of 4K OLED monitors still needs to go down for me

The thing I love about this is that the people complaining are the people causing the issue in the first place. All they need to do is be patient and wait for the supply chain to fill up, and heck they may even get a card below MSRP.

Booyaah said:

I assume I'm not alone as I'm just going to wait for the HBM2 cards to come out in 2017? The price of 4K OLED monitors still needs to go down for me

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Not related to Nvidia but hey , I'm waiting for the whole ball with HDR to get rolling so far no monitors. I'm not to sure what is exactly going on with HBM2 because supposedly in Q3 Hynix would have shipment ready SK Hynix HBM2 coming Q3/Q4

Shmee said:

The thing I love about this is that the people complaining are the people causing the issue in the first place. All they need to do is be patient and wait for the supply chain to fill up, and heck they may even get a card below MSRP.

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I've been patient and just using my laptop (w/960m) for gaming since I gave my old video card to a broke friend and as impossible as it is to currently get a gtx1080, I may just end up getting a 1080ti instead as I would rather have something brand new and not already dated by the time I can get one. I actually wonder if nvidia is keeping supplies scarce on purpose.

DukenukemX said:

It's not my fault Nvidia has such limited stock. Now if you want this here 1080, I'm asking for $2k, and the price is firm. You don't like it? You could always buy a PS4 like the console peasant you are.

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Or you could wait... I dunno a month and get it for the actual price and live witn your980ti setup a tad longer

DocSavage said:

I've been patient and just using my laptop (w/960m) for gaming since I gave my old video card to a broke friend and as impossible as it is to currently get a gtx1080, I may just end up getting a 1080ti instead as I would rather have something brand new and not already dated by the time I can get one. I actually wonder if nvidia is keeping supplies scarce on purpose.

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I doubt it since they sell the card at a flat rate to sellers and manufactures, so they don't get anything but hate with inflated prices. It will not take long for prices to come down. We just need to wait for the partner manufacturers get the their cards shipping out at regular rates. This happens every time a killer card comes out, and every time the PC gaming community acts like the world is on fire.

Megalith, thank you for posting the article with that particular paragraph. I've been rolling for a solid 10 minutes now.

Is the pricing out-of-line? Yep. Will there people who buy at the outrageous price? Yep. Same thing will happen with the 1080Ti and Pascal Titan. Don't like the price? Vote with your wallet.

Seriously? Even video card price threads turn political?

Anyways.....Yea price gouging is always going to happen. People are impatient and some make a profit on it. Buddy of mine made quite a bit of money turning over PS3's at launch for an extra 200-300 because some people would rather pay that then look a little harder.

kbrickley said:

Isn't the operative words there "supposed to be equal"? I haven't seen any 490 reviews yet (I thought they were still under NDA). Until AMD allows reviews or actually releases samples NVidia gets the benefits of the performance crown (one of which is they get to launch at the higher price points). NVidia also gets to leverage their position with around 70% of the market for maximum pricing until such a time as AMD presents a material threat to them. Such is the law of supply and demand and market position.

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490 is slated to be vega parts thus is not even out till next year. I also imagine a new fury card will come out too

Darunion said:

Seriously? Even video card price threads turn political?

Anyways.....Yea price gouging is always going to happen. People are impatient and some make a profit on it. Buddy of mine made quite a bit of money turning over PS3's at launch for an extra 200-300 because some people would rather pay that then look a little harder.

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I hate price gougers. It's basically taking items away from everyone but the wealthy just so some leaches who add zero value can make some easy money. It's a shame people will actually buy these cards instead of letting the gougers lose money on the deal.

kbrickley said:

People just don't understand supply and demand. Incidentally is there a particular reason for the rush this time. Last couple of iterations have been about bitcoin miners scarfing up supply. Are we at some critical junction for VR that everyone wants to be Veruca Salt (I Want it NOW)? I am content until they release a Hybrid Pascal Titan model (and then I will order or backorder, depending on availability). My 980Ti Hybrid should be able to tide me over until then.

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Supply and demand have little to do with computer parts pricing.

See the flooding of HDD factories that was rectified and production restored in months...and HDD prices were gouged for over a year+ while there was no scarcity. Or the fires at RAM factories that manufacturers openly stated did not harm production in any material way-and prices on RAM doubled over night. Or how about the skyrocketing price of oil, and computer parts prices jumped (OEMs and manufacturers and retailers blamed shipping prices)-then oil dropped and the prices stayed high.

Saying "duh supply and demand"....really is pretty damned funny given the long history of price fixing and gouging (not to mention the court cases) in computer parts retailing and manufacture.

I like how one person up above calls suckers a schmuck but he sees nothing wrong with being a hardware "scalper". Anyway, AMD has lots of stock of their new 480 and it is only $199.00 and is as fast as GTX980.
That is all most gamers even need so don't get sucked into the GTX1080 hype..

Skripka said:

Supply and demand have little to do with computer parts pricing.

See the flooding of HDD factories that was rectified and production restored in months...and HDD prices were gouged for over a year+ while there was no scarcity. Or the fires at RAM factories that manufacturers openly stated did not harm production in any material way-and prices on RAM doubled over night. Or how about the skyrocketing price of oil, and computer parts prices jumped (OEMs and manufacturers and retailers blamed shipping prices)-then oil dropped and the prices stayed high.

Saying "duh supply and demand"....really is pretty damned funny given the long history of price fixing and gouging (not to mention the court cases) in computer parts retailing and manufacture.

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For a new product launch supply and demand are usually very accurate descriptors since launch supplies can be lower than user or early adopter interest. This has resulted in the high cost of consoles, video cards, VR, and other components that didn't saturate the market at launch. This issues with 1080 pricing seem directly related to a low volume launch where high consumer interest is present.

DocSavage said:

I hate price gougers. It's basically taking items away from everyone but the wealthy just so some leaches who add zero value can make some easy money. It's a shame people will actually buy these cards instead of letting the gougers lose money on the deal.

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Lets assume you have some thing that people want. Should you not be allowed to sell it to the highest bidder? This is exactly what retailers are doing. They have gotten their hands on something there isn't very much of, and that LOTS of enthusiasts want, like yesterday.

It's not only natural, but full appropriate that they raise the price to the level where purchasing slows down, and they don't just sell out of them right away. Once they have more availability, they can lower the prices. The immature children who can't wait a few months and ABSOLUTELY HAVE TO HAVE IT NOW thus pay an early bird tax,k and I'm fine with that.

This way, the people who value being first, pay for that privilege. Raising the price is how market driven economies deal with shortages. It's a very efficient resource distribution model. There is a shortage of something, so everyone can't have it. The prices go up, and now those who value it (whatever it is) the most, are the ones who are willing to pay the most for it, and they are the ones who get it.

It would be unreasonable to expect the retailers to just sell the parts at MSRP, and run out in two seconds.

Honestly, I'm surprised they don't auction them off at product launch, to make the most on them, and ensure they actually wind up with the highest bidder.

The truth is, market price is set by what people are willing to pay. (not, as some people seem to think, the cost it costs to produce it plus a profit margin). As long as there are people who are willing to pay a higher price, that is the market price, and it is a fair price.

The term "price gouging" is really absolutely moronic. It implies that the price is somehow "unfair". There is never such a thing as an unfair price.. If someone is willing to pay a certain amount for something, then that is the market price, and it is fair. If someone is NOT willing to pay that price, then they don't have to buy it.

This is how EVERYTHING works, unless you happen to live in a communist economy, in which case you are probably not buying high end GPU's anyway.

Skripka said:

Supply and demand have little to do with computer parts pricing.

See the flooding of HDD factories that was rectified and production restored in months...and HDD prices were gouged for over a year+ while there was no scarcity. Or the fires at RAM factories that manufacturers openly stated did not harm production in any material way-and prices on RAM doubled over night. Or how about the skyrocketing price of oil, and computer parts prices jumped (OEMs and manufacturers and retailers blamed shipping prices)-then oil dropped and the prices stayed high.

Saying "duh supply and demand"....really is pretty damned funny given the long history of price fixing and gouging (not to mention the court cases) in computer parts retailing and manufacture.

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Undoubtedly there some cases in which people try to collude and abuse the markets, and that is illegal.

Limited availability at launch - however - is definitely not one of these cases. Yields are at their lowest, as their processes are at their newest, so they are making fewer parts than they can when they are more mature, at the same time, demand is at its highest, since as time goes on, more and more people will already have bought the product being launched, and there will be fewer people in the market for it. It is expected, and it is the way it should be, if you believe in fairness.

IN a free society, where people own things, the ONLY fair way to let them sell those things, is to let them sell them at the prices they see fit, and get as much for them as they can. Just because YOU don't like those prices, doesn't mean they are "unfair" or somehow abusive.

Yes, after the HD flood, hard drive prices stayed higher than they had been before. Part of this was due to consolidation. There had been a glut of hard drives on the market before driving down prices. After the plats flooded, they were rebuilt, but the shortage in production had cleared out excess glut inventories. Hard drive manufacturers also knowing they were in a shrinking market due to the ever increasing sales of SSD's never built up the same amount of capacity as they had before. They lowered output, to deal with new realities in the market, resulting in lower supply, and resulting in the prices we got. It doesn't mean there was illegal collusion. It means that before the floods they were in a shrinking market, and had all theis excess manufacturing capacity they were trying to make the best out of, by pumping out more drives than they needed. The flood helped them a lot, as they could now write off their old, over-capacity plants without losses due to insurance, and only build up the new capacity they actually needed.

There certainly will always be those who try to illegally manipulate market prices, but they are much rarer than you seem to think.

Perceived supply plays a role in this I think.

Floods at the HDD factory and the fire at the RAM factory makes for an apparently legitimate concern about the supply of such goods, especially considering that the public has a knack for not believing in official statements.

If you make people THINK there will be a supply problem, they'll happily oblige with the "phantom" demand, creating a surge in demand that should not have existed.

chenw said:

Perceived supply plays a role in this I think.

Floods at the HDD factory and the fire at the RAM factory makes for an apparently legitimate concern about the supply of such goods, especially considering that the public has a knack for not believing in official statements.

If you make people THINK there will be a supply problem, they'll happily oblige with the "phantom" demand, creating a surge in demand that should not have existed.

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But what you forget to take into account is the price elasticity of demand.

If you raise the price of something, a certain percentage of people will no longer buy it because they deem it "not worth the money". (this exactly mirrors the fact that when there is a lower supply of something the price is driven up, it goes both ways).

So, lets say you are a devious hard drive manufacturer trying to cheat up the prices of hard drives. Lets assume you are successful in driving up the price of drives artificially. Now fewer people are buying drives, and because of this - since you tried to cheat up the price, and it wasn't actually caused by a shortage - you now have drives sitting on your shelves going unsold. This is hardly a good scenario either, so now, in order to get rid of that extra inventory on your shelves, you have to offer it at a discount, and down comes the price again...


In the hard drive example, pre-flood hard drive makers were in a ton of trouble. The financial crisis, combined with people just not buying as many computers, and the fact that hard drives were slowly - more and more - being replaced by SSD's meant that they were in a shrinking market. They had WAY more capacity to produce drives than there were people who wanted drives. This resulted in the pricing for hard drives that existed before the 2011's floods being unrealistically low. The flood came at a very opportune time. So opportune - in fact - that if it had been a fire, it would have raised quite a few eyebrows from the perspective of it possibly being insurance fraud, but since it is pretty difficult to flood an entire country on purpose, we know they were just damned lucky.

So, if the floods had never happened, the excess inventory situation with excess capacity would have continued. Prices would have kept dropping as manufacturers tried to dump unsold drives, factories would have had layoffs, reduced shifts. At the same time as revenues would be shrinking, the relative cost of those plants would be going up, as the investment cost (including the cost of capital to build them) would still need to be paid off, but now they would only be active part time. There would have been plant shutdowns, industry consolidations, spectacular bankruptcy, etc. etc.

Some of this did in fact happen (at least the consolidation bits) but, they were saved in large part by the fact that their plants were destroyed. They could cash in the insurance money, and rebuild smaller and leaner than they were before, more appropriately sized for the existing, shrinking market realities. So, they got to dump their expensive large plants, with their old equipment without any losses, and rebuild shiny new and smaller. This - of course - would result in lower supply, meaning that prices would be going back up from their previous unrealistically low levels, as none of the manufacturers would have been dumb enough to rebuild dangerously excess capacity, and force themselves to sell drives at near loss levels again.


There is no conspiracy here. Just an incredible amount of luck (on the part of the industry) that the floods came when they did. (heck, who knows, maybe they WERE performing rain dances) followed by some shrewd business decisions to rebuild in a more appropriate scale.

Amazon Marketplace sellers are mostly just scalpers, or drop-shippers in China. Amazon should separate them from their own store better because their shady practices tarnish their name.

If you have a problem with the current prices, just wait. They'll be lower later.

Quix said:

If you have a problem with the current prices, just wait. They'll be lower later.

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As much as we are on the same page here (I do find it funny that people are so impatient) I also understand why people would want to buy sooner rather than later.

As soon as there is a new launch, the clock starts ticking before something newer, faster and better is released and the resale value of your GPU drops. If you want to maximize the value of your high end GPU (which is kind of a silly statement, as high end GPU's have notoriously poor value )you want to get them as early as possible without paying above MSRP, as then you garner value from them for a longer period of time.

So I can see where the frustration comes from. I feel like I just bought my 980ti's.

It's funny how ones perspective of time changes as one gets older.

Back in the late 90s/early 2000's when I was going through GPU's and CPU's roughly every 6 months, and motherboards roughly every year, it felt like a long time passed inbetween each successive generation upgrade.

Now that things have slowed down in the market due to the combination of less competition, more focus on mobile, and greater die shrink difficulty, it feels like I buy the latest and greatest thing, and I only blink and it is replaced.

Time truly passes much much quicker when you get older. Probably because you just don't have the time to be bored, with all the things you ave to keep up with in real adult life. Once you have a house requiring maintenance, and a yard requiring yardwork and kids, and all your friends and family are getting married and you have to go to weddings every few months, it's difficult to just find an hour to play a game, let alone to find the time to play it enough such that you get bored of it Life just feels like rushing from one fire to put out the next one, with little to no time in between. A massive juggling act.

It's one of lifes little ironies. When you are young you ahve all the time in the world on your hands, but not the financial means to fully take advantage of it. When you get older, you (hopefully) have more of the financial means, but none of the time to enjoy it.

I more and more view my time as my most precious resource, because it disappears so quickly. If something costs me money, but saves me time, it's almost always worth it these days.

It's all about the demand. People want it, and they'll pay for it.

Look at retro video games. Common games that went for 50 cents a decade ago are $10 or more now. Demand really picked up. I haven't bought a game for a long time because of it. It's much harder to find the good deals anymore.

A lot of people have video cards that are several generations old. The 1070/1080 are an excellent upgrade. With some new, excellent games being released, many are needing an upgrade just to play at some great settings.

I have always been against price gougers, be it in concert tickets, video games, Tickle Me Elmo, or video cards. It's business, sure. I just feel that it's taking advantage of other people. Something I couldn't do... More power to them, they can make a bit of money doing it. I would just feel like shit if I did it.

Ur_Mom said:

A lot of people have video cards that are several generations old. The 1070/1080 are an excellent upgrade. With some new, excellent games being released, many are needing an upgrade just to play at some great settings.

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Bingo. Exactly. +1000. Etc. My old rig i7-980x rig with 3 2GB GTX 680s just wasn't cutting it for newer games, even at medium settings at 1080P. A single GTX 1080 in the old rig, it's night and day. People can get into all of these complex calculations about price and performance and products that aren't on the market, but some people just want good hardware to actually do things if their present equipment isn't up to snuff. I'd never pay these prices, didn't have to, got my 2 1080 FEs order on launch day and got them six days later. Not exactly hard and no where near as difficult as other pieces of in-demand hardware I've bought in the past.