MSI GeForce RTX 2070 GAMING Z Performance Review @ [H]

This card will be $650.00 from AIB partners, making it a bad value compared to a 1080Ti, even.
 
LOL, my point still stands. AIB 1070 MSRP was conveyed to be $379...if they felt the need to increase it due to gouging, then that is a completely separate issue.

MSRP for the 1080Ti sure got surpassed during the mining craze when they were selling for $1200+, but the original MSRP didn't get magically increased to those inflated prices.

Except that it's not a separate issue. If all (or nearly all) the non-FE cards being sold are priced by the AIB manufaturer at a price point based on the FE gouging surcharge... then that becomes the effective price point regardless of what the advertising says.

When I went to buy my old car, a Saturn Sky Redline, new, there were about a dozen if not more in my area just in my preferred color. All I wanted was for it to black, black top, with a black and red two-tone leather interior, and maybe to have the upgraded stereo. While the transmissions were optional, every last Sky, or at least every Red Line with black paint, also had leather seats, the double upgraded stereo, a rear spoiler, chrome wheels, and dual tipped chrome exhaust. So the base theoretical advertised price was $30K, but the actual price was $32K... so that was the price of the car. It's not even bait and switch because it just so happens that nearly none happened to have been made at that price. Same for the 1070, nearly none were made by any AIB at $379 because they were not contractually obligated by Nvidia to price the cards at $379, so that cannot properly be considered the real price.

Which even if you were to still attempt to treat $379 as the real price would still show significant price inflation because the 970 was $329 or more accurately $299 after the $30 refund settlement for being shortchanged a half gig of vram. Whatever pricing you use for the 1070, the increase for the new midrange 2070 is far, far too high.
 
Except that it's not a separate issue. If all (or nearly all) the non-FE cards being sold are priced by the AIB manufaturer at a price point based on the FE gouging surcharge... then that becomes the effective price point regardless of what the advertising says.

This is called 'market economics'.

Whatever pricing you use for the 1070, the increase for the new midrange 2070 is far, far too high.

...and this is called 'failing to understand market economics'.
 
This is called 'market economics'.

...and this is called 'failing to understand market economics'.

Actually, it's called having a solid understanding of the way the market is being manipulated and therefore refusing to buy out of a decision not reward what is perceived to be a price far in excess of value. The original point of my first post in this thread was that based on price being set for the type of product that is being sold, the 2070 video card does not merit a Gold award. I feel it does not merit even a mere bronze and should instead be listed as a Hard FAIL.

Combining that original point with this shift into trying convert NVidia shameless actions as blessed by the market and somehow good, the underlying point throughout the series of posts is to spread and enhance the readily apparent discontent many people seem to feel at NVidia's actions and thereby contribute to persuading these people to also not buy NVidia product. This would be another aspect of market economics... the boycott.

A successful boycott will presumably cause a realignment in the supply/demand price curve more favorable to the consumer, though probably not shifted anywhere close enough to where I would consider this graphics worth the money.
 
Except that it's not a separate issue. If all (or nearly all) the non-FE cards being sold are priced by the AIB manufaturer at a price point based on the FE gouging surcharge... then that becomes the effective price point regardless of what the advertising says.

When I went to buy my old car, a Saturn Sky Redline, new, there were about a dozen if not more in my area just in my preferred color. All I wanted was for it to black, black top, with a black and red two-tone leather interior, and maybe to have the upgraded stereo. While the transmissions were optional, every last Sky, or at least every Red Line with black paint, also had leather seats, the double upgraded stereo, a rear spoiler, chrome wheels, and dual tipped chrome exhaust. So the base theoretical advertised price was $30K, but the actual price was $32K... so that was the price of the car. It's not even bait and switch because it just so happens that nearly none happened to have been made at that price. Same for the 1070, nearly none were made by any AIB at $379 because they were not contractually obligated by Nvidia to price the cards at $379, so that cannot properly be considered the real price.

Which even if you were to still attempt to treat $379 as the real price would still show significant price inflation because the 970 was $329 or more accurately $299 after the $30 refund settlement for being shortchanged a half gig of vram. Whatever pricing you use for the 1070, the increase for the new midrange 2070 is far, far too high.


Those are absolutely separate issues.

MSRP =/= effective market price.

The last batch of Dodge Demons carried MSRPs of about $90K, but were being sold for no less than $140K, because that's how supply and demand works...
 
Except that it's not a separate issue. If all (or nearly all) the non-FE cards being sold are priced by the AIB manufaturer at a price point based on the FE gouging surcharge... then that becomes the effective price point regardless of what the advertising says.

When I went to buy my old car, a Saturn Sky Redline, new, there were about a dozen if not more in my area just in my preferred color. All I wanted was for it to black, black top, with a black and red two-tone leather interior, and maybe to have the upgraded stereo. While the transmissions were optional, every last Sky, or at least every Red Line with black paint, also had leather seats, the double upgraded stereo, a rear spoiler, chrome wheels, and dual tipped chrome exhaust. So the base theoretical advertised price was $30K, but the actual price was $32K... so that was the price of the car. It's not even bait and switch because it just so happens that nearly none happened to have been made at that price. Same for the 1070, nearly none were made by any AIB at $379 because they were not contractually obligated by Nvidia to price the cards at $379, so that cannot properly be considered the real price.

Which even if you were to still attempt to treat $379 as the real price would still show significant price inflation because the 970 was $329 or more accurately $299 after the $30 refund settlement for being shortchanged a half gig of vram. Whatever pricing you use for the 1070, the increase for the new midrange 2070 is far, far too high.

I wouldn’t consider it mid range since the die is approx the same size as a Titan XP. Transistor cost hasn’t gone down.

The delta in percieved value is whether you agree with nVidia’s “RTX” decision or not. A decent chunk of the silicon is dedicated to RT cores and tensor cores.

I do think nVidia messed up their naming scheme...
 
Nice to see the review first here. Glad to see you didn't sign the NDA. Freedom is a wonderful thing.
 
Looking at the price, I would say it was indeed a launch flop

Right, and as I said, the price was the only glaring negative, but judging how a lot of consumers make their decisions in this market (fanboyism, etc), I don’t feel like that will be the barrier that a lot of us here say it will be, and NVIDIA is well aware of that. I just don’t understand why, given the performance of the card, the NVIDIA decided it was worth the bad press to do the NDA system that they decided to go with this time around. Just seems like an unnecessary way to spend “political capital” if you will.
 
Those are absolutely separate issues.

MSRP =/= effective market price.

The last batch of Dodge Demons carried MSRPs of about $90K, but were being sold for no less than $140K, because that's how supply and demand works...


Except the Dodge Demon was an extreme halo car, possibly even more so than the Viper. This is more like Dodge suddenly consenting for every base V6 charger to be sold for $50K over the theoretical starter sticker price because it's the only game in town for a mid level car with V6 horsepower, since under your example all the other manufacturers for the last few years haven't been able to put out a car with more than about 150HP despite charging big bucks for their cars because their cost of materials is so high.

I wouldn’t consider it mid range since the die is approx the same size as a Titan XP. Transistor cost hasn’t gone down.

The delta in percieved value is whether you agree with nVidia’s “RTX” decision or not. A decent chunk of the silicon is dedicated to RT cores and tensor cores.

I do think nVidia messed up their naming scheme...

It's mid range because the 2080 and 2080ti as well a future Titan branded card constitute high end.
 
How do you think the suckers who signed the NDA are going to feel about Nvidia assuring them first crack at hardware and reviews? Don't you think they might be a bit pissed that a retail purchased review came out first, taking away potential page views? Nvidia has to answer to the promises they made to other tech sites.

I agree, but that’s not HardOCP’s fault. Once the cards are available for purchase, anyone can put out whatever they want. NVIDIA definitely dropped the ball here and have no one to blame but themselves.
 
It's mid range because the 2080 and 2080ti as well a future Titan branded card constitute high end.

The current mid-range is arguably the RX580/GTX1060-level. This card is >GTX1080. It may carry a mid-range SKU, but as stated it both carries the transistors (and thus cost) as well as the performance of a high-end GPU.
 
You spent a lot of time there, how cute!

And what you're trying to say, after all of that, is that people should believe you and not their own minds based on how price/performance stacks up for them. You know better, amirite?

Bluntly, Yes.

NVidia's anti-consumer behavior should not be rewarded. We've seen what they've done over the last two generations of being competition free in the high end space and now that the company is free of competition in both the high end and midrange it's getting worse. At this rate, think what the 3070's will go for.
 
NVidia's anti-consumer behavior should not be rewarded.

How about their innovation? And if you want to play the latest titles at anything close to 4k120? Or perhaps VR with the settings cranked?

I'll buy and recommend the best product for the application, thanks.

At this rate, think what the 3070's will go for.

Depends on what they bring to the table.

And for the record, I'm not opposed to people not buying these cards if they're not right for their applications. That goes along with my statement above.
 
How about their innovation? And if you want to play the latest titles at anything close to 4k120? Or perhaps VR with the settings cranked?

I'll buy and recommend the best product for the application, thanks.



Depends on what they bring to the table.

And for the record, I'm not opposed to people not buying these cards if they're not right for their applications. That goes along with my statement above.

NVidia seemed able to bring just as much innovation to your sanctified market when there was meaningful competition as there is when meaningful competition is presently lacking. Yet, when such competition existed the price unsurprisingly for both high end and mid range was significantly lower. Since the generation improvement between the 970, 1070, and 2070 have not been so unusual as compared to the generations that preceded these three graphics cards, the price being asked just isn't worth it.
 
I'm curious to see how well this card will handle ray tracing in games when it comes out. Heck, even the 2080ti for that matter. These are first gen cards.
I will say the price point on this one is more my style. I have a 970 right now - it's ok for games I play at 1080. My 4k monitor feels lonely...
I'm thinking about upgrading this spring. Currently considering a Ryzen 2700x, 2070, and starting off with 16gb ram. This will replace my good friend the 2600k, 970, and 16 gb ram. I might upgrade the new system to 32gb as I use Docker and a lot of non-gaming stuff.
 
At this rate, think what the 3070's will go for.

I imagine a lot more, because of reality....

8BC218C4-AA0A-4296-AA54-2D148144245C.png


The 2070 costs about the same than a Titan XP/1080ti BOM but launches for less $$$ than the 1080ti did.

Again, comes down to if RTX works out for the value, but the reality is this card isn’t making more margin. It’s less if anything. nVidia took a relative margin hit to launch this line...
 
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to your sanctified market

Don't get personal.

Yet, when such competition existed the price unsurprisingly for both high end and mid range was significantly lower.

We've already talked about this. Your point is that the card comes with a mid-range label, it should be mid-range- and the facts have already been provided such that your point falls flat.

have not been so unusual

And it falls flat because you're dead wrong here. The generational improvement has picked up, and now we're not only getting a decent raster GPU update, we're also getting DLSS and ray-tracing.
 
The biggest problem I have is when (if) ray tracing comes to fruition soon, the performance hit is going to drag these first-gen RTX cards through the mud, resulting in a huge loss on investment.

Nobody is going to want to pay the artificially inflated prices for a 30-50% hit in FPS, and that's also going to kill the used market values.

I can not stop to laugh my ass on the floor for al those literally dumb things you're trying to push. "Oh it's too expensive" "Oh it's mid range priced as premium" "Oh can you imagine the hit it would take". Seems to me only IdiotInCharge is using his brain.

The 2070 is basically a "refreshed" 1080 + Tensor Cores, DLSS and so on. Basically, what you seem to be unable to comprehend is that you get hardware from the past + hardware for the future in one package that still beats the previous generation card that was sitting on an upper tier.

Jesus is this that hard to comprehend? The hit it would take? Basically NONE! Cause they have the hardware implementation. Now think twice and imagine the hit that the 1080 Ti would take? It may well bring it down under the 2070 in frame rates.

Jeez...

Anyway, congrats Kyle. You proved again that [H]ard is the way to go.
 
And yet despite all that, just the threat of Vega, hollow as it unfortunately turned out to be, seemed to pressure NVidia into lowering the prices of the 1080 and 1080ti.

At the time those cards were released they too had fairly significant generational improvements over Maxwell, which had significant generational improvements over Kepler, and by focusing on a strictly gaming die for mid range Kepler and beyond had massive improvements over Fermi. Remember how hot the 480 and 470 ran? It was almost like AMD's 290X.
 
Yes, and then shortly thereafter prices rocketed way the hell past MSRP and Founder's tax MSRP due to the mining craze.

Although to be fair in qualifying my statement, it was the 1080 that was already out and had an official price drop. Considering what the Pascal Titan launched at, would the 1080ti really have launched at $699 in a competition free environment?
 
I'm just in a rough boat this time around, after seeing the 2080 and 2080Ti pricing, and then seeing this price and the reviews for the whole lineup... I'm just left wondering whats really in this launch for me.

GTX 1080, more then capable 7700k + mobo + RAM (4 months ago) + Gsync display in the sig... this whole 2000 series just seems meh to me. Pricing is just such a deterrent... I'm willing to "ball" out again for the damn near $700 price tag like I did last gen (1080 2.5 years ago), my goal was to hop on the "Ti train" this time around but shoot, I just don't have anywhere to go that my wallet wouldn't hate me.

Unless prices fall considerably, see ya next gen Nvidia.

Time to monetarily focus on a new case + non-computer related things.

As always Kyle/Brent, thanks for the reviews, and screw the pre-NDA release date hate, still really glad you didn't sign. I can't wait to see the 3000 series NDA ;)
 
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Damn !
I want to build a computer with a vega 64 in it, but that seem to be a more and more silly thing to do even if i am still on 1080p and dont have a urge to go higher.
If only AMD could drop the V64 more,,,,,, much more it would still make sense, but if a 2070 are going to be cheaper it make no sense to go with the V64.

Thank god i cant afford to upgrade my monitor too, that would just mess even more with my grey matter.
 
Right, and as I said, the price was the only glaring negative, but judging how a lot of consumers make their decisions in this market (fanboyism, etc), I don’t feel like that will be the barrier that a lot of us here say it will be, and NVIDIA is well aware of that. I just don’t understand why, given the performance of the card, the NVIDIA decided it was worth the bad press to do the NDA system that they decided to go with this time around. Just seems like an unnecessary way to spend “political capital” if you will.

I think it has to do with the landscape change in the review process/consumption. New comers watch YT.

I waited for reviews, and decided my money was better spent upgrading from a highly OC'd 980Ti (Zotac AMP! OMEGA with Extreme BIOS @ ~1500/8000 with a Bitspower block) to an EVGA 1080Ti FTW3 that I slapped the EVGA Hydro Copper block on. The 400 I spent out of pocket for that was leaps and bounds a better value over the 20x0 series, and my performance target for my UW resolution (3840x1600).
 
Bluntly, Yes.

NVidia's anti-consumer behavior should not be rewarded. We've seen what they've done over the last two generations of being competition free in the high end space and now that the company is free of competition in both the high end and midrange it's getting worse. At this rate, think what the 3070's will go for.

The 2070 is the same price as an AMD Vega 64, which AMD has not chosen to drop the price of. Yet the 2070 performs better and includes more forward looking technologies. Who is really failing to bring innovation to the consumer GPU market?
 
Except the Dodge Demon was an extreme halo car, possibly even more so than the Viper. This is more like Dodge suddenly consenting for every base V6 charger to be sold for $50K over the theoretical starter sticker price because it's the only game in town for a mid level car with V6 horsepower, since under your example all the other manufacturers for the last few years haven't been able to put out a car with more than about 150HP despite charging big bucks for their cars because their cost of materials is so high.



It's mid range because the 2080 and 2080ti as well a future Titan branded card constitute high end.


FFS, you're arguing semantics to ignore my point regarding the disturbingly high MSRP of the 2070 compared to meager price increases of previous generations.
 
I think it has to do with the landscape change in the review process/consumption. New comers watch YT.

I waited for reviews, and decided my money was better spent upgrading from a highly OC'd 980Ti (Zotac AMP! OMEGA with Extreme BIOS @ ~1500/8000 with a Bitspower block) to an EVGA 1080Ti FTW3 that I slapped the EVGA Hydro Copper block on. The 400 I spent out of pocket for that was leaps and bounds a better value over the 20x0 series, and my performance target for my UW resolution (3840x1600).

Yeah I’ve been tempted with some of the 1070Tis that I’m seeing now that the mining craze is done. The wild card for me at this point is the G-Sync vs Freesync thing. I do need a new monitor, but I’m not sure I really want to shell out the additional cash G-Sync seems to bear over Freesync.

In any case, I’m still running an R9 280X, so I’ll likely be happy with anything at this point!
 
Bwaahahahaha,.... laughing my arse off over this NDA thing. Kudos to Kyle for getting this review out there. I would have liked a 1080ti in the comparison mix. I am guessing the 2070 performs just below the 1080ti. Plus, at $599, it's not too far off the 1080ti price.
 
Good stuff, and the tears from people saying you should have waited are the icing on the cake. Card looks decent, but the prices are just too high for my taste. Hopefully once Intel puts some resources into GPU some semblance of competition can resume.
 
i dont get it? why do other reviewers feel disrespected? can someone explain this too me? i mean i get the whole damn he beat us to the punch business thing, but not the respect issue.
 
So because you didn't sign the NDA, you thought it was okay to undercut all the other reviewers who did? Because why? You want to spite Nvidia or something?
I'd like to mention that Steve (GamersNexus) didn't sign recent AMD NDA's, but still managed to source early Ryzen chips and chose not to publish until the NDA date out of respect for other reviewers.

This is a scummy move.

Fuck you and fuck Nvidia...and I'm a shareholder! You can't have it both ways. Grow the fuck up.
 
The 2070 is the same price as an AMD Vega 64, which AMD has not chosen to drop the price of. Yet the 2070 performs better and includes more forward looking technologies. Who is really failing to bring innovation to the consumer GPU market?
This is a total straw man, nothing in the quoted post talks about innovation, only anti-consumer policies. Specific examples would be GPP which was scrapped and the restrictive NDAs.

I'm sure AMD wants to bring competition to the market, they are a business after all. They don't have anything to bring, or they would be.
 
I do love that youve told em to stuff that Bullshit NDA where the sun dont shine. So great to watch a big company that pushes unfair practices as its mantra pretty much, crying and calling no fair! Keep those reviews comin!
 
Kinda late to this thread but.... hahahahaha!!!! Fucking awesome.

I had a feeling Kyle would find an opportunity to make a statement about that NDA discussed a while back. Nice work.

This is what hardware reviews are supposed to be about. Just show us what you got. Not the hand-holding marketing-fluff circle-jerk "community" that the hardware companies have been curating over the last several years.

The reaction further serves the anti-narrative that this generation is a flop. Iterative improvements and some new magic mystery sauce bolted on, the value of which still hasn't materialized. PASS.
 
Kyle, can you test against the 2080 and 1080 Ti so we can see exactly how it compares?

Thanks.
 
Kyle, can you test against the 2080 and 1080 Ti so we can see exactly how it compares?

Thanks.

They perform about the same except in Vulkan benchmarks, then the 2080 crushes the Ti. This is all over the internet in almost every 2080 review.
 
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