Are the price drops from Nvidia enough to make you go Nvidia rather than AMD?

Is the gtx 780 and gtx 770 price drop enough to make you go Nvidia rather than AMD?

  • Yes it is, I wil be purchasing a Nvidia solution over AMD now.

    Votes: 107 39.2%

  • No I will wait for a 290x or purchase the 30 dollar cheaper 280x.

    Votes: 77 28.2%

  • I am not interested in buying new cards this generation.

    Votes: 89 32.6%
  • Total voters
    273
Wasn't going to switch from NV anyway since I have a 3D Vision monitor, but the price drop does make me want to upgrade.
 
I was considering jumping ship from a 780 to crossfire 290x (winter is coming) but now I'm just dropping down on another 780
 
I like having that extra 1 GB of VRAM... Went with the 290x since drivers are still in beta and future drivers can improve performance by 10-15%
 
Not buying another card for a while.
Only reason I want to upgrade atm is to get more than 1.5GB Vram to play Skyrim maxed out with mods.
I'll wait :)
 
polonyc2 said:
TrueAudio sounds good on paper but I can't see this taking off...like the article mentions-- "The challenge for AMD is that they’re going to need to get developers on board to utilize the technology, something that was a continual problem for Aureal and Creative"...plus being an AMD-exclusive would be problematic...

http://www.anandtech.com/show/7370/amd-announces-trueaudio-technology-for-upcoming-gpus
Click to expand...


I disagree. As much as people bitch about nvidia's proprietary feature sets like physx, that seems to be a deciding factor for many in tilting them towards nvidia gpus. In this very thread, nvidia raped the market until amd had a card that beat their 780, then they barely undercut it, and people are already jumping on the 780 over the 290x (or even waiting to see what the 290 non x brings).

They essentially endorse nvidias business practices with those choices, refuse to buy for performance per dollar, and why?

I think it has to do with the extra features nvidia gpus bring and AMD gpus don't. So this is something useful for AMD to start competing in.


I use headphones all the time, and trueaudio has the potential to add to the immersion of certain types of games. It's like those binaural recordings, there is more depth than just the visuals.

http://vimeo.com/8604866

AMD needs to do something. Nvidia has two thirds of the market according to steam. That is DOMINATING. Nvidia has lower performance per dollar, and they still win. PEople in this thread choose the top end card when it's nvidia, and when an nvidia card is slightly slower for a teeny bit lower, they STILL choose the nvidia. Even knowing that a cheaper amd card will likely have similar performance to what the current 780 brings. They can't win because whether people admit it or not, they have a bias in FAVOR of nvidia products. I don't care what they say, look at what they do.
 
tybert7 said:
They essentially endorse nvidias business practices with those choices, refuse to buy for performance per dollar, and why?
Click to expand...

It's because Nvidia has a better brand. They are perceived as being more reliable, having better build quality, etc.

You can argue over whether this is still factually true, but it definitely was in the past and blunders like frame pacing and the 290X cooler don't help things along. I mean, think about how Nvidia played up the engineering and work they put into the Titan/780 blower. That doesn't improve performance at stock clocks. They could have punted it like AMD did. Instead they engineered something new with extremely high build quality and marketed the help out of it. AMD needs to substantially beat Nvidia in every area for a sustained(probably 3-5 years) period and focus their marketing on their unquestionable wins to reverse this perception.

The 290x for example is not a win, it's playing catch up in a segment they've been losing in for 8 months. Having halo cards that destroy your competitor, even if out of reach for most, affects brand perception. Nvidia is the market, performance and innovation leader. AMD is the budget alternative. This perception is the same as Intel vs AMD. I suspect that Nvidia's traditionally slightly higher pricing actually improves their brand! People don't like to feel like they're buying the cheap substitute.

AMD would have to put out products that consistently beat nvidia in all aspects(perf, noise, power, drivers, and innovative features) for a long time to fix the problem and while I would love for that to happen as it would reduce prices across the whole market, I think it's about as likely as AMD ever competing with Intel on anything other than budget products.
 
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True audio and headphones has me going amd this round. But don't me wrong, Nvidia's price drop is enticing.
 
tybert7 said:
They essentially endorse nvidias business practices with those choices, refuse to buy for performance per dollar, and why?
Click to expand...

Performance per dollar is a rather misleading metric due to a lot of reasons. The focus should be on end user experience. This is also why features are an important selling point.

I'll explain why this is an issue using a third party to compare the 290x vs GTX 780 (this way without interjecting my own opinion on the matter), in this case HardOCP's r290x review - http://www.hardocp.com/article/2013/10/23/amd_radeon_r9_290x_video_card_review/1#.Um9lihCQ4Z0

In your case you feel the 290x is still the better due to the higher performance. However if you go by the test suite in this case both the 290x and GTX 780 in the reviewer(gamers opinion), Brent Justice, feels that they have identical playable settings at his monitor's resolution choice (2560x1600). Well except for 1 game, in Metro Last Light the GTX 780 was able to enable PhysX and so provide a better experience in terms of visuals. At the same time you see that the 290x comes with trade offs in terms of thermals/power. So despite the raw performance advantage oddly it is the GTX 780 that would offer the better experience at least in terms of this particular person subjective evaluation.

There is also the issue that performance differences are often not conclusive and definitive, particularly if you are comparing GPUs that are roughly the same tier. Let's look at the 7950/7970 vs the 760/770 for example. If you look at performance data for those cards you'll see that there are swings between the two brands. So the general concept of one being faster than the other would benefit someone rather little if at the end the games they happen to prefer a different card. The performance difference between them is simply not high enough to draw a definitive conclusion on which one would actually be higher performing for the end user. Much less which would actually provide the better experience if we start factoring things like feature set, game support (bugs), noise/power, multigpu support, performance variance across setups (resolutions), latency, and more.

We also haven't even looked into how cards compare once running non stock which opens up another large set of variables.

So it isn't as simple as buying a GPU solely based on aggregate avg fps numbers to price ratio.
 
I'm waiting for the 780Ti and the 290 - 290X non ref coolers to decide.
Also the cards are pretty much in performance order in the pricing as well.
780 - $399
290 - $449
290X - $549

The one card that again nvidia try to sell as exclusive is the 780Ti for 699$...i wouldn't be surprised if the 290X non-ref cards would be almost on par with it, max 1-2% difference, for $150 less...
 
I will wait first and see how the GTX 780 TI performs and see AMD's AIB's release a custom cooled and hopefully overclocked R9 290X before I will upgrade as I'm planning to buy a new monitor and finally upgrade from 1080p to see which card suits me best.
 
Sancus said:
...

The 290x for example is not a win, it's playing catch up in a segment they've been losing in for 8 months. Having halo cards that destroy your competitor, even if out of reach for most, affects brand perception. Nvidia is the market, performance and innovation leader. AMD is the budget alternative. This perception is the same as Intel vs AMD. I suspect that Nvidia's traditionally slightly higher pricing actually improves their brand! People don't like to feel like they're buying the cheap substitute.
...
Click to expand...

Then people are morons. Brands and brand perception is anti meritocratic, there is an effect of momentum with perception, even if you are not as good it is assumed that you are better in some other way.
 
Sancus said:
It's because Nvidia has a better brand. They are perceived as being more reliable, having better build quality, etc.

You can argue over whether this is still factually true, but it definitely was in the past and blunders like frame pacing and the 290X cooler don't help things along. I mean, think about how Nvidia played up the engineering and work they put into the Titan/780 blower. That doesn't improve performance at stock clocks. They could have punted it like AMD did. Instead they engineered something new with extremely high build quality and marketed the help out of it. AMD needs to substantially beat Nvidia in every area for a sustained(probably 3-5 years) period and focus their marketing on their unquestionable wins to reverse this perception.

The 290x for example is not a win, it's playing catch up in a segment they've been losing in for 8 months. Having halo cards that destroy your competitor, even if out of reach for most, affects brand perception. Nvidia is the market, performance and innovation leader. AMD is the budget alternative. This perception is the same as Intel vs AMD. I suspect that Nvidia's traditionally slightly higher pricing actually improves their brand! People don't like to feel like they're buying the cheap substitute.

AMD would have to put out products that consistently beat nvidia in all aspects(perf, noise, power, drivers, and innovative features) for a long time to fix the problem and while I would love for that to happen as it would reduce prices across the whole market, I think it's about as likely as AMD ever competing with Intel on anything other than budget products.
Click to expand...

Tell us about your collection of Apple products while your at it please.
 
limitedaccess said:
Performance per dollar is a rather misleading metric due to a lot of reasons. The focus should be on end user experience. This is also why features are an important selling point.

I'll explain why this is an issue using a third party to compare the 290x vs GTX 780 (this way without interjecting my own opinion on the matter), in this case HardOCP's r290x review - http://www.hardocp.com/article/2013/10/23/amd_radeon_r9_290x_video_card_review/1#.Um9lihCQ4Z0

In your case you feel the 290x is still the better due to the higher performance. However if you go by the test suite in this case both the 290x and GTX 780 in the reviewer(gamers opinion), Brent Justice, feels that they have identical playable settings at his monitor's resolution choice (2560x1600). Well except for 1 game, in Metro Last Light the GTX 780 was able to enable PhysX and so provide a better experience in terms of visuals. At the same time you see that the 290x comes with trade offs in terms of thermals/power. So despite the raw performance advantage oddly it is the GTX 780 that would offer the better experience at least in terms of this particular person subjective evaluation.

There is also the issue that performance differences are often not conclusive and definitive, particularly if you are comparing GPUs that are roughly the same tier. Let's look at the 7950/7970 vs the 760/770 for example. If you look at performance data for those cards you'll see that there are swings between the two brands. So the general concept of one being faster than the other would benefit someone rather little if at the end the games they happen to prefer a different card. The performance difference between them is simply not high enough to draw a definitive conclusion on which one would actually be higher performing for the end user. Much less which would actually provide the better experience if we start factoring things like feature set, game support (bugs), noise/power, multigpu support, performance variance across setups (resolutions), latency, and more.

We also haven't even looked into how cards compare once running non stock which opens up another large set of variables.

So it isn't as simple as buying a GPU solely based on aggregate avg fps numbers to price ratio.
Click to expand...


There is a strong argument for the 780 @499 vs the 290x. Depending on the performance/price of the 290, that argument may evaporate. We'll know soon, but with incomplete knowledge people in this very thread have already jumped on the 780 because they favor nvidia.

THAT is why they got to charge 400 dollars for the 770 vs AMD's ~300 dollars for the 7970.

This is why it will help AMD to have their own exclusive toys. Because that matters to people. AMD can't just be as good, or slightly better, they have to be much better to get a look. They have to work harder for the same dollar than nvidia does. Hopefully the whole mantle implementation will give them a solid performance leg up, because they need it.
 
TheMadHatterXxX said:
Tell us about your collection of Apple products while your at it please.
Click to expand...

unnecessary response

I own AMD cards and I agree with pretty much everything he said

Origin recently stopped putting AMD cards into their prebuilt systems due to the amount of customer complaints due to numerous AMD-specific issues

and i've had my fair share of issues with crossfirex as well as other annoyances such as web browser flickering (something that has yet to be fixed afaik) if you have hardware acceleration turned on
 
I think people go with the sure thing many times. This past generation to be specific. The 7970 was a blunder and got completely destroyed at every turn. The 680 was faster, cooler, used less power and far more reliable. It wasn't until near the end of the generation that and got their shit tougher with the never settle drivers and post sale game bundles. I remember these forums flooded with people having issues with the 7970 and they couldn't sell them to save their lives. After never settle they were happy, but I think it shows that and drivers are always an issue... 7970 owners had the wait so long to get proper drivers.
Its like Yah, in the end it's fast, but looks what it took to get there.
That and microstutter...
I have no issues going amd, but in the back of my head I know nvidia just works. I get what I buy.
 
tybert7 said:
There is a strong argument for the 780 @499 vs the 290x. Depending on the performance/price of the 290, that argument may evaporate. We'll know soon, but with incomplete knowledge people in this very thread have already jumped on the 780 because they favor nvidia.

THAT is why they got to charge 400 dollars for the 770 vs AMD's ~300 dollars for the 7970.

This is why it will help AMD to have their own exclusive toys. Because that matters to people. AMD can't just be as good, or slightly better, they have to be much better to get a look. They have to work harder for the same dollar than nvidia does. Hopefully the whole mantle implementation will give them a solid performance leg up, because they need it.
Click to expand...

I don't believe in brand loyalty at all. When I buy cards it is all about what I can get for my money at the time. I completely ignore brand specific features when considering cards because in the long run it is unlikely that something proprietary to either company will become a standard. Mantle and TrueAudio have good potential, but so did PhysX at one point. The 290x is a great card, but I can't buy it right now. It's out of stock everywhere and I'm not paying over MSRP for it. The 290 will also probably be a great card that is impossible to buy. Quite frankly, I'm not interested in waiting potentially several weeks for stock to get to point where I don't have to watch hourly and get lucky to snag a card when I'm currently running on onboard video. Then due to heat and noise I would want a waterblock right away, no guarantees they will actually be in stock at the time either. I could go for 2 280xs and I considered that for a while, but that doubles the cost of waterblocks and introduces multi-GPU annoyances.
 
tybert7 said:
They essentially endorse nvidias business practices with those choices, refuse to buy for performance per dollar, and why?

I think it has to do with the extra features nvidia gpus bring and AMD gpus don't. So this is something useful for AMD to start competing in.

AMD needs to do something. Nvidia has two thirds of the market according to steam. That is DOMINATING. Nvidia has lower performance per dollar, and they still win. PEople in this thread choose the top end card when it's nvidia, and when an nvidia card is slightly slower for a teeny bit lower, they STILL choose the nvidia. Even knowing that a cheaper amd card will likely have similar performance to what the current 780 brings. They can't win because whether people admit it or not, they have a bias in FAVOR of nvidia products. I don't care what they say, look at what they do.
Click to expand...


Performance per dollar isn't everything. I believe people go Nvidia with similar price points because they feel Nvidia will fix issues faster if and when they arise. Look at the screen tearing issue with Eyefinity. AMD never bothered to address the issue for 3 generations (I believe they have finally fixed it for R series by no longer forcing people to use displayport). The same can be said about the frame pacing issue. My guess is they would have happily let that go on for even longer then it did if major outlets didn't starting reporting the issue. Of course Nvidia commits gaffes as well but they usually fix it much quicker if its software related and within one generation of cards if its hardware related. To me that does add value even if it doesn't show up on a chart. BTW currently using a 7950 because Nvidia had nothing even remotely competitive for under $200.
 
It's all about perception. If you like one brand over another then you will gloss over the faults of the brand you prefer and if you do buy the brand you don't like then any little fault will be huge. It's human nature.

And for whatever reason, Nvidia is perceived by many to be better than AMD/ATI. And it's been the same for years. Two times in particular stand out for me. The first was when ATI had the best card on the market, the 9700 pro. I don't think there is a person here who would question that, the 9700 pro was king. But, despite having the best cards and no driver problems at the time, Nvidia still outsold ATI. I think for 6 straight quarters, Nvidia had the best sales and highest market share. Nvidia despite having a worse line up of cards were still seen as better.

The other time was around the release of Vista, Nvidia's drivers were useless for ages. AMD/ATI's worked fine. Didn't change anything, Nvidia still outsold them and were still seen as better.

And Nvidia have done a good job at keeping that brand loyalty, you just have to look around forums to see that.

This isnt a for or against Nvida/AMD post. It's just pointing out that I don't think it matters what AMD does unless they can somehow change the perception that Nvidia is the best. And I am not sure how they can go about doing that.
 
It's inaccurate to blame marketing and brand loyalty for the result of this poll. The 290x is faster. But the 780 is now cheaper. ~10% performance gains for 10% more money. The price/performance is now even again. But with the 780 the noise/power/heat factors are better and have had a better track record with drivers in the over the last generation.

It makes complete sense for people for the 780 to be the more popular option after the price cuts. But, as others have said, the upcoming 290 might change that again.
 
Waiting for black Friday/cyber monday deals. Want to try nvidia this time around but I'll buy whoever has the best price to performance.
 
6950 @ 6970 specs is going to have to be enough for me right now. In waiting, I get to see just how good gsync is going to be, as well as see how nicely Mantle is handled. I doubt I'll even be getting an upgrade even after this generation's replacement...

1680x1050 here. The 1200p monitor is being used as a TV...
 
Where's the 'I don't know' option in the poll? It's exciting to see the price drops on nvidias part and getting some good competition finally. I see potential in Gsync but it kinda sux having to buy another monitor to properly support it :(
 
My purchases have always been based on performance in the games that I actually play, rather than minor pricing differences.
 
The dust has yet to settle as there are a couple of "cards" left to be played :)

I expect to pick up a 280X or a 770 in the near future, but I don't need it today. I'll wait a few more weeks and assess the situation then.
 
I think I will just buy a 2nd 7950, hope the Mantle drivers work the way they should and just keep on playing for a couple years.
 
H3LLsREAPER said:
I am picking up 2 GTX 780 Lightning's today for new egg only $549.99. That's a deal for me.
I'm Jumping all over it.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127754
Click to expand...

Got one myself. I really wanted to wait for the 290 non-reference options to come out but I gave in and the 780 lightning looks like a great card. Throw in the game bundle and you have a deal. Now I have a brand new 7970 coming to me some time in November from RMA that I am going to sell so it was really a no brainer for me. I have no brand loyalties so I don't care what name is on the card as long as it works -- and overclocks like a boss.
 
The free games are interesting, and the price is just about right... but I think I'll wait for Maxwell.
 
Very poorly designed poll. The nvidia answer is "Yes, unconditionally" while the AMD answer is conditioned on two specific models.
 
chiablo said:
The free games are interesting, and the price is just about right... but I think I'll wait for Maxwell.
Click to expand...

will Maxwell resort back to Nvidia's crazy $700+ pricing?...seems like now might be the best time ever to buy an enthusiast video card
 
The lower prices on the nvidia products are nuts.:eek::eek::eek:

I agree the MSI Lightning at 549 is crazy good, and the Galaxy deal on their reference model for 499 (with a good bundle) is also nuts.....a great card and a VERY quiet cooler.

Man, I have two GTX 780s from Galaxy that I bought at release.......for 600 whatever dollars and they are excellent, at 499 they are just too good to pass up.

I also agree that right now is the time to pick up an enthusiats class product, either company, really doesn't matter, the prices are excellent and so are the products.:D
 
magoo said:
I also agree that right now is the time to pick up an enthusiats class product, either company, really doesn't matter, the prices are excellent and so are the products.:D
Click to expand...

I'd wait to see where the R9 290 comes in. Shouldn't be too long.
 
I can't believe people in this thread are saying a 780 and a 280x are the same performance.
F if that was true why did they bring out anything new.

the 290 and X just need better cooling but that will jack the price up at least $50.
 
sparks said:
I can't believe people in this thread are saying a 780 and a 280x are the same performance.
F if that was true why did they bring out anything new.

the 290 and X just need better cooling but that will jack the price up at least $50.
Click to expand...

If you overclock the GTX780, you can get it to 290X Uber performance with far less noise, for $50 less today, and $100 less when the custom coolers come out (if they are at least $50 more as you say).

As has already been mentioned, there's more to a card than just pure price/performance. It's a package deal.
 
CtrlAltDefeat said:
Waiting for black Friday/cyber monday deals. Want to try nvidia this time around but I'll buy whoever has the best price to performance.
Click to expand...

I have never seen a high end graphics card on deep discount on either black friday or cyber monday. Not once, ever.

IdiotInCharge said:
If you overclock the GTX780, you can get it to 290X Uber performance with far less noise, for $50 less today, and $100 less when the custom coolers come out (if they are at least $50 more as you say).

As has already been mentioned, there's more to a card than just pure price/performance. It's a package deal.
Click to expand...


290x and 780 perform pretty much the same clock for clock. Max clocks also appear to be pretty similar based on early reports so far.
 
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