Explain: How has Competition Helped the GCards War?

SnowBeast

SnowBeast

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Aug 3, 2003
Messages
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Seriously. Everyone keeps saying the competition is tight between ATI vs Nvidia but how is that helping us? Price? Now were at $500 top of the line cards? Folks, get real. My Radeon 8500 64MB was $299 when it came to market. The Ti500 was $350. These were top of the line cards. Before Radeon came along Nvidia was charging over $450+ for an Geforce 2Ultra! The prices dropped when the above 8500 came out. That is how competition helps. Follow me to a couple years later........................

Whoop!~ Here we are! Its 2004 and both Companys(ATI And Nvidia) are trying to suck us dry with $400-500 Graphics Cards!! If I am to be correct on this, they are intern making between $250-300 on each card or chipset! That in the business world is price guoging. [SP!]

Where and how do we make a stand as consumers to get these cards down in a fairly normal high price point of $300? You know, I Know it was a few years ago, but I remember getting 2<--------------key point there, graphics cards for $300 and running SLI with them. And that WAS TOP OF THE LINE then. Now Nvidia is telling me between $700-1000 I can do the same?(yes I know its not the same as Scan Line Interwhatever)

We need to stop this and make a point to hold back our urges to buy the latest and greatest. Really, do I need this X800 Pro as compared to my 9800Pro I had at XT speeds?
Hell No. I shouldn't have and haven't noticed a damn difference really. WOW!! I gained 15Fps on FARCRY!! WHOOPDEE JERKIN DO DAH! I spent on something that was not needed and gave them a reason to keep prices at $400 and above.

Really. We need to knock this off and get these cards back to their half way affordable range. Really funny how ATI jumped on the High Price bandwagon after the 8500, huh? Same as AMD putting their prices up there with Intel on there chips now too.

How do we make a stand? Go back to Intel and Nvidia for a couple of years till it hits them in the pocket book again? Seems like AMD and ATI both forgot how they got higher in the polls. Just something I noticed after talking about SLI with the Voodoo's and how we bought 2 cards for $300 not $700+. Wondering what some of your insight was on this. :)
 
It is insane to state that they are profiting $250 off of each card/chipset manufactured. Do you realize how big their development costs are?
 
Kyguy said:
It is insane to state that they are profiting $250 off of each card/chipset manufactured. Do you realize how big their development costs are?
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Yes I do. :) You really think that $400 board that is a cut down of a $500 board cost that much to make? :D Now thats comedy gold.
 
Prices go up...thats just simply a fact of life....I mean I wish I could still buy a candy bar for a quarter but I can't. ;) You can still get a dang good card for 300 ...those days aren't gone......my 9800 Pro in my sig cost me 160....
 
I do agree that graphics cards do sort of do the oppisite of most hardware (things get faster and cheaper rather than faster and more expensive, with competition driveing prices down), but $500 dollar cards are a small market. Sure theres tons of people on here with the uber cards, but this forum is in no way a reflection of the market in general. On this board its gonna sound like theres tons of people buying the top of line cards, but thats cause this is a computer forum, people here enjoy computers a whole lot, and in turn they put alot of money into their systems. Its just like any hobby, people who enjoy the hobby will put big dollars into it.
Really, do I need this X800 Pro as compared to my 9800Pro I had at XT speeds?
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Thats the point of it all. Someone obssessed with the performance of their pc will spend the money on that 6800 or X800 in a heartbeat, no matte rhow minute the gain is, an gain is a gain and a hobbyist will spit out the cash to be on top of everytrhing, even if you did tell them by holding back theres a chance they may lower prices across the board (though unlikely).

on the surface it may look like people are being taken advantage of, but in reality this appies to any hobby. People who are deep into it will spit out the cash for even the smallest gains in performance, and as long as that happens manufacturers of all products will keep pushing the limit of people pocket.

P.S.: This is completly off topic, but the beats on this new beastie boys album are amazing, everyone should go pick it up.
 
Competition is good for any type of products, from cars to food. Nvidia fighting vs ATi, and Intel vs AMD, make the products cheaper and faster, that is good for you and me. If Nvidia didnt have any competitors we might be stuck with products like the FX series and not have the choice to go to the R350 line... :p
 
I know we can't get a card at cost, but at how much is too far? I mean, look at the whole X800 series. Talk about making a penny. Really, breakdown the X800 series for price/performance. Take the 9700 core revised=9800Pro/XT with all having a starting cost of $399 or better. Now add 3Dc and PS2.0b instructions to a 9800 =$400-500 card? Thats not much R&D folks. ;) They have basically leeched off the R300 core for too long, milking us.

Nvidia on the other hand did develope SM 3.0 and isn't making as much per card as ATI for that developement. But yes, cards do generate that $250-300 mark I pointed out. Do you ppl know how much an hour the average person in Taiwan or Malaysia (as its printed on the GPU)makes? Its literally pennies. Now figure the same ppl putting those GPU's on boards. YEs it is that simple. Its that cheap to have it Actually Made. Yes R&D is expensive, but only on Nvidia's side this round. X800's are way overpriced. Yes I know they have GDDR3, that still doens't make up the gobs of money they are making on it.

Trust me, with a BA in Business, I can smell the BS in the pricing scheme ATI is pulling this round.;) And no, I don't think Nvidia is any different, but this round with the SM 3.0 being implemented, it is costing them more than ATI.
 
SnowBeast said:
Show me where this is making products cheaper.
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well making the cards cheaper is a product of competition, look at intel, they are keep making price cuts (like the supposed one on August 3rd IIFC) in order to stay ahead of AMD. Just think of what the prices would be if there was a monopoly. Making the cards faster i can give you a perfect example...Look at the Nvidia FX series, they were obviously Slower than the R350, which was hailed last generation. In return for them being slower, not as many people bought them causing them to loose our $$. Now look at this round, Nvidia knew if they didnt put a top tier product they would be out of the graphics card biz, so they put alot of time and effort into bringing us the 6800 series, which is arguably faster than the x800s, that is how we get faster cards by competition
 
actually I believe the fact that they can't take their sweet times doing these things means they have to pay premiums for things like storage, delivery, technology, over time for their engineers.. thus making the products more expensive, however making them MUCH better at the same time.

That theory doesn't take into account the time elapse in the beginning, once the industry gets used to rush delivering the prices should stabilize, if not oh well, I'll take my faster cards for more cash, if it's reasonable.

~Adam
 
The prices of video cards have increased at a rate greater than that of other computer parts. In the not so distance past, most could afford the best video cards out there. Ever since this new product tier strategy, most enthusiasts buy mid-level cards. The only people with the high end cards are reviewers who get them for free and people with more money than sense.

20% more for maybe a 5% increase at the most? That makes more sense when you aren't dealing with $400 items. At the same time, the longevity of a video card has gotten shorter. Between the Voodoo and Voodoo 2, there was a two year gap. Now ATI shoves out a 9800XT only to follow it a few months later with the X800 line. The Voodoo 2 cost $200 at release. A modern 6800 Ultra is $500. Has everything else in life increased in price 2.5 times since 1998? And consider the technology was rare back then, whereas now-a-days everything has a 3D accelerator.

I have a hard time believing that we've already hit the point of diminishing returns.
 
It is important to draw one distinction. A card that cost 300 dollars today is significantly more powerful than what you got for 300 then. Your argument is not valid because of this fact.
 
jacuzz1 said:
It is important to draw one distinction. A card that cost 300 dollars today is significantly more powerful than what you got for 300 then. Your argument is not valid because of this fact.
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That might fly if video cards exsist in a vacuum. That's not the case. It has to do with their relation to other components.
 
Nvidia spent in excess of $400,000,000 to develop the N40, so I don't mind paying $499 for my 6800 Ultra. If you want the bleeding edge GPU and DDR3 you have to pay. Nvidia and ATI spend a big chunk of there profits developing their next GPU.
 
iZero said:
That might fly if video cards exsist in a vacuum. That's not the case. It has to do with their relation to other components.
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A CPU that coste $400 today is infinitly more powerfull that one that cost 1000 5 years ago.

The simple reality is that most if not all of us dont need the most powerful shit on the planet. 5 year ago the most powerful shit on the planet would set you back 10's of thousands. I just dont buy the arguement.

I find it amazing that a 500 dollar card can do in real time what it took 30 machines to encode just 8 years ago.

$500 is a bargain. The real issue is we need the card makers to fund developers so they can afford write progies to take full advantage of the hardware without risking their businesses. ID is one of the few that can take 5 years to develope a game.

The good news is that like Q3 there should be a host of games based on the Doom 3 engine that should allow us to get our monies worth out of the new hardware
 
yeah but look at the performance of a $500 card compared to a $300 a few years ago. a few years ago you could run high-end games of the time at 1024X768 with maybe 2X AA and trilinear filtering (i know because i got a GeForce 3 at $230 two or so years ago) and that's it. with today's high end cards you can run the latest high-end game at 1600X1200 with 4X AA and 8X AF (Farcry, probably DOOM III and HL 2 - hell even Halo at least gets 30 FPS at 1024X768 on the latest cards nowadays ;) ).

that's quite a huge leap in performance - not just a linear leap but almost exponential. that's the mistake you make in thinking that card prices have gone up without justification ("price fixing" or "price gouging"). the truth is that we get far more powerful cards than we ever did before. the plain 6800 is probably equivalent to what you would expect had graphics cards advanced at a linear pace... and it's still there for the taking - we just have even better cards now with each release if you want to pay extra.
 
yea vid cards have gotten more expensive however they have also gotten exponentially more complex. price of vid card has doubled true.

with the ram on card. the 3d accelerator is now more independent. my 6800 has nearly twice as many transistors as my new a64. 4 years ago that was the opposite cpus had twice or 4x as many as a good gaming chip. graph chips are also massively more important. my grandma may have a p4 2.4 in her dell but i cant do shit with it.

1k$ dell p4 2.8 +100$ fx 5200,
1k$ dell p4 2.8 + 400$ 6800gt

were walking about 1/5th the price for 10 times the gaming power.

so in fact your real complaint should be why havent cpu prices dropped more. with an 80$ mobile barton and 60$ nforce2 and a 400$ dollar card and for 560$ you can have a computer that is 80% of a brand new 3k$ alienware.

maybe your just not planning yoru purchases well enough.
but of course their is always a pendulam shift with tastes and as usual large corporations are the last to know.

for instance 3 years ago all the rage was delta 5k higher fan rpms.. no really it was.
but then computers became more noise then they were worth now you have mobile techs being implemented into desktop chips as a stock feature..

itll be the same with vid card prices. most wont shell out 500$ for a 10% bump. so when they stop delevring twice the performance of prev cards well stop shelling out twice the buckage.

so ati and nvida are competing heavily but the flagships arent winning in price were winning in performance reaches. its the fact that this new generation of cards offer roughly twice the performance of last gen cards that we are all so excited abou them. we wont freak out like this with preorders 6 months from now when they do a speed bump of 10% charge 100$ extra well all shrug and keep right on fraggin with out 6month old card.

if the cards were a standard 15-25% performance increase as is normally the case with generations we would all be in less of a hurry.

who else is winning? the mainstream vid card purchase has just taken a huge leap. 9800pro for 170-210 bucks$ that sounds like someone is winning to me.

pretty soon teh budget cards will come out and for 100$ you can have acard that would blow a 2yr old flagship out of the water block.

and yea ati has charged new core prices for an old reworked core. win some lose some. nvidia must of lost alot of money on 5800. they are needing to make up for that now. pendulam shifts my friend pendulam shifts. things will never cost much more then they are worth

of course im not one to kid myself if it wasnt for amd and ati and some genius and luck. right now we might be using
my brand new 2004 flagship

$450 1.6ghz p3 256k!
$500 geforce 4 250/250 4 pipes !!!
$250 256mb samsung pc 2100 4-4-4-29

if only there was a great competitor to microsoft i wonder where we could be now???
i think you get teh picture..
 
who else is winning? the mainstream vid card purchase has just taken a huge leap. 9800pro for 170-210 bucks$ that sounds like someone is winning to me.
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In my opinion, the real problem is that there is such a huge gap between the mainstream, which actually consists of last year's flagships, and the new generation. This gap exists in both price and performance. Even the slower new generation cards such as the 6800nu manage to almost double the scores of the last gen in some tests. I think this fact may be keeping many mainstreamers from purchasing. For example, I was looking for a card to replace my 9600 pro. I plannned on waiting for the release of the new gen. I would then snatch up a 9800 pro, taking advantage of the dropping prices. However, when I saw the performance increases of the new gen, I was immediately discouraged. What ATI and Nvidia need to do is to bridge the gap between the gens more smoothly. I would like to see more products, expecially from ATI, in the $300 range. When you take into account the skyrocketing prices of the new flagships as well as Nvidia's time to market issues, now is just not the best time to buy a new video card. Its just not a buyer's market right now.
 
SnowBeast said:
Yes R&D is expensive, but only on Nvidia's side this round. X800's are way overpriced. Yes I know they have GDDR3, that still doens't make up the gobs of money they are making on it.
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Until you see how much profit Nvidia and ATi are making off of their next gen cards, i wouldnt make that assumption.

SnowBeast said:
Trust me, with a BA in Business, I can smell the BS in the pricing scheme ATI is pulling this round.;)
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I cant trust you, it seems like everything you are saying in this thread is uneducated and stupid
 
siegecraft4 When you take into account the skyrocketing prices of the new flagships as well as Nvidia's time to market issues said:
you might want to call best buy, newegg, bfg, evga, compuplus and let them know things will be slow.

but so far as you being unhappy because the new generation is so much faster then the old one and how it has ruined your upgrade plans. im am befuddled over such a contradiction. if you were happy with your 9600 their will be an x600 or geforce 6660 you can pick up for around 200 and will be an excellent card for light gaming and computing
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I know we can't get a card at cost, but at how much is too far? I mean, look at the whole X800 series. Talk about making a penny. Really, breakdown the X800 series for price/performance. Take the 9700 core revised=9800Pro/XT with all having a starting cost of $399 or better. Now add 3Dc and PS2.0b instructions to a 9800 =$400-500 card? Thats not much R&D folks. They have basically leeched off the R300 core for too long, milking us.
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This point is upsurd. I do not understand how people can consider the X800 core a rip off of the R300. The new core provides nearly twice the performance in many circumstances. If ATI can take an "old" technology and improve it to this point, thereby saving on R&D, more power to them. Ignoring the Sm 3.0 argument, which doesn't have too much validity yet, given the lack of benchmarks besides the new Farcy Cry patch, ATI's solution is simply ingenious. Just compare the transistor counts between the x800 and 6800 cores. The fact that ATI can create a card that performs nearly as well as their competitor's top of the line card with 62 MILLION less transistors is testament to the quality of their engineering.

That said, I do think the new cards are overpriced, but I see no reason why an X800 should not be priced as a new gen card.
 
but so far as you being unhappy because the new generation is so much faster then the old one and how it has ruined your upgrade plans. im am befuddled over such a contradiction. if you were happy with your 9600 their will be an x600 or geforce 6660 you can pick up for around 200 and will be an excellent card for light gaming and computing
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The point that I was trying to make is that the performance gap between the mainstream and enthusiast cards of the new and old gens has widened. Looking at R300, a 9500 and a 9700 were VERY close in terms of performance. R350, the 9600 and 9800 were still not too far apart. Now, however, the new mainstream, 9800 pro, and the new gen, x800xtpe, have a huge performance difference. Perhaps its too early to judge but it seems that ATI, at least, has adopted the old gen as its new mainstream instead of created a distinct new solution based off of the new technology.


http://www.rojakpot.com/default.aspx?location=3&var1=88&var2=0

Hmm. that looks interesting. An X800se eh? Anyone have any more info on those?
 
advanced101101 said:
I cant trust you, it seems like everything you are saying in this thread is uneducated and stupid
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Whoa whoa whoa Tiger! No reason for name calling. #1 I am hardly uneducated. #2 This isn't a pissing match about my intelligence.

I was simply pointing out how this "competition helps the consumer in the end" bs doesn't add up. First thing any of you replied with was look at the difference in technology. OK. Well, that can be said when they were all trying to get T&L implemented. Then PS and VS. ATI card with PS 1.4 being first was only $299. Yes, the 9700 Broke ground with PS2.0 and its great performance and it +$400 price tag. But what did we get from the 9700 on? We got a core revision in the form of 9800 series and some speed bumps. What I am saying is that the X800 series as good as it is, why the $400-500 price tag? 3Dc and PS2.0b instructions are worth that price? Yes, I know the AA+AF is great with these cards, but on my R9800 things look the same as the X800 speed wise. Not much of a difference, maybe 10-Fps, but for the additional $400? You and I know there wasn't much R&D to justify the price. Yeah, Nvidia spent a pretty penny on the NV40, but it also has SM 3.0 and what, 60million more transistors? So they have a new Tech that costed alot for R&D. I am saying when these cards come out as speed bumps and revisions, the price should reflect that. ;)

And whats with the name calling around here? What, I just wanted a decent discussion on it with a few of you. Sorry for asking for your opinions on this subject. :confused:
 
additional 400? Shit I sold my 980xt for 350 so i only pay 160 for the upgrade. The extra horse power for HL2 and Doom will be worth the 160 dollars. I had the 9800xt fo r8 months. I consider it a rental that ran me 150 dollars. It cost me 18.75 month for the entertainment. That cheap recreation since some idiots will spend that in 30 seconds at the casino

You see its really all a matter of perpective, I do respect yours , I just wanted to illustrate my "rationalization" for spend in ordinate amounts of cash on video cards
 
How has competition helped the graphics card war? Look at the 5800 series and then look at the 6800 series. There is your answer :)
 
siegecraft4 said:
Hmm. that looks interesting. An X800se eh? Anyone have any more info on those?
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I recall hearing a while ago that the x800se was going to have a 128-bit memory bus which kind of turned me off to it. Not sure whether that has changed or what the specs are now on it.
 
scott122 said:
Nvidia spent in excess of $400,000,000 to develop the N40, so I don't mind paying $499 for my 6800 Ultra. If you want the bleeding edge GPU and DDR3 you have to pay. Nvidia and ATI spend a big chunk of there profits developing their next GPU.
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where did you get those numbers... 400 million dollars for one series of gpu's... i challenege that statement
 
If daddy wants a Farrari then daddy has to pay for a Farrari.

If you want the best of the best then you have to pay top bucks for it, it's a simple fact of life. When newer stuff comes out old technology and older things becomes cheaper. As stated above, it's the simple fact of life you should know.

Competition is a mere form to keep prices in check, and satifying market needs/demands. Nvidia is gonna market their 6800 cards as the first and only cards or whatever to support SM3.0 while, ATI is simplying marketing their card as the fastest video card on the market or whatever.

All high end cards usually runs $500 bucks USD when they first ship out, since there is a low supply and high demand on these new cards, prices are a bit inflated at the moment. Some economics for ya.
 
SnowBeast said:
Seriously. Everyone keeps saying the competition is tight between ATI vs Nvidia but how is that helping us? Price? Now were at $500 top of the line cards? Folks, get real. My Radeon 8500 64MB was $299 when it came to market. The Ti500 was $350. These were top of the line cards. Before Radeon came along Nvidia was charging over $450+ for an Geforce 2Ultra! The prices dropped when the above 8500 came out. That is how competition helps. Follow me to a couple years later........................

Whoop!~ Here we are! Its 2004 and both Companys(ATI And Nvidia) are trying to suck us dry with $400-500 Graphics Cards!! If I am to be correct on this, they are intern making between $250-300 on each card or chipset! That in the business world is price guoging. [SP!]

Where and how do we make a stand as consumers to get these cards down in a fairly normal high price point of $300? You know, I Know it was a few years ago, but I remember getting 2<--------------key point there, graphics cards for $300 and running SLI with them. And that WAS TOP OF THE LINE then. Now Nvidia is telling me between $700-1000 I can do the same?(yes I know its not the same as Scan Line Interwhatever)

We need to stop this and make a point to hold back our urges to buy the latest and greatest. Really, do I need this X800 Pro as compared to my 9800Pro I had at XT speeds?
Hell No. I shouldn't have and haven't noticed a damn difference really. WOW!! I gained 15Fps on FARCRY!! WHOOPDEE JERKIN DO DAH! I spent on something that was not needed and gave them a reason to keep prices at $400 and above.

Really. We need to knock this off and get these cards back to their half way affordable range. Really funny how ATI jumped on the High Price bandwagon after the 8500, huh? Same as AMD putting their prices up there with Intel on there chips now too.

How do we make a stand? Go back to Intel and Nvidia for a couple of years till it hits them in the pocket book again? Seems like AMD and ATI both forgot how they got higher in the polls. Just something I noticed after talking about SLI with the Voodoo's and how we bought 2 cards for $300 not $700+. Wondering what some of your insight was on this. :)
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Yes and ...

A candy bar was 5 cents years ago
Ciggarettes were $1.50 7yrs ago...

Whats your point man?...prices go up on everything as time goes by :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes:

*edit*sorry, i just saw your from jersey*edit*
 
On the other hand who gives a rats ass, lets enjoy it and quit whining. If you cant afford one then go crawl back in your little home and cry to yourself. :eek:
 
Verge said:
where did you get those numbers... 400 million dollars for one series of gpu's... i challenege that statement
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yeah, they would probably be much cheaper if NV only spent 400million on NV40 R&D. according to JHH NV spent the same amount on NV40 R&D as the cost of the manhattan project, which would bring it in at 2 billion dollars
 
siegecraft4 said:
If ATI can take an "old" technology and improve it to this point, thereby saving on R&D, more power to them.
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You just proved the original poster's point. ATI didn't spend a lot of money on R&D for X800, and yet they are charging an insane amount for it. It's strange that you're okay with it.
 
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