GeForce GTX 1080: Most Bizarre Secret Paper Launch Ever @ [H]

pandora's box said:
Um...try again, the 780 was a new chip vs 680.
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760 and 770 are new chips too? Heck that 730 GT keeps getting into notebooks and low-end dGPUs so many iterations...

When AMD refreshed the 300 series, they added Fiji SKUs on top. When NV refreshed the 700 series, they added GK110 SKUs on top.

Consistency doesn't apply to you does it?
 
Fixall said:
Not sure I'd call it aftermarket.... It's bundled with a waterblock but it's just a Founders Edition card. Waste of $100 to throw a block on there with the card being power limited... unless you're looking for silence.
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Right. Don't be wasting your expensive water cooling setup on a reference PCB that's throttling hard.
 
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I don't feel the situations are exactly comparable.

In the case of Nvidia's 7xx and AMD's 2xx generation both sides used existing GPU designs as well as introducing new designs. No side had an advantage over the other in this aspect. Whereas this was different for 9xx vs. 3xx in which Nvidia had largely been introducing new chips by comparison.

The other issue is with 7xx the SKUs that used existing designs (eg. GK104) brought prices down. Whereas the point of contention with the Hawaii rebrands was that it was mainly done to bring prices (and margins) back up again compared to what they were selling for the 6 months+ prior. So you were better off buying the 7xx "rebrand" compared to the nearest "6xx" variant (eg. 770 - cheaper then 680/670, 760 vs 660ti/660) from 6 months ago. Whereas on the AMD side you got very little gain (or even regressions) for waiting compared to just buying a 290/290x 6 months prior.
 
The one thing I am mulling over is whether this launch should be defined as a paper launch/proper launch/something else.
Why.
Because they actually gave hardware out to a very broad range of publications and reviewers.
Isn't a paper launch usually just that with no hardware given out to 3rd parties to review?
I appreciate it is not a full launch either, so not sure what one would call this.

I tend to like this model of a broad range of reviewers (emphasis being a diverse range) being given the hardware before it is available to the public because they can then make a more informed decision.
Cheers
 
Crosshairs said:
There should really be no surprise there, water blocks cost money.... a good block for a 980 is easily $150.00 or more..so an extra $100.00 for this block is pretty good if it performs well.
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I think the problem was that the bundle is for the FE.
 
Stimpy88 said:
After seeing them squirm at Kyles question, I am left with my original view that nVidia is a fundamentally dishonest company.

Seriously, just watch the video, and only look at their faces. They look like little boys caught having a smoke behind the bikeshed!

I hope they think their $100 heat sink is worth the PR. But then again, people are still buying their stuff, even after the 970 debacle...
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You mean after the GTX970 3.5GB+512MB VRAM lies and nonsense, you didn't realize all of this??? :D
 
pandora's box said:
exactly. why cant they bundle the cooler with the $599 card?
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I think only several of the big companies will offer the non-FE type boards.
But it does raise a possible headache with this new sales model of the higher priced reference, other manufacturers will base their pricing more off this than the MSRP lower priced one.
I guess we need to see what MSI/Asus/EVGA do to be sure though - mentioning those 3 as they seem to have very close association with Nvidia.
Cheers
 
Fun part will be discovering which boards from now on are not reference flounder edition with the gimped power circuits... and which have decent, non whining components. It will be even more fun for the used market come Ti/Vega time.
 
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CSI_PC said:
I think only several of the big companies will offer the non-FE type boards.
But it does raise a possible headache with this new sales model of the higher priced reference, other manufacturers will base their pricing more off this than the MSRP lower priced one.
I guess we need to see what MSI/Asus/EVGA do to be sure though - mentioning those 3 as they seem to have very close association with Nvidia.
Cheers
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Essentially they are raising the average selling price by using the FE line to make more money than they otherwise would. They are a company so it's to be expected. They want to make the most amount of money possible, which is what they are supposed to do. However, what's not cool is the sliminess of it all. Instead of just being upfront it's all wrapped up in marketing lingo.

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No one is forcing anyone to buy this.... I'd wait a few months for Vega.
 
Dayaks said:
No one is forcing anyone to buy this.... I'd wait a few months for Vega.
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This is such a bullshit thing to say. That can be used to excuse anything.

Toyota had to recall >4 million SUVs last year because the seatbelts didn't work? Nobody put a gun to your head, should have bought a Ford!

Well obviously, but the fact that the consumer chose to purchase a good doesn't excuse its poor product quality, pricing, or deceptive marketing.
 
schizo said:
This is such a bullshit thing to say. That can be used to excuse anything.

Toyota had to recall >4 million SUVs last year because the seatbelts didn't work? Nobody put a gun to your head, should have bought a Ford!

Well obviously, but the fact that the consumer chose to purchase a good doesn't excuse its poor product quality, pricing, or deceptive marketing.
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Well, if you feel like you're getting pissed on wait for some competition. It's not like the 1080 is much better than the 980ti/TitanX/Fury X. The price seems outrageous right now.

This is probably the last huge leap in performance for a long long time. I look forward to buying the max die chip from AMD or nVidia and sitting on it for years, just like the Intel situation....
 
pandora's box said:
exactly. why cant they bundle the cooler with the $599 card?
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The article stated they did it because they wanted to get it to market on launch day.....the cooler comes in the box but its not installed.....you get to install it yourself :)
 
Yep, they all paid Nvidia $X for their Founders Editions and agreed to charge consumers exactly $699 for them, while non-Founders Editions will cost $Y less. So even if Nvidia allowed them to rip off the FE blower and install aftermarket cooler, which they probably wouldn't, the AIB would still have to pay Nvidia $X. There is no cost-savings to pass on to consumers. So they didn't.
 
I think I understand what's going on here. Please, correct me if I'm wrong:
  • NVIDIA claims that the cards they have been selling at launch were loss leaders. They were doing this to avoid a "paper launch" situation, but they no longer want to take the financial hit.
  • OEMs want a consistent part that they can buy for the lifespan of the product
  • The FE is supposed to solve both of these problems
  • The marketing folks painted themselves into a corner because they tried to come up with a justification that made it seem like a good value proposition to the customers
    • They tried to go the "craftsmanship" route, but that doesn't work because it implies that the base price model is somehow deficient. The chips aren't binned and the cooler really isn't anything special compared to the top end AIB coolers.
    • They tried to sell it (in the video) as a low profile card, but that seems a bit off considering the AIBs will probably come up with something better in that regard
  • They decided to launch the FE later so it can't be seen as an "early adopter tax," essentially creating a paper launch scenario
Basically, this is a massive failure of marketing. They tried to hard to sell a cost saving move as beneficial to the consumer. When their reasoning came off as hollow (and people called them on it) they were caught flat footed. The only thing that I can't quite grasp is why the AIBs are supposed to be able to sell the card at MSRP for a profit but NVIDIA can't sell a reference card at this price point without taking a loss. Are NVIDIA's costs for sourcing and/or manufacturing components (other than the GPU) really that much higher than the AIB company's costs?
 
MarkVI said:
Basically, this is a massive failure of marketing. They tried to hard to sell a cost saving move as beneficial to the consumer. When their reasoning came off as hollow (and people called them on it) they were caught flat footed. The only thing that I can't quite grasp is why the AIBs are supposed to be able to sell the card at MSRP for a profit but NVIDIA can't sell a reference card at this price point without taking a loss. Are NVIDIA's costs for sourcing and/or manufacturing components (other than the GPU) really that much higher than the AIB company's costs?
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People have been saying for the past week that the AIBs do use cheaper components.
 
rinaldo00 said:
People have been saying for the past week that the AIBs do use cheaper components.
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Guys, you're looking at this so negatively. This is going to drive possibly the greatest round of AIB cards ever as they seek to prove their quality and take advantage of the power/thermal woes of the standardized and focused purpose FE cards. They AIBs now have $100+ more to spend if they can challenge the value/application of the FE cards
 
Napoleon said:
Guys, you're looking at this so negatively. This is going to drive possibly the greatest round of AIB cards ever as they seek to prove their quality and take advantage of the power/thermal woes of the standardized and focused purpose FE cards. They AIBs now have $100+ more to spend if they can challenge the value/application of the FE cards
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Or they will use $699 as the min price and go up from there.
 
MavericK said:
Yeah, unfortunately this seems far more likely...I wonder if we will ever see these fabled $599 cards.
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You will. Only they will be WORSE than the FE. That Galax card could be one. Ordinary PCB with an ordinary cooler (no vapor chamber, no 'cool' look)
 
Because they're lying, profits are at record levels and they're claiming they take a loss on reference cards? That's BS, this is clearly a price hike. My Asus 980 Ti Strix came with a much better cooler, better voltage regulation, back-plate and a beautifully crafted PCB all for $20 over MSRP, total $670. The reference card was a POS by comparison. The reason marketing couldn't explain it is because it's just a money grab and a scheme to raise the price of mid-high performance cards to Flagship levels.
 
SuperAnt said:
Because they're lying, profits are at record levels and they're claiming they take a loss on reference cards? That's BS, this is clearly a price hike. My Asus 980 Ti Strix came with a much better cooler, better voltage regulation, back-plate and a beautifully crafted PCB all for $20 over MSRP, total $670. The reference card was a POS by comparison. The reason marketing couldn't explain it is because it's just a money grab and a scheme to raise the price of mid-high performance cards to Flagship levels.
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You will only buy reference if you want to buy reliability over OC capabilities since AIB can be wonky at times. While I don't defend the price of FE, lets not pretend GTX x80 series was cheap either when those were first release when those were also money grab.
 
SuperAnt said:
Because they're lying, profits are at record levels and they're claiming they take a loss on reference cards? That's BS, this is clearly a price hike. My Asus 980 Ti Strix came with a much better cooler, better voltage regulation, back-plate and a beautifully crafted PCB all for $20 over MSRP, total $670. The reference card was a POS by comparison. The reason marketing couldn't explain it is because it's just a money grab and a scheme to raise the price of mid-high performance cards to Flagship levels.
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It is possibly a mix of the two.
Margin and scale of sales need to be taken into account, and the reference/FE has a smaller number of consumers interested than what they sell to their partners such as MSI/EVGA/Asus/etc.
Therefore the prices will need to be higher for a product that is more "niche".
That said I still feel they are charging too much for the 1080, considering the 980ti also has the same or very similar cooling and also more power phase/regulation albeit on the 28nm technology but offset by being a huge die and that is cheaper than the new 1080.
I think it would be more acceptable to most if the 1080FE was $50 cheaper than the 980ti, including myself.
But then they would not get rid of most the rest of their 980ti supply within partners and shops.

So I think that has a part to play to ensure the partners and shops are not shafted in moving the last of their 980ti cards, which they will have to drop price on now even with the 1080FE coming in what feels rather steep to most consumers.
AMD screwed themselves and their partners in the past in how they handled pricing, great for consumers but had long term implications for the business and sales channels/partners.

Cheers
 
SuperAnt said:
Because they're lying, profits are at record levels and they're claiming they take a loss on reference cards? That's BS, this is clearly a price hike. My Asus 980 Ti Strix came with a much better cooler, better voltage regulation, back-plate and a beautifully crafted PCB all for $20 over MSRP, total $670. The reference card was a POS by comparison. The reason marketing couldn't explain it is because it's just a money grab and a scheme to raise the price of mid-high performance cards to Flagship levels.
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but but but craftsmanship, yeah, craftsmanship!
 
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Brackle said:
There is nothing special about the FE card's at all. There is no special VRM's or Extra Phases for overclocking or anything. It is just a standard card. They are charging a $100 premium for the cooler, which a lot of people say is not worth it what so ever.

I would rather pay $629 for a semi overclocking AIB card with 1 6pin and 8pin adapter and more VRM and Phases.
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My point is that when the AIB cards are released where are they going to price them. Just because the MSRP for the base is $599, doesn't mean they have to follow it for their premium offering. Nvidia has made the FE the standard bearer by putting a price premium on it, therefore the partner cards which outperform it significantly should be priced higher. It's finance/business 101.
 
It's actually kind of disappointing to see just how full of shit this industry is getting. I know there's a tremendous amount of pressure to sell product in what has essentially become a commoditized market, but the shit shoveling is just over the top now. Between DX12 or async compute or fast sync or whatever, it just seems like an endless stream of opaque crap.

What the hell is Fast Sync? I watched nvidia's presentation on it and I was not able to figure out how it's anything other than them wrapping around Triple Buffering in their OpenGL driver and giving it a new name. Somebody in the audience even asked how it differed from Triple Buffers and Tom Petersen just kind of hand-waved it all away. New! Innovative! Fast Sync!
 
Fast Sync is for e-sports gamers only, playing titles with extremely high framerates (way over refresh). It offers the tear-free nature of vsync without its (tiny) amount of lag by telling the game vsync is off and then actually dropping frames that aren't ready to display by the next refresh. Unless you play CS:GO competitively, you don't care about it at all.

I hoped it was their name for VESA adaptive sync, and NV was finally bowing to the inevitable and doing what was best for their customers, but nah. No such luck.
 
FastSync is also for those that will game at 4k with a 30hz monitor.
Or those that want a really nice monitor at 1440p without compromised built into the 144Hz models, so able to buy a 90Hz/100Hz/etc product - FastSync would also compliment GSYNC (which is not as ideal when one hits the limit of the monitor).

Lets be honest, a 144Hz refresh monitor is mostly academic (unless pro gaming or really into twitch play) these days for the very latest games where someone wants to still have the best settings.
So it opens options without going for a 144Hz refresh that really needs GSYNC or FreeSync due to very recent games operating closer to 90fps or a bit lower when settings are maxed on these enthusiast cards.
Cheers
 
Yeah I understand what the marketing spiel is... but how is it functionally different than triple buffering? I play one of those games (L4D2) that would get ten trillion fps on this card, but will Fast Sync be any different than just checking Triple Buffered? TB doesn't stall the game engine either and frames that aren't used (aren't sent to the display) are dropped on the floor also.

What's hilarious is that their presentation slide even showed two render buffers for vsync only and then three buffers for Fast Sync. I mean at least throw up 4 or 5 buffer boxes on the slide... or do 1, 2, ... n to make it look like it's different than TB.

Is this another, "Hey check out this all-new innovative G-Sync! It's just the adaptive sync VESA standard wrapped up in our own branding!" except with Triple Buffering?
 
It's fixing a lag thing on lower HZ monitors for twitch gamers that want to minimize tearing. As a twitch gamer I'm excited for some market feedback of this in practice versus just paper launch
 
jwcalla said:
Yeah I understand what the marketing spiel is... but how is it functionally different than triple buffering? I play one of those games (L4D2) that would get ten trillion fps on this card, but will Fast Sync be any different than just checking Triple Buffered? TB doesn't stall the game engine either and frames that aren't used (aren't sent to the display) are dropped on the floor also.

What's hilarious is that their presentation slide even showed two render buffers for vsync only and then three buffers for Fast Sync. I mean at least throw up 4 or 5 buffer boxes on the slide... or do 1, 2, ... n to make it look like it's different than TB.

Is this another, "Hey check out this all-new innovative G-Sync! It's just the adaptive sync VESA standard wrapped up in our own branding!" except with Triple Buffering?
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L4D an OpenGL game though?

When it comes to DirectX games I would think FastSync would be a better option.
Cheers
 
If the FE can't hold the boost clockspeed with the "premium materials", how will any card below $699? Will any $599 version barely be able to hold the stock base clockspeed?
 
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