ZiggyDeath
Limp Gawd
- Joined
- Nov 3, 2017
- Messages
- 222
Been around a bit longer than that.When you been around since 2003 gaming you learn more about value and how fast it go's away .. then you learn limits as who in there right mind spends $500 on a video card after being burned by this mistake everytime a new GTX TI /Fury Vega comes along and in 2 to 3 years they look like the 970GTX grade of performance . You want to know that performance will scale over time and not drop off .
I made the following predictions/considerations when I bought a 1080Ti in July:
Pascal is a generational leap; Volta without Tensor is not a generational leap. Everything I've seen indicates that Tensor is not relevant/usable for gaming.
You generally need a generational leap to bring high end down to mid-range, like the 4000s, 6000s, 8000s, 200s, 600s, etc. I draw the line between mid range and high end when the chip is different; historically this is around the 60s/70s (or 600s/700s).
A 1060 6GB barely meets my 1080p requirements today, and because I am committed to moving to 1440p/144, 4k, or VR within 2 years.
My timeframe is 4-5 years, which is when I typically retire machines to secondary duty.
If I believe Ryzen 2/3 is able to extend the lifetime to 6 years or more, I am likely to replace the card in 4 year anyways. (aka stagnated processor development aka 2600k to 7700k)
I also don't have the habit of selling parts, so no salvage cost, and no consideration for interest/inflation.
A fully enabled "Tesla/Titan" Volta right now has ~5400 CUDA cores, a mid range Volta is likely to be in the ~1500 range.
Volta's CUDA cores are, by my estimates at best 7% faster clock for clock, core for core - Volta cores are Pascal cores.
This puts it between a 1060 6GB and 1070.
Let's assume it somehow matches a 1080:
If I buy a 1060 today, and then buy a Volta I'd be buying 2 mid range cards, "1080 price", for 1080 performance only when Volta is released.
What are the chances of a generational change in 2-3 years? In my estimation - very likely.
But if we make a generous assumption that it does happen, and it reaches 1080Ti levels, does it make sense to pay 2/3rd the price of a 1080Ti to get 1080Ti price in 2-3 years? Perhaps. But that's ~2 years sitting at 1060 performance.
Remember, this is being extremely generous; the gap between a 1070 and 1080 is smaller than between a 1080 and 1080Ti.
The 1080Ti is quite literally twice a 1070 for twice the price, which makes it, actually a pretty good value, albeit expensive - something that I can't recall happening at the top of the product stack (discounting SLI on a card).
Did it make sense to buy a 1080? Well, looking at the above predictions, no. The only way a 1080 will retains value is if we assume slow development and no generational changes.
Plus it was obvious from the getgo that a 1070Ti would be released. Although I expected 1-3 SMs to be re-enabled, not 4.
Had I known a 1070Ti would have 4 SMs re-enabled and it was actually available at the initially rumored MRSP, there is a chance I might have gone down that route. Of course the actual price is still completely jacked, and these cost about as much as a 1080, so my 1080Ti choice still stands.
Why didn't I choose a 1070? The incremental benefit was greater than the incremental cost by going to a 1080 (1080 was a better value). I also do not consider the 1070 to be a 1440p/144 card.
TLDR;
1070 too slow
1080 has better value than a 1070
1080Ti is even better value
1060+Future GPU (2 years) is a gamble that needs it to be ~1080Ti to be worth it
What do I think is probably going to happen in 2 years? A fully enabled mid-range card being about as fast as a 1080, maybe slightly faster.
Uh yeah... I need to write less...