The under-rated market segment

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jamesgalb

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Low-profile and pcie-powered cards.

Steam Hardware & Software Survey

the 970 and 960 at top certainly show demand for the $200-$400 segments... But what goes under-noticed if the 750ti, and if you remove integrated graphics the 650 is not far behind...

I think there is a much larger demand for low-profile and no-power-connector cards, than is acknowledged. I have a feeling that whichever company comes out with the better low-profile low-power card, is going to make a big splash in market share for this generation...

There are a lot of people out there who put these things in their office computers and use them for recreation during down time. I dont even think price is an issue for this segment, as a lot of people just want as much performance as possible from the form factor... I think people would buy $300 low-profile/low-power cards if they provided a $200-equivalent level power, so long as they can slap it into their office PC or pre-built without having to change a power supply, case, motherboard, etc...
 
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"I think there is a much larger demand for low-profile and no-power-connector cards, than is acknowledged."

Translation: you mean the super cheap cards, the ones that say "I'm a gamer, if maybe in name only"? You might be confusing the reasons, here.

Excuse me for being a tad elitist.
 
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I think you are competely missing my point, which is odd because you highlighted it.

I think the success of the 750ti and 650 are because of specific usages, and not because of their price points (at their price points there have been plenty of competition that fall outside of these usages).

This isnt for the cheap crowd... This is for the crowd of hard-core gamers that have a low-profile or weak-psu office computer that they want to plug a card into without having to completely gut the rig... This would also be a sure-fire upgrade for those new-pc-gamers who have been fooled into buying pre-builts with substandard PSUs and GPUs... Then you have SFF builders, who could pair something like this with a PicoPSU or such and have insanely small gamer builds. Imagine a small LN3 running VR in the lovingroom, insane. Anything that can go MXM should be able to go low-profile PCIe imo...

I dont think these GPUs succeed based on their price point. I think they succeed based on their convenience and compatibility.... I think convenience and compatibility would sell low-profiles as high as $300+ (currently sub-$150) if they provided enough power to justify it...

(note: I also think the 970 ad 960 both hitting Mini-ITX sizes and low TDPs helped them with their sales. Same reasons. Let them fit in more builds, and gave people fewer PSU and case problems for those looking for a quick slap-on upgrade.)
 
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jamesgalb said:
I think the success of the 750ti and 650 are because of specific usages, and not because of their price points (at their price points there have been plenty of competition that fall outside of these usages).
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I think you're blindly making way too much conjecture on very little data. Consumers don't buy things because they're smart or because they have clear cut goals. Nvidia is the "in" manufacturer at the moment, and they might just be buying them because they're cheap and they're not integrated. Frankly you have no data there that will disprove my assertion, and no data that will support your own. It's literally just raw percentages for the current GPU's seen in the wild, by Steam. That's it. You have no data on why they're in those systems, just that they are there. You have nothing much here.
 
I don't know if I sounded angry or something, but no one. I was just casually shutting your idea down.

In truth, I really do hate it when people randomly state statistics that they twist to suit their agenda. Because frankly most people are stupid when it comes to quantitative arguments, and they just take numbers as equal to "this is factually supported." So it's very easy to mislead large amounts of people just by throwing some percentages out. I mean this one isn't even that hard. You literally just have raw percentages for GPU prevalence, with absolutely no context, that you then twisted to say "this means that more people like low profile/low power GPU's (specifically due to said qualities), because they have low power gaming machines in their office", while completely ignoring any other qualities that might lead them to purchase those GPU's. It's silly. It's almost not even worth refuting. There is literally nothing here.

But I didn't really let any of that hatred leak through here because you're essentially making an obscure, silly point on a hardware enthusiast forum, that isn't likely to mislead anyone. So again, it was just casual dismissal. Any cornflake pissing is strictly in your head.
 
Good job "shutting down" my opinion. I hope it helped you get through your day.

Anyways. Low Profile Cards. I think they are an overlooked and underrated market, for the opinions I have already listed. I'd like to see nVidia and AMD try to make more to appeal to this segment... Discuss (anyone but this Stolen guy please).
 
I certainly look for lower power draw these days. Less heat which means less noise, less stress on the rest of the components, better all-around experience for me. I'm waiting on the next batch of cards that only use 1 6-pin connector.

Can't say that that's what'll drive more sales, but I would certainly appreciate more of what we've been seeing.
 
StoleMyOwnCar said:
"I think there is a much larger demand for low-profile and no-power-connector cards, than is acknowledged."

Translation: you mean the super cheap cards, the ones that say "I'm a gamer, if maybe in name only"? You might be confusing the reasons, here.

Excuse me for being a tad elitist.
Click to expand...

I just downsized to an ITX main rig with a Skylake i5. I'm waiting anxiously to see what's available to replace my 750 Ti for 1080 gaming. Whatever green or red card performs best at the lowest power draw will get my money. If something can run high settings at 1080 and passive that'd be the jackpot for me. Been gaming and building PC's for almost 20 years... I had no idea it was in name only.
 
Aside from people upgrading pre-builts, I don't really know if the lack of required power connectors sells that many cards. I kind of agree with StoleMyOwnCar that the stats don't do anything to prove motive at all. People may very well simply buy these cards because they're cheap, and I do believe thats the biggest driver in those markets by far. I do think there is a market for low-pro or low power cards that actually have some gaming chops, but without more information its hard to prove its anything other than a niche of a niche. We do see AIB partners test these waters from time to time, but the fact that its not more common while "normal" 750Ti's abound, should tell you something.
 
The 750ti is there in thsoe numbers for a few reasons I have seen.

1) Price. It's got enough oomph you can play stuff in some format, and is cheap.
2) Power. People upgrading their dell or HP crapbox they bought at best buy, and without replacing more components, it's what will function within the available power and cooling.
3) they bought a pre-built crap box gaming rig, and the system integrator has the exact same choices as the consumer in #2 for the exact same reasons.
 
As stated by StoleMyOwnCar, there could be many reasons for this. Another big reason you seem to have completely left out is HTPCs. I am not even sure where you got 'turn the office computer into a gaming computer' from. Certainly a home office computer might be a reason, but they could have also just built a gaming computer and used it as a home office computer. Or it could be a computer passed down to a child who wants to play games and changed out the card to do so. Could be any of a number of different scenarios. Generally the truth is generally that people just got it for either its price or the fact it fit into whatever they had.
 
StoleMyOwnCar said:
"I think there is a much larger demand for low-profile and no-power-connector cards, than is acknowledged."

Translation: you mean the super cheap cards, the ones that say "I'm a gamer, if maybe in name only"? You might be confusing the reasons, here.

Excuse me for being a tad elitist.
Click to expand...
That is an awfully elitist attitude. I've spent some time gaming on my old HD6870 recently, and I've been pleasantly surprised at how well it does with at least some newer games if you turn the detail down. Honestly, I could probably get by with it.

For some people, the point of playing games is actually to play the game, as opposed to building a totally sweet hot rod PC. For those people, I'd imagine that $200 or whatever a GTX960 costs is enough.
 
jamesgalb said:
I think you are competely missing my point, which is odd because you highlighted it.

I think the success of the 750ti and 650 are because of specific usages, and not because of their price points (at their price points there have been plenty of competition that fall outside of these usages).

This isnt for the cheap crowd... This is for the crowd of hard-core gamers that have a low-profile or weak-psu office computer that they want to plug a card into without having to completely gut the rig... This would also be a sure-fire upgrade for those new-pc-gamers who have been fooled into buying pre-builts with substandard PSUs and GPUs... Then you have SFF builders, who could pair something like this with a PicoPSU or such and have insanely small gamer builds. Imagine a small LN3 running VR in the lovingroom, insane. Anything that can go MXM should be able to go low-profile PCIe imo...

I dont think these GPUs succeed based on their price point. I think they succeed based on their convenience and compatibility.... I think convenience and compatibility would sell low-profiles as high as $300+ (currently sub-$150) if they provided enough power to justify it...

(note: I also think the 970 ad 960 both hitting Mini-ITX sizes and low TDPs helped them with their sales. Same reasons. Let them fit in more builds, and gave people fewer PSU and case problems for those looking for a quick slap-on upgrade.)
Click to expand...

I wonder how many of those 750 ti and 650's were bought as part of a cheap "gaming" system. You know, the $400-650 systems that always seem to have an i5/i7 paired with a GT 730 ;). I bet a majority of this overlooked segment are part of pre-built machines.
 
Am I the only one that doesn't care about Steam hardware and software surveys? I just don't think they are accurate. Remember the intel graphics default issue in the past?
 
Rvenger said:
I just don't think they are accurate
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Last time it ran on my laptop with Optimus, I'm pretty certain it correctly reported the Nvidia GPU and not the Intel that was actually active at the time.

I think it gives a decent snapshot of people who at least have steam installed. Now I would like to see something where it recorded which games you have launched on that system in the past month or something so you could filter by game. I know I'm guilty of having Steam installed on at least one system I almost never launch a game from - it only has games streamed to it.

It also filters out the people who buy top of the line stuff and never use/install it. There's a (older) guy I work with who built a new system for himself a few months ago, I was talking to him about it and he shows me the specs: skylake i7, 980ti, 512GB NVMe drive - It was a beefy system. So I ask him what games he plays - I had never known he was a gamer. Turns out he doesn't other then solitaire and some ancient flight sim (circa late 90s) once in a while. I tried telling him that the integrated GPU could do all this, but he seem was unconvinced and kept the 980ti for opening Gmail and surfing...

Best part was this system was replacing his Nehalem era i7 w/ SLI 480s - which he used to do exactly the same thing o_O. Guy had never heard of Steam or any current games - no interest in them either.

Slightly off-topic, but I like to think that folks like that shouldn't be counted in any gaming hardware survey.

I will add that there are a lot of other communities of people that exclusively play 1 game that might have different hardware stats - something like WoW for example. Steam's data obviously misses those.
 
Look at the most popular games and their requirements. Then you'll know why this card is popular. A GTX 750 Ti is great for MOBAs and will run most games just fine with lowered settings and common resolutions. Not requiring any power connection makes it very easy to recommend to people that just want to play non-demanding games. I bought one to replace my HD 6850 with dying noisy fans while waiting for newer cards and it was an upgrade in performance. WoW and Diablo 3 run great and most of my Steam library already ran great on the HD 6850 so the 750Ti also does fine there.
 
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