VR-Zone's 7970 Review Up ... $550 lolz

Zorachus said:
But the problem is, we are comparing the 7970, to last years, soon-to-be-outdated GTTX-580. The 7970 will truly be seen as a rip off at $550, when the GTX-680 comes out at similar pricing and destroys it.

The 7970 should be following both the launch prices of the 5870, and 6970, the top single card releases from ATI, which started around $349 - $399.
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You're thinking way too far ahead and assuming AMD won't adjust their price when Kepler comes out. Prices aren't written in stone. AMD released a card that beats its competition at the same price, and just as Nvidia is likely to adjust the GTX580 prices soon because the 7970 trumps it, AMD will adjust their price on the 7970 when the 680 comes out.

It's not "soon-to-be-outdated," not that it matters because current prices are just that... current prices. Nvidia is following a bottom>up release so we won't be seeing a 680 for half a calendar year, so expect this to be top dog for a while and prices to stay the same or increase depending on how quickly they sell
 
I thought the GTX-680 was planned to come out shortly after AMD launched the 7900 series ? Like Feb/March ?
 
Zorachus said:
I thought the GTX-680 was planned to come out shortly after AMD launched the 7900 series ? Like Feb/March ?
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No, and that still wouldn't matter. You can't judge relative prices based on hypothetical situations like a future video card and it's presumed price/performance. If Kepler does come out and kicks AMD's ass and it's cheaper just like the 7970 does right now to the GTX580 then it's justified, but the current situation is the exact opposite. If you want to see the prices of the 7970 come down then it's the Nvidia card that has to drop in price significantly to force AMD to rethink it's MSRP on the 7970. Right now AMD has no reason to drop its price on that card.

Nvidia release schedule
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pelo said:
The prices are determined by the competition, and considering the GTX580 is priced at roughly that same range then it's justifiable that AMD priced theirs at $550. if Nvidia lowers the cost of their card significantly then AMD will probably do the same. When Kepler comes out the prices will drop, but right now this card beats its competition handily at ~ the same price.

Never batting an eye when forking over the same amount of cash for the GTX580 and then suddenly complaining when the competition makes a card that performs better at the same price but somehow it's "too expensive" is disingenuous. When anyone complains about pricing they unwittingly blame both Nvidia and AMD, but AMD barely makes anything off their graphics cards.

Is it expensive? Yes. I wouldn't fork over $300 for a video card anymore. Is it expensive when considering its own and Nvidia's prices? No, not at all.
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What are you talking about with this "not batting an eye forking over the same amount of cash" nonsense? I don't own a 580, and it's because of the price that I don't. So I'm in no way being disengenuous. The simple fact of the matter is that $550 is a big damn price jump from the last few generations from amd, and a lot of us have sticker shock.

What I, and many other are faced with now, is a $550 card that will quite possibly get trounced by Kepler in a few months for close to the same price. If the 580 was Kepler, then yes, it would be stupid to complain about amd's price, but it's NOT. And for the sake of argument, let's say amd does drop the price if/when Kepler comes out and kicks their ass. What then? I'm stuck with a card I payed too much for? If the 7970 was priced where the last gen cards were, I wouldn't have that concern, because I know that nvidia's card was going to be out of my price range, no matter how fast it was. This product cycle will most likely look exactly like the last few have, with nv's top card being quite a bit faster, the only difference this time around is that amd costs the same.
 
B2BigAl said:
What are you talking about with this "not batting an eye forking over the same amount of cash" nonsense? I don't own a 580, and it's because of the price that I don't. So I'm in no way being disengenuous. The simple fact of the matter is that $550 is a big damn price jump from the last few generations from amd, and a lot of us have sticker shock.

What I, and many other are faced with now, is a $550 card that will quite possibly get trounced by Kepler in a few months for close to the same price. If the 580 was Kepler, then yes, it would be stupid to complain about amd's price, but it's NOT. And for the sake of argument, let's say amd does drop the price if/when Kepler comes out and kicks their ass. What then? I'm stuck with a card I payed too much for? If the 7970 was priced where the last gen cards were, I wouldn't have that concern, because I know that nvidia's card was going to be out of my price range, no matter how fast it was. This product cycle will most likely look exactly like the last few have, with nv's top card being quite a bit faster, the only difference this time around is that amd costs the same.
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No you wouldn't have paid too much, you would have paid the right amount. Early adopters pay a price premium, I don't even know why you're trying to argue like AMD is taking advantage of their consumers. If you want it early, you pay more, until market forces bring the price down. You're mad because AMD is following simple business practices of pricing their top of the line card similar to their competitors top of the line card? You really expect AMD to price the 7970 at $400 when it beats its competition in every possible way? Get real.
 
B2BigAl said:
The simple fact of the matter is that $550 is a big damn price jump from the last few generations from amd, and a lot of us have sticker shock.
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B2BigAl said:
What I, and many other are faced with now, is a $550 card that will quite possibly get trounced by Kepler in a few months for close to the same price.
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Come on. Be real. Yeah its a big price jump but you just said that you don't own a GTX 580 and its because of the price so none of this really applies to you.
 
It's idiotic. If you want to complain about the price tag of the 7970 then you should be writing emails to Nvidia, letting them know their GTX580 is priced too high. Once the card that performs worse has dropped in price enough that AMD feels their 7970 is overpriced, then they'll likely adjust it.

Just think about what you're saying:

Card A for $550 is too expensive
Card B for $500-600 is too expensive
Card A came out after Card B
Card A is better than Card B in nearly every way and you want card A to be cheaper.
Which one is priced wrong? If AMD decided to increase their price on the 7970 by another $100 it would still be a fair price considering its price-to-performance against the highest end cards, and power consumption, and overclocking headroom, and that you'll be able to buy them with custom cooling from XFX/MSI/ASUS, etc.

AMD is a company and their sole purpose is to make money. They're not here to do you any favors and offer you cards for cheap forever. They want to make money off of you. If you think the card is too expensive, and in turn both cards are too expensive, then don't buy them. Right now the MSRP on the 7970 is more than fair
 
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People are free to spend whatever they want. Heck it will probably be $700 for one of these at Best Buy. Although if they don't wait to see what Kepler does and it's a good deal faster for probably the same price. Well that's part of the fun of being an early adopter.
 
That's what the smart money would do. Wait 6-7 months and see what AMD's sweet-spot is this generation and see just how well the Keplers match up. The prices on all of those cards should drop with the 7970 being the slowest price decrease because the card that it'll come up against is being released last.
 
Zorachus said:
But the problem is, we are comparing the 7970, to last years, soon-to-be-outdated GTTX-580. The 7970 will truly be seen as a rip off at $550, when the GTX-680 comes out at similar pricing and destroys it.

The 7970 should be following both the launch prices of the 5870, and 6970, the top single card releases from ATI, which started around $349 - $399.
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I don't understand that logic, for now it's the fastest single gpu card. But because you *think* kepler is going to be substantially faster when it launches they should sell it for substantially less that the 580? Why?

Rest assured, when kepler launches, and if it's a significant amount faster, there will be a price drop.

To say that it should launch at X price point, because that's where their previous top-of-the-line single gpu card launched is ridiculous. The card is priced comparatively to the competition, and will remain so until, the cost per unit drops, the price for a 580 drops or when kepler launches and is has speed/price superiority to require a price drop.
 
are ppl still complaining about the price? Geez, blame nvidia then for selling their 580 for 500. If the 580 was selling for 400, you think ATI would be selling this at 550 still? They are pricing it compared to the 580 and it's faster.

Anyone that thinks it will stay at the price needs a reality check as the price is guaranteed to drop later when it needs too. Also, remember, the 7970 i don't think is the primary goal of AMD. The sweet spot will always be around the 200-300 range since the best bang for your buck will always be in that section. Both companies price these cards because they know that someone will buy them anyway.
 
Probably gonna wait till when 8970 comes out to replace my current 6970 cards... which are not, by any stretch of the imagination, slow cards in themselves. But this 7970 looks impressive. 6990 performance for 190 watts on a single gpu? Wow!

If you're still on a 4xxx/5xxx or 4xx or then the 7970 would be a hell of an upgrade. It'd even be pretty noticeable coming up from a 5xx/6xxx being the fastest single gpu card available. Really $550 isn't that bad.

The 8800 GTX'es were actually more at release... like 600-650... and the Ultra? It was over 800 bucks! So it's priced well for a "best in slot" component. Actually more than a bit of a deal considering 6990's are still selling for like 650-700 bucks and up.
 
pelo said:
It's idiotic. If you want to complain about the price tag of the 7970 then you should be writing emails to Nvidia, letting them know their GTX580 is priced too high. Once the card that performs worse has dropped in price enough that AMD feels their 7970 is overpriced, then they'll likely adjust it.

Just think about what you're saying:

Card A for $550 is too expensive
Card B for $500-600 is too expensive
Card A came out after Card B
Card A is better than Card B in nearly every way and you want card A to be cheaper.
Which one is priced wrong? If AMD decided to increase their price on the 7970 by another $100 it would still be a fair price considering its price-to-performance against the highest end cards, and power consumption, and overclocking headroom, and that you'll be able to buy them with custom cooling from XFX/MSI/ASUS, etc.

AMD is a company and their sole purpose is to make money. They're not here to do you any favors and offer you cards for cheap forever. They want to make money off of you. If you think the card is too expensive, and in turn both cards are too expensive, then don't buy them. Right now the MSRP on the 7970 is more than fair
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It is perfectly understandable for people to be shocked by the price. Ever since the 3800 series AMD video cards have always been seen as a value product offering great performance. AMD even undercut Nvidia with their 5800 series when those where launched. Retailers were to blame for the huge price hikes, not AMD. In my opinion AMD totally ruined that image now with the launch of this card.

If the other cards are roughly the same performance as what their replacing (6970 -> 7870) in their price brackets I will be even more disappointed. Just due to AMD not upping the game in the lower markets by offering higher performance. In essence if someone is looking for a upgrade AMD is almost forcing those people to buy higher priced video cards to get what they want. Lower consumption/better tessellation performance will not do it for me.

In the end companies can charge what they wish of course for their product. Yet, those companies can risk ruining their image by doing so. It is never a shocker to see Nvidia having high prices for their cards either, so that point is moot.
 
Jalidi said:
Probably gonna wait till when 8970 comes out to replace my current 6970 cards... which are not, by any stretch of the imagination, slow cards in themselves. But this 7970 looks impressive. 6990 performance for 190 watts on a single gpu? Wow!

If you're still on a 4xxx/5xxx or 4xx or then the 7970 would be a hell of an upgrade. It'd even be pretty noticeable coming up from a 5xx/6xxx being the fastest single gpu card available. Really $550 isn't that bad.

The 8800 GTX'es were actually more at release... like 600-650... and the Ultra? It was over 800 bucks! So it's priced well for a "best in slot" component. Actually more than a bit of a deal considering 6990's are still selling for like 650-700 bucks and up.
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Your mindset is whats powering these companys dumb prices. By no means are these cards worth 500+
 
FRAGizm said:
Your mindset is whats powering these companys dumb prices. By no means are these cards worth 500+
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With the the research and development costs included, they are. Otherwise both NVIDIA and AMD would be making a shit ton more profit. Honestly, it's like some of you think they sketch these GPU's out on a napkin at a restaurant and it goes into production the next week.
 
FRAGizm said:
Your mindset is whats powering these companys dumb prices. By no means are these cards worth 500+
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You don't know what you are talking about. Their worth is based on how much is available and what people are willing to pay. If they are not worth it like you claim then not many will be sold when they are available.
 
needmorecarnitine said:
You don't know what you are talking about. Their worth is based on how much is available and what people are willing to pay. If they are not worth it like you claim then not many will be sold when they are available.
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Exactly, what others are willing to pay bud. Yet limited supply and these things sell like hot cakes due to careless people and their hard earned money. been there and done that with 8800 ultras and even the gtx wasnt worth the money at the time. If they would sell them cheaper, they would prob still bank the same profit.
 
Zorachus said:
I have been building my own rigs since the Voodoo2 days, and it seemed like every couple years a card would come out from either ATI, nVidia or 3DFX, and just destroy it's previous gen top end card by a HUGE margin. I guess those days of major leaps forward in performance are gone ?
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Why build cards that offer 75% - 100% improvement when people are all too eager to spend $500+ for cards that are just 15% - 20% better than the $500+ cards they bought last year? AMD and Nvidia ain't stupid. ;)
 
NickJames said:
Here's the problem, AMD's last CPU release was a pretty major fail and since they saw that their last 2 generations of GPUs were a huge success they decided that they will price according to the competition to help gain some higher income thus increasing their market share. Doesn't make sense for them to undercut Nvidias GPUs by 40% while still outperforming them. Now this can backfire dramatically because most people who went red did so because of the price. I paid the premium for Nvidia GPUs because I love their driver and they support their cards much better than AMD has. I only recently went AMD in the 5000 series because the price was damn near impossible to beat. Now that AMD has closed the price gap, alot of people are going to back to green even if it means only spending $50 more. Let's see what Nvidia has in the line up first.
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Pretty much how I have always felt as well.
 
FRAGizm said:
Exactly, what others are willing to pay bud. Yet limited supply and these things sell like hot cakes due to careless people and their hard earned money.
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Hmm, you understand this so why did you post that? :p



FRAGizm said:
If they would sell them cheaper, they would prob still bank the same profit.
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I don't know. I'm just guessing but I bet AMD has several people with advanced degrees doing simulations on all different kinds of price points.
 
Mr. Wolf said:
Why build cards that offer 75% - 100% improvement when people are all too eager to spend $500+ for cards that are just 15% - 20% better than the $500+ cards they bought last year? AMD and Nvidia ain't stupid. ;)
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Yeah, I don't think they are holding back. Consider how long it takes to design these products and bring them to market. So if one company decides to hold back and the other doesn't, what happens. Seems stupid to me to hold back.
 
Mr. Wolf said:
Why build cards that offer 75% - 100% improvement when people are all too eager to spend $500+ for cards that are just 15% - 20% better than the $500+ cards they bought last year? AMD and Nvidia ain't stupid. ;)
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FRAGizm said:
No, the general public are. :)
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Exactly. I love the armchair engineers that post here and think they can do better. It evidently doesn't occur to people that as you improve a design and make it more and more efficient, it becomes harder and harder to make more improvements. Every once and awhile something revolutionary comes along that changes the game (i.e., unified shaders), but those are few and far between.
 
Mr. K6 said:
Exactly. I love the armchair engineers that post here and think they can do better. It evidently doesn't occur to people that as you improve a design and make it more and more efficient, it becomes harder and harder to make more improvements. Every once and awhile something revolutionary comes along that changes the game (i.e., unified shaders), but those are few and far between.
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not to mention the fact that in a few die shrinks, engineers will start hitting the laws of physics itself. nanotubes, anyone?
 
That's_Corporate said:
not to mention the fact that in a few die shrinks, engineers will start hitting the laws of physics itself. nanotubes, anyone?
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I thought carbon was next. I think I remember reading awhile ago that silicon hits it's physical limitations at around an 11nm process, but maybe I understood it incorrectly.
 
Mr. K6 said:
I thought carbon was next. I think I remember reading awhile ago that silicon hits it's physical limitations at around an 11nm process, but maybe I understood it incorrectly.
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A bunch of different substances have been mentioned, but so far none have actually come even close to being implemented. Graphene has been mentioned a lot lately(more so than any other carbon based material), though it's still in the very early stages of testing and development.

Here's a nice little read about potential substances and methods.
https://www.silicon.com/technology/...ng-for-the-next-10-years-and-beyond-39746216/
 
Mr. K6 said:
I thought carbon was next. I think I remember reading awhile ago that silicon hits it's physical limitations at around an 11nm process, but maybe I understood it incorrectly.
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i heard that in order to hit 11nm, they'll have to move away from silicon - but yeah, same difference
 
Zorachus said:
WTF is AMD smoking ?
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Not defending AMD, but a real factor that most Americans are politically oblivious to is the rampant inflatilation caused by fiat currencies.

The US dollar has devalued since the release of the 6970. Every time that congress prints more tender out of the thin air the value of each note in circulation diminishes.

Some companies adjusted for that fluctuation by selling you "almost a half gallon" of ice cream for the same price. Others took the route of increasing their prices.

/that said, I am personally underwhelmed by the 7970 and will likely hold to see team green's offering.
 
I thought carbon was next. I think I remember reading awhile ago that silicon hits it's physical limitations at around an 11nm process, but maybe I understood it incorrectly.
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We should be fine with silicon into single digit nanometers. We'll be okay with it in etch for sure.
 
Never batting an eye when forking over the same amount of cash for the GTX580 and then suddenly complaining when the competition makes a card that performs better at the same price but somehow it's "too expensive" is disingenuous. When anyone complains about pricing they unwittingly blame both Nvidia and AMD, but AMD barely makes anything off their graphics cards.

Is it expensive? Yes. I wouldn't fork over $300 for a video card anymore. Is it expensive when considering its own and Nvidia's prices? No, not at all.
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I know..I personally think those who bought the GTX5803GB for tri sli were pretty rediculous but I never complained about that. They had the money and bought the fastest cards. Now that AMD has a better card than any OCed 3GB GTX580 and its cheaper people are acting like AMD has no right to price it a mere 50 dollars more?
People get over yourselves. The GTX590 was a flop and thats a fact. But the GTX580 and HD7970 are both great cards.
 
{NG}Fidel said:
I know..I personally think those who bought the GTX5803GB for tri sli were pretty rediculous but I never complained about that. They had the money and bought the fastest cards. Now that AMD has a better card than any OCed 3GB GTX580 and its cheaper people are acting like AMD has no right to price it a mere 50 dollars more?
People get over yourselves. The GTX590 was a flop and thats a fact. But the GTX580 and HD7970 are both great cards.
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im sure that those with gtx580's 3gb tri sli are still happy with their purchase.
 
{NG}Fidel said:
I know..I personally think those who bought the GTX5803GB for tri sli were pretty rediculous but I never complained about that. They had the money and bought the fastest cards. Now that AMD has a better card than any OCed 3GB GTX580 and its cheaper people are acting like AMD has no right to price it a mere 50 dollars more?
People get over yourselves. The GTX590 was a flop and thats a fact. But the GTX580 and HD7970 are both great cards.
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You are missing the point. The 3GB GTX580 came out almost a year ago. It is coming up on its end of life as top card. People feel the 7970 at the same price as an old GPU (even if its a little bit faster) is sort of odd. The 7970 at $499 would have made more sense. AMD needs to trend-set it's own prices and not just react to whatever nVidia is doing.
 
im sure that those with gtx580's 3gb tri sli are still happy with their purchase.
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So why would anyone be unhappy with a 7970 purchase?
I personaly would have loved GTX580s 3GB in tri sli myself. Amazing performance for multi monitor gaming and beautiful performance for non GPU related tasks.
I also would personaly love dual or tri 7970s in Crossfire.
Sure I feel that some people are rediculous when they claim that they NEED that much horsepower but thats not how I feel about everyone.
My only issue here isnt the price of GTX580 vs HD7970, its an issue of having to sit and read all these people complain about the price/perf ratio and act like its absurd when they were singing a entirely different tune when the GTX5803GB was the beast card to get.

If 1,200 bucks for two GPUs that were 6 to 7 months old at that point is ok then 1,100 for two brand new GPUs with 3Gigs of ram should be wonderful.
Sadly we have people that are trying to rain on the parade. Honestly if you look at the eyfinity results its clear we have a new king GPU with a fair price.
550 for eyefinity at max details is amazing and no doubt Kyle and Brent love that eyefinity performance too.
 
You are missing the point. The 3GB GTX580 came out almost a year ago. It is coming up on its end of life as top card. People feel the 7970 at the same price as an old GPU (even if its a little bit faster) is sort of odd. The 7970 at $499 would have made more sense. AMD needs to trend-set it's own prices and not just react to whatever nVidia is doing.
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Vega you complaining about price is odd...
You always seem to buy the biggest and baddest GPUs (kudos to you im jealous :O )
so why is more performance for cheaper an issue?
Its faster than an OCed 3GB GTX580 and cheaper.
What more can you freaking want?
Its so undeniably faster that [H] compared its stock version to an Overclocked and overpriced competitor without reservation. Why? Because they knew that the 7970 would knock its socks off.
 
{NG}Fidel said:
Vega you complaining about price is odd...
You always seem to buy the biggest and baddest GPUs (kudos to you im jealous :O )
so why is more performance for cheaper an issue?
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Some people sometimes shoot to high for the e-peen, then have to sell everything because they didn't had the money to begin with to pay for all those toys. ;)
 
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