anyone find video cards $ nasty

[Vad3r]

I just put a new system together. I got an eVGA 8800gts 640meg for $390 canadian. Now I just rounded that off. Not looking for where it might be more/less. But in todays market, this is an average card.

Here me out. I've been playing games on the pc since there was games on the pc. I'm 39 years old. Commodore 64, had it, and up, been there, done that. I've seen the change, but here is what I don't get, video cards. They don't go with the times.

I know times change and all that, but I remember when 3d was the thing, when it really took off. The popular card to have was the Diamond Monster Voodoo 4meg. It cost $220 here in Canada, pretty much equal anywhere shopping around give or take a few bucks. Nothing else touched it, it was (at the time) the best any consumer could wish to have.
The point is not that is was 4megs, the point is, it was the Best money could buy, at that time.

As everyone here knows, CPU's/ram/disk space/ ;... gets larger cheaper as the years go on.

But not video, it just goes up. Just for the hell of it, I looked up the most expensive card I could find for a "comsumer", playing games. Believe me, there are more expensive than this.
BFG 8800 Ultra Water Cooled 768mb
It is $923 dollars.

In the Monster voodoo days, I could afford the Best graphics card on the market. I was a happy pc gamer. Many others could too.
Today, ya maybe some can put out this kind of cash for a video card only, but I don't see many doing so. There was no such thing as a $900 video card then. Video does not marry up with the times.

If anyone were to argue part by part, i.e. CPU, RAM, HD,... price per size per performance from yesterday to today, you already know you've lost the arguement. Please don't.
PC gaming is turning into a game for the mainsteam only.

I paid near $400 for a video card. Do I feel taken, no, this is where there at today. Can there prices continue as they have for the past 5 years. No. Majority will be pushed to consoles (xbox / playstation/...)

Anyhow, thanks for hearing my bitching :/

 

[Macattak1]

It is my opinion that video cards are a rip off. $300 for an average good video card? Average CPU at $200.

I know that a GPU and a CPU are not comparable tech wise. But that is the best that there is for comparison.

Not impressed at all by Nvidia or ATI.

 

[SilentAssassin]

I just hope the prices don't go up anymore. Lets hope when the next high end video card finally comes out, and I mean one that strait up smashes the current 8800 gtx, it's not more then $500. Today without buying a monitor or video card you can get some really nice parts and overclock like crazy for $900 and have the fastest system currently available. Then paying another $900 for just the video cards(be it that crazy water cooled one or an sli 8800) is just insane. It would be awesome if the high end could be $300 but I'm happy if it atleast stays at $500. If the prices keep going up, console gaming is the way to go if it were'nt for the stupid controllers instead of a keyboard/mouse.

 

[BFG10K]

I know that a GPU and a CPU are not comparable tech wise. But that is the best that there is for comparison.

Remember that a GPU is far more complex than a CPU in terms of transistor counts. It also has a fat memory interface with a lot of high speed memory on the PCB.

 

[InflatableBuddha]

Yep, I hear ya man. It's been said before in other threads, but I think it's relevant here as well. Until AMD/Ati get their shit together and put out cards competitive to Nvidia's releases from 1 year ago (current 8800 series) on a price/performance basis, gamers essentially have Nvidia as the clear best choice.

Thus Nvidia can set the prices as they please, since gamers know they have the best product right now. The lack of competition clearly is good for no one but Nvidia.

 

[kmmatney]

I once spent a whopping $180 for a Diamond Viper video card back in the day. This was one of the fastest cards before the 3Dfx cards came out, and when the Voodoo cards came out it quickly became "slow". I vowed never to spend that much for a video card again, and I was able to keep that vow so far. I';ve always been able to buy vidoeo cards that offered great bang-for-buck. However there nothing out there at the moment...

Voodoo Banshee............$80
Voodoo 3 1000 (8 MB)...$45 (Best card ever for the price)
Voodoo 3 3000 (16 MB)..$60 net - after selling previous card
Radeon LE.....................$65 (Bios flashed to regular Radeon)
Ti4200..........................$120 (overclocked to 4600 speeds)
ATi X800GTO2...............$179 (opened to 16 pipes, overclocked to X850XT)

I've usually been able to buy a cheap card and overclock or flash it to perform like cards costing a lot more. However, there doesn't seem to be anything out there like that anymore. I'm just waiting for the 8800 GTS to get below $200 for my next upgrade.

 

[betasub]

Originally posted by: kmmatney
I'm just waiting for the 8800 GTS to get below $200 for my next upgrade.

That won't be a new retail card then. The new GTS will hold its price point for many more months, and the 8800GT will fit into a price point vacated by the OOL of the GTS-320. So the 8800GT eventually falling to below $200 is a more reasonable hope.

 

[alcoholbob]

I think the real reason that GPU prices are so horrendous is because since the PS2/XBox generation almost all of the major exclusive PC developers have moved to consoles. The games just aren't here anymore, and the ones that are not very well optimized, and require brute force basically to run properly. That's why the 8800 GTX is struggling to run some 3d engines that don't even look very good.

Without the competition from the sheer number of games to continue what was once a 6 month refresh cycle, development times have dropped off and even worse, AMD/ATI, two companies on the way down that might have individually fixed their problems, combined and formed a giant sloth that added to the lack of competition both pricing and performance wise.

 

[aka1nas]

Originally posted by: Astrallite
I think the real reason that GPU prices are so horrendous is because since the PS2/XBox generation almost all of the major exclusive PC developers have moved to consoles. The games just aren't here anymore, and the ones that are not very well optimized, and require brute force basically to run properly. That's why the 8800 GTX is struggling to run some 3d engines that don't even look very good.

Without the competition from the sheer number of games to continue what was once a 6 month refresh cycle, development times have dropped off and even worse, AMD/ATI, two companies on the way down that might have individually fixed their problems, combined and formed a giant sloth that added to the lack of competition both pricing and performance wise.

Except that the game industry has grown both in number of games released as well as revenue during that time frame.

 

[WhipperSnapper]

Originally posted by: Vad3r

I paid near $400 for a video card. Do I feel taken, no, this is where there at today. Can there prices continue as they have for the past 5 years. No. Majority will be pushed to consoles (xbox / playstation/...)

I hear you, brother!

I suspect that part of the growth in the popularity of consoles might be frustration that average non-enthusiast computer owners are feeling over their ability to play PC games. It isn't enough to buy a computer at your local electronics store, now you also need to buy a video card, and they are severely overpriced for people who don't know about Newegg. Also, how the heck are laymen supposed to choose between fifty different cards with confusing names and numbers? In addition, it might also be necessary to swap out the power supply that came with the computer and upgrade it so that it can run the video card.

 

[mruffin75]

Originally posted by: BFG10K

I know that a GPU and a CPU are not comparable tech wise. But that is the best that there is for comparison.

Remember that a GPU is far more complex than a CPU in terms of transistor counts. It also has a fat memory interface with a lot of high speed memory on the PCB.

GPU's may have a larger transistor count, however most of it is "design one shader, duplicate it x amount of times" (yes I know that's dumbed-down, but you get my point), whereas CPU's have many different functions compared to GPU's.

I'd say the hardest part about GPU development is not the actual hardware design, but more like driver development... it seems to be an ongoing battle to fix/patch problems...

 

[cmdrdredd]

Originally posted by: WhipperSnapper

Originally posted by: Vad3r

I paid near $400 for a video card. Do I feel taken, no, this is where there at today. Can there prices continue as they have for the past 5 years. No. Majority will be pushed to consoles (xbox / playstation/...)

I hear you, brother!

I suspect that part of the growth in the popularity of consoles might be frustration that average non-enthusiast computer owners are feeling over their ability to play PC games. It isn't enough to buy a computer at your local electronics store, now you also need to buy a video card, and they are severely overpriced for people who don't know about Newegg. Also, how the heck are laymen supposed to choose between fifty different cards with confusing names and numbers? In addition, it might also be necessary to swap out the power supply that came with the computer and upgrade it so that it can run the video card.

Yeah that is the draw for a console. You buy the system, maybe an extra controller and you know right off the bat that every game that comes out for that system will work. You don't need to worry about "oh do I have enough memory, a big enough HDD, hrm...I need a DVD-Rom drive?, Oh my videocard is only brand x model y so I need to upgrade, oh crap I only have DX8 support not DX9"

It's simple for console gamers. I personally have both, but I play what I can get for PC on my PC.

 

[Demoth]

The main problem seems to be that the two main players seem to be operating in a unspoken collusion to keep revisions low and prices high. NVIDIA probably wants ATI around. ATI takes only a limited overall market regardless of what their current top cards are (i.e. at the height of the 9XXX Pro).

However, with only one player in the picture, it would just be an open invitation for a company like MS or Sony to jump into the design end of the GPU market. They would benefit from both card sales and greater profit retention on consoles. At two companies, the GPU fab market is considered saturated enough.

Bonus for Nvidia is that ATI is Canadian and it would be harder for the US to bring price fixing cases against both parties.

Both companies do compete, but within very ridgid cost/performance cutoffs. Neither goes for a technological knock out blow. If one falls behind, the other holds off on newer technology.

Eventually, you'll either see another player in the vid market and a much different senario or some kind of big govermental legal action.

Remember, back in the day when the top end cost under $200, there were more players and they were operating in full out competition. It will be interesting to see if MS, Sony or Intel jump into the mix in the near future. Intel could make a profit on just propriatory integrated vid on their MBs while the other two would on console sales.

 

[Redox]

I too recall the days of the Voodoo 1 and 2 (owned them both including SLI Voodoo 2). As I recall though, if you wanted an SLI voodoo 2 (12 meg) setup, it would still have run you about $600 CAN, not exactly cheap for 10 years ago AND you still needed a 2D graphics card!

Nowadays, a top end SLI setup (2x8800 GTX) will run you about $1200 CAN which is double what the state of the art was 10 years ago but for a considerably more complex and capable level of technology. The range of titles supported is also pretty universal compared with Glide only titles in the days of Voodoo.

I would suggest that an 8800 GTS 640MB is still an above average card and don't think $400 is out of line for a gaming oriented computer relative to the cost of the other components.

If people are not prepared to pay top dollar for top end performance, then I suspect Nvidia and AMD would simply not bother to produce the high end parts and we would all have to be content with cheaper but mediocre performance parts. This would likely be the death knell for PC Gaming as we would have no choice but to convert to consoles to get the performance we are looking for.

Although I am not thrilled to be shelling out big $ every 12-18 months for upgraded parts, I am happy that they are still available vs. being phased out due to a relatively small consumer base vs. mainstream cards. What concerns me more is the current lack of high end competition from AMD which has taken the pressure off Nvidia to update the 8800 GTX.

 

[Modelworks]

Its all business .
When you sell a product you don't sell it for just above cost or to make back your investment plus a little extra.
You sell it for as much as the market will allow.
If everyone stopped buying those expensive cards, then the prices would fall.
As long as people are willing to spend the cash , expect prices to increase.

 

[Redox]

Originally posted by: Modelworks
Its all business .
When you sell a product you don't sell it for just above cost or to make back your investment plus a little extra.
You sell it for as much as the market will allow.
If everyone stopped buying those expensive cards, then the prices would fall.
As long as people are willing to spend the cash , expect prices to increase.

If everyone stopped buying them, they would stop making them. What drives prices down is competition (ie. AMD vs. Nvidia). Low demand results in products being discontinued.

 

[Modelworks]

Originally posted by: Redox


If everyone stopped buying them, they would stop making them. What drives prices down is competition (ie. AMD vs. Nvidia). Low demand results in products being discontinued.

Thats not the immediate result of falling sales .
First prices are dropped on the product for sale.
If that doesn't work, then the product is discontinued.

 

[Vad3r]

Originally posted by: Demoth
Bonus for Nvidia is that ATI is Canadian and it would be harder for the US to bring price fixing cases against both parties.

Remember, back in the day when the top end cost under $200, there were more players and they were operating in full out competition. It will be interesting to see if MS, Sony or Intel jump into the mix in the near future. Intel could make a profit on just propriatory integrated vid on their MBs while the other two would on console sales.

ATI was purchased by AMD ?, Isn't AMD american.

I never thought consoles would out do PC's for games. But if Video prices continue there current trend, I dunno.
I love on-line play, thats always kept me on the PC side of games. Now the consoles are in this market too.

You don't have to buy a expensive card of course, but buying cheaper means yesterdays cards, to play yesterdays games.

 

[speckedhoncho]

I think this year's fall lineup for PC games is appetizing and a challenge for both AMD and NVidia to patch inefficiency that games generally suffered for these games. I always thought that the games structure and usage of the video card was a year or so behind the rapid growth of the GPU.

Here's FS's Fall Lineup:

http://www.firingsquad.com/gam...ll_2007_games_preview/

I'm still going for a GTX just because they grew a lot from the 79xx sercies and especially the 1900XTX. But the news of tomorrow and the prodigies of tomorrow are those that can rely on specialty companies to come up with good engines or good shading algorithms.

 

[ConstipatedVigilante]

I wouldn't consider an 8800 average. I would consider an X1950 or 7900 GT average, and they're priced pretty reasonably at $150-200. It's mainly just this generation that prices have stayed up for so long.

 

[WhipperSnapper]

I thought the prices held for a long time for the 6800 GT's and x800xt's, too. I still remember both being in the $250 range when the 7800 GT was released.

 

[onlyCOpunk]

I also remember my Monster 3D 4meg card, and the days of Turok and OpenGL Quake. I saved for so long for that damn card as well.

I think another thing that keeps video card prices high is the demand. Out of every component you could buy for a PC, video cards have the most appeal, flashy packaging, gaming promises. The odd thing is, is that I have a hard time justifying video card money for a console which will be around for years, whereas a video card has a lifespan of 2 years max. Somehow I would gladly plunk down $250 for a new video card then the same for an Xbox 360.

Now the question comes, do you still have all that old PC hardware?

 

[Cookie Monster]

Originally posted by: mruffin75

Originally posted by: BFG10K

I know that a GPU and a CPU are not comparable tech wise. But that is the best that there is for comparison.

Remember that a GPU is far more complex than a CPU in terms of transistor counts. It also has a fat memory interface with a lot of high speed memory on the PCB.

GPU's may have a larger transistor count, however most of it is "design one shader, duplicate it x amount of times" (yes I know that's dumbed-down, but you get my point), whereas CPU's have many different functions compared to GPU's.

I'd say the hardest part about GPU development is not the actual hardware design, but more like driver development... it seems to be an ongoing battle to fix/patch problems...

That is quite mis leading. GPUs have many if not MUCH more different functions than a GPU. The only reason Intel just cant enter the discrete market and claim themselves as the "king of the hill" is because a GPU is far more sophisticated and time consuming beast compared to a CPU.

If it was as easy as saying "design one shader, duplicate it x amount of times" then we wouldn't have delayed launches or even projects being canned. GPUs are so complex at a hardware level that writing drivers for them has developed into writing a whole new OS for it. (G80 drivers are as large as Windows NT in terms of the number of codes required and that is around ~20 million lines of code.)

If the hardware wasnt so complex in terms of functionality, than the software for it shouldn't be so complex either i.e ironing out bugs would be much more easy. Its because of the complexity of the GPU at a hardware level that causes multiple if not hundreds of incompatibility issues with 3d apps/displays/etc because the software just cant keep up with it. Finding a bug in drivers as big as older OSes would be finding a needle in a hay stack, and to fix it means it has to consider the fact that other functionalities could be broken.

Food for thought - It takes for example 2 GPUs (R600 - cross fire) to break the 1TFlops number. How many QX6850s does it take to break that number?

A GPU is by far more complex than a CPU. Ask guys at beyond3d, and maybe they will explain much better than i did asin why a GPU is so complex compared to a CPU.

Sorry for going offtopic, but i still think GPU prices are fair. Why? several things.

1)More complex than a CPU, i.e requires much more R&D. We should be thankful they are not charging much higher prices than now because of the cost of designing new GPU is pretty high and very time consuming.
2)Comparing now and then is like comparing apples to oranges. GPUs back then had 1 or 2 features and VERY limited functionality. To me, i think back (~15 years ago) then was more of a rip off and a niche thing. It was like the grand experiment.
3)Not everyone plays at 19x12 resolution. 8600GT/GTS or 2600XT are still perfectly fine with the screen resolution of 10x7 which still is the most widely used resolution. 12x10 is becoming the next big thing to 90% of the population.
4)Unlike CPUs that sell over $500 to $999 for very little improvment in terms of performance, GPUs show large performance difference between different cards. (in terms of gaming)
5)What you pay for is what you get. The definition of the word "decent performance" can vary from gamer to gamer, or user from user. We computer enthusiasts or geeks demand MUCH more than the casual user. I mean who wouldnt mind getting a 8800GTX for $299?

Its just not possible. $299 would most probably be the production cost of a 8800GTX (HSF, PCB, memory, G80 core, labor, shipping cost, handling fees, tax, tariffs, so on). Unless you want your IHVs to go out of business i just dont see the complaint of GPU prices now.

The ones that cost $999 with water blocks or some fancy HSF is just an extreme out lier because it doesn't clearly represent the current "GPU prices"

However i do think this is why consoles are much more attractive, but they have a clear definite limit on GPU performance. The real question is, is console games that run at 720p with no AA, or AF worth it then playing pc games with 16x12 16xAA 16xAF? or HDR? or DX10? or etc.

Im a computer enthusiast. If i was a pure hardcore gamer, i would go for a console hands down. But being a computer enthusiast, GPUs and PCs in general are MUCH more worth it to me than a console would ever could not just cause of gaming, but a long list of other things.

note - my argument is pretty untidy so i cant blame you guys having a go at my post i.e being an@l.

 

[PingSpike]

Video cards have gotten more expensive, but at the same time the other components of a gaming rig have fallen in both price and importance to gaming. You've got sub $100 dual core CPUs, reasonably cheap ram kits and there are even affordable motherboard options for most setups. If you don't want to go that way, you could probably build a good gaming rig by buying a midrange dell with some extra ram and then sticking a good video card in it. PC gaming revolves around video card performance. Developers saw CPU speeds stagnating in the last few years before intel/amd just started adding more cpus and they responded by offloading the work onto the video card. And video cards have become more expensive, powerful and important as a result. Plus, LCDs have basically given rise to people regularly gaming at higher resolutions fueling more demand for performance.

 

[bryanW1995]

Originally posted by: betasub

Originally posted by: kmmatney
I'm just waiting for the 8800 GTS to get below $200 for my next upgrade.

That won't be a new retail card then. The new GTS will hold its price point for many more months, and the 8800GT will fit into a price point vacated by the OOL of the GTS-320. So the 8800GT eventually falling to below $200 is a more reasonable hope.

I think that you'll be able to get both a 2950 pro and 8800 gt for less than $200 in about 3 months.