Mid range has turned into high end

[Carfax83]

And yes--the fact that Volta is out within this generation puts the 1080 and certainly the 1070 at the upper midrange tier.

Volta is out? Had no idea...

 

[Smoblikat]

How much inflation has there been since 2010-2011? Remember, the equivalent of the 1080 and 1070 are the 560 Ti and 560. $250/$200. The card names have been inflated, but the chip names give it all away (both x04).

That truly was the best time for video cards. AMD 6000 vs Nvidia 500 series provided the best competition.

My favorite time was the 400 vs 5000 series. I remember spending weeks deciding on HD4870 vs HD5830 vs GTX 460, and to this day the GTX 470/5870 is still one of the best deals you could get for new cards. The nvidia 600 series is when everything went downhill. The 680 was powered by an X04, while the 480/580 were all the appropriate X00/X10. Now you have to buy the ultra super duper high end cards to get the normal high end chips.

 

[Final8ty]

NVDA's record breaking margins disagree.

60% poor NV, they will have to put the prices up again.


Trolling is not allowed
Markfw900

SARCASM
IS CLEARLY BEYOND YOU.

 

[zinfamous]

Volta is out? Had no idea...

I said Volta is out within this generation, so sometime next year. Would you be shocked if nVidia gets it out when Vega shows up?

 

[XavierMace]

A Geforce 3 used to cost ~£200, when that was the high end. Yeah, prices have gone up.

Yeah, about that.

GeForce3 cards cost between US$359 and $450 as I write. Perfectly acceptable, speedy GeForce2 Pro cardsare selling for about a third of that.

Those same reviews show the outgoing GeForce 2 Ultra winning in about half the benchmarks. That was the initial GeForce 3 launch. The later Ti 500 was over $600 IIRC.

This is absolutely false. The mistake you are making is you are assuming today's high-end is in any way representative of high-end of the past in terms of tier and market positioning. The "high-end" cards in the segment of GTX680/980/1080 are not high-end at all but mid-range cards with a marketing x80 series name and a corresponding price. Maybe you already forgot that a next generation mid-range $200 card in the form of 6600GT was faster than the previous generation's flagship 5950 Ultra and 9800XT cards? There is nowhere to purchase a $299 2016 card today that beats last generation's 980Ti/Fury X or Titan X Maxwell in modern games. It's not as far as production positioning or pricing strategies are concerned. You just haven't traced the fact that GTX1070/1080 are predecessors to $199 GTX560 and $249 GTX560Ti.

So in your mind, low-mid-high has nothing to do with where they sit in the stack performance or naming wise but purely based on the underlying chip number. How have you reached the conclusion that a next gen mid range card should be able to beat the outgoing high end card? I don't know any industry that works like that. Has it happened on occasion? Sure, and when it does, great (take the new Civic's being faster than the outgoing Si). Let's use a car comparison here. I drive a 2011 BMW 135i which was the second highest car on the 1 series stack. It's powered by the new (at the time) N55 engine. The top car in the stack, the 1M, was powered by the older N54. However, it's still the faster car hence why it's still the top of the stack even if it's got an older engine.

If you want to argue some cards give you more for your money. I completely agree on that. However, that wasn't the OP's complaint. Generation to generation, cards sitting at the same level in the product stack (the actual stack, not your personal definition of the product stack) really aren't changing much in price. Again, just like cars, some years are better buys than others. The catch is more cards are being added to the top of the stack and for some reason people seem to think that they should be able to move up the stack without paying any more money than last time. More importantly people are basing their purchase on a model number rather than what they actually need. I have several friends that game at 1080p and were talking about wanting to do a 1080 SLI build. I told them just to get a 1060 and they were shocked to find out that a lower end card would playing 1080p perfectly well.

 

[poofyhairguy]

The good? We are mostly still stuck at 1080p so cheaper cards kick ass.

The bad? We are stuck at 1080p as an ecosystem and mindset.

 

[Bacon1]

The good? We are mostly still stuck at 1080p so cheaper cards kick ass.

The bad? We are stuck at 1080p as an ecosystem and mindset.

Thats what I don't get, 1080p is the minimum, 1440p or higher should be what anyone with a $300+ card should be using.

Monitors are cheap compared to GPUs, and they last a lot longer. You can get 21:9 ultrawides or even 4k monitors for under $400. No one should be using a 1080p 60hz monitor with a discrete gpu.

 

[whm1974]

The good? We are mostly still stuck at 1080p so cheaper cards kick ass.

The bad? We are stuck at 1080p as an ecosystem and mindset.

Well most gamers have 1080p displays, which are cheap now.

 

[whm1974]

Thats what I don't get, 1080p is the minimum, 1440p or higher should be what anyone with a $300+ card should be using.

Monitors are cheap compared to GPUs, and they last a lot longer. You can get 21:9 ultrawides or even 4k monitors for under $400. No one should be using a 1080p 60hz monitor with a discrete gpu.

I disagree. iGPUs are not there yet unless you are referring to DOTA level specs.

 

[linkgoron]

Thats what I don't get, 1080p is the minimum, 1440p or higher should be what anyone with a $300+ card should be using.

Monitors are cheap compared to GPUs, and they last a lot longer. You can get 21:9 ultrawides or even 4k monitors for under $400. No one should be using a 1080p 60hz monitor with a discrete gpu.

I'm quite happy with my 24" 1080p (peasant) resolution monitor. Hopefully, I'll add a 144hz one when a decent non-TN freesync monitor appears. With the current GPU market prices, I'm just not willing to spend enough money to drive a 1440p monitor at very-high/ultra settings.


EDIT:
As a side note, and to stay on topic, the fact that AMD cannot even beat Nvidia's GP106, let alone GP104, just highlights their terrible performance in the last years. Nvidia shifting lineups is masking how horribly AMD is actually competing.

 

[poofyhairguy]

Well most gamers have 1080p displays, which are cheap now.

That's all I game with. I prefer to game from my couch over my desk (aka where I work) and I have a nice 1080p 65 inch plasma tv to do it on.

 

[boozzer]

Even with the concept that the 980 ti is about to lose Nvidia driver optimization priority (if it hasn't already)?
.

980 ti is about 30-50% faster than 1060 6gb and 480 8gb atm. even if we get rid of game ready drivers, you stand to lose about 10-20% performance for the next 1-2 years.

for 300$ it is the same price as the 1060 6gb fe cards, for 30-50% more performance. a super, super no brainer. for 40-60$ more than 480 8gb, you get 30-50% more performance, also a super no brainer.

think of it like this, a 1070 that costs 300$ !!!

PS: I am talking about non reference 980 ti that comes with about 20% factory oc.

 

[MadOver]

I said Volta is out within this generation, so sometime next year. Would you be shocked if nVidia gets it out when Vega shows up?

Well even if they do they will be using the same 16nm process which always limit how much more performance they can get out of arch. improvements.
I dont expect massive leap like we've seen this gen. Mostly will come from the HBM2 memory and minor tweaks Im guessing.

 

[Ranulf]

Thats what I don't get, 1080p is the minimum, 1440p or higher should be what anyone with a $300+ card should be using.

Monitors are cheap compared to GPUs, and they last a lot longer. You can get 21:9 ultrawides or even 4k monitors for under $400. No one should be using a 1080p 60hz monitor with a discrete gpu.

Heh, no. Just no. 1440p means you're now paying $400+ for decent FPS and good luck if you want 120hz+ monitors on top of that.

There is more justification to buy a 4k tv these days despite a lack of content to watch in 4k than $300 being good for 1440p.

 

[Carfax83]

I said Volta is out within this generation, so sometime next year. Would you be shocked if nVidia gets it out when Vega shows up?

Are you certain about this? I think Volta being out next year refers to HPC Volta, but not consumer Volta. It would be highly unusual for NVidia to skip to another generation so quickly, especially since they have no real competition right now from AMD.

 

[Carfax83]

Even with the concept that the 980 ti is about to lose Nvidia driver optimization priority (if it hasn't already)?.

I'm pretty sure that NVidia's driver optimization procedure does not work like that. Even so, Maxwell and Pascal are very similar to each other architecture wise, so optimizations for Pascal should still benefit Maxwell.

People like to claim that Kepler's dramatically reduced performance relative to the competition stems from NVidia's lack of focus on driver optimizations, but the truth is much more logical, and less scandalous. Kepler as an architecture just did not have the capabilities to succeed in the new gaming development scene, which was starting to focus more and more on compute and parallelism for practical performance reasons; including the fact that both the Xbox One and PS4 featured GCN based GPUs..

 

[frozentundra123456]

You can call a 1080 a midrange card, but in fact it is "high end" card because there is there is no card that performs better. It really is an apples to oranges comparison though because a "high end" card from a few years ago has far fewer transistors and lower performance than similar level cards today. It also isnt valid to compare the price of a depreciated previous gen card to a new card just coming out. For instance the 1060 has similar performance to a 980. Discounting the obviously overpriced aib models, a 1060 is priced around 250.00. I dont recall the exact introductory price of the 980, but I am sure it was far more 250.00. Doesnt matter whether the cards are x60 or x80 or "high end" or "mid range" for their respective generations, the fact is similar performance costs less. Same for the 1080. Even if one calls the 1080 a midrange card, the fact is it provides higher performance than the previous gen 980ti at a similar price to the introductory price of the 980ti.

 

[DaveSimmons]

Something to keep in mind: intel has stolen the low end away from nvidia and AMD. They can't use $50-75 card sales to help pay for new chip designs because that market has gone to integrated for both desktops and laptops.

Both nvidia and AMD need to make more per card out of the sales that are left in order to cover design costs.

 

[iiiankiii]

You can call a 1080 a midrange card, but in fact it is "high end" card because there is there is no card that performs better. It really is an apples to oranges comparison though because a "high end" card from a few years ago has far fewer transistors and lower performance than similar level cards today. It also isnt valid to compare the price of a depreciated previous gen card to a new card just coming out. For instance the 1060 has similar performance to a 980. Discounting the obviously overpriced aib models, a 1060 is priced around 250.00. I dont recall the exact introductory price of the 980, but I am sure it was far more 250.00. Doesnt matter whether the cards are x60 or x80 or "high end" or "mid range" for their respective generations, the fact is similar performance costs less. Same for the 1080. Even if one calls the 1080 a midrange card, the fact is it provides higher performance than the previous gen 980ti at a similar price to the introductory price of the 980ti.

I totally disagree. The reason why you're able to say a GTX1060 if faster than a GTX980 is because Nvidia has been pushing mid-range cards on us since Kepler. From a technical standpoint based on die size relative to the each other, the GTX1080 would be considered a midrange card relative to the Titan XP prior to the Kepler generation. Nvidia has been slowly shifting the performance stack upward for years.

The GTX1060 3GB is a good example of pushing the stack upward. Based on the already overly inflated price, the GTX1060 3GB should be a GTX1050TI based on its reduced specs. But, yet, Nvidia is trying to pull a fast one on unsuspecting people with the naming scheme.

 

[ConsoleLover]

Well lets take consoles, last gen consoles were gaming at 720p resolutions, so we can safely say that 720p is LAST gen resolution, something we got from 2009 to 2014. The current generation consoles are gaming at 1080p(except for the Xbox One which has had some titles lowered to 720p), so we can say that 1080p is the current, but outgoing resolution, as such its the MINIMUM resolution and if cards can't properly handle 1080p, then are are terrible, as they can't even handle MINIMUM gaming.

Therefore a low end PC card should be able to handle MOST games at 1080p and highest settings, mid range should be able to handle 1440p and highest settings, allowing for some AA and AF to top it off and high end should be able to handle 4k at highest settings and get an average of 60fps.

Right now only $300 dollars "mid range"(basically have entered high end) can handle 1080p at highest resolutions(consistent 60fps), while they struggle at 1440p and you are forced to buy a real high end card like 1070 or 1080 to handle 1440p at highest settings (at constant 60fps), but even then you can not ramp up AA and AF, even high end cards can't handle full 1440p resolutions.

 

[frozentundra123456]

I totally disagree. The reason why you're able to say a GTX1060 if faster than a GTX980 is because Nvidia has been pushing mid-range cards on us since Kepler. From a technical standpoint based on die size relative to the each other, the GTX1080 would be considered a midrange card relative to the Titan XP prior to the Kepler generation. Nvidia has been slowly shifting the performance stack upward for years.

The GTX1060 3GB is a good example of pushing the stack upward. Based on the already overly inflated price, the GTX1060 3GB should be a GTX1050TI based on its reduced specs. But, yet, Nvidia is trying to pull a fast one on unsuspecting people with the naming scheme.

Yea, so a current "mid range" card is as fast as a previous mid/high range card, and costs much less. How is that a bad thing? I dont care about die size, one can always complain that a company could give you a better product for the same price. Bottom line is performance per dollar has increased from the previous generation. In fact I would argue that if anything, the title of this thread is backwards. Previous performance near the high end (980) has now become midrange (1060). Even the 1070 which costs 400.00 gives performance above the 600.00 plus 980Ti, when you consider introductory prices, not the current depreciated prices for the 980Ti.

 

[Bacon1]

Heh, no. Just no. 1440p means you're now paying $400+ for decent FPS and good luck if you want 120hz+ monitors on top of that.

There is more justification to buy a 4k tv these days despite a lack of content to watch in 4k than $300 being good for 1440p.

My old 290 ran 2560 x 1600 (slightly over 1440p) fine for years. I spent $300 to upgrade to a Fury Nitro when I moved to 21:9 3440x1440p.

You don't need to spend $400+ and the increased image quality (and QOL from larger resolution in general) make it worth it.

 

[mohit9206]

I liked how RussianSensation pointed out that we are analyzing whether the prices have increased or not and NOT whether the prices are fair.Both are two very different things.
So yes obviously prices have increased a lot for the same tier of cards no doubt about that.But let's also be honest that the prices are indeed fair considering how fast the cards are selling out.So we have ourselves to blame not Nvidia as its a buyer's market and buyers set the prices not the company.

 

[zinfamous]

You can call a 1080 a midrange card, but in fact it is "high end" card because there is there is no card that performs better. It really is an apples to oranges comparison though because a "high end" card from a few years ago has far fewer transistors and lower performance than similar level cards today.

SO the TitanX is the red-headed stepchild, or what? Where does 1080 actually sit, then?

 

[sxr7171]

Nobody's happy about it but there is a defacto monopoly on everything higher than mid-end. Given that at least that company stills increases performance each generation more than they really have to for competitive purposes. But they make you pay no doubt.