NV Super refresh reviews

[Aapje]

I bet they don't even raise it for their next gen cards.

You need to keep in mind that they already start designing the next gen before the launch of the previous gen. This is why AMD is rumored to drop the higher-end of RDNA 4, because they only recognized the issues with RDNA 3 after launch, and couldn't fix it without delaying RDNA 4.

Rumor has it that they are still using small buses for Blackwell. So unless they use higher density GDDR7, they may be forced to sell chips at lower tiers than intended, or to go crazy with clamshell cards.

Everyone has different age cards, and needs to upgrade at different times, so there are always people that need to upgrade now.

No one has "to upgrade now" when they have a working video card.

Some people, and relatively many people who post here, get increasingly antsy over time. But other people are either more rational, or more poor, and simply upgrade when they get better price/performance. With the minimal increase in price/perf for the original 4000-series, it is logical that Ada enticed fewer people for the MSRP than Ampere did. The Super cards still don't offer that great boosts in price/performance and we are closer to the next gen, so it is more logical to wait it out anyway.

 

[Aapje]

Another data point: https://videocardz.com/newz/nvidia-geforce-rtx-4070-super-already-spotted-below-msrp-in-europe

Prices are dropping below MSRP already in Europe. This doesn't indicate that sales are good or even decent.

 

[MrTeal]

They're effectively already selling at below MSRP in Canada too. Technically the CA$809.00 that the Asus Dual and base Zotac sell for is US$598.28 if you're using the Bank of Canada's exchange rate, but there's generally always a forex margin built in there. The FE is selling for CA$829.99.

 

[Heartbreaker]

You posit that GPU purchases are linear.

No I don't. Just that not everyone is on the same page like you imply with:
"What's really pushing people to refresh right now?"

Everyone has different age GPUs. Obviously if you are sitting on a good Ampere, or already have Ada, there isn't much reason to upgrade again so soon.

But someone with Pascal, or even Maxwell would likely be extremely happy with an Ada Super upgrade.

 

[Heartbreaker]

They're effectively already selling at below MSRP in Canada too. Technically the CA$809.00 that the Asus Dual and base Zotac sell for is US$598.28 if you're using the Bank of Canada's exchange rate, but there's generally always a forex margin built in there. The FE is selling for CA$829.99.

Exactly like it was for regular 4070 launch. Nvidia is doomed.

 

[blckgrffn]

No I don't. Just that not everyone is on the same page like you imply with:
"What's really pushing people to refresh right now?"

Everyone has different age GPUs. Obviously if you are sitting on a good Ampere, or already have Ada, there isn't much reason to upgrade again so soon.

But someone with Pascal, or even Maxwell would likely be extremely happy with an Ada Super upgrade.

SMH.

I think @Aapje already covered, more eloquently, what I am trying to say.

I am not sure what points you are trying to make with me. Just that I must be disagreed with? Duly noted.

You're experience is like the antithesis of what you're saying. Folks with functional Pascal or Maxwell cards can play virtually every game out there, and the beefier cards of those generations still provide great experiences. A GTX 970 is still supremely usable with some concessions, for example. PSOLord has some videos for you to watch. My recent experiences with a GTX 980 and GTX 980Ti ensure that I am a believer in this. Darn near the entirety of PC gaming is still at your fingertips with these cards.

You rolled a 8800GT until now. It did what you needed it to do? It was what you were able to afford? You got an enormous uplift going the 4070. It's inherently a fine card. Finally you got pushed over the edge to enjoy a card from this decade by something. Many enthusiasts already made that move, especially when there was any retail availability of cards at near MSRP coming off the mining boom/covid supply chain snafu.

I'll provide you with another reason folks upgrade you didn't mention. Tech lust. And I think the 4070 Ti Super might be the Ada part that does this for some folks, even - and maybe especially - 3080 owners feeling anxious about that 10GB limitation. It will be faster than all Ampere products AND have a pretty reasonable value prop. I think it will be seen, in 2024 at least, as the ADA sweet spot of GPU strength, vram, and price. This is my pick of the "refresh" cards to watch.

 

[Heartbreaker]

You're experience is like the antithesis of what you're saying. Folks with functional Pascal or Maxwell cards can play virtually every game out there, and the beefier cards of those generations still provide great experiences. A GTX 970 is still supremely usable with some concessions, for example. PSOLord has some videos for you to watch. My recent experiences with a GTX 980 and GTX 980Ti ensure that I am a believer in this. Darn near the entirety of PC gaming is still at your fingertips with these cards.

I'd expect most rational people upgrade when they have games they want to play, that their current HW can't adequately handle, and economic conditions are favorable for them.

Contrary to the narrative painted here. Ada cards were not some kind of flop. They sold extremely well, even with dicey economic conditions and the whole PC market down.

This "card not exciting enough to sell" narrative is nonsense.

 

[igor_kavinski]

This "card not exciting enough to sell" narrative is nonsense.

Wonder why that bothers you.

 

[PJVol]

Just curious, in what universe 4080 and 4060's are selling "extremely well"...

 

[branch_suggestion]

You need to keep in mind that they already start designing the next gen before the launch of the previous gen. This is why AMD is rumored to drop the higher-end of RDNA 4, because they only recognized the issues with RDNA 3 after launch, and couldn't fix it without delaying RDNA 4.

Other way around, AMD wants to replace RDNA3 ASAP, and high end RDNA4 was going to take way too long, too close to RDNA5.
So they cut the high end out leaving the monolithic parts, and now have all their eggs in the RDNA5 basket.

I'd expect most rational people upgrade when they have games they want to play, that their current HW can't adequately handle, and economic conditions are favorable for them.

Contrary to the narrative painted here. Ada cards were not some kind of flop. They sold extremely well, even with dicey economic conditions and the whole PC market down.

This "card not exciting enough to sell" narrative is nonsense.

Ehh, relative share is down, Ampere vs RDNA2 was more evenly matched technically, but Ampere was further ahead in revenue share than Ada vs RDNA3.
Feels an awful lot like Turing.

 

[Ranulf]

MLID does mention the 4070 slow start and pickup in sales later and that it may happen again. The last source, a supposed scalper is amusing if true.

 

[blckgrffn]

I'd expect most rational people upgrade when they have games they want to play, that their current HW can't adequately handle, and economic conditions are favorable for them.

Excellent. We agree on that.

What I said was not that this is a bad card or that nvidia OR AMD had released bad cards. Or that people were fools for buying current cards.

What I said was that given that we are smack in the middle of a current generation of consoles that most people already upgraded to be able to play games that are optimized for current gen console specs. The need to upgrade from the a GTX 6xx series or similar geriatric card is passed for all but the extreme outliers.

To your point. A couple of my buddies struggled in late 2022 with Deep Rock Galactic. I was shocked to find out they were both rocking GTX 460's which were technically supported. One is using a 2060 12GB now, the other a 6600. In both cases I shipped them an old card (my GTX 980, ha) and they both were shocked at what a big uplift that was. I don't know how many of those gamers are our there, but a 3060 or a 7600 will deliver quite a change in experience to them No $500+ card required. Also, they are both frugal. We did full PC builds for what a 4070 Super now costs.

The one buddy was rocking a FX 8320 with that GTX 460. He hadn't logged into Steam for years, but it ran the random SC2 match like a champ.

 

[SteveGrabowski]

MLID claims that sales are really bad, especially for the over-MSRP cards. He suggests that Nvidia solved the wrong problem, by releasing a more powerful card with still just 12 GB, which makes sense to me.

In general I think that people are generally not very forward-looking or rational in general, but they tend to develop and hold on to stereotypes, good or bad. See the people still claiming that AMD drivers are bad.

I think that Nvidia messed up with 8 GB for the 3070 and 10 GB for the 3080. The idea has now been established in many people's minds that Nvidia is selling cards with too little VRAM. With 12 GB, it is at minimum questionable whether this will be sufficient for the lifespan of the GPU, especially in a UE5/RT world. With the stereotype being established, many people will not give Nvidia the benefit of the doubt.

If they had given 10 GB to the 3070 and 12 GB to the 3080, I think that people wouldn't have become primed to see the 12 GB as a huge issue.

The real problem is price. $600 for lower midrange is ridiculous.

 

[Aapje]

Other way around, AMD wants to replace RDNA3 ASAP, and high end RDNA4 was going to take way too long, too close to RDNA5.
So they cut the high end out leaving the monolithic parts, and now have all their eggs in the RDNA5 basket.

High end RDNA4 would take too long because it needs a redesign, so that's not really different from what I'm saying.

 

[Aapje]

The real problem is price. $600 for lower midrange is ridiculous.

It's always a combination of price and what you get for that money.

But there is such a thing as a weakness that has a disproportionate negative impact on how much money people are willing to pay for the card. For example, for the 6500 XT I think that was the PCIe x4 connector.

I think that an extra 4 GB would have made the 4070 Super a much more attractive proposition.

 

[Heartbreaker]

MLID does mention the 4070 slow start and pickup in sales later and that it may happen again. The last source, a supposed scalper is amusing if true.

View attachment 92065

That reads like the same exact crap he was spewing about 4070 when it launched. Now in hindsight (just about the only time he's right) he acknowledged that 4070 sold well, after everyone knows that.

If you go back to when he was spewing the 4070 slow selling nonsense. One of the few consistently tracked retailers (Mindfactory in Germany) had the 4070 as their best selling card for 6 months straight, right from the the first month. Given how expesnsive it was, it's impressive to top their sales for months...

MLID = Nonsense, but with all kind of BS drama added in...

 

[Heartbreaker]

What I said was that given that we are smack in the middle of a current generation of consoles that most people already upgraded to be able to play games that are optimized for current gen console specs. The need to upgrade from the a GTX 6xx series or similar geriatric card is passed for all but the extreme outliers.

And this is what I vehemently disagree with. Your view of GPU buyers is too monolithic, if you assume most people already upgraded because of a new console generation, and now they are done.

New more demanding games come out all the time. What if someone wants to play AW2. That game just brutalizes GPUs.

These days a large number of gamers have big Steam (or other store) Backlogs, that could have them lagging the state of the art significantly, but any of them could at some point find that one new, more demanding "must play" game to buy now, to make them want/need a GPU upgrade.

 

[blckgrffn]

And this is what I vehemently disagree with.

Those are some strong feelings.

I build a lot, well a fair number, of PCs for folks in my area and friends and the like. So many people want to be able to play GTAV, Minecraft, Fortnite, Apex, etc. It's nuts. My point was not that no one upgrades because of the console generation. It was that there are a lot of cards - and a lot of sales volume - sub $500 that are very capable because we are "over the hump". The technologies and titles making these bigger cards anything besides a hobby-want is lacking now. For many people, maybe not you. You can go back and read it again and get past the part where you get so upset you quote one sentence.

 

[Aapje]

@Heartbreaker

Gamers are not monolithic, but there are definitely groups of gamers that we can identify with certain behaviors. For example, there are gamers that want to run the latest games at the highest settings, and who buy expensive cards. There are also gamers like the ones that @blckgrffn knows, who are very frugal and who tend to build to a budget. For all of these you can judge how likely a new card is going to be to make them upgrade to that card.

I actually see you getting upset any time someone argues that people exist who don't fit in your imagination of when and how gamers upgrade, which suggests that it is you who sees gamers as a monolith.

Your example of someone desperately wanting to play AW2 is not very useful and is just you cherry picking something that fits your argument, which you do all the time. Whatever a single individual does is completely meaningless to whether the 4070 Super will sell well or whether the 4070 non-super sold well.

And is Alan Wake 2 actually a game that people desperate want to play and thus a game that could drive upgrades in a meaningful way? Doesn't look like it:

https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fpreview.redd.it%2Faio8ootgw26c1.jpg%3Fwidth%3D680%26format%3Dpjpg%26auto%3Dwebp%26s%3D9b1225e4b84ef9ee3e891e4833f90b39fed8bc1e

It is also a fact that this game that you classify as one of the most brutal can still be played at frame rates that many people consider acceptable with a 3060 mobile, at 1080p or even 1440p:

Of course, we can also just look at Nvidia's numbers. They've had a huge decline in gaming revenue. This is despite huge sales of 4090 cards to China that mostly didn't go to gamers, but into AI servers. And Nvidia themselves is telling investors that they increased the average sales price, which logically means that their decline in revenue means that their sales numbers decreased even more, as the numbers of cards sold is the revenue divided by the average sales price of a card.

And in the Steam survey we see that the 4070 has less than half the market penetration of the 3070, despite us knowing that card sales tend to be heavily front-loaded. So the 4070 doesn't look like a sales success. But most of Ada looks quite bad with the 4060 also doing really poorly compared to the 3060.

 

[Tup3x]

I at least want a card that has at least double the VRAM, 2x faster at minimum (ideally 3x min) and with full bandwidth DP 2.1 ports before I upgrade. RTX 4070 SUPER should have been the original RTX 4070. RTX 4060 Ti should have been what RTX 4070 is. RTX 4070 Ti should have been the SUPER variant.

By the way, I think it's completely normal that there's no rush to buy these. Those who have already bought 4000 series cards aren't going to do anything and those who haven't upgraded yet probably aren't going to buy these now either.

 

[jpiniero]

Of course, we can also just look at Nvidia's numbers. They've had a huge decline in gaming revenue.

That was due to crypto imploding, and then trying to sell off the existing inventory. Gaming Revenue has been going back up and is far above pre-crypto levels.

As for it because of ASP... well...

 

[Heartbreaker]

My point was not that no one upgrades because of the console generation. It was that there are a lot of cards - and a lot of sales volume - sub $500 that are very capable because we are "over the hump". The technologies and titles making these bigger cards anything besides a hobby-want is lacking now.

No, the point you stated, that I disagreed with, was that "most people" upgrade because of a console generation. Which is nonsense.

You can go back and read it again and get past the part where you get so upset you quote one sentence.

I guess you are really upset, because you actually quoted one small sentence (I quoted two).

 

[blckgrffn]

No, the point you stated, that I disagreed with, was that "most people" upgrade because of a console generation. Which is nonsense.

I guess you are really upset, because you actually quoted one small sentence (I quoted two).

You didn't read it, got it. 😂

 

[gdansk]

4070 Super is +2GB VRAM and about 5%/10% better performance at 2160/1440p compared to the RTX 3080 for $100 lower MSRP. That was 1217 days ago. Progress but at a snail's pace.

CPI rose from 262.35 to 308.85 or about 17% over that time period. TDP reduce from 320W to 220W too. But who cares.

 

[BFG10K]

Isn't that extremely limiting?

No, because anything that needs more than that is a furnace and I don't game on furnaces. I define a furnace as more than 130W so I'll powercap if necessary.

I also don't buy GPUs with tri-fans or that significantly overhang the motherboard.