The NVidia Chronicles: on what else can you spend your $599??

[ahfung]

If Intel can morally upright to sell P4 at over $600 despite the competition from AMD, why can't Nvidia do the same when there is no competition?

When you have no alternative, you gotta pay more, this is the principle of economics.

 

[Napalm]

Ahfung

The real issue I see here is one of bad PR for NVidia. Like Intel, they are creating the perception that, given the chance, they will gouge the consumer. Several things can happen here:

1) Consumers will pony up these ridiculous sums of cash - not likely
2) 3D card purchases will become stratified across different NVidia chipset releases - possibly
3) There will be a negative backlash and people will start buying "bang for the buck" from anybody but NVidia - possibly

My prediction is that #3 will happen. NVidia will milk consumers as much as possible, build up their war chests, get fat and lazy and then ride out the competition when it finally comes (i.e., Intel/3dfx). The result will be that we will have paid enormous amounts of money to a company that stops innovating. Another company will come along that will be seen as a small, aggressive, innovator (i.e., NVidia in the late 90's) and people will begin to buy their products - even if they are inferior, just because they are not from NVidia (i.e., AMD K6-2 vs the Intel PII).

History keeps repeating itself. Power corrupts. The only suckers are those that think there are "good-guys" (i.e., NVidiots).

Cheers,
Napalm

 

[gtd2000]

Are nVidia actually selling the boards or just providing the chipsets for US$599 video cards?

You could always go out and buy about 7 nVidia Geforce MX2's for the same cash, you could actually get 7.5 GeforceMX2's for the price I paid yesterday for my Axle MX2 card (US$74) with winbond -5ns chips

I don't think there is really any point in whining about nVidia when they ALSO provide an excellent low cost alternative.

The latest hardware always comes out at a price premium...nothing new in that.....

 

[ahfung]

My prediction is that #3 will happen. NVidia will milk consumers as much as possible, build up their war chests, get fat and lazy and then ride out the competition when it finally comes (i.e., Intel/3dfx). The result will be that we will have paid enormous amounts of money to a company that stops innovating.

Why worries about that? Did we really pay big money to greedy companies? When Pentium 2 were over $400 in 1997, we had the option of K6 and Cyrix 6x86. When P3/P4 + rambus are too expensive, we can choose Celeron and Duron. I don't care about Intel get fats and lazy when alternatives are always available.

I don't think it'd be a crisis. When monopoly happens a change always closely follows. History is repeating itself.

 

[JellyBaby]

<< I don't think there is really any point in whining about nVidia when they ALSO provide an excellent low cost alternative >>

Correction, there's *always* a point in whining about high prices. Anyway that's true enough and people need to realize the days of cheap top-of-the-line cards are over. As with CPUs, buy a notch down from the top and OC.

 

[Hanpan]

'Why worries about that? Did we really pay big money to greedy companies? When Pentium 2 were over $400 in 1997, we had the option of K6 and Cyrix 6x86. When P3/P4 + rambus are too expensive, we can choose Celeron and Duron. I don't care about Intel get fats and lazy when alternatives are always available.&quot;

But will there be such alternatives. For now ati is really all that's left. And were does that leave users of win2k or linux. The difference is again not the price but in what else is available. Also economics is complex and to a point not having a alternative means paying more but only to a point. Firstly when there is no competition a market usually becomes very lucrative and this often leads to new players in the market. Secondly there comes a point when people simply choose not to afford these overpriced items and the cost must come down. IT is a similar situation with our ecomnomy at the moment in general. For years the economy did well but things became expensive and now many companies are just trying to clear stock etc.

 

[Aquaman]

I'd rather spend the money on my next vacation

$600 is just way too much unless the card is being held by a swim suit wearing super model like Heidi Klum

Cheers,
Aquaman

 

[mindiris]

Well, for $600, I'd buy a-semi decent home theater system instead...or upgrade my CPU, motherboard AND memory. Or even better, two recliners for the living room

Not every damn game needs 60+ fps, and my GeForce DDR ($300 when I got it) is still going very strong and fast, even on my now decidedly low-end CPU, a PII 350 @ 392MHz (damn glad I saw the SDR would cost me more in the end if I bought that one). The extra features are still going mostly unused in games for the most part.

The way I see it is the Geforce3 or whatever it's going to be branded is initially aimed at people with the eyes set on anything stupid fast. At worst, wait 6 months for prices to trickle down when the next &quot;revision&quot; comes out, and you'd still be the envy of like-minded people.

 

[borealiss]

for that amount of money, i'd just get dual durons when the 760 chipset comes out.

 

[badguy]

You can beat TBird 1Ghz GTS with a 100Mhz PIII 550 in Quake III Arena if you have that card, so I think you get what you've paid for.

 

[Degenerate]

Geez, thats a bit of money.....

 

[Insane3D]

&quot;For now ati is really all that's left. And were does that leave users of win2k or linux.&quot;

Radeons work great in Win2K...not sure about linux though..

 

[PowerJoe]

The mere fact that something it out there doesn't mean that you HAVE to buy it. IMO, if you buy this $600 card, you're one of the following:
1. Filthy rich
2. Stupid

However, if nVidia wants to target the filthy-rich-or-stupid market segment, so be it. They also have great offers for reasonable prices, like theMX.

-PJ

 

[Insane3D]

DP! :| Grrr....

 

[Rectalfier]

Napalm

Where did you get those prices from?

 

[MSNY]

I did spend 700 buks for a nice DVD player &amp; dolby digital theatre system at xmas time. I feel I got a good deal there.

But 600 for a vid card is just silly business. And I predict that nVidia will have trouble selling this one in any great quantities. I had planned to spend 400 max but no more. Now I'm thinking about keeping my GeForce DDR
and going for an Athlon 1.2GHZ with new motherboard. Maybe a better bang for the buck ? What do you think...buy the NV20 (save another 200) or go the Athlon route ?

Best price/performance ?

My System

 

[joohang]

Rectalfier,

He did mention CANADIAN Dollars. And Napalm's prices are about equal to the lowest prices I find in my local area.

 

[KarlHungus]

Napalm -

FYI, the NAD T761 is out now. I may get one if I ever finish my thesis and get a real job.

 

[Rectalfier]

Yes I know, I live in Calgary and those prices are much better than what I've seen around here.

 

For 600 bucks I can buy three XBoxs and rip the NV2A part out and install them in my PCs.

j/k

 

[Raider]

For $600 here in the UK i'd buy:

Playstation 2 Console
8mb Memory Card
Extra Dual Shock Controller
3 games

and i'd still have change

 

[hifimaster]

<< For 600 bucks I can buy three XBoxs and rip the NV2A part out and install them in my PCs. >>



The Xbox will cost $200? and it has a p3 700?Is this true?

 

[xtreme2k]

XBox NEVER mentioned they have a 700MHz P3 (actually a 733MHz)

HOWEVER, I am really thinking they are using a Celeron 733MHz instead?

 

[Adul]

They are using a modified P3 in the Xbox. Maybe it will have SSE2 in it or something.

For 600 Bucks, I could buy a plane ticket to thailand and see my wife. (damn INS is slow:|)

 

It's a custom 733Mhz P3. Who knows what that means. It will probably be integrated into the mainboard and come from a shoddy yield.