Why are graphic cards not getting cheaper?!

[Morbus]

So, I bought my GTX 760 almost TWO years ago no. I paid 220€ for it and it's been serving me well.

Now.

Why is still being sold for the same price, TODAY? I know about the law of diminishing returns, but can that be all that it is? Are new cards just not that big of an upgrade that they don't drive the prices of older cards down?

And isn't the PC market slowing down? Shouldn't the cards be cheaper because demand is lower? Or does it work the other way around in this market.

I don't know, I'm just confused, to be honest. I would like to get a new and improved graphics card at this point because I'm recording newer stuff and it's not possible for me to do it a 60FPS, but I don't see any other way other than to shell out for something way above the 200€ price point.

Can anybody shed some light my way?

Thanks

 

[ShintaiDK]

Lower volume, higher costs, more R&D needed. Its a negative feedback cyclus essentially.

A GTX760 is obsolete today. Just because an old product is listed at an price doesnt mean anything if its replaced. You can find 36GB SCSI harddrives to 300$ if you search.

 

[Sohaltang]

Lower volume, higher costs, more R&D needed. Its a negative feedback cyclus essentially.

A GTX760 is obsolete today. Just because an old product is listed at an price doesnt mean anything if its replaced. You can find 36GB SCSI harddrives to 300$ if you search.

Exactly.. You can buy a 960 for under 200 USD

 

[Morbus]

A GTX760 is obsolete today. Just because an old product is listed at an price doesnt mean anything if its replaced.

That is true, but the GTX960 is listed at 230€ and it's basically 10% faster than the GTX760.

I know what you're saying, but the next reasonable upgrade from a 760 on the nVidia side is a 970. And that's listed at a whopping 375€.

:\

 

[ShintaiDK]

That is true, but the GTX960 is listed at 230€ and it's basically 10% faster than the GTX760.

I know what you're saying, but the next reasonable upgrade from a 760 on the nVidia side is a 970. And that's listed at a whopping 375€.

:\

You can get GTX960 for 190€ tho.
http://geizhals.at/?fs=GTX960&in=

 

[Lonyo]

We are still on 22nm production processes. GDDR5 is still the RAM being used.
Nothing has really changed that would drive significant price reductions since the card when it was made was on a fairly mature process, and new cards are on the same process.

There's nothing to drive down the price because there's been minimal progress for quite a while in terms of price/performance from an underlying perspective.

Also, GPU demand doesn't dicate the prices of the GPUs. TSMC have finite production capacity and other things, e.g. smartphone/tablet CPUs want fab space as well.

It's all TSMC's fault.

 

[RussianSensation]

Exactly.. You can buy a 960 for under 200 USD

That misses the OP's point entirely because he is looking at it from a time-frame point of view since he acquired the 760; what's a viable upgrade path that warranty spending $ on for a legitimate upgrade in the context of historical price/performance inflection points. In all of these areas the 960 is a failure.

GTX760 came out June 25, 2013. Sure, you can get a GTX960 2GB for $160-170 but with 2GB it's a DOA on arrival. In terms of generational price/performance or performance increase, 960 is the worst x60 series card in the last 5 generations. Most 960 4GB models sell for $190-220 which is absurd because R9 290 is at least 50% faster.

I can understand the OP's frustration as there is no upgrade path without going to an R9 290/290X/390/970 at minimum. 960 isn't an upgrade but a waste of $ and is more suitable for a GTX460/560 user. Even a GTX660 user would be getting a very bad upgrade when considering that 660 is a 3-year-old card but 960 is only 44% faster or an average increase of just 13% per annum! That's horrible.

---------

OP, there are a variety of reasons for what's happening. Most of them are addressed here. The main ones are (1) 28nm is holding back performance increases (2) the desktop discrete GPU market is shrinking in unit volume which means to achieve similar revenues/profits on a per unit basis, prices have to go up (3) supply vs. demand - if gamers keep buying overpriced cards, NV/AMD will keep selling them for minimal increases in performance because there is little reason for them to lower prices if the product is selling. However, if the consumers stop buying their overpriced products, NV/AMD's revenues and profits decline which forces them to raise prices to survive on shrinking volumes. In turn, it becomes a vicious cycle.

Until we get truly next generation PC gamers, the only solution is to extend your upgrade time-frame to get the appropriate increase in price/performance or performance you desire. Another way to maximize your price/performance is to wait until the early adopter hype for new cards dies down / towards the end of a generation. For example, in 10 months GTX780Ti dropped from $699 to $375-400 when $330 GTX970 came out. I would say your best bet is to coast on the GTX760 and get a GTX970 style $350 Pascal / AMD's Arctic Islands upgrade. Probably going to be a solid value.

 

[MongGrel]

Because graphics card companies like making money.

The one I bought 2 years ago still sells on the Egg for over twice what I paid for it, it's a bit crazy.

Bit Coin mining pushed it up at the time, glad I bought it the day it came out.

I don't think that is an issue anymore, but got me.

 

[jpiniero]

It's all TSMC's fault.

TSMC's actually made considerable improvements on the cost of 28 nm process. That there are even 600 mm2 GPUs available was because of those improvements. It'll never happen again; I would even be surprised if you even see anything close to 500 mm2 until EUV comes out.

 

[tential]

That misses the OP's point entirely because he is looking at it from a time-frame point of view since he acquired the 760; what's a viable upgrade path that warranty spending $ on for a legitimate upgrade in the context of historical price/performance inflection points. In all of these areas the 960 is a failure.

GTX760 came out June 25, 2013. Sure, you can get a GTX960 2GB for $160-170 but with 2GB it's a DOA on arrival. In terms of generational price/performance or performance increase, 960 is the worst x60 series card in the last 5 generations. Most 960 4GB models sell for $190-220 which is absurd because R9 290 is at least 50% faster.

I can understand the OP's frustration as there is no upgrade path without going to an R9 290/290X/390/970 at minimum. 960 isn't an upgrade but a waste of $ and is more suitable for a GTX460/560 user. Even a GTX660 user would be getting a very bad upgrade when considering that 660 is a 3-year-old card but 960 is only 44% faster or an average increase of just 13% per annum! That's horrible.

---------

OP, there are a variety of reasons for what's happening. Most of them are addressed here. The main ones are (1) 28nm is holding back performance increases (2) the desktop discrete GPU market is shrinking in unit volume which means to achieve similar revenues/profits on a per unit basis, prices have to go up (3) supply vs. demand - if gamers keep buying overpriced cards, NV/AMD will keep selling them for minimal increases in performance because there is little reason for them to lower prices if the product is selling. However, if the consumers stop buying their overpriced products, NV/AMD's revenues and profits decline which forces them to raise prices to survive on shrinking volumes. In turn, it becomes a vicious cycle.

Until we get truly next generation PC gamers, the only solution is to extend your upgrade time-frame to get the appropriate increase in price/performance or performance you desire. Another way to maximize your price/performance is to wait until the early adopter hype for new cards dies down / towards the end of a generation. For example, in 10 months GTX780Ti dropped from $699 to $375-400 when $330 GTX970 came out. I would say your best bet is to coast on the GTX760 and get a GTX970 style $350 Pascal / AMD's Arctic Islands upgrade. Probably going to be a solid value.

/thread

 

[Silverforce11]

Just wait til 14/16nm stuff come, expensive is the new normal.

If its too much, get a console.

 

[RussianSensation]

TSMC's actually made considerable improvements on the cost of 28 nm process. That there are even 600 mm2 GPUs available was because of those improvements. It'll never happen again; I would even be surprised if you even see anything close to 500 mm2 until EUV comes out.

I don't think it's fair to blame everything on TSMC/GloFo, etc. Even before we knew that 20/22nm GPU node was dead, NV launched GTX680 2GB for $499 and 680 4GB for $579. At that point, how was it TSMC's fault that NV doubled the prices of a mid-range chip from $249 with GTX560Ti to $499 with GTX680? Gamers bought those cards so NV said, great, we'll raise mid-range 680's successor to $550 and see if it sells. Sold like hot cakes!

Looking at NV's Gross Profit, it's not TSMC that's screwing us/resulting in high prices. NV is simply raising prices and pocketing the profits. :biggrin:

6-months ended July 2008 (GTX280 series)
32%

Q4 2010->Q4 2011 (GTX480/580 series)
44-48%

Q2 2013 (GTX670/680 series)(quarter ended July 2012)
52%

Q2 2015->Q2 2016 (GTX970-980Ti series)
55-56%

If wafer prices/prices of lower nodes have skyrocket so much, how come NV's gross margins increased from 32%-->44/48% and now are record high 55-56%?

The Titan and Titan X are what GTX280/580 cards used to be -- $499 products. What the 980Ti is, a cut-down flagship, is what GTX470/570 used to be. What used to be a GTX560/560Ti is now GTX970/980. AMD is saddled with massive 2B in debt and trying to compete with Intel and NV on both fronts which is essentially impossible so NV is just loving every minute of it. () The end result is a 14% increase in performance from a GTX760->960 in nearly 2 years. :thumbsdown:

Just wait til 14/16nm stuff come, expensive is the new normal.

If its too much, get a console.

I would add to that AMD/NV bifurcating a generation is likely the new normal. AMD already publicly stated that they will try to release newer GPUs quicker than the time-span between R9 290X and Fury X. This means it's probably better for them to squeeze 20-25% more performance every 12-15 months rather than wait 18-24 months to get 40-45%. NV can just feed off AMD's vulnerable financial position and lack of sources and just slowly trickle down performance to maximize profits. A 350mm2 GP204 with 8GB HBM2 and 20% more performance over the 980Ti priced at $550 would sell like hot cakes, while GTX970 successor at $350-400 with near 980Ti level of performance would look incredible. I think $330-375 will become the new sweet-spot for a desktop gaming GPU.

Even if NV gives 70% boost to the 960's successor, that's barely faster than an after-market 290 (reference 290X). The sub-$200 space is becoming extremely weak. Historically, once we passed the $200-250 mark, diminishing returns started to kick in quickly but today it's actually better to spend extra on a $250-300 card and skip the lower end ones.

 

[Arachnotronic]

Looking at NV's Gross Profit, it's not TSMC that's screwing us/resulting in high prices. NV is simply raising prices and pocketing the profits. :biggrin:

6-months ended July 2008 (GTX280 series)
32%

Q4 2010->Q4 2011 (GTX480/580 series)
44-48%

Q2 2013 (GTX670/680 series)(quarter ended July 2012)
52%

Q2 2015->Q2 2016 (GTX970-980Ti series)
55-56%

If wafer prices/prices of lower nodes have skyrocket so much, how come NV's gross margins increased from 32%-->44/48% and now are record high 55-56%?

The Titan and Titan X are what GTX280/580 cards used to be -- $499 products. What the 980Ti is, a cut-down flagship, is what GTX470/570 used to be. What used to be a GTX560/560Ti is now GTX970/980. AMD is saddled with massive 2B in debt and trying to compete with Intel and NV on both fronts which is essentially impossible so NV is just loving every minute of it. () The end result is a 14% increase in performance from a GTX760->960 in nearly 2 years. :thumbsdown:

You need to keep in mind that NVIDIA's OEM GPU business -- which run sat substantially lower gross profit margins than gaming GPUs -- has declined substantially over the last several years.

While the low-end dGPU market has been significantly reduced, NVIDIA has seen sales of its high end GPUs (GeForce GTX, Quadro, Tesla) grow significantly (gaming market growth, share gain against AMD, etc.), so a not-so-small part of the margin uplift is due to the fact that NVIDIA's product mix is just a lot richer.

You can't just attribute this margin improvement to "oh, NVIDIA is just raising prices willy nilly and ripping off consumers." In the semiconductor industry gross profit margins in the mid-to-high 50% range are very good but not anything extraordinary.

 

[alcoholbob]

It's all a matter of relativity. GPUs are ridiculously cheap compared to Intel CPUs for instance. You can get 600mm2 die GPUs for what $550 with HBM? While Intel is selling 120mm2 dies for like $400 lmao.

 

[jpiniero]

If wafer prices/prices of lower nodes have skyrocket so much, how come NV's gross margins increased from 32%-->44/48% and now are record high 55-56%?

nVidia's mobile business, which they now basically have a virtual monopoly in mobile dGPU (except for Apple). I don't know what the MSRP is on the 980M for instance, but I believe it's over $1000.

 

[Arachnotronic]

It's all a matter of relativity. GPUs are ridiculously cheap compared to Intel CPUs for instance. You can get 600mm2 die GPUs for what $550 with HBM? While Intel is selling 120mm2 dies for like $400 lmao.

They're selling the cream-of-the-crop 120mm2 dies on 14nm process for $360ish. They sell those exact same dies for much cheaper at lower frequencies

 

[RussianSensation]

While the low-end dGPU market has been significantly reduced, NVIDIA has seen sales of its high end GPUs (GeForce GTX, Quadro, Tesla) grow significantly (gaming market growth, share gain against AMD, etc.), so a not-so-small part of the margin uplift is due to the fact that NVIDIA's product mix is just a lot richer.

Yes, Revenue/Sales are growing which is the same thing as "we are selling more products at higher prices". Their unit sales are not growing.

You can't just attribute this margin improvement to "oh, NVIDIA is just raising prices willy nilly and ripping off consumers."

Sure I can. There is no evidence whatsoever that shows that NV is selling more products (i.e., that their unit sales are going up substantially) which means the majority of their Revenue/Gross Profits increases are coming from higher Average Selling Prices per unit. How is that possible? Well selling flagship $500 cards for $1000 and mid-range $250 for $500.

https://www.techpowerup.com/forums/threads/nvidia-geforce-titan-x-12-gb.210662/page-7#post-3257195

In the semiconductor industry gross profit margins in the mid-to-high 50% range are very good but not anything extraordinary.

Not a chance. Intel was one of the few firms with margins that high. NV/AMD never dreamed of such margins. Even Apple can't touch mid-to-high 50%. NV never had these margins until they raised prices across the board starting with Kepler and then followed-up with Maxwell.

Also, ignoring gross margins for a second, it's plain obvious if we follow the last 1-2 decades of AMD/ATI/NV GPU history that cards like GTX680/980 were not flagships so no way they should have been $500-550 products.

It's all a matter of relativity. GPUs are ridiculously cheap compared to Intel CPUs for instance. You can get 600mm2 die GPUs for what $550 with HBM? While Intel is selling 120mm2 dies for like $400 lmao.

Ya, but look at January 2011 i7-2600K @ 4.8Ghz vs. August 2015 i7-6700K @ 4.8Ghz and you quickly realize the marginal utility from a $350 i7 CPU. Nearly 5 years later the i7-2600K OC is delivering 80% theoretical performance and in games 90%+ of the i7-6700K OC, which means it was worth every penny. How long is the i7-6700K / i7-5820K OC going to last? At least 4-5 years, while providing top notch performance. Can't say the same for Fury X or 980Ti and since we are comparing $350 pricing, GTX970 is really the fair comparison. Is that card going to provide 80-90% of top-of-the-line performance in games for the next 4-5 years like a Core i7 Intel CPU will? Sure, I would love to buy a 6-8 core $299 i7 but even with its $350 price, the i7-6700K is a bargain (or any other i7 CPUs). Not to mention if we start talking about the overall cost of ownership, that CPU can easily be sold for $125-140 in 4-5 years but a $650+ GPU in 4-5 years is worth what $125-150, that's being generous. How much is a $499 GTX680 worth today on the used market? Let's see the price of $550 GTX980 on the used market in 4 years from now. You'd be lucky to get $100 for it.

November 2013 GTX780Ti $699 and by September 2014 that level of performance can be had in a $330 GTX970 and now by August 2015, we can easily buy a $220 after-market 290 or a $290 GTX970. If we apply the 4.5-5 year life-span that allows the i7 series CPU to stay near cream of the crop and perform tasks outside of gaming, then a $650-700 GPU that drops in resale value to about $100 in 4-5 years, it seems to me that GPU ownership is ludicrously expensive in comparison to owning an i7. Furthermore, you are safe knowing Intel's chipset drivers will not destroy your CPU's performance and there is no specific closed-source code that Intel shoves into games that will cripple your older generation i7 CPU.

Also, this doesn't at all address how GPUs became so much more expensive in the last 3 years while at the same time their performance increases slowed down significantly.

 

[nitromullet]

NV launched GTX680 2GB for $499 and 680 4GB for $579. At that point, how was it TSMC's fault that NV doubled the prices of a mid-range chip from $249 with GTX560Ti to $499 with GTX680? Gamers bought those cards so NV said, great, we'll raise mid-range 680's successor to $550 and see if it sells. Sold like hot cakes!

Looking at NV's Gross Profit, it's not TSMC that's screwing us/resulting in high prices. NV is simply raising prices and pocketing the profits. :biggrin:

While this is technically correct, it is only half of the story... What you fail to mention in that NV launched the GTX 680 at $499 to compete against the 7950 and 7970, which were selling for $549 and $449 respectively. It's not just NVIDIA that was raising prices, but AMD as well.

Once could argue that Tahiti is analogous NVIDIA's GK104, and the subsequent Hawaii is analogous to NVIDIA's GK110. Both companies transitioned to launching their previous small chips as high end parts and charged accordingly.

 

[boozzer]

I blame the sheeps.

APU gaming! give me! I am ready!

 

[tweakboy]

New Tech ,, new money situations.

70 million people have downloaded Win 10 and 50 million are using it.

 

[casiofx]

Anything under $200 market have sucky GPU for years. With exception of 260X & 750/750Ti

The last time this market segment was good was the generation of HD7870 and GTX 760.

 

[RussianSensation]

While this is technically correct, it is only half of the story... What you fail to mention in that NV launched the GTX 680 at $499 to compete against the 7950 and 7970, which were selling for $549 and $449 respectively. It's not just NVIDIA that was raising prices, but AMD as well.

Once could argue that Tahiti is analogous NVIDIA's GK104, and the subsequent Hawaii is analogous to NVIDIA's GK110. Both companies transitioned to launching their previous small chips as high end parts and charged accordingly.

And that's true, they both raised prices on us. You are right. During HD7970 generation I didn't care that much due to bitcoin mining but now that this perk is gone, I do care and pay attention. That's why I skipped GTX780Ti $699 or R9 290X for $549. But you are totally right that both of them are splitting the generation into parts and raising prices.

At the same time, at least AMD didn't charge an arm and a leg for more VRAM and basically gave it away with 7950/7970/7970Ghz/280X/290/290X. OTOH, NV had the nerve to charge big premiums for 680/770 4GB and 780 6GB. When I grabbed each of my $400 7970s, GTX680 4GB was $580. 770 4GB cost $450 when R9 280X was $300. That's ridiculous but yet NV managed to move a lot of these cards.

Notice how when GTX970/980 came out, people justified 980's 60-68% premium over the 970 but today when GTX970 is still hovering at $290-300, the gamers buying now aren't willing to buy a 980 for $450-480, which is still a similar 55-60% premium. This is the big difference between NV's userbase and the types of gamers who buy AMD -- if AMD releases a card that's overpriced/bad value, people won't buy AMD products. Hence why R9 290X/Fury/Fury X suffer. When NV releases overpriced cards like 770 4GB, 780, 780Ti, 980, its customer base laps them up. It's almost unheard of when NV's 980Ti for $650 is one of the best price/performance products they make.

This could be a cunning plan from AMD/NV to make low-end cards crappy so that we move into the $300-400 space for mid-range and embrace $650-700 high-end. Luckily we still get decent value in the 970/390, so that's something.

Anything under $200 market have sucky GPU for years. With exception of 260X & 750/750Ti

The last time this market segment was good was the generation of HD7870 and GTX 760.

The best deals for budget gamers are now in the used market. HD7950/7970 go for dirt cheap and there are some stellar after-market R9 290s that can sometimes be found for $180.

 

[tential]

Intel CPUs are such a good bargain for the longevity of how long they will provide topnotch performance, I'm not buying anything other than HEDT platform from now on after my Haswell is upgraded.
If I'm going to hold onto GREAT performance for this long, then I might as well get a little more out of it =D.
I'm rarely THANKFUL to buy a product, but the 4770k was a stupidly ridiculous deal for me.
When I think of the parts in my PC, the 4770k is the "newest" part, despite the fact the WHOLE pc was assembled together. My 7950 is my "oldest" part.

 

[Silverforce11]

It's all a matter of relativity. GPUs are ridiculously cheap compared to Intel CPUs for instance. You can get 600mm2 die GPUs for what $550 with HBM? While Intel is selling 120mm2 dies for like $400 lmao.

And this is why I despise Intel but still use it in my build, cos Intel is just go-happy selling the smallest die at maximum prices... and AMD CPU are just fail.

 

[tweakboy]

Cuz want them soo 90's