Rumours out that Kepler GK104 cards will be $299...

Havana_UK · 24 Jan 2012 at 21:24

...and coupled with the other rumours that GK104 (i.e. GTX 660 / 760, whatever) will compete favourably against GTX 580 could make ATI start to sweat!

http://semiaccurate.com/2012/01/23/exclusive-and-the-nvidia-keplergk104-price-is/

CAT-THE-FIFTH · 24 Jan 2012 at 21:43

Already discussed in this thread:

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18366148

Jokester · 24 Jan 2012 at 21:45

Nvidia, the new AMD.

dokko · 24 Jan 2012 at 21:47

When will ocuk be doing 560ti for £150? Seems there's a few places cropping up, not like ocuk to be behind on pricing.

555BUK · 24 Jan 2012 at 22:01

If true, UK price should be around £260. I might get two and then feel smug about not spending £450 on a 7970. If it does offer GTX580 or better performance, those 7970 prices could fall off a cliff.

But rumour and truth are not always the same. I remember when the 6970 was about to launch, and "leaks" were showing 40% faster performance than the GTX580. What a disappointment that turned out to be.

ICDP · 24 Jan 2012 at 22:13

555BUK said:
If true, UK price should be around £260. I might get two and then feel smug about not spending £450 on a 7970. If it does offer GTX580 or better performance, those 7970 prices could fall off a cliff.

But rumour and truth are not always the same. I remember when the 6970 was about to launch, and were quoting 40% faster performance than the GTX580. What a disappointment that turned out to be.

I know, the HD 6970 was a piece of crap, offering only 85% the performance of the GTX 580 for 60-70% of the price. Wait, isn't this the same sort of scenario you are detailing above?

So the HD 6970 was released much cheaper than the GTX 580 while giving very close performance, yet it was a dissapointment. On the otherhand, fast forward just short of 18 months (based on an April release) and the GK104 will be an amazing piece of kit if it's only 15-20% slower than the stock HD 7970 while being much cheaper?

TALON1973 · 24 Jan 2012 at 22:15

dokko said:
When will ocuk be doing 560ti for £150? Seems there's a few places cropping up, not like ocuk to be behind on pricing.

took a punt on big site that had the 560ti at £101 ... offer gone as far as i know

555BUK · 24 Jan 2012 at 22:28

ICDP said:
I know, the HD 6970 was a piece of crap, offering only 85% the performance of the GTX 580 for 60-70% of the price. Wait, isn't this the same sort of scenario you are detailing above?

So the HD 6970 was released much cheaper than the GTX 580 while giving very close performance, yet it was a dissapointment. On the otherhand, fast forward just short of 18 months (based on an April release) and the GK104 will be an amazing piece of kit if it's only 15-20% slower than the stock HD 7970 while being much cheaper?

Your comparing the 6970 to the wrong card. It was pretty much equal in performance to the GTX570 which was the same price. It was disappointing because many people expected a much higher shader count and much better performance. Compared to the 6800 series gains over 5700's, it was utter pants. Not to mention that Fermi cards overclocked much better as well. AMD will also lose a lot of friends if they are forced to drastcally cut their 7970 within a few months of launch. NVidia's top end cards have always been expensive, but they usually retain their prices because they stay top-dog for some tiime (usually until NVidia themselves release a refresh).

Havana_UK · 24 Jan 2012 at 22:58

ICDP said:
I know, the HD 6970 was a piece of crap, offering only 85% the performance of the GTX 580 for 60-70% of the price. Wait, isn't this the same sort of scenario you are detailing above?

So the HD 6970 was released much cheaper than the GTX 580 while giving very close performance, yet it was a dissapointment. On the otherhand, fast forward just short of 18 months (based on an April release) and the GK104 will be an amazing piece of kit if it's only 15-20% slower than the stock HD 7970 while being much cheaper?

What you need to consider is this.

If the GK104 card IS $299, and IS as fast (or marginally faster) than the GTX580, which will put it within spitting distance of the 7970, how will AMD reply?

As far as we know the 7970 is their top-end single GPU offering, yet GK104 will take the mid-high spot, it's very much a mainstream high performance card, nowhere close to nVidia's top offering, although whether we'll see that card before June is questionable right now.

The 6970 was supposed to compete with the GTX580, but it didn't really manage, yet it was AMD's top-end card. GK104 is not meant to compete with 7970, but 7950/7870, yet it may be close to 7970. That would be a big blow for AMD, especially if the price really is around $299.

ICDP · 25 Jan 2012 at 08:32

555BUK said:
Your comparing the 6970 to the wrong card. It was pretty much equal in performance to the GTX570 which was the same price. It was disappointing because many people expected a much higher shader count and much better performance. Compared to the 6800 series gains over 5700's, it was utter pants. Not to mention that Fermi cards overclocked much better as well. AMD will also lose a lot of friends if they are forced to drastcally cut their 7970 within a few months of launch. NVidia's top end cards have always been expensive, but they usually retain their prices because they stay top-dog for some tiime (usually until NVidia themselves release a refresh).

Tell me how It's OK for Nvidia to be 3 months late with a part 20% slower (based on your hypothetical premise) than the best card available. AMD do the same thing only 1 month later and their card is crap. Nice logic.

Bear in mind that by the time Nvidia get around to releasing Kepler AMD prices will have settled and their full range will be released. This is almost exactly the same scenario AMD faced over a year ago when HD 6970 was released. They had a card that matched the GTX 570 for speed, so they priced it accordingly. You can bet every penny of your savings that if Kepler is released and matches a HD 7950 for performance that AMD will have to match Nvidia's price/performance. ONLY then can you start comparing what card compares to what at similar prices.

ICDP · 25 Jan 2012 at 08:36

Havana_UK said:
What you need to consider is this.

If the GK104 card IS $299, and IS as fast (or marginally faster) than the GTX580, which will put it within spitting distance of the 7970, how will AMD reply?

As far as we know the 7970 is their top-end single GPU offering, yet GK104 will take the mid-high spot, it's very much a mainstream high performance card, nowhere close to nVidia's top offering, although whether we'll see that card before June is questionable right now.

The 6970 was supposed to compete with the GTX580, but it didn't really manage, yet it was AMD's top-end card. GK104 is not meant to compete with 7970, but 7950/7870, yet it may be close to 7970. That would be a big blow for AMD, especially if the price really is around $299.

Then AMD would have to respond by matching Nvidia's performance/price. If GK104 does come close to 7970 speeds for significantly less money then AMD have to adjust. Remember how it worked when HD 4870 was released and Nvidia had to vastly reduce GTX 280 prices. We don't need to hypothesise with these scenarios, they have played out many times before.

Incidentally, HD 6970 was designed to compete with the GTX 480, Nvidia one upped AMD by releasing the GTX 580. This worked out great for consumers, had GTX 580 and 570 not been released AMD would have had a card that matched a GTX 480 and it would have been priced accordingly. Imagine the scenario where AMD hadn't released Tahiti and Nvidia got GK104 released. Do you imagine Nvidia would have priced GK104 so low? Again I refer you to when GTX 280 and GTX 260 was released, the GTX 260 had a planned price of $449, that was for the second tier card. How many people got rebates from Nvidia after purchasing vastly overpriced GPU hardware?

Like I said, these exact scenarios play out alsmost every time a new range of GPUs are released. Nvidia, AMD and before them ATI and before them 3DFX were all profit orientated companies, everything they do is for the good of the stockholders and their profit margins. Any perceived benefit to customers is purely coincidental.

555BUK · 25 Jan 2012 at 09:48

One thing a $299 price tag does indicate is that the GK104 will probably be slower than the 7970. I very much doubt NVidia will price a faster card so much lower than AMD's pricing, unless they have malicious intent.

We know that it should cost AMD more to manufacture the 7970 because it has have more VRAM (3GB vs 2GB), and more importantly a larger die size. PCB's will also be more expensive to manufacture due to the 384bit memory bus on the 7970 (it seems likely GK104 is 256bit). Assuming NVidia can make GK104 20-30% cheaper than AMD (could be more than this), and so long as NVidia can get close in terms of performance, they could erase AMD's profit margin by selling it's own cards on the cheap. NVidia could be about to release the new "5850" for bargain hunters. Not only that, if half-fat Kelper comes very close to the 7970, what will full-fat Kepler be like when it eventually arrives? AMD need to have something big hidden away because an overclocked/tweaked 7970 won't be enough.

..but I still have doubts about the $299.

Deception · 25 Jan 2012 at 09:59

If it is around the $299 and a bit slower than the 7970, its still a reasonable price to SLI at too and still be within the price margin of the 7970 and 'maybe' better performance.

J.D · 25 Jan 2012 at 10:12

Deception said:
If it is around the $299 and a bit slower than the 7970, its still a reasonable price to SLI at too and still be within the price margin of the 7970 and 'maybe' better performance.

A likely plan

.

If Nvidia bring out a 4870/5870 like bargain I'll paint myself green. Well maybe I won't but I'll be shocked, humbled and happy.

MichaelM · 25 Jan 2012 at 11:35

A rehash of a 580 at a slightly cheaper price point is not gonna be worth the side-grade. Unless nvidia releases something that can beat an overclocked 7970, AMD will not be feeling any pressure.

The gk104 sounds like a plug to try and keep some sales but people will be waiting for Kepler to show anyway.

ICDP · 25 Jan 2012 at 11:39

If Nvidia can produce a $299 card at close to, or better than 7950/7970 speeds then we are in for a very nice price drop on Tahiti and pitcairn cards. There is no doubt that 7970 and 7950 are overpriced right now, though I bought a 7970 and am delighted with it's performance over my Direct CU II 6970. If the prices drop significantly then I won't be remotely upset. I will just chalk it up to experience and depending on performance delta either purchase a faster card or stick with it until the next full refresh.

ICDP · 25 Jan 2012 at 11:45

MichaelM said:
A rehash of a 580 at a slightly cheaper price point is not gonna be worth the side-grade. Unless nvidia releases something that can beat an overclocked 7970, AMD will not be feeling any pressure.

The gk104 sounds like a plug to try and keep some sales but people will be waiting for Kepler to show anyway.

Not for GTX 580 or 7970 owners it won't, even GTX 570 and HD 6970 owners might think twice but for GTX 560 or HD 6950 owners it will be a great price for a great performance boost.

555BUK · 25 Jan 2012 at 11:53

It could be faster than the 7970, but I think it will depend largely on the nuimber of shaders implemented on die. Rumours suggest that number for GK104 may be anything from 512 to 768 shader cores. Given that the GTX580 contains 512, a GK104 part with equal cores, higher clocks, and slight optimisations should outperform the GTX580 (even if GK104 is limited to a 256bit memory bus). If GK104 hss 640 or 768 shaders it will pose serious opposition for the 7970. In theory, Nividia could make a 28nm 640 shader part which sits on a smaller die than the old 384 shader GTX460/560. A 640 shader part should offer ~25% more GPU grunt than the GTX580 at the same clocks. If NVidia's 28nm porcess clocks anywhere near as well as AMD's, GK104 could be awesome.

Yamahahahahaha · 25 Jan 2012 at 12:14

It's going to be good, I think we can all agree.

However, I don't see why Nvidia would need to low-ball the price tag, especially with the low end of the market increasingly squeezed by Intel.

Both companies are going to set their prices by the other's offerings.

We will see big price cuts from AMD.
I'm personally surprised that Nvidia haven't cut the price of the GTX 580 already.

MichaelM · 25 Jan 2012 at 12:16

ICDP said:
Not for GTX 580 or 7970 owners it won't, even GTX 570 and HD 6970 owners might think twice but for GTX 560 or HD 6950 owners it will be a great price for a great performance boost.

As a 6970 owner...

If they release it as a 660 it would not appeal to me as I would want to see what the 670 or 680 versions had to offer.
If they release it as a 680 at that price point then it most likely fails to bring the performance expected.

This could be the 6870 all over again, people think it replaces the 5870 but its really just a mid range side-grade. Best to see the full range before picking the best price point for yourself.