Thoughts on early backlash against new AMD cards?

[Double07]

Just thought I would see what everyone else thinks (minus the idiotic nonsense please for once!) about this. I for one was fairly underwhelmed when reading the reviews of the new AMD cards (backlash may be a bit much just took a while for the price=performace=temps=powerdraw ratio to become apparent), seemed like they hadn't done a great deal to move forward and were perhaps trying to milk the position they had attained in the previous generation of probably getting more of middle ground GPU market due a pretty well thought out product line.

7850 and 7870 reviews were promising, then 7950 and 7970 came along and you thought nice, if only I could afford that (OK at least most people did!) but then the 680 comes along and provides a fairly tangible jump (yes I know this is open to opinion) that grabs headlines all over the place. Price can be disregarded to some extent given that we are at the high end of the market, the implication being that the new NVidia products may offer a similar jump all the way down the product line.

A few weeks later people seem to be reporting much more positive things about the range of new AMD cards, especially OC'ing on certain card and obviously the general compute performace is much higer (wether or not you care about that is of course subjective).

What I'm trying to get at is do you think that NVidia have actually got a winner on there hands or is the AMD line more a slow burner 'evolution rather than revolution' type thing? I guess we can't know until more Kepler cards become available but it's certainly very interesting and makes it quite tough to guestimate where the GPU market is going to go in the next year or so.

No dount this will attract the usual red vs green nonsense but though I would see what others are thinking as I find it quite an interesting time in the GPU market.

 

[the_director]

For me I went from a HD 4870 512mb to a crossfire 5850, but before I crossfired them I run some benchmarks with a single HD 5850 and the improvement was huge, I know that moving from 512mb to 1gb would have helped but I'm not sure the cards out now offer a huge jump considering the cost of them.

I picked up the 5850s in their 'extreme' variation for just £99 each so they were just amazing value. This is why I find it hard to upgrade as the value no longer seems there - from either maker. Perhaps the 7850 was the good value card, but now it is going in price.

I think that although GPUs have incredible power it seems to really max out a modern game you have to spend a small fortune on top end cards to do it.

 

[psychodil]

i think the 78xx are good cards but a bit overpriced. Im sure its just ati making the most of a window of opportunity as nvidia dont have a new card in that sector yet. Great cards considering the die size. If ati just scaled up these cards to 300-350 mm squared then the 79xx cards would be great for gamers.

 

[MeMeMeMe]

Personally I think the AMD pricing is more due to the new CEO than anything else.

The previous CEO (of ATI, not AMD) was the brainchild behind the evergreen series of cards, and his goal was to make AMD win the price/performance war. He wanted cooler and quieter cards, and wanted affordability.

Then he leaves last year, and suddenly the next generation of cards are priced more like nVidia cards tend to be.

Maybe it's a result of the AMD takeover, maybe it's a result of the head new head of the graphics card division. But I think it's more due to internal police changes (that aren't a good sign for the future), than anything else.

 

[Twirlywoos]

Just thought I would see what everyone else thinks (minus the idiotic nonsense please for once!) about this. I for one was fairly underwhelmed when reading the reviews of the new AMD cards (backlash may be a bit much just took a while for the price=performace=temps=powerdraw ratio to become apparent), seemed like they hadn't done a great deal to move forward and were perhaps trying to milk the position they had attained in the previous generation of probably getting more of middle ground GPU market due a pretty well thought out product line.

7850 and 7870 reviews were promising, then 7950 and 7970 came along and you thought nice, if only I could afford that (OK at least most people did!) but then the 680 comes along and provides a fairly tangible jump (yes I know this is open to opinion) that grabs headlines all over the place. Price can be disregarded to some extent given that we are at the high end of the market, the implication being that the new NVidia products may offer a similar jump all the way down the product line.

A few weeks later people seem to be reporting much more positive things about the range of new AMD cards, especially OC'ing on certain card and obviously the general compute performace is much higer (wether or not you care about that is of course subjective).

What I'm trying to get at is do you think that NVidia have actually got a winner on there hands or is the AMD line more a slow burner 'evolution rather than revolution' type thing? I guess we can't know until more Kepler cards become available but it's certainly very interesting and makes it quite tough to guestimate where the GPU market is going to go in the next year or so.

No dount this will attract the usual red vs green nonsense but though I would see what others are thinking as I find it quite an interesting time in the GPU market.

I think the evolution vs revolution all depends which card people are jumping from. It's not like there has been a 50% Performance increase based on the last generations Top of the Line GPU vs the Current offerings.

With Video games driving hardware there hasn't really been a decent game which pushes hardware to it's max with the exception of a couple of games, whether those games warrant purchasing a £400 + card is down to the user.

BF3 imo is a mess anyway, even after numerous patches and when DICE admitted changing focus to consoles in the development process.

Just my 2p.

 

[Nutella33]

part of the problem of the muted (in comparison) release with AMD is that Nvidia's card was round the corner during the AMD release, was a unknown and so people waited to see how it measured up and were still speculating on what they would bring. they had nothing to compare the new AMD's to so couldnt really comment apart from noting AMD's departure from the £200 price point target.

i think AMD are being helped by 3 things, overclocking, a wider general release at different levels of the market and having a wider VRAM databus/memory capacity.

Nvidia are being helped by the auto overclock system, TWIMTBP games (bf3 benchmarks for example) and some nicer features in the drivers, plus the usual stigma of AMD's driver series recently.

as usual each side has its bonuses and problems and they matter different amounts to different people. i think both companies are on a slow burn this generation though. i dont think either card really stretches what they could have been capable of. im another 5850 crossfire owner and like many others we are now two generations behind but still not seeing enough reason to swap our cards out, which is a first for quite a while i believe.

 

[Marine-RX179]

There's no arguing that the performance of these new gen cards are good, but the prices for them are indeed too high.

No matter how much some people are trying to defend AMD's pricing, the simple truth is they got too greedy, and single-handedly make cards of both camps poor value for this gen. The big mistake AMD made is that they thought it is perfectly fine to pit the new gen cards against the last gen card to and offer only same "price to performance" or "bang for bucks" ratio as last year. Because of this, Nvidia can rebrand their planned GTX660 or GTX670 whatever it was planned to launch at much lower price to GTX680 and increased the price accordingly to compete with the 7970 since it is on par with it on performance...and quite frankly, with more features that gamers want as "extra" plus generally outperform the 7970 at 1920 res (especially when there are more game titles that run better with Nvidia than AMD cards). And then there's the driver reliability to consider as well. As much as people trying to say "Nvidia driver is no better than AMD's"...while it might be true for single GPU set up, when it comes to multi GPU, there simple seems to be much more problem with Crossfire than SLI.

So at the end of the day...both the 7970 and the GTX680 are far more expensive than they should be, but when it comes to justifying the high prices, GTX680 "seem to be" a easier pill to swallow, as people would probably with the reasoning/mindset of "7970 comparing against GTX580 and stacking price on top WTF!?" "At least the GTX680 is properly competing against its rival's same gen card on the 28nm, not like the other camp which is embrassing enough to pit a 28nm card against a 40nm card that's over a year old...and ain't even great deal faster (according to customer expectation anyway)".

 

[kitch9]

There's no arguing that the performance of these new gen cards are good, but the prices for them are indeed too high.

No matter how much some people are trying to defend AMD's pricing, the simple truth is they got too greedy, and single-handedly make cards of both camps poor value for this gen. The big mistake AMD made is that they thought it is perfectly fine to pit the new gen cards against the last gen card to and offer only same "price to performance" or "bang for bucks" ratio as last year. Because of this, Nvidia can rebrand their planned GTX660 or GTX670 whatever it was planned to launch at much lower price to GTX680 and increased the price accordingly to compete with the 7970 since it is on par with it on performance...and quite frankly, with more features that gamers want as "extra" plus generally outperform the 7970 at 1920 res (especially when there are more game titles that run better with Nvidia than AMD cards). And then there's the driver reliability to consider as well. As much as people trying to say "Nvidia driver is no better than AMD's"...while it might be true for single GPU set up, when it comes to multi GPU, there simple seems to be much more problem with Crossfire than SLI.

So at the end of the day...both the 7970 and the GTX680 are far more expensive than they should be, but when it comes to justifying the high prices, GTX680 "seem to be" a easier pill to swallow, as people would probably with the reasoning/mindset of "7970 comparing against GTX580 and stacking price on top WTF!?" "At least the GTX680 is properly competing against its rival's same gen card on the 28nm, not like the other camp which is embrassing enough to pit a 28nm card against a 40nm card that's over a year old...and ain't even great deal faster (according to customer expectation anyway)".

Yeah yeah, its only Nvidia that can get away with £500 for a new graphics card and we love them for it....

AMD are not allowed.

 

[Rusty0611]

The 7850 if you got one at the £175 price point looks like a steal now to be fair.

 

[jkkc313]

i think gpus are always overpriced... think about it... the i2600k is much less than 680 or 7970... i understand one is a gpu and one is a cpu, but i dont think we are getting much value for money when it comes to gpus...

 

[Havana_UK]

My view is that the 7970 was somewhat underwhelming at launch, offering only slightly better performance than nVidia's then top-of-the-line GTX580, however now we've seen how things panned out, specifically with how well these cards tend to overclock, they are capable of delivering a significant performance jump.

AMD's mistake was having the default clock speed set so low (950MHz, when most cards seem quite capable of >1.1GHz), however I'm sure there was some careful justification behind this, taking into account that AMD didn't know what nVidia would bring to the table but they did know that nVidia were having development issues and the GPU originally slated for the top-end card (GK100) was cancelled, and also that AMD maybe wanted to keep something "in the tank" to fend off anything nVidia could launch.

nVidia had the advantage of launching after AMD, so the had a performance target to shoot at. I believe they were surprised by how well GK104 (originally intended to be a GTX660/670 GPU) performed and clocked, and decided to launch it as the flagship product ("we always meant to do this"....yeah, right!).

We now know that both GTX680 and 7970 overclock like monsters, and we also know that you couldn't slide a fag paper between them at their max overclocks.

IMO, AMD made another mistake by pricing the 7970 so high when AMD user's expectations were that AMD offered the price/performance advantage. I also feel that nVidia messed up on the pricing front, when they could have launched the GTX680 (with its proper name of GTX670 or 660) at the £250-£300 price tag and wiped the floor with AMD on that front.

 

[Broken Hope]

I also feel that nVidia messed up on the pricing front, when they could have launched the GTX680 (with its proper name of GTX670 or 660) at the £250-£300 price tag and wiped the floor with AMD on that front.

The GTX680 is almost constantly out of stock, which means people are buying them, why would they price them at £250-£300 when they can price them at £430 and still sell every card they can make?

If supply was better I'm sure we would have seen better prices.

 

[Havana_UK]

The GTX680 is almost constantly out of stock, which means people are buying them, why would they price them at £250-£300 when they can price them at £430 and still sell every card they can make?

If supply was better I'm sure we would have seen better prices.

Oh sure, these people are in the business of making money, and if you CAN sell somthing at £400+, why would you sell it for £300? I totally agree with that.

I'm not saying that nVidia's pricing strategy is wrong, just that I think they missed an opportunity to make AMD look very silly indeed. I don't know if that's a good strategy in the long-term, but in the short-term it would have been terrific. nVidia will know better; they pay hordes of people with degrees in the subject to determine how this stuff should be priced and positioned against the competition for the best long-term gain.

 

[andybird123]

The GTX680 is almost constantly out of stock, which means people are buying them, why would they price them at £250-£300 when they can price them at £430 and still sell every card they can make?

If supply was better I'm sure we would have seen better prices.

nvidia/card makers aren't pricing them at £430, that's the retailer

looking at OCUK and around the net, there does seem to be plenty of stock around, just at prices that the majority of people aren't paying - it is the cheaper ones that sell out as soon as they get stock... the retailers holding stock could drop their price by £10-20 and sell out, but by being one of the few cards in stock the retailers are getting away with charging the higher price to those that are impatient enough to want it NOW

 

[Marine-RX179]

Yeah yeah, its only Nvidia that can get away with £500 for a new graphics card and we love them for it....

AMD are not allowed.

As I said...both are ridicously overpriced. However, the problem is with 7970 that it is no better bang for bucks comparing to over a year old GTX580 that's on the old 40nm process. People expect better performance for moving gen, but what they not prepared to see is ALL the extra performance is pretty much coming from paying a premium, and none that's "free" with moving gen.

If AMD had released a flagship card that on par with what potentially the GK110 card was gonna be, then even if it was £500 it would well worth it; but the fact that Nvidia was able to push their mid-high card up to being flagship and still offer performance that rival AMD's flagship, it just really show how much behind that AMD's gaming performance is when it comes to GPU performance. Also, as 7970 owneres themselves have pointed out that AMD rushed their card to the shelf ahead of original planned date for the sake of sale, and the poor/problematic drivers was really apparent.

The problem we are seeing here is not so much about whether blah blah camp can charge £500 but the other camp cannot, but more about what is supposing to be this gen's "GTX570 and 6970" being priced at over £100 more expensive that they should be. It should have followed the pricing pattern of last gens' GTX570, 6970 and GTX580...but because AMD push the price of 7970 to £400+, Nvidia reacted and did the same and pushed their "GTX670" to match the 7970's price, and not even bothered with launching the "real GTX680" till later in the year.

 

[varkanoid]

nvidia/card makers aren't pricing them at £430, that's the retailer

looking at OCUK and around the net, there does seem to be plenty of stock around, just at prices that the majority of people aren't paying - it is the cheaper ones that sell out as soon as they get stock... the retailers holding stock could drop their price by £10-20 and sell out, but by being one of the few cards in stock the retailers are getting away with charging the higher price to those that are impatient enough to want it NOW

There is a well known local online seller near me (also does counter sales) that have a range of 4 gtx 680's and they are always cheaper than OCUK. They did have 5 of the cheapest make of GTX 680's and they were there for 3 days last week then when easter weekend hit they sold out.

Might be different when a "670" appears I can't see it being much slower than a GTX 680 and would probably hit cheaper than a 7970 with arguably the same performance. Then we shall see what happens to stocks of 680's!

True though, always get a better deal if you are not one of the first. Price you pay for wanting new tech.

Bit of a con to me announcing a 685 too sounds more like what Marine-RX179 said.

 

[Double07]

Some goods points made and a distinct lack of 'my card is better than yours' nonsense. I'm going to be upgrading in the next few weeks (pretty much whole system upgrade)and I'm going from something a few years old so whatever I go for will be a huge jump. I can see where people are coming from though when they have much newer kit than me and the upgrade represents a much smaller increase in performance.

 

[kkbigal]

Maybe it's a result of the AMD takeover, maybe it's a result of the head new head of the graphics card division. But I think it's more due to internal police changes (that aren't a good sign for the future), than anything else.

Anandtech did a great article covering the Radeon 4870/4850 success story and how it was a major change in the way GPU makers develop their chips; instead of designing a monolithic GPU and scaling it down for lower performing parts, they developed a much smaller die and implemented GDDR5 memory (first of type) on the cards, rather than trying to take the performance crown. This resulted in an unprecedented price point and is what turned AMD/ATi's fortunes around.

For whatever reason, AMD have reverted back to the old strategy of building a monolithic die, scaling down and trying to win back the performance crown, coupled with being to market first whilst nVidia was messing around with Fermi meant they could charge much higher prices.

I think the latest cards are good products, but the pricing just makes them unattractive. If I were to spend £400 on a card right now, it would be on a GTX 680; if AMD could offer the 7970 at £300 - £350 then I think it would be a very different story.

 

[Wucked]

I think the latest cards are good products, but the pricing just makes them unattractive.

Same really, good products but pricing is a bit on the high side for me. I'd like a 680 but I don't want to pay top dollar now only to find that its thrashed in 8 months time by GK110. Especially when my 580 is still performing so well.

 

[Rroff]

I think the latest cards are good products, but the pricing just makes them unattractive. If I were to spend £400 on a card right now, it would be on a GTX 680; if AMD could offer the 7970 at £300 - £350 then I think it would be a very different story.

Yeah 7970 and 680 are good cards - but they are £300 cards - they just don't inspire me enough to spend £400+ on one. Both would have to be around 25% faster out the box and the GTX680 would need more than 2GB VRAM before I spent that kind of money on one.