GTX 680 prices

[tommybhoy]

Loffles, did you really just compare physical make-up in an effort to highlight 'Premiumness'?

Nope, I compared silicon used versus profit margins.

Who cares what it is made of, it is how it performs that counts.

people refusing to buy it, that can afford it but don't because they don't see the worth of the silicon.

The 670 (or 680 for that matter) could be bright pink, with fluff and shiny glitter for all I care if it performed as it should.

All it goes to show is the 670 does what AMD's offering can with a half size PCB. If size of PCB and how much you can throw on it dictates Premium then excuse me while I go list some old ISA slotted GPUs on eBay for a few grand!

You obviously missed the point.

Does not matter the cost to AMD or Nvidia, the price are set by the performance and the demand. These are businesses, not charities. AMD set the price high, nVidia followed. AMD have slashed prices because they need to, nVidia can leave them as is and still shift stock.

Welcome to the real world.

Agree with you there regarding business not being charities, AMD priced their cards in direct comparison to Nvidia's top end card at the time, they sold the 7950 at the same price point of the 580.

How do you know AMD needed to slash prices?

You very well could be right, but it could also be said that, the cores could be much cheaper to produce or they are producing much more gpu's than the competition, so they can throw a lot more out the door while maintaining margins, while hurting the competitions sales.

 

[andybird123]

True, but they were quite a card for the money, the 670 is shockingly expensive for what you get card wise, there's hardly anything on the PCB, it's why I am holding onto my 480, I refuse to pay these ridiculous prices for such a small card that is obviously over priced by an even bigger margin than previous generations.

everything else in computing / electronics is all about getting smaller/thinner/lighter and more expensive in the process... yet everyone seems to want their GPU to look like a CRAY1

I don't get it

 

[booterboy]

Have not upgraded from my GTX 580 yet,just can't justify the prices of the 680's.
Also the OCUK prices seem to be between £25-40 more than a lot of other etailers.
I know the OCUK CS is probally second to done,and don't mind paying maybe £10-15 over the odds for peace of mind and great support/service but even when the GPU'S are on weekly deals theyr'e still dearer than a lot of places.
Strange because most other pc components on OCUK are great value compared to competitors.
Anyway will hold out for another few months before I upgrade in the hope that 680 prices will drop to a sensible level.

 

[spoffle]

Time to toss a can of petrol onto this particular fire....

What about the software (driver) premium? Like it or not, Nvidia put a lot more effort and resources into the software side of things than AMD currently. (CUDA, PhysX, TWIMTBP amongst others.)

This a myth that only people like you continue to perpetuate.

In the last few weeks, in the graphics section the "driver problem" threads have all been about 670s or 680s.

Additionally, what you've went on to list isn't drivers. The industry doesn't like proprietary "standards". No one wants to use PhysX unless directly "sponsored" to by nVidia. nVidia removed a fair chunk of compute ability from the kepler chips, and the industry wants to use OpenCL, not CUDA. As for "TWIMTBP", is that some sort of joke, or are you seriously suggesting you believe that's of any worth to anyone but nVidia?

 

[TALON1973]

ok heres a nice question ... and ive not looked .. is a £400 card , 4 times better than a £100 one ( say a 6850 ) ?

 

[spoffle]

ok heres a nice question ... and ive not looked .. is a £400 card , 4 times better than a £100 one ( say a 6850 ) ?

They never are. AMD will me making most of their profit from things like 6850 sales over 7970 or 7950 sales.

 

[layte]

This a myth that only people like you continue to perpetuate.

In the last few weeks, in the graphics section the "driver problem" threads have all been about 670s or 680s.

Additionally, what you've went on to list isn't drivers. The industry doesn't like proprietary "standards". No one wants to use PhysX unless directly "sponsored" to by nVidia. nVidia removed a fair chunk of compute ability from the kepler chips, and the industry wants to use OpenCL, not CUDA. As for "TWIMTBP", is that some sort of joke, or are you seriously suggesting you believe that's of any worth to anyone but nVidia?

I'm not arguing the merits of them, I'm just stating that to many people these 'value added' features are worth the extra expense. For example I was reading a white paper the other week regarding GPGPU performance increases in scientific applications vs large conventional CPU clusters. Twelve engines (iirc) were talked about, eleven used CUDA and the other was something else, none were OpenCL which didn't even get a mention (interestingly it showed that GPU performance on average is noticeably less than double that of conventional CPU's per watt). TWIMTBP like it or not (I'm not a fan as it seems too much like Nvidia attempting to fracture the market) gives the impression that titles just work better on Nvidia kit, and the general consensus in the wider market is that Nvidia drivers are better than those of AMD (I'm not here to argue if that as the cases, just using it in my example). All the little things like that can add up and give the impression that something can offer a more complete package.

But of course we can just argue raw performance vs cost for ever and ever and ever...

 

[Boomstick777]

ok heres a nice question ... and ive not looked .. is a £400 card , 4 times better than a £100 one ( say a 6850 ) ?

Well the 7970 3GB is £300 and the 6850 1GB is £100, the 7970 has roughly 3 times the amount of performance and also 3 times the vram, so yes the 7970 is 3 times better than the £100 one..

@ £300 or under the 7970's are decent value cards, not far off the old gen 6970 prices tbh...

 

[Twirlywoos]

They're selling well so I guess the distributors and retailers will keep the prices high.

 

[spoffle]

I'm not arguing the merits of them, I'm just stating that to many people these 'value added' features are worth the extra expense. For example I was reading a white paper the other week regarding GPGPU performance increases in scientific applications vs large conventional CPU clusters. Twelve engines (iirc) were talked about, eleven used CUDA and the other was something else, none were OpenCL which didn't even get a mention (interestingly it showed that GPU performance on average is noticeably less than double that of conventional CPU's per watt).

The reason for that is because they've been running "CUDA" as they have the TWIMTBP programme. OpenCL is relatively new, but no one in their right mind would argue CUDA is more appropriate than OpenCL.

TWIMTBP like it or not (I'm not a fan as it seems too much like Nvidia attempting to fracture the market) gives the impression that titles just work better on Nvidia kit

That pretty much is what their intention is. Add that to some dubious goings on with certain games, and it's pretty obvious it's nothing good for anyone but nVidia.

and the general consensus in the wider market is that Nvidia drivers are better than those of AMD (I'm not here to argue if that as the cases, just using it in my example). All the little things like that can add up and give the impression that something can offer a more complete package.

This is a myth, there is no general consensus that nVidia drivers are better, what does happen is that there is a small amount of people who are extremely loud about how nVidia drivers are better. It's all marketing. In fact, I seem to recall an article a few years ago where a website performed some in depth tests of nVidia and AMD drivers and concluded, despite the "myth" that nVidia drivers are better, AMD's ones were a lot more stable.

That's not to say that I'm claiming AMD drivers are "better", it's just an anecdote, however you never really come across professional reviewing websites that ever mention this supposed general consensus. If AMD drivers were truly awful, and nVidia's great then the major review sites would have mentioned it multiple times, instead it's just the small dodgy ones that are clearly in nVidia's pocket.

But of course we can just argue raw performance vs cost for ever and ever and ever...

Well that's probably more appropriate this generation since kepler's compute performance has been cut down since Fermi.

 

[vapor matt]

Iam pleased I bought my evga gtx-680 oc2 at £383.00 when anniversary prices were on.

Great card to, plenty of go and my first green card since mmm the gtx5900 lol a long time ago, upgraded from a ati 6870 and it works in my Mac Pro so Ian happy

 

[Macro]

There is about -1% in high end performance on this latest gen, only fanboys will argue otherwise, the most sensible thing to do is grab whatever is cheapest.

I got my 7970's for £250 each, if I had found a GTX 680 for £250 I would have got that aswell. Price is the important factor this gen because performance wise there is barely any difference ( Except in the deranged fanboy mind ).

I endorse this post as one of the few on the topic that makes any sense

Why people get so defensive over a company that's only interest in you is to make as much money as possible out of you is beyond me. Do you think somewhere there is a forum with people arguing to the point of stupidity over whose washing machine is better?

 

[spoffle]

I endorse this post as one of the few on the topic that makes any sense

Why people get so defensive over a company that's only interest in you is to make as much money as possible out of you is beyond me. Do you think somewhere there is a forum with people arguing to the point of stupidity over whose washing machine is better?

I believe that some people, for some reason, develop emotional attachments to electrical goods. It's kinda the same principle as people who get all evangelical over Apple goods.

 

[dave_beast]

Tbh, the 680 is a pricing joke, the reference design 7970GE is as fast but for considerably less money, but let's be honest here, Nvidia fanbois would still buy the 680 if it was £550.

 

[Mei]

tommybhoy, longer doesnt = better value!
its not a chocolate bar its a gfx card!

 

[Stanners]

Tbh, the 680 is a pricing joke, the reference design 7970GE is as fast but for considerably less money, but let's be honest here, Nvidia fanbois would still buy the 680 if it was £550.

And so it begins..

And lets be honest the AMD crowd are the same. We have seen the counter arguments from the AMD crowd as to why they are better, heat, noise and cost over the years only for them to disgard these views the next round as it does not suit there biased view.

Swings and roundabouts

 

[rjk]

just for your reference guys.

I have looked through the product history on the OcUK system and each nvidia flagship card [single gpu] has been around £400 or thereabouts at some point in its life cycle since the 8800GTX was released.

this makes me wonder, why is this really up for debate?

 

[Rusty0611]

In the last few weeks, in the graphics section the "driver problem" threads have all been about 670s or 680s.

Completely useless barometer of driver problems to be fair...

just for your reference guys.

I have looked through the product history on the OcUK system and each nvidia flagship card [single gpu] has been around £400 or thereabouts at some point in its life cycle since the 8800GTX was released.

this makes me wonder, why is this really up for debate?

You can probably find a thread correlative to this one for every nVidia flagship GPU as well!

 

[psychodil]

It doesn't matter how it is priced relative to previous generations. It matters how it is priced in the current market, and compared to the 670 and the 7970, the 680 is overpriced. I wouldn't recommend anyone getting a 680 when there are better value options in the same performance bracket for both team red and green.

 

[chipachap]

Well yeah, the 7970 was and still is a silly price, but nVidia have always priced their cards higher regardless of the actual performance difference.

Not at all. The cheapest 7970 is £80 cheaper than the cheapest 680. Also with big increases in the last 2 driver releases the difference between the two is minimal with each card winning in alternate games.

ATM clocking a 7970 is definitely the way to go. Much more value.