GTX 770/780/Titan: Have we all been duped?

[tommybhoy]

Banging what drum?

Any one can look up my post history and see who much I have complained about pricing, they won't find much in that regard as I said enough when Titan pricing was announced, you can cherry pick a few if you like, but Amd got flak for pricing 7990 where it's at too, another ridiculous price point for what you can get for considerably less.

Since the vast majority don't game above 1080p you don't need to come back with 'how many 79/6/7 series can you use' in comparison as the market isn't aimed there.

You seem to be mixing me up with other people, I've stated countless times to yourself that people complaining are complaining at Nvidia not you.

Who was the first person to inform a nasty lot you are free to purchase what you like for your needs and shouldn't be taking stick for it in a thread you were getting over the top grief for buying into Titan?

How many emails did you send me saying thanks for various times I've backed you up in the forum regarding your purchase choice?

My gripe here is with blaming pricing with over inflating actual cost and gouged cost to justify another price, nothing more.

Add into the fact the thread is about whether current prices are a bump or not, defence or attack is the agenda, no?

If you don't like what you see, not much I can do about it, but hopefully Nvidia/Amd take on board the majority of opinion and address it as it doesn't bode well for the future when a bump in performance creates a new pricing strategy that forces a lot of the enthusiast market elsewhere.

 

[humbug]

Its all about letting AMD, Intel and Nvidia know how we feel ^^^

 

[bemaniac]

Thats some pay rise if you get £600 extra a month.

It's about £150 which bridges the gap between me being a 1x7970 a month customer and a 1x780 a month customer. If I didn't get it I'd still not be spending over £350 a month on GPUS. My 780s cost me under retail prices due to a business account I have.

I'm going to need some EVGA backplates now CMON EVGA lets see them in Europe

 

[melmac]

Very interesting reading the last few pages to see all the arguments and stuff. It's also interesting seeing both sides of things.

When AMD released the 7000 series cards they had no competition. Yes the prices were high compared to the previous generation of AMD cards, but, not overly expensive compared to Nvidia's cards. So AMD saw that they had the faster cards and no competition, so of course they were going to price it higher than normal. Right or wrong, I don't think they really could have done anything different. Make as much money as they could. It sucked for early adopters, but, isn't that generally the case.

Now if AMD had the resources of Nvidia they might have got the 12.11 drivers out in a couple of months, probably in time for the release of the the 6 series from Nvidia. Also they might have released the Gz editions out quicker too, but maybe AMD are learning from Nvidia as well, it's not about been nice, it's about making money. They see how successfull Nvidia have been with basically rebranding cards, why couldn't they do the same?

Now, I know this goes against the majority opinion, but, I would say Nvidia were very worried when they saw what they had and what AMD were after releasing. They must saw how much potential/headroom that the 7000 series had. When have Nvidia ever launched a higher performing card for cheaper than AMD? That to me speaks volumes of how worried they were about GCN. It's a real shame that AMD, from a competition point of view, took until january of this year to get their sales and marketing team motoring. I don't think AMD dropped the ball, I just think they didn't have the resources to take advantage of the situation.

AS for the Titan, I don't care what anybody says, Nvidia would have priced that card high no matter what AMD had out. And I don't think it will drop too much in price until the next generation of compute cards are out. Basically they are selling £4000 compute cards as £800 gaming cards.

But, I think AMD have very little influence on the price of Nvidia cards, but the opposite isn't true. AMD do have to price their cards to compete. Nvidia, at this moment in time, have more money, better resources, better marketing and a much better brand name while AMD are barely keeping their heads above water.

Things may change, but until that happens, Nvidia are going to price their cards whatever way they like.

Are we been duped? Well ask yourself, are you? You really shouldn't be because if you are on this forum reading these threads all the information is there. If you are paying too much, then you have nobody to blame only yourself.

 

[no_1_dave]

Brand loyalty in stupid.
Buy what ever suits you at the time.

I bought the 670 & paid the same or only slightly less then the 7970 would have cost.
I did this because:
A) I prefer Nvidia drivers- this is subjective, but in my experience I have found them easier
B) I like the idea of Physx. I would hate to play borderlands 2 knowing I am missing out on something
C) I knew I'd be going SLI at some point because of 1440p. I am comfy with SLI from the past & have no experience with crossfire.

Nvidia did play a fast one & still do.
The 680 was always supposed to be the 670 and something faster (I doubt titan but maybe 780) was supposed to be 680. They saw they could match AMD without the need for the 780 (680) so they rebranded everything before release. This was confirmed with pics at the time, 680s with 670 on the side sticker etc.

Now with Titan they are playing another fast one.
If AMD had a similar card performing the same as titan but priced at £500 (the usual topish price for the top single GPU card) Nvidia would need to be more aggressive. But AMD don't, so Nvidia don't. This is why competition is good & it's a shame there is no competition with titan.

Don't think though for a second that AMD wouldn't do the same thing.

As an example, look at how they gimped their drivers for months until Nvidia launched their cards.
Please... Don't try & defend them on this.
The performance gain was huge, you don't get that performance gain out of thin air. The only way it would take that long for them to realise their card was better than they thought is if they had trained some monkey's as programmers. THEY made the cards, THEY knew what the cards could do. THEY spent millions on launching the 7*** series. It is impossible for them to have not noticed it could perform that much better with a simple driver tweak. Only a moron would believe that.

Both companies are as bad as each other, we as consumers just need to buy what we need when we need it & try to get a good deal. As long as you are happy with your purchase does it really matter? At the end of the day, you only pay what it is worth to you.

 

[Final8y]

Don't think though for a second that AMD wouldn't do the same thing.

Both companies are as bad as each other.

Historically they haven't and that's why they have gotten so much stick with the 7 series pricing.

Not once before the 7 series have i thought that im not willing to pay the price for their standard second highest single GPU, highest single GPU & highest dual card.

They said that they are going with a new price strategy and it shows and people have said no, its bad enough with one brand overcharging but at least there has always been a responsibly cheaper alternative which is under threat if users stop putting there foot down, hence the AMD price drop and bundles.
But saying that it seem that from now on AMD will keep trying to have the prices that NV are enjoying, NV have 2 cards in the £800 plus which are selling, surely our AMD dual card that would normally be in the £600 plus has a right to be in the £800 plus with NV, NO because 2 wrongs don't make a right .

It does not matter that well most would do the same thing, that does not mean we should roll over quietly because that's one of the normal negatives of business practice.

The fact is that the cost of GPUs realistically may have to go up but pressure from consumers has to be continually applied to stop them taking the cake.

And for the driver comment, if you say so
I have made huge gains my self at times which come quickly or take many weeks or even months with new work as its bespoke and having to work under management with no first hand experience so they tend to mess up the initial planing then run to me for help, there is always something that i have not done before that i have to learn and work out for myself as fast as i can and its done when its done.

The latest mess from management was supplying the wrong data to another member of staff that resulted in 86,000 steam keys being wrong, i had nothing to do with that.

Management not listening to staff again resulted in court over errors with Max payne 3, even though most people would never notice them the work still had to be redone before launch, too much rushing and cutting corners, i had nothing to do with that also. AMD cut corners on the driver's on they 7 series to get it out of the door.

 

[ArnieRambo]

so much crying over pricing...jokes

 

[Besty]

so much crying over pricing...jokes

To replace my 7970 setup (as I wanted to) with Titans would have cost me around £3k as they give me a good speed bump over what is possible with the current AMD cards. The 770's/780's don't deliver the bump over my own cards to justify the spend.

I purchased the original 3 7970's for around £930.

As I like to replace my cards every 18 months that means over 5 years I would refresh around 3 times.

Assuming I do 3 Nvidia refreshes with Titan class hardware, that means an additional spend of around £10k over the 5 years.

Assuming I do refreshes at the lower price point, I spend around £3.5k.

This ignores resale value.

I spent around £6k on my rig to build it, I want to slot the best cards to get good benchmark scores however, I think its reached a point where the 'new' GPU pricing has gone over the top, at least for me.

The best thing AMD can do is to keep the current pricing levels and tiering and mop up the customers like me as a protest vote against the Nvidia pricing.

 

[melmac]

Brand loyalty in stupid.
Buy what ever suits you at the time. Agree with this.

I bought the 670 & paid the same or only slightly less then the 7970 would have cost.
I did this because:
A) I prefer Nvidia drivers- this is subjective, but in my experience I have found them easier
B) I like the idea of Physx. I would hate to play borderlands 2 knowing I am missing out on something
C) I knew I'd be going SLI at some point because of 1440p. I am comfy with SLI from the past & have no experience with crossfire.

Nvidia did play a fast one & still do.
The 680 was always supposed to be the 670 and something faster (I doubt titan but maybe 780) was supposed to be 680. They saw they could match AMD without the need for the 780 (680) so they rebranded everything before release. This was confirmed with pics at the time, 680s with 670 on the side sticker etc. Except this is wrong, there was no rebranding, Nvidia didn't have anything else. There was no 780 waiting in the wings.

Now with Titan they are playing another fast one.
If AMD had a similar card performing the same as titan but priced at £500 (the usual topish price for the top single GPU card) Nvidia would need to be more aggressive. But AMD don't, so Nvidia don't. This is why competition is good & it's a shame there is no competition with titan.Again, Titan is a niche card. It would have been priced the same regardless of what AMD had out.

Don't think though for a second that AMD wouldn't do the same thing. Of course they would, they are in business trying to make money.

As an example, look at how they gimped their drivers for months until Nvidia launched their cards.
Please... Don't try & defend them on this.
The performance gain was huge, you don't get that performance gain out of thin air. The only way it would take that long for them to realise their card was better than they thought is if they had trained some monkey's as programmers. THEY made the cards, THEY knew what the cards could do. THEY spent millions on launching the 7*** series. It is impossible for them to have not noticed it could perform that much better with a simple driver tweak. Only a moron would believe that.Only a moron would believe what you just wrote. Like or not, it takes time to get drivers right on new hardware. Look at Nvidia and Fermi, it took them a couple of months to get a big performance driver out and they have a much bigger driver team than AMD. Also, your facts are way wrong, AMD didn't have the 12.11 driver ready until October, Nvidia released their cards in March, looks like your timing is way off. Nevermind the fact that they would have a sold a ton more cards if the had 12.11 performance from the start. Gimping drivers on purpose, lol, nonsense!!

Both companies are as bad as each other, we as consumers just need to buy what we need when we need it & try to get a good deal. As long as you are happy with your purchase does it really matter? At the end of the day, you only pay what it is worth to you.Yeap, they are both in the business of making money. Agree totally with this last paragraph.

 

[Final8y]

Very interesting reading the last few pages to see all the arguments and stuff. It's also interesting seeing both sides of things.

When AMD released the 7000 series cards they had no competition. Yes the prices were high compared to the previous generation of AMD cards, but, not overly expensive compared to Nvidia's cards. So AMD saw that they had the faster cards and no competition, so of course they were going to price it higher than normal. Right or wrong, I don't think they really could have done anything different. Make as much money as they could. It sucked for early adopters, but, isn't that generally the case.

Now if AMD had the resources of Nvidia they might have got the 12.11 drivers out in a couple of months, probably in time for the release of the the 6 series from Nvidia. Also they might have released the Gz editions out quicker too, but maybe AMD are learning from Nvidia as well, it's not about been nice, it's about making money. They see how successfull Nvidia have been with basically rebranding cards, why couldn't they do the same?

Now, I know this goes against the majority opinion, but, I would say Nvidia were very worried when they saw what they had and what AMD were after releasing. They must saw how much potential/headroom that the 7000 series had. When have Nvidia ever launched a higher performing card for cheaper than AMD? That to me speaks volumes of how worried they were about GCN. It's a real shame that AMD, from a competition point of view, took until january of this year to get their sales and marketing team motoring. I don't think AMD dropped the ball, I just think they didn't have the resources to take advantage of the situation.

AS for the Titan, I don't care what anybody says, Nvidia would have priced that card high no matter what AMD had out. And I don't think it will drop too much in price until the next generation of compute cards are out. Basically they are selling £4000 compute cards as £800 gaming cards.

But, I think AMD have very little influence on the price of Nvidia cards, but the opposite isn't true. AMD do have to price their cards to compete. Nvidia, at this moment in time, have more money, better resources, better marketing and a much better brand name while AMD are barely keeping their heads above water.

Things may change, but until that happens, Nvidia are going to price their cards whatever way they like.

Are we been duped? Well ask yourself, are you? You really shouldn't be because if you are on this forum reading these threads all the information is there. If you are paying too much, then you have nobody to blame only yourself.

Good post.

 

[no_1_dave]

Titan is basically a next gen card released early.
If you want to buy a next gen card this gen you need to pay a premium.
It doesn't fit with the normal line from AMD or Nvidia.

The rest of the line fits but Nvidia have always charged more & thrown in extra features that may or may not be worth it.
Hell, you can get a 780 for £499 now so prices are leveling out a bit.

 

[se_vietboi]

Nvidia is doing all they can to make as much money from us as possible and its quite unhealthy for the consumers to give into their overpriced or/and re-branded cards. It will only widen the gap between them and AMD even further till they have a monopoly and that's when we'll start seeing very little perf increases each gen whilst prices remain high. Its business and all but I do feel despise for Nvidia then again, most companies would do the same.

 

[melmac]

Titan is basically a next gen card released early.
If you want to buy a next gen card this gen you need to pay a premium.

You are right about it not been in the usual line up of cards, but it ain't a next gen card. Look at the 780 it's nearly as fast. Where did you get the idea that it was a next gen card? It's the compute features that make it special. For gaming it's basically a 780 with 3GB of extra ram.

 

[no_1_dave]

You are right about it not been in the usual line up of cards, but it ain't a next gen card. Look at the 780 it's nearly as fast. Where did you get the idea that it was a next gen card? It's the compute features that make it special. For gaming it's basically a 780 with 3GB of extra ram.

It was out before the 700 series were out.
If you look at it against the 780 it is roughly where the 870 will likely sit in the next gen. Obviously there is no telling for sure, but going on past performance jumps from gen to gen it is what I'd expect the 870 to sit at next year or whenever it is released... If you look at the difference of 580 - 670 for example, it is roughly the same difference as 780 - Titan.

 

[ubersonic]

As an example, look at how they gimped their drivers for months until Nvidia launched their cards.
Please... Don't try & defend them on this.
The performance gain was huge, you don't get that performance gain out of thin air. The only way it would take that long for them to realise their card was better than they thought is if they had trained some monkey's as programmers. THEY made the cards, THEY knew what the cards could do. THEY spent millions on launching the 7*** series. It is impossible for them to have not noticed it could perform that much better with a simple driver tweak. Only a moron would believe that.

I didn't wan't to be the first person to call AMD out on this but thank god somebody else has noticed its pretty obvious to an impartial eye the trap AMD laid for Nvidia there. The 7970GE and 7950B did raise clocks but even then, we have gone from the original scenario where the 7970 had difficulty beating the GTX670 to the current scenario where the 7970GE pretty much ties the GTX770. Of course it could simply be the case that AMD released a bunch of seriously under performing drivers and couldn't figure out how to fix them for like half a year or so...

 

[humbug]

It was out before the 700 series were out.
If you look at it against the 780 it is roughly where the 870 will likely sit in the next gen. Obviously there is no telling for sure, but going on past performance jumps from gen to gen it is what I'd expect the 870 to sit at next year or whenever it is released... If you look at the difference of 580 - 670 for example, it is roughly the same difference as 780 - Titan.

I didn't wan't to be the first person to call AMD out on this but thank god somebody else has noticed its pretty obvious to an impartial eye the trap AMD laid for Nvidia there. The 7970GE and 7950B did raise clocks but even then, we have gone from the original scenario where the 7970 had difficulty beating the GTX670 to the current scenario where the 7970GE pretty much ties the GTX770. Of course it could simply be the case that AMD released a bunch of seriously under performing drivers and couldn't figure out how to fix them for like half a year or so...

 

[ubersonic]

Generally you will find that the most likely explanation is the correct one

Unless of course you think that AMD really are so bad it would take them over half a year after their cards launch to actually make the drivers work properly? it was totally deliberate and anyone unbiased can see it a mile off.

 

[Final8y]

Generally you will find that the most likely explanation is the correct one

Unless of course you think that AMD really are so bad it would take them over half a year after their cards launch to actually make the drivers work properly? it was totally deliberate and anyone unbiased can see it a mile off.

Yes and the x79 compatibility issue took nearly just as long as well the sleep bug is still there and enduro , so that was deliberate as well and its nothing to do with biased or unbiased, its merely talking possibilities because neither reason would be something to be proud of, so no one is trying to make AMD look good with those points.

 

[humbug]

Generally you will find that the most likely explanation is the correct one

Unless of course you think that AMD really are so bad it would take them over half a year after their cards launch to actually make the drivers work properly? it was totally deliberate and anyone unbiased can see it a mile off.

I think if AMD had that performance in hand they would have released the driver very soon after Nvidia had released Kepler.

Not ~6 Months later.

Brand new architecture rushed out to be first with 28nm, time needed to mature the drivers, nothing more complicated than that, and no conspiracy.

 

[Final8y]

I think if AMD had that performance in hand they would have released the driver very soon after Nvidia had released Kepler.

Not ~6 Months later.

Brand new architecture rushed out to be first with 28nm, time needed to mature the drivers, nothing more complicated than that, and no conspiracy.

Exactly! and im sure that very late into one of NV cards life cycle NV came out with a cross the board 10%. performance increase.

Some people clearly think that all great ideas come instantly or within a specific time scale.