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Something super is coming...

Soldato
Joined
16 Aug 2009
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7,728
This is a fairly fundamental flaw in the capitalist ideal of market competition. All companies want to maximize profit, and sell products at the highest possible margin the market will withstand. Companies don;t actually want to lower margins if they don't have to. In a market with very few providers there is thus a tendency to all cooperate and sell at the maximal profit margin. Effectively a duopoly tends to operate in much the same way as a monopoly. Currently Nvidia are happy with 80+% of the market, AMD are happy to have 20% and higher margins.

The idea that Nvidia would simply charge 3K for 2070 if it wasn't for AMD is just nonsense.

That would be a cartel like OPEC and I don't see any evidence of that, simply that Nvidia wants the eliminate the competition and charge what they like. Usually the competition model works driving down prices but not in this market for some reason presumably because gfx cards is a luxury market and people want the prestige brand and that means people don't want AMD even when ATI had the faster cards way back when Nvidia still outsold them by the bucketload. Nvidia are on top of their marketing and image branding in a way that AMD are not. If you want a Ferrari expect to pay top dollar etc.

If AMD were to disappear Nvidia would still have to innovate and create products that people want in order to generate sales. The better Nvidia innovated and made bigger jumps in performance or features the more sales they would make. If AMD left the market, NVidia's would change strategy in more subtle ways. Releases might be further apart to better align with full node changes, but would ofer a bigger performance change. All launches would be hard, drivers even more mature at launch. It is liekly new features would be a prominent marketing point. Nvidia might work even closer with Developers to integrate these new features in order to drive upgrades.

Or more likely we'd end up in a situation like the CPU market where for years lack of competition lead to stagnation and the trickle feeding of tiny mostly incremental changes because people will still buy them regardless and all that innovation costs money.
 
Soldato
Joined
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Or more likely we'd end up in a situation like the CPU market where for years lack of competition lead to stagnation and the trickle feeding of tiny mostly incremental changes because people will still buy them regardless and all that innovation costs money.

Aren’t we there already? Nvidia keep churning out the same proportionally crippled hardware without making significant performance increases, to milk the premium tied to 4K gaming for as long as possible. RTX is a mugs game and a smokescreen to give the impression of progression while they continue to drag the arse out things.
 
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Associate
Joined
21 Apr 2007
Posts
2,483
Aren’t we there already? Nvidia keep churning out the same proportionally crippled hardware without making significant performance increases, to milk the premium tied to 4K gaming for as long as possible. RTX is a mugs game and a smokescreen to give the impression of progression while they continue to drag the arse out things.

I think we've been there for almost 3yrs now.

I accept Vega 56 has a value for less than 4k resolutions but everything else from 1080Ti to R7 and 2080Ti has just been a consumer nightmare. Nvidia are trying to de-commoditise mass produced electronics with marketing and its the consumer that pays for that.
 
Soldato
Joined
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3,673
Location
Livingston
I think we've been there for almost 3yrs now.

I accept Vega 56 has a value for less than 4k resolutions but everything else from 1080Ti to R7 and 2080Ti has just been a consumer nightmare. Nvidia are trying to de-commoditise mass produced electronics with marketing and its the consumer that pays for that.

The next benchmark in Nvidia R&D will be AI learning which will inevitably be used to produce more effective marketing. Nvidia could sell snow to a Eskimo if they wanted to. They’d call it ‘super snow’.

Watching one developer manipulate and stagnate a struggling market is depressing to say the least.

As a enthusiast, having no choice sucks :(
 
Soldato
Joined
6 Aug 2009
Posts
7,070
The next benchmark in Nvidia R&D will be AI learning which will inevitably be used to produce more effective marketing. Nvidia could sell snow to a Eskimo if they wanted to. They’d call it ‘super snow’.

Watching one developer manipulate and stagnate a struggling market is depressing to say the least.

As a enthusiast, having no choice sucks :(

Agreed. As a former 1070 owner I'm now looking at a 5700XT, Radeon VII, 2080. None of which are great choices. All priced too high. I don't usually buy secondhand as IMO GPUs are one of the posts most likely to die.

Unless there's a shake up in pricing I don't have many choices. I'm not buying lower performance than a 1070 buys soon as you go higher than that the cost shoots up. Ironic that RAM prices have come down and now everything else looks expensive.
 
Soldato
Joined
20 Jun 2011
Posts
3,673
Location
Livingston
Agreed. As a former 1070 owner I'm now looking at a 5700XT, Radeon VII, 2080. None of which are great choices. All priced too high. I don't usually buy secondhand as IMO GPUs are one of the posts most likely to die.

Unless there's a shake up in pricing I don't have many choices. I'm not buying lower performance than a 1070 buys soon as you go higher than that the cost shoots up. Ironic that RAM prices have come down and now everything else looks expensive.

Nvidia have essentially killed the concept of “future proofing”

They’ve even killed overclocking and SLI.

Like yourself, I’m looking for a decent card but I’m not prepared to pay silly money to then watch it depreciate within months to a year because Nvidia release a new version of the card - one that should’ve released 2 years ago..

I’m tempted to go AMD and see how I get on but as you said, the choice is limited by crazy pricing.
 
Associate
Joined
30 Jul 2008
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44
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The North
Here's a radical idea, how about OCUK et al do their punters a solid and get together and refuse to stock graphics cards until the pricing is more reasonable. I know it shouldn't be up to OCUK et al to do this but as long as the people are still spending ridiculous money on graphics cards it will only get worse. Still running a GTX 970 and proud of my willpower.
 
Soldato
Joined
22 Nov 2018
Posts
2,710
Nvidia have essentially killed the concept of “future proofing”

GPUs from both AMD and Nvidia are now actually more future proof than ever before.

In the past, graphics cards became obsolete very quickly. These days, people are keeping their exsiting graphics cards such as the 1080 ti for longer because there's nothing worth upgrading to. The industry's lack of progress has future proofed everyone.
 
Associate
Joined
22 Feb 2019
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1,310
Location
Ost Angelnen
Here's a radical idea, how about OCUK et al do their punters a solid and get together and refuse to stock graphics cards until the pricing is more reasonable. I know it shouldn't be up to OCUK et al to do this but as long as the people are still spending ridiculous money on graphics cards it will only get worse. Still running a GTX 970 and proud of my willpower.

They're a business, and moral stands don't make money.
 
Associate
Joined
30 Jul 2008
Posts
44
Location
The North
They're a business, and moral stands don't make money.

Yes, I agree, they are a business, with thousands of other products to keep sales ticking over. Making a stand could reduce prices on Graphics cards and in the end if the prices fall then more people will buy them which will give more profit with delivery and maybe better margins.
 
Associate
Joined
22 Feb 2019
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1,310
Location
Ost Angelnen
Yes, I agree, they are a business but with thousands of other products to keep sales ticking over. Making a stand could reduce prices on Graphics cards and in the end if the prices fall then more people will buy them which will give more profit with delivery and maybe better margins.

I suspect OcUK are quite happy with the current pricing, as people are clearly still buying these cards regardless. I have no idea what their margins are per card sold, but I suspect higher prices likely don't have a negative effect on it.
 
Caporegime
Joined
18 Sep 2009
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30,097
Location
Dormanstown.
I think the only people happy with the card prices at the moment are nvidia

I think AMD are too.
At the end of the day, while the 5700XT is a poor price, it's a better price/performance part than the 2070 and if it performs at parity it's a better buy.

Although both are equally poor price/performance parts when we remember the Vega 64/56 exist.
 
Soldato
Joined
6 Feb 2019
Posts
17,465
I think the only people happy with the card prices at the moment are nvidia

And AMD

Proof just came out that shows the 5700 xt was going to be called the RX690, then AMD quickly changed the name.

The RX590 was $279usd
The RX690 *cough* 5700 xt is up to $499usd on launch

I think it's pretty damn obvious AMD is loving the card prices too!!
 
Soldato
Joined
20 Jun 2011
Posts
3,673
Location
Livingston
GPUs from both AMD and Nvidia are now actually more future proof than ever before.

In the past, graphics cards became obsolete very quickly. These days, people are keeping their exsiting graphics cards such as the 1080 ti for longer because there's nothing worth upgrading to. The industry's lack of progress has future proofed everyone.

You’ve got to jump in with two feet to the top of the stack. The 2080ti is more than capable don’t get me wrong, but Nvidia are catering to 4K like it’s still in its infancy. You can buy a decent 4K tv for around £400 down your local Curry’s. You’re then talking what, £800 for a GPU to get the best experience out of it with a bit of room to spare. Disproportionately expensive and inaccessible to most. The performance is there and manufacturing between the 2070, 2080 and 2080ti cards will be negligible so if Nvidia really were innovative, they’d have started a revolution in terms of accessibility to the current market.
 
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