GPU prices

[Seanspeed]

How much will you be willing to pay when 8K becomes the norm?

Depends on what the GPU market looks like at the time. And where I'm at.

That's going to be a fairly long way away. And I'm not really sure how that sort jump is going to be handled.

4k = 7 million pixels. Already a really incredible amount of pixels to push. More affordable, mid-range cards wont be capable of this at 60fps til *at least* 2018.

And then 8k. 8k is ridiculous.

8k = 33 million pixels. It's going to take a really long time before that becomes plausible to push. And then you've gotta remember we'll see another jump in console generation in 3-5 years, making games a LOT more demanding than they are now.

And most of all - 8k is going to be a very difficult sell in terms of TV's. In the living, a 4k TV is already going to be well past the point of what people can distinguish in many situations. Only those who sit quite close to their TV or have a very large TV are going to see any real benefit at all. And then 8k? 8k will be pointless unless we're talking like 80-100" screens. Or if you're only a few feet from a 50" 4k set. In other words - a tiny amount of the market.

And this will mean that there's not nearly as much of a push by display manufacturers for 8k panels in general. Even in a monitor situation, say a 27" or so - 8k over 4k is probably going to be a very minimal improvement.

I personally think it might actually be pointless unless it's like 25 years from now and we're using advanced graphene microchips and have this surplus of GPU power we dont know what to do with. Until then, I can imagine there's a lot better ways of spending the insane amount of extra graphics power required than to achieve the minimal jump in IQ 8k will bring.

 

[Greebo]

The amount of idealistic economics at the beginning of this thread (and throughout) is staggering. Do people seriously think the pound will rally any time soon? Or that it's drop benefiting the export market is somehow relevant to the worth of the pound in your pocket? PC components have tight margins and high msrps, so the fluctuation in prices has been particularly acute - but it's going to continue across all sectors, from the European/American/Japanese car to the Greek/Portuguese/Spanish fruit that we all buy. Increasing exports will benefit a small section of rich business owners and shareholders in the UK, but life is going back to post-2008 recession times (after we just crawled out of it) for the majority of us, because the UK is not setup as an export market. It's not doom and gloom to be realistic about the UK's grim economic outlook. This is what happens when we depend on politicians to deliver us well reasoned facts and insightful discussion, instead of acknowledging the false dichotomies they present and calling into question their regurgitated talking points (on both sides).

The second I saw that leave had won I pulled the trigger on my amazon cart (a 6700k build), and since then the total for all the parts I bought has increased by £200-300 in just 2 weeks (not including the GPU). However, chaos is a ladder of opportunity, personally I'm excited to start Delboy'ing it up again on eBay as UK consumers are going to move to the second hand market to save money. I switched to a FE 1080 but I'm keeping my (pre-Brexit) Hybrid preorder as the cost has already risen above the 10% eBay margin and EVGA hasn't even announced the official price! This is the kind of positive scalping the UK market needs, getting goods cheap and sharing the deals online - something I've done with Nike shoes for years.

I agree as soon as leave one I bought £700 of watercooling bits from Germany for a new build and probably saved £70 already.

 

[valerislysander]

Ok, I'll take your word on it. I have a friend who owns a 970 and 1440p monitor and his is ok, but he does tend to only play older games. Doom runs pretty well too, but that seems like an exceptionally well optimized game.

Yeah I upgraded to a 980ti from a 970 after going for a 1440p monitor. 970 was ok at 1440 it could run games at medium-high and get 60fps but I wanted to get more out of it so I upgraded.

980tis are going for less than £400 now and they wont go up in price as I assume retailers will get rid of stock. 1070 would be the card to go for @1440 but prices seem pretty steep at the moment for it and even worse with the pound down.

 

[chrcoluk]

Luckily for me the guy on the phone was wrong, even tho I delayed the signature one of the cards must have got held for my order, its shipped.

Also I agree on the 980ti been the best bet right now for 1440p providing you have a PSU that can handle it, I got the 1070 as my psu was just about the minimum spec for it.

A asus 980ti for 359.99 is a good deal.

 

[Blazeityo]

I agree as soon as leave one I bought £700 of watercooling bits from Germany for a new build and probably saved £70 already.

What parts did you buy?

I'm starting with a cpu loop w/drain port: EK block and res, Laing pump, Black Ice 240 xflow rad and Alphacool fittings. It only cost about £290 from a few different sellers.

 

[Seanspeed]

970 was ok at 1440 it could run games at medium-high and get 60fps

There are a lot of games it could not achieve 1440p/60fps with Medium/High settings with, though.

 

[oldestgregg]

Ok, I'll take your word on it. I have a friend who owns a 970 and 1440p monitor and his is ok, but he does tend to only play older games. Doom runs pretty well too, but that seems like an exceptionally well optimized game.

TBH it wasnt until I got a TX (980ti applies though) that I was happy with performance @1400p. The new games in particular are getting more and more demanding

 

[sprite-]

I agree as soon as leave one I bought £700 of watercooling bits from Germany for a new build and probably saved £70 already.

Ditto.

The morning I found out i ordered a MSI 1080 Gaming X and Vive. Glad I did, prices have soared. The Gaming X is now £100 more!!

The subsequent decline and the rally was just like going over the first bump before you hit the storm, it's going to be a turbulent few years for the pound and economy as a whole. I would not be surprised if we experienced another recession.

The cousin I recommended sticking to Console gaming was also somebody that voted for leave, i took quite a bit of satisfaction in telling him that there was no point at the moment because the brexit have caused prices to rocket.

 

[Greebo]

I was thinking of getting a 1070 but with brexit decided id get a 1080 as the 1180 is sure to be closer to a grand so a 1080 will have to last me a few years.

 

[AWPC]

...back in the real world & back on topic the prices are just ridiculous. Exchange rate issues are not the consumers issues if Nvidia/AMD decide to not be creative enough accounting wise & not book the GPU's against the currency BEFORE brexit!

The ways things are going now GTX 1060 is going to be £300 @ launch

Go be an FX swaps trader instead of a GPU manufacturer if you think your being smart by passing the cost onto the consumer

 

[Sasahara]

...back in the real world & back on topic the prices are just ridiculous. Exchange rate issues are not the consumers issues if Nvidia/AMD decide to not be creative enough accounting wise & not book the GPU's against the currency BEFORE brexit!

The ways things are going now GTX 1060 is going to be £300 @ launch

Go be an FX swaps trader instead of a GPU manufacturer if you think your being smart by passing the cost onto the consumer

GPU or any other overseas manufacture isn't going to cut margins just because the UK gives up common sense.

The tech industry has some of the lowest margins (apple excluded) for any major industry and one of the fastest turnover of product and product ranges. So there isn't much to cut. Dell have just raised prices by 10%, if they can't afford to cut margins a minnow in comparison like OC certainly can't.

So the tech industry gets hit first when a currency tanks. But pretty much everything that has some connection with imports and that's pretty much everything to some extent, will raise in price in the next 6 months if the £ stays weak or weaker.

If you have any big purchases you can do now it may be prudent to make them now before prices rise. (Obviously prices won't rise if the £ rallies, but that's not looking likely)

 

[Jono8]

Pound rallied today apparently,

*looks* Nope, still terrible (1.29 GBP/USD and 1.165 GBP/EUR)

 

[triss]

Could we talk about gpu prices people and not get off topic with who voted for what, and if you agree with it .
Thanks

 

[FoxEye]

Could we talk about gpu prices people and not get off topic with who voted for what, and if you agree with it .
Thanks

Here's a thought.

Will a £150 Pascal/Polaris card be able to deliver anything better than low settings at 1080p? With new titles in 2016/2017.

Historically a card like the GTX 460 or 7850 had quite a bit of oomph.

Going forwards I can see more and more games being completely unplayable on anything less than a £300 card, even at so-called "peasant res".

Makes me wonder if PC gaming is just too expensive to be worth it.

 

[Secret_Window]

Here's a thought.

Will a £150 Pascal/Polaris card be able to deliver anything better than low settings at 1080p? With new titles in 2016/2017.

Historically a card like the GTX 460 or 7850 had quite a bit of oomph.

Going forwards I can see more and more games being completely unplayable on anything less than a £300 card, even at so-called "peasant res".

Makes me wonder if PC gaming is just too expensive to be worth it.

That's the feeling I'm getting as well. Gone are the days where you could buy a reasonably fast card for £150-200 and play most games on high graphical settings.

Occasionally, I use the waybackmachine website to go back to websites like Overclockers to look at old things. In this case I went back to 2008, and as you can see, gpu prices were reasonably good with the level of performance they were offering at the time (notably the 8800 gts):

http://web.archive.org/web/20080411...roductlist.php?groupid=701&catid=56&subid=927

Obviously over time there are other variables that make a difference to the prices from 2008 to now, such as higher VAT, inflation etc. But probably the biggest factor right now aside from the Brexit, is that Nvidia appear to have virtually no competition anymore, which no doubt contributes to what they now feel they can charge for their products.

 

[adam98150]

But there really isn't any point complaining about it now. It's going to happen. There's that petition that's not going to change a thing you could sign.

Gutted about the prices going up as planning a build in the near future.

 

[Mercury464]

Exchange rates make more difference to prices than some perhaps realize, here are some figures based on the prices of the as yet unreleased GTX 1060, in some hypothetical scenarios, just for a giggle :-

- Historical Yearly Average Exchange Rates

[b]Mean average of exchange rate in 2007 - Pre Recession[/b]
FND: (2007) 299 / 2.00 = 149.50 + VAT @17.5% = £175.66
AIB: (2007) 249 / 2.00 = 150.90 + VAT @17.5% = £146.28

- XE Currency Charts (GBP/USD). Period - 5 Years

[b]Mean average of exchange rate in 2014 - Post Recovery[/b]
FND: (2014) 299 / 1.64 = 182.31 + VAT @ 20% = £218.77
AIB: (2014) 249 / 1.64 = 151.82 + VAT @ 20% = £182.18

[b]Pre EU Referendum[/b]
FND: (2016) 299 / 1.50 = 199.33 + VAT @ 20% = £239.19
AIB: (2016) 249 / 1.50 = 166.00 + VAT @ 20% = £199.20

- XE Currency Charts (GBP/USD). Period - 30 Days

[b]Post Referendum - Vote: Leave[/b]
FND: (2016) 299 / 1.30 = 230.00 + VAT @ 20% = £276.00
AIB: (2016) 249 / 1.30 = 191.53 + VAT @ 20% = £229.83

I refuse to have so little faith in human intelligence, as to assume that even the most passionate leave voter would claim we would not have observed Sterling's position strengthen in the event of a remain vote, bringing closure to the 6 months of economic uncertainty that preceded the election. So :-

[b]Post Referendum - Vote: Remain[/b]
FND: (2016) 299 / 1.52 = 196.71 + VAT @ 20% = £236.05
AIB: (2016) 249 / 1.52 = 163.81 + VAT @ 20% = £196.57

Because products of this type, attract VAT duty at 20%, we can consider NET parity to fall at just above 1.20, which most financial institutions expect Sterling to hit within the next 6 to 12 months(within the last 72 hours, we've observed a low of 1.27).

Julius Bär, regarded as producing some of the more accurate forecasts, has predicted as low as 1.16 by the end of Q4 this year. This is one of the more pessimistic forecasts, so their reputation will be under scrutiny, but lets entertain the possibility that they're accurate :-

[b]Christmas Time! Yay![/b]
FND: (2014) 299 / 1.16 = 257.75 + VAT @ 20% = £309.30
AIB: (2014) 249 / 1.16 = 214.65 + VAT @ 20% = £257.58

It's purely hypothetical of course, but all things equal, £175.66 to £309.30 will be quite the jump. Perhaps there's more to the relationship between exchange rates and the perceived trend towards rising GPU prices than meets the eye?

On the bright side, it would not have escaped the markets' attention that Theresa May is doing well in the Conservative leadership contest. She was a remain supporter and there may well be some anticipation of a more moderate and cautious approach to exit negotiations, than might have been; or may yet be, the case with a less moderate leave supporter. Should Andrea Leadsom; a leave supporter having expressed desire to trigger article 50 before the end of the year, come through to win, that could potentially land less well.

 

[Gregster]

Guys, can we leave the politics to the GD area. I know it is a hot topic and hard to avoid at times but we argue enough already over GPUs, so don't make things worse. Not a dig at anyone but more a "I get this at work everyday and in the pub and I don't want it here in the GPU section"

 

[Eiji]

its predicted by the end of 2016 the exhange rate from £ to $ is supposedly going to continue falling to 1.1. Should I just buy a new pc now or wait...these 2 years is going to be rocky.

Depends on whether you want to upgrade or need to upgrade. Only you can answer that.

I wanted to upgrade because my friend wanted a gaming PC (only had laptop and consoles before) and my Z97 system fit his budget so in March 2016 I went from having a 4670K Z97 based system to a 5820K X99 based system.

I'll be keeping this setup for 3-5 years.

 

[sam77]

No, he's right. Its a pain in the *** seeing it everywhere. Constantly. What's done is done.

It's also the single most important factor influencing most people's decision to buy graphics cards right now, so it's obviously a relevant thing to mention in a thread about graphics cards.