When are we getting some proper mid-range upgrades?

[FoxEye]

R280X and GTX770 are too expensive.

R270X is a massive fail, given that it's a 7870 for the same money :/ 760 is > £200, slower than a 670, too expensive for what it is.

And the 670 is back up to £300 on OcUK? What a joke!


Everybody only wants to talk about 290x / 780 here, it's like you all have vast piles of money to ***** on this overpriced nonsense? I wouldn't care about that if it wasn't for the fact that AMD/nV don't even want to do anything good in the mid-range space, just endlessly push more and more expensive top end cards (to massive fanfaire!)

I'm not excited for new 780 or R290. I wish AMD/nV would give us something to cheer for in the mid-range. Like a new GTX460, where everyone agrees this card is fantastic value for money.

Are they afraid that good mid-range cards are bad for business? Churn out the same crap with no progress and hope everyone skips mid-tier to pay more money on top end cards?

Let's face it, the current mid-range cards from both parties are hopeless. No forward movement in over 3 years now! Disappointing.

 

[FoxEye]

@malachi

Paying £170 for a 2nd hand 7950 with no warranty is hardly the best solution to this problem!

AMD could have chosen to rebrand the 7950 as the 270X, but I guess that was expecting a bit much? Would actually have been progress...

 

[FoxEye]

Wait till next year and buy gtx 780/R290 for peanuts.
For now I stick with mine gtx 670.

Define peanuts? 780 is £400, 290 is £350 or so, how much do you expect them to lose value in a year?

Mid-range is up to £150 or so. More than £200 is not any kind of mid-range I'm familiar with.

 

[FoxEye]

Just had a look, there's two Gigas for 165, 175, one for 190... and a couple Sapphires for 150.

Not sure that they 'routinely' go for 130-140; search doesn't even find more than a handful having been sold on MM in the last 6 months...

 

[FoxEye]

There is no more new mid range due, until a long time. The current line up is spot on!

Yeah I'm not expecting new AMD cards until 2015... given how much AMD like delays

And yeah, you're hardly going to criticise the cards you want to sell, but let's be honest... the mid-range lack of any progress at all is not exactly spot on

But at least you've just said that there will be no vanilla 280 (non-X), so essentially AMD have killed the 7950 product. I guess it sold too well and AMD wasn't happy with the profit margin on it?

 

[FoxEye]

My 460 for £150 (new) had a custom cooler, and was totally silent, whilst delivering an amazing boost from what I had.

My 7850, for £100 (2nd hand), has a custom cooler, is nearly silent, and was a good boost from the 460.

Not going to jump to a HIS (who?) card with a crap cooler, for £170

Did anyone else pick up on the fact that there will be no 280 (non-X)?

 

[FoxEye]

The new re-designed 280X GPU (new Tahiti XTL ) will be out in next few weeks, re-designed to use less power and run cooler, I guess that could be considered an actual new midrange card, it just wasn't ready soon enough so atm the 7970 is a straight up re-brand. This new chip will be out soon though..

http://n4g.com/news/1382645/amd-preparing-new-version-of-radeon-r9-280x-on-new-chip

How many people consider £250 - £300 to be mid-range?

I mean I might be living in the past (where £150 is mid-range), and I know inflation, etc, etc, but is £250,£275,£300 really mid-range now?

Are there no budget gamers who want to buy new cards with decent coolers?

Maybe the market for that has died and I'm a dinosaur. Maybe everybody who wanted that has moved to console gaming. Maybe PC gamers all have triple SLI Titans... a lot here do by the looks of things

 

[FoxEye]

According to some anything below £200 is low-end.

There's no good reason for these price increases - the *only* reason is that people will pay.

 

[FoxEye]

Sounds like whining for whining sake to me

Not true. The current situation:

You have a 7850. It struggles with current gen games on 1080p on medium presets. It stutters, frame rates are low, 25-30 FPS or so.

You want to upgrade to a new mid-range card, your budget is the same as it was last cycle.

You realise that only cards costing £250 and more will give playable framerates at 1080p.

 

[FoxEye]

The GTX 660/Ti, 7850 / 7870's were Midrange cards a year ago costing £200, now those cards are midrange for about the same money, the problem is if you bought high range cards back then a midrange card today is a side grade.

Midrange always ends up last generations high range, IE: GTX 580 / 6970 = GTX 660 / 7870. this is normal, its no different today.

Unless you don't consider the Rxxx series to be a new generation, the the new mid-range is *not* last gen's high-end.

In fact in your first paragraph you said this gen's mid-range is the same as last gen's mid-range, for the same money. And now the 7950 and possibly the 7850 are being discontinued, leaving only the R270X, which is even more expensive than the card it replaced, for the same performance.

 

[FoxEye]

I can play Crysis 3 on all very high and BF4 all Ultra without AA on a £170 7870XT with good frame rates, It eats BF3 on Ultra preset alive.

The 7850 will do BF3 on Ultra preset just fine, it will do Crysis 3 / BF4 on high..

MSI 7850 here. Crysis 3 won't be anywhere near 60 or even 50 FPS on high.

More like 20-30 FPS. I can benchmark it tonight if you want proof

Also nobody is selling non-ref 7950s for £150... And this debate really isn't about the 2nd hand market filling the gap that the new market has left.

 

[FoxEye]

As I said, MSI 7850. i5 2500k.

I'll do some tests tonight but I'm getting nowhere near 60FPS with that.