When the Gpu's prices will go down ?

muon · 22 Apr 2023 at 14:48

CAT-THE-FIFTH said:
It annoys me that these hardware companies have gotten so greedy. This shows you how much these people have changed:

Resurfaced Video Shows Young Jensen Huang Promising ’Inexpensive' GPUs

The Nvidia CEO was idealistic in a talk at Stanford.

www.tomshardware.com

NVIDIA Riva TNT2 Ultra Specs

NVIDIA NV5, 150 MHz, 2 Pixel Shaders, 0 Vertex Shaders, 2 TMUs, 2 ROPs, 32 MB SDR, 183 MHz, 128 bit

www.techpowerup.com

The Riva TNT2 Ultra was $299 (63mm^2). That is what "affordable" meant then, when computer hardware earlier in the decade was stupidly expensive. That is still $540 in today's money for a 63mm^2 die.

Nvidia did (arguably) force the industry to make GPUs available to the masses.

Mr G · 22 Apr 2023 at 14:52

muon said:
NVIDIA Riva TNT2 Ultra Specs

NVIDIA NV5, 150 MHz, 2 Pixel Shaders, 0 Vertex Shaders, 2 TMUs, 2 ROPs, 32 MB SDR, 183 MHz, 128 bit

www.techpowerup.com

The Riva TNT2 Ultra was $299 (63mm^2). That is what "affordable" meant then, when computer hardware earlier in the decade was stupidly expensive. That is still $540 in today's money for a 63mm^2 die.

Nvidia did (arguably) force the industry to make GPUs available to the masses.

I remember buying a HIS X800XT for £299 and an Athlon 1800XP for £180, then the Athlon X2 for £299!

muon · 22 Apr 2023 at 15:02

Mr G said:
I remember buying a HIS X800XT for £299 and an Athlon 1800XP for £180, then the Athlon X2 for £299!

I don't get how people think hardware wasn't historically stupidly expensive (when converted to today's money).

I remember my first middling PC being embarrassingly expensive.

Mr G · 22 Apr 2023 at 15:14

muon said:
I don't get how people think hardware wasn't historically stupidly expensive (when converted to today's money).

I remember my first middling PC being embarrassingly expensive.

Also remember paying £399 for a X1800XT to play Far Cry.

NZXT30 · 22 Apr 2023 at 15:34

Purgatory said:
I think what he was trying to say is the pc gaming market will stagnate badly again as it did in the periods he mentions. Which could happen depending how bad things get. We may not have seen the worse of it yet and the issues with cost of living.

PC gaming never stagnated is what I'm trying to say.

Alt0153 · 22 Apr 2023 at 15:51

NZXT30 said:
PC gaming never stagnated is what I'm trying to say.

there is always someone coming out to say pc gaming is dead or seomthing along those lines, ive been gaming 25 years and its always been a thing

Murphy · 22 Apr 2023 at 16:33

muon said:
Nvidia did (arguably) force the industry to make GPUs available to the masses.

Jensen trying to rewrite history again IMO, it was 3DFX who brought graphics processing to the masses.

Mr G · 22 Apr 2023 at 16:37

Murphy said:
Jensen trying to rewrite history again IMO, it was 3DFX who brought graphics processing to the masses.

Creative Labs 3DFX Voodoo Banshee FTW!

Jono8 · 22 Apr 2023 at 17:10

Mr G said:
Also remember paying £399 for a X1800XT to play Far Cry.

Just found a receipt for my 8800gtx

£343 in 2007.

That is £543 adjusted for inflation (but I guess not exchange rate?)

Still, GPUs have clearly got more expensive. That barely gets you a xx70 card now and the 8800gtx was the second fastest card after the ultra at the time

Mr G · 22 Apr 2023 at 17:12

Jono8 said:
Just found a receipt for my 8800gtx

£343 in 2007.

That is £543 adjusted for inflation (but I guess not exchange rate?)

Still, GPUs have clearly got more expensive.

I had the BFG 8800GT for around £300 quid, the good times!

Jono8 · 22 Apr 2023 at 17:13

Mr G said:
I had the BFG 8800GT for around £300 quid, the good times!

Ha, mine was BFG too!

Murphy · 22 Apr 2023 at 17:15

muon said:
I don't get how people think hardware wasn't historically stupidly expensive (when converted to today's money).

I remember my first middling PC being embarrassingly expensive.

Stupidly expensive is very subjective so what exactly do you consider that to be? Because my first GPU was priced at $250 back in 1998, adjusted for inflation that's around $450 and even the top of the range 12MB version of the Voodoo 2 was just another $50 ($100 adjusted), when compared to today's prices that's nowhere close to the $1.6k for a top end card.

Even without going that far back, as others have posted, it would seem a bit difficult to argue that hardware was historically stupidly expensive when compared to today's prices.

Mr G · 22 Apr 2023 at 17:16

Jono8 said:
Ha, mine was BFG too!

Whatever happened to BFG? I remember XFX used to make NVIDIA cards also.

muon · 22 Apr 2023 at 17:23

Murphy said:
Stupidly expensive is very subjective so what exactly do you consider that to be? Because my first GPU was priced at $250 back in 1998, adjusted for inflation that's around $450 and even the top of the range 12MB version of the Voodoo 2 was just another $50 ($100 adjusted), when compared to today's prices that's nowhere close to the $1.6k for a top end card.

Even without going that far back, as others have posted, it would seem a bit difficult to argue that hardware was historically stupidly expensive when compared to today's prices.

Erm, when nvidia launched in 1993, GPUs weren't $250.

The prices you saw in 1998 was exactly because nvidia forced the market to move from being professional cards selling for $500+ in the early 90s, to the $250 you saw in 1998. That is what Jensen refers to.

edit:

ATI VGA Wonder 512KB was $699 lauched in 1989.
ATI Graphics Ultra 1MB was $899 in 1991.
ATI Graphics Ultra Plus was $499 in 1992.
ATI Graphics Vantage was $599 in 1992.
ATI Graphics Ultra Pro was $799 in 1993.

Even post competition, graphics cards were $500+ in todays money. And the dies were tiny.

CAT-THE-FIFTH · 22 Apr 2023 at 17:30

Mr G said:
Whatever happened to BFG? I remember XFX used to make NVIDIA cards also.

Nvidia screwed them over Fermi allocations so they gave up. XFX jumped ship to ATI.

gpuerrilla · 22 Apr 2023 at 17:31

Ahh much like EVGA then..

Mercurial · 22 Apr 2023 at 17:47

muon said:
Erm, when nvidia launched in 1993, GPUs weren't $250.

The prices you saw in 1998 was exactly because nvidia forced the market to move from being professional cards selling for $500+ in the early 90s, to the $250 you saw in 1998. That is what Jensen refers to.

edit:

ATI VGA Wonder 512KB was $699 lauched in 1989.
ATI Graphics Ultra 1MB was $899 in 1991.
ATI Graphics Ultra Plus was $499 in 1992.
ATI Graphics Vantage was $599 in 1992.
ATI Graphics Ultra Pro was $799 in 1993.

Even post competition, graphics cards were $500+ in todays money. And the dies were tiny.

Not quite the whole story; S3 with the Trio and the Virge have a pretty good claim - almost any PC in the mid-90s came with one those. Along with Matrox and ATI.

Their first commercial card was a flop iirc.

Murphy · 22 Apr 2023 at 18:22

muon said:
Erm, when nvidia launched in 1993, GPUs weren't $250.

The prices you saw in 1998 was exactly because nvidia forced the market to move from being professional cards selling for $500+ in the early 90s, to the $250 you saw in 1998. That is what Jensen refers to.

edit:

ATI VGA Wonder 512KB was $699 lauched in 1989.
ATI Graphics Ultra 1MB was $899 in 1991.
ATI Graphics Ultra Plus was $499 in 1992.
ATI Graphics Vantage was $599 in 1992.
ATI Graphics Ultra Pro was $799 in 1993.

Even post competition, graphics cards were $500+ in todays money. And the dies were tiny.

Erm, did you read what you were replying to? Where did the post you reply to mention anything about Nvidia? Plus you've not even attempted to address the salient and most important point that i raised with you, you know the one about what you consider "stupidly expensive" to even be.

The price i 'saw' in 1998 wasn't what i saw it's what i paid and Nvidia's first foray into GPUs would suck for at least another 2 years and cost roughly the same as their competitors ($250 for the RIVA TNT).

Why you've brought up ATI cards is anyone's guess, if anything it proves that your "hardware was historically stupidly expensive" claim is rubbish because as I've pointed out you could buy GPUs for half the price of those. It's like trying to claim that cars have been historically stupidly expensive by listing the prices of Mercs or Rolls-Royce while totally ignoring the fact that you can buy cars for half the price.

TBH I'm not even sure what or why you're even trying to argue as you close out your post by saying exactly what i said, that graphics cards were not historically stupidly expensive as they used to cost $500 adjusted for inflation not the $1.6k that we're paying today, exactly what i said.

gpuerrilla · 22 Apr 2023 at 18:23

Mercurial said:
Not quite the whole story; S3 with the Trio and the Virge have a pretty good claim - almost any PC in the mid-90s came with one those. Along with Matrox and ATI.

Their first commercial card was a flop iirc.

Yeah they definitely were not the saviour put it that way. I bought a voodoo3 3000 for my first custom build, inflation calculator has that at £333 today. High end graphics now is triple that or at least double if your being kind.

TNA · 22 Apr 2023 at 18:24

Jono8 said:
Just found a receipt for my 8800gtx

£343 in 2007.

That is £543 adjusted for inflation (but I guess not exchange rate?)

Still, GPUs have clearly got more expensive. That barely gets you a xx70 card now and the 8800gtx was the second fastest card after the ultra at the time

And the ultra was barely any faster. 10% maybe?