Why did I wait :(

[JonnyG1982]

In hindsight i really regret not buying a GTX 680 straight away. At the time i decided it wasen't enough of an improvement over my gtx580 & would wait for the GTX780. If I knew over a year later that the nvidia graphics line would be in such a state I wouldn't of bothered waiting & just paid for that GTX680 on day 1.

Right now dual cards have jumped from the £500-600 area to an eye watering £800+ area. Gone are the days of 4870x2 for sub £400. We also have a new highest price ever for single gpu cards (excluding asus mars cards) in the form of Titan. This (unquestionably fast) card set a new benchmark for seeing quite how much people are prepared to spend on a single gpu.

With enough people willing to shed the cash nvidia brought out the GTX 780 for the usual £400-450....i mean new rip off/recession proof £550. In comparison to Titan its a steal, & this is what nvidia will tell people, but lets get realistic, compared to gtx770/7970 its ridiculously expensive & doesnt justify the new price tag.

The GTX 780 should have been the new series with the usual 15%+ improvement for the same price as the previous gens i.e. £400-440. Instead as Titan laid the groundworks for higher price points nvidia pounced on this. And so they come out at £550. 20% improvement or so for basically 75% more price. The GTX8800/R9700pro etc had bigger performance gains over previous gens without seeing the need for such premium. Nvidia must be loling hard.

The overpriced GTX680 gets rebadged to the GTX770. Nvidia hoping to fool some people? This should have been the GTX680 boost or pro or ultra or even GX685, it doesnt warrant GTX770 name. Yes it did the right thing of bringing a slightly faster version at a cheaper price but this "cheaper price" is what it should cost, its what it should have cost when the 7970GHZ went down to the £325 mark. Its Wwaaaayyy overdue. Its taken the best part of 10 months to bring the price down to level the 7970ghz.

Then theres the pricing of the older cards now. Another mess. So we have the GTX 680 at £330+ area? Hang on the GTX770 can be had for cheaper than this! We have the GTX670 at (with the exception of overclockers) the best part of £280+, again the GTX770 can be found for £293 (on certain other reputable site). And the GTX660ti which is more expensive than the GTX760. So basically the GTX680/670/660ti are all now stupidly priced. They are now pointless cards unless they drop in price, & im not buying the whole "its good for people wanting sli", you're getting overcharged.

We have the GTX770 released with 3rd party coolers because supposidly the Titan cooler costs more? Rubbish!. If this is true then why is it the GTX780 3rd party cooler designs cost more than the Titan cooler ones??? Further to this look at the Gigabyte GTX770 windforce, this card has the same 3x cooler
as the GTX780 3x cooler yet it is one of the cheapest GTX 770 prices going. How is this possible? Either the Titan cooler doesnt cost any extra or its clear that nvidia or retailers are ripping a new one. I guess because all the brands are releasing overclocked/3rd party cooler GTX770s they are not bothering to really charge a premium (rip off) price, whilst on the GTX780 gigabyte & EVGA with their "Cheaper" coolers are charging more compared to the "Expensive" stock titan cooler...hhhmmmm must be the overclocks. The same overclocks
which appear free on the gtx770 variety.

And again one has to wonder why the GTX780 gigabyte & EVGA cards commands premiums of £50+ in this country yet in the states its like 10$ (EVGA GTX780 ACX). Get the **** out! Thankfully as of today i notice one particular site has dropped their gigabyte 780 to £535 area. Still, as per the GTX770, if the titan cooler costs so much can you drop it further gigabyte/retailers?, after all, you're saving money using your own cooler...arent you??? Make up your minds.

Have to give credit to AMD for working with their drivers, dropping their prices, bundling games. Its a pity that as per the issue with the gtx680, I just don't feel the performance boost is quite there coming from a gtx580, especially as Ive waited so long i dont feel like cracking now but man the itch is bad. My only complaint is I wish AMD would at least hint
at what to expect from their next card, so that for us people sitting on the fence we can decide whether to just give up & buy whats available or wait. If they came out & just said "Expect GTX780 beating performance at a more reasonable price" then that would be enough to convince me to wait longer but I would hate to wait yet a further 3 months + for AMD to just do an nvidia & release another next gen card with a okish performance increase at a new higher stupid price going "Well they did it!".

Im a pc gamer, fps all the way for me. But can't say im impressed right now with these gpus. I have the money to buy a GTX780 right now & would love one but i refuse to pay the price that nvidia is milking. Its like ****ing cinema popcorn, we would all happily pay a bit of a premium but it gets to a stage when you just have to say "seriously? No!". Feels like their trying to drive people away to consoles. Sulk over, had to let off steam, its only my silly opinion. Apologies about the grammer. Feel free to mock away .

 

[JonnyG1982]

The difference is now that second tier cards are so much cheaper but have very good performance.

OP just get 2 x 760s and be done with it

I've done SLI & crossfire & prefer my single cards. Problem is I feel the GTX 680 & 7970 wasent worth the jump when they came out. So I've waited another year & a bit for the GTX780 to then be told i need to cough up £550 for something I was expecting would land at £450. If they want £550 (when gtx770/7970 is £300ish) then it should be offering 50%+ improvement on the previous cards, not 15-30%.

Having waited this long already I don't want to particularly crack & buy a 15 month old GTX680 or 7970 for about £70 cheaper than it was 15 months ago. Might as well buy something new, but I simply cant pull the trigger on the GTX780 at that price for that performance. And like some have said, especially given the stupid price AMD brought the 7990 out for i.e. cost more than the DEVIL that was brought out earlier for less money (and looked better) go figure?! I got a feeling AMD are also going to be pricing at £500+. Lets just hope they set the performance bar higher.

 

[JonnyG1982]

I first saw this and thought TLDR, but then I started and OP very well written and expresses my sentiments about all this very well. I was always waiting for an upgrade for my GTX 570 but the price of the GTX 680 never dropped really the whole time it was out and the GTX 670 wasn't enough of an upgrade, so when the GTX 770 came out at less than the GTX 680 (!, even though it's basically the same card) I decided to jump right on it on the assumption that nvidia's prices, once again, won't reduce much and at least I'd get as long as possible with the current gen. In hindsight I too would have just purchased a GTX 680 at launch!

Tempted to do the same. Can get the gtx 770 for £300 delivered. Its around £515 for the cheapest gtx 780 delivered. £215 premium (approx 71% more) for like 20% better performance. I cannot see either amd or nvidia dropping price further til Q1 of 2014 earliest. AMD will bring out a similar performing card to the GTX780 in sept/oct but also command £500+. Like last time, waiting around for price drops would seem unlikely for the foreseeable future.

 

[JonnyG1982]

Some are commenting that if im not happy with the price then vote with the wallet. I could not agree more. And in fairness I already have, I've bought AMD in the past due to price/performance (4870x2, 5850 & 5850cf) & also 2nd teir nvidia cards (5800NU, 6800GT, 7800GT & 7800GT sli) etc. I also didnt upgrade to the GTX680 as i did not think it was worthy for the performance increase.

The problem is that if enough people are willing to pay the required sums for the Titan, which clearly happened as they sold more than expected, then nvidia have now used this information as Tommybhoy has said as an excuse to ramp up prices. This now leaves us people who wish to upgrade but are "voting with our wallet" little choice, either cough up larger sums of money or go with nothing.

Now Nvidia could have got away with this price in my mind if they could justify it. If it came out offering 50% gains then I would be fine with this, im sure a lot of people here complaining of the price would be fine also. But it simply doesnt. I bought a GTX8800 that absolutely crushed the previous cards for £440. More performance gains for less money. The 4870 to 3870 was a huge jump, let alone the 4870x2 which i bought for £360 from pretty much day 1. A steal of a card that destroyed everything out there for sub £400.

Nowadays despite the recession, ironically the gpu makers seem to be bringing new tech with smaller improvements at bigger prices. WTF happened to dual gpu costs? Its quite ironic. Further so when you consider the next gen PS4 is about to be released at £350 all in. Now im not wishing to start a debate about the tech of the ps4, but we all know that price/performance will be dam good.

This is the problem with just 2 companies in the market. Lack of competition means the customer suffers. When AMD inevitably release their card in sept/oct & its slightly quicker than nvidia we all know now they will charge £475+ & nvidia remain at £525+ area, neither need to budge as both will get huge profit margins for each sale. Im sure AMD are extremely happy about nvidias pricing cause now they will just feed off each other to keep prices nice & high. Maybe there is a "handshake" involved.

And again like Tommybhoy says, many people here do have the funds (I certainly do), we are just simply not happy to be pulling our pants down now for a shafting. Nvidia can have my money but they need to show me why i should buy from them, offering paltry gains for MASSIVE increases in price doesnt cut it.

Im fine for people spending whatever amounts they want on computers but think that those arguing "If you cant afford it/don't wish to spend that much then dont buy it, in the mean time ill enjoy my GTX690/Titan" are shooting themselves in the foot & lying if they are genuinely fine with the pricing, im sure most of you would have been much happier paying less. When nvidia release their £2,000 card & you don't think its worth it but people argue the same reason to you maybe you'll join our side

 

[JonnyG1982]

I don't see many people bashing Intel for their Extreme chip pricing and yet Nvidia we have all this. We have far more choice in the graphics card market than we do in the cpu market.

It doesn't bother me that you have to pay £860 for the top end Intel cpu because my 3770 does exactly what I want it to do for the money I am prepared to pay. Ditto on the Titan / 780.

Again your choice.

I agree with this also, in terms of the pricing, its a joke. But like some one has responded, the cpu doesnt effect most of the people here as much as the gpu. Most of us here are probably gamers, & the biggest effect on that is the gpu. We are fine with the cheaper cpus because they do the job. While games really take a hit from increased res & AA, we need stronger gpus to keep the fps up so we need to regularly cough up for this. Apart from the fun of overclocking a new cpu I dont really see a difference to my gaming experience, im much more excited about what a new gpu will offer me.

 

[JonnyG1982]

I remember the 8800gtx being a similar price to the gtx 780. This isn't new. Prices will fall again. The current manufacturing node was a very difficult one.

Kinda missing the point. Its not so much price but value for money. Irc I paid £440 tops on pretty much day one for a 8800gtx that also managed to pretty much double performance of previous cards. It was far better value for money at the time compared to whats been offered now. If the gtx 780 doubled performance of a gtx680 for £440 we wouldn't be having this discussion. If it doubled performance for the current £540 most wouldn't complain.

And prices have hardly budged for nvidia. Their so stubborn that they brought out the newer & faster & cheaper gtx770 & left the gtx680 with more or less same price tag. Odd.

Fact is that ironically despite the recession & pc gaming declining & next gen consoles coming out cheaper than the last that nvidia think the solution is to bring out cards that have less & less performance increase for more money? Itll be nvidia & its staff crying when everyone gives up & goes to consoles & they only have themselves to blame.

Anyhoo like mentioned, we are meant to all be on the same side here, demanding more for cheaper prices