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Why Today's Graphics Card Market Sucks
xDarc
Member Posts: 211
Backstory:
I'm a working stiff. I make enough to cover my bills and save a fair amount every month. At the beginning of this year, I set out to put together a new PC by purchasing one component at a time; each at the right time. I've never taken this approach and it's worked out well. I've replaced everything except for the case, one hard drive, my old and familliar keyboard and mouse, and... the graphics card. (1900GT)
So what's new? A 2ms GTG LCD monitor, a 700W ~87% efficient modular power supply, a couple new SATA drives & DVD, an AW9D MAX mobo, an E6600 (@ 3.2Ghz that idles at ~28C w/ aftermarket cooling), a matched pair of 1 gig DDR2 800 sticks- (@ 900 4-4-4-12 w/ 2.1v) and I even bought an air cooled 5.25" to 3.25" conversion bay to move all my hard drives from where Im expecting a long graphics card to be, also added sommore case fans.
So here I am- all my old parts are long gone; passed off to friends or sitting in a PC "junk" drawer... except that same 1900GT is still sitting there where a newer, faster, better, harder card should be. Lately I've been wondering why that old card is still there; I've been tossing and turning for a couple weeks now on whether to grab an 8800 series card; and which one- etc. Last night the prudent consumer inside me rebelled and fueled a long night of searching the web, reading reviews, tech forum threads, and shopping for prices to settle the matter.
Why I Won't Buy an Nvidia 8800 Series Card:
The most obvious thing to me at my hesitance to grab one of these were the prices. The 8800GTS 320MB from one of the more reputable manufactuers is hovering around $290. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130082 This is the best bang for the buck the 8800 series has to offer- and for future proofing purposes; the deal may not be sweet enough. There are instances in benchmarking reviews of this card; where it gets beaten by less powerful and less expensive cards with more texture memory. http://www.nvnews.net/reviews/evga_geforce_8800_gts_320mb/page_6.shtml and also here: http://www.bjorn3d.com/read.php?cID=1070&pageID=3219 It will vary from game to game; and with a multitude of settings- but if games already on the market are easily chewing up 320MB of texture memory; DX10 games will not be any gentler. Another review echoes this sentiment here: http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/evga_e-geforce_8800_gts_superclocked_320mb/page16.asp
Beyond the 8800GTS 320MB in the 8800 series, the price increases much faster relative to the performance increase. http://www.guru3d.com/article/Videocards/428/11/ The 8800 Ultra offers a vary narrow lead over an 8800GTX for an extra ~250 dollars or more; and only offers a 30% increase in performance over an 8800GTS 320MB for ~500 dollars more. http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=2010380048%20106791921&page=1&bop=And
I'm also leery of some of the largest and power hungry cards to date. While the architecture of the G80 is real progress- they've chosen to stick with the 90nm fabrication process- this is the reason for the size, power consumption, and possibly the cost of these cards. Some excerpts from a review on the G80 that can be found in full here: http://www.techreport.com/reviews/2006q4/geforce-8800/index.x?pg=1
"The thing is, the G80 isn't manufactured on a next-generation chip fabrication process. After some bad past experiences (read: GeForce FX), Nvidia prefers not to tackle a new GPU design and a new fab process at the same time. There's too much risk involved. So they have instead asked TSMC to manufacture the G80 on its familiar 90nm process, with the result being the single largest chip I believe I've ever seen."
"Nvidia's isn't handing out exact die size measurements, but they claim to get about 80 chips gross per wafer. Notice that's a gross number. Any chip of this size has got to be incredibly expensive to manufacture, because the possibility of defects over such a large die area will be exponentially higher than with a GPU like the G71 or R580. That's going to make for some very expensive chips."
"The chip is still too large and consumes too much power at idle, but this architecture should be a sweetheart once it makes the transition to a 65nm fab process, which is where it really belongs."
And exactly how future proof are these cards? There is already some evidence out there to suggest Nvidia is basically sitting on the next refresh of cards in the 8900 series that will be available on an 80nm process with faster GDDR4 memory for less money. http://www.tweaktown.com/news/7055/geforce_8900gtx_and_8950gx2_pricing_and_information/index.html I don't know about you; but if I'm going to spend around 600 dollars on a graphics card- I'd be plenty pissed off if a new version makes not just a small step; but a huge leap ahead at a lower price in less than six months.
Lastly- in the news it seems like AMD and Nvidia are facing over 50 lawsuits that allege price fixing. There are snips and reposts of the news all over enthuiast hardware sites. http://www.guru3d.com/newsitem.php?id=5384 There's also a forum discussion on suspected price fixing that dates back a while here: http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=128775 With so many lawsuits pending concerning price fixing; it is very likely at least one of them will have some effect on the market in the consumer's favor.
Lack of Suitable Alternatives Or Intermediary Transitions:
So I've decided I'll pass on the 8800 series cards, I then set out to find a card that would provide a significant improvement over my 1900GT at a low price. To my dissapointment, it seems prices on older models aren't dropping as fast as you'd think. http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=Property&N=2010380048&PropertyCodeValue=679%3A20130%2C679%3A23289%2C679%3A23298%2C679%3A20129&bop=And&Order=PRICE
An x1950 crossfire which gets outperformed in almost every benchmark by an 8800GTS 320MB; sometimes by far- still costs just as much; and in some cases more than the lower tier 8800 GTS 320MB cards. The higher end 7900 series of cards are still floating above 200 dollars- which is too much to pay for an intermediary card to transition from in the short term. Ideally I was looking at spending no more than $100-$150 for something that will kick the ass out of my 1900GT; and hold me over until a new series of cards arrive that offer real value.
What's available for about a 150 bucks? For my needs, nothing really. The 8600GT series cards are in that price range; but they are about on par with my x1900GT. Though I could not find a direct comparison- the 8500 and 8600GT were compared to a x1950 PRO- (which you can see here only trumps the x1900GT by a small margin: http://xtreview.com/review154.html ) and the x1950 PRO outperformed the 8600GT: http://anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2970&p=5
In Conclusion:
While there are plenty of options- none of them truely feel like a smart upgrade path for their costs. There's the 8800GTS 320MB model that costs around 300 dollars that may end up struggling with new DX10 games. For around 100 dollars more, the 640MB model offers only the extra memory and no extra processing power. Beyond the 8800GTS 640MB model- the costs are ridiculous as you can easily buy an E6600 and motherboard of your choice for the same price or less. There is also extremely foreboding news on the horizon that casts very credible doubt on the worthiness of any card in the 8800 line-up.
Intermediary cards that offer a significant increase in performance over an x1900GT; but not coming close to even the basic 8800GTS 320MB- remain too high in price to justify their purchase over the more recent, latter mentioned card.
Still irritating- new 8600GT cards that can cost as much as when I purchased my x1900GT almost 2 years ago; can barely outperform it- and in some variations are still apparently outdone by it.
If you ask me- today's graphics card market sucks... much more so than I've been accustomed to in the past.
Comments
8500?
Don't know much about the card, but it's about a $100 cheaper then the 8800 and build off the same tech.
Very informative post. A little hard to read though with the size of the text.
Wish Darkfall would release.
Yeah I was messing with the formatting... sorry. The 8500 series card is labeled in many reviews as more of a card suited for folks who need something for next gen applications or home theatre needs- not 3D games. It can play them; but compared to an X1900 GT- it is outperformed by far.
You can find some benchmarks for the 8500GT here: http://www.vr-zone.com/?i=4902&s=10
Thank you for that link.
I'm using the 7950 gt and was looking at the 85-8600 cards the other day. They're cheap and now I see why.
I'm really impressed by that benchmark; I've been enjoying the 7950 and I can see why.
Dunno if it helps any, but if you're looking to change out you're card I highly recomend the 7950gt, and I think you can get them for under 200 now.
I have to say, I'm really disapointed with Nvidia and the shoddy work they've done on the 8k series cards. I really did expect better from them. I really think they were relying to heavily on Vista and DX10, and should have known better then to expect MS to release an OS that worked from the gate.
You should be writing reviews for gfx cards.
Wish Darkfall would release.
Don't go from the 1900 to a 8500. It's much clower than what you have.
The ATI 2900 will be out soon, that will lower prices a bit I think, but the top end premium cards you are used to will always cost 100's of pounds even when they are 2 and 3 years old.
There isn't any really intresting DX10 games out yet and won't be until Crysis. So that's not really an important decision for today.
Also it's not really something you need to worry too much about. The Latest version of Open GL will pretty much include all the same features. See how you feel about your card after Enemy Territory releases. There isn't any guarentee that DX10 is going to be the next evolutionary step for GFX cards yet. I'm personallly not willing to upgrade for it just yet. I want to compare it to the new Open GL and see where I stand.
Baff- the x2900 is out: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814161091
It's caused a very small price drop on some of the newest cards; we're talking less than 5%. The x2900XT has been a big dissapointment to most because it is being outperformed by 8800GTS models. There's debate as to whether improved drivers for the x2900XT that are continuing to get better will give it the definite edge. Some folks feel improved drivers can only help it to get so much better and I agree. Other folks feel the drivers it started with were absolutely terrible and there's plenty of room for improvement; and I agree...
So give it a few months to see if more refined drivers make a difference.
You do make a good point, but if you're looking for a new GPU I would Suggest the X2900XT at the moment. The performance/price ratio is the best to date, it also has 320 stream processors, which supposingly meens better DirectX 10 performance.
I have an Asus EN8800GTX, don't get me wrong, it's a great card, but the performance/price ratio is pretty bad. The X2900XT came out about a month after I purchased my 8800. Just wish I waited a little bit longer...
Fatt-Slice
~-[The one and only]-~
Top five most anticipated:
1. Hellgate: London
2. Halo 3
3. Bioshock
4. Grand Theft Auto IV
5. Crysis
Eh? I never said the 1900GT could outperform the 8800GTS anything. Slow down when you read! I did say a 1900GT can outperform an 8500GT; and in some cirucmstances- an 8600GT. I also said I find it ridiculous that Nvidia can release a card no better than one I had 2 years ago; and charge what the one I bought 2 years ago cost then.
The only 1900 series card that can outperform an 8800 series card is the x1950XTX- and yes; that only happens in some instances- not all; but it is ALSO a DX10 card.
member of imminst.org
As far as the 8500 and 8600 go, dont bother.
"There's no star system Slave I can't reach, and there's no planet I can't find. There's nowhere in the Galaxy for you to run. Might as well give up now."
Boba Fett
[15:50] basically, if anyone suggests buying one, run up and hit them as hard as you can until they come to their senses
[15:50] a big part of the chip is simply broken
[15:51] antialiasing does not work, which is why they introduced "CFAA"
[15:51] normally, when you do multisampling, you take the samples in the hardware resolve unit
[15:51] this doesn't work in HD 2900 XT due to a design flaw[
[15:52] well
[15:52] it's not something they can just fix
[15:52] they would have needed to basically redesign that part of the chip, tape out again, respin as necessary
[15:53] the time from tape out to market is about 110 days, IIRC
[15:53] no
[15:53] R600/HD 2900 XT
[15:53] your average tape out is $15M, I think
[15:53] considering the amount of money that NVIDIA made on G80, most of the people who would buy one already did
[15:54] and it's still not going to win benchmarks because of the anemic texture sampling compared to NVIDIA (although this might become less noticeable with future games)
[16:01] it competes with the 8800 GTS
[16:01] the XTX was canned because it A. produced hilarious amoutns of heat (and took not so hilarious amounts of power) and B. wasn't anywhere close to the GTX
Oh, and his estimate is that the R700 chipset rolls out in Q2 2008.
This is a real shame for me, because I was just considering getting a new PC with that card in it.
"Kaneda! What...do you see?"
"There's no star system Slave I can't reach, and there's no planet I can't find. There's nowhere in the Galaxy for you to run. Might as well give up now."
Boba Fett
I too am waiting for the Nvidia Geforce 9800 (G92). I just do not have any games that need a bigger badder machine. So I'll upgrade when the games I want to play come out.
But, the advantages of buying now are lower prices. The prices always skyrocket before Q4. Memory prices are at an all time low. And memory manufacturers are halting production and orders because of the low prices. They would rather retain thier inventory till prices go back up.
So if you are considering building a computer at the end of this year. I would pick up some quality DDR2 now. The prices will be going back up shortly. No need to adopt DDR3 for another year or two.