Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
The price cut is a lie.
Last month, AMD announced that they would launch the Radeon RX 5600 XT for $280. It would be a further cut down Navi 10 die as used in the Radeon RX 5700 XT and Radeon RX 5700.
Nvidia responded by having a GeForce RTX 2060 show up for $280 on New Egg, but officially not yet launched, so that you couldn't buy it yet. That would keep it from going out of stock and falling off of search results. Eventually, Nvidia raised the price to $300, but claimed that they had cut the MSRP of the GeForce RTX 2060 to $300.
A little over a month later, the cheapest RTX 2060 on New Egg is $300. It's also refurbished. The cheapest new RTX 2060 on New Egg is $316. Even if you're willing to count rebates, the cheapest is $304 after rebate if you include shipping. So much for that $300 MSRP. The prices look about the same as they did when the MSRP was $350. The price cut was a lie.
So what about the Radeon RX 5600 XT that the RTX 2060 price cut was supposed to counter? That has an MSRP of $280, right? Well, New Egg does have one in stock at $280. It's $284 if you include shipping. With shipping, the next cheapest is $297, and then the rest are $300 and up. So much for a $280 MSRP.
Of course, neither of the cards are really all that relevant when you can get a faster Radeon RX 5700 for $325, or $295 after rebate. On the AMD side, it shouldn't be particularly surprising that the RX 5600 XT isn't a great deal, as third bins of GPUs are typically low volume parts, especially when the second bin is already a salvage part. AMD doesn't need to make the RX 5600 XT a great deal to sell off their inventory, and they aren't terribly keen on crippling more Navi 10 dies that work right in order to sell them as a lower bin.
Meanwhile, Nvidia doesn't really have anything to counter at a little higher price tag. An overpriced RTX 2060 is it. The next bin up, the GeForce RTX 2060 Super, starts at $400. Or $384 after rebate, if you want to go that route. That's a very different price tier from $280. It's also slower than a Radeon RX 5700 XT that you can have for $359 after rebate.
It shouldn't really be that surprising that Nvidia isn't inclined to start a price war in a tier where their dies are nearly double the size of their competitor's. People sometimes scoff when I say that the price tag at retail depends heavily on the cost of production, but it's true.
The nearest Nvidia card that actually is interesting is a GeForce GTX 1660 Super, available for $214, or $204 after rebate. Not coincidentally, that's based on a much smaller die. It's only slightly larger than AMD's Navi 10 die, and on an older process node, it might well be cheaper to produce. That makes it a lot easier to cut prices and offer an interesting deal.
Nvidia responded by having a GeForce RTX 2060 show up for $280 on New Egg, but officially not yet launched, so that you couldn't buy it yet. That would keep it from going out of stock and falling off of search results. Eventually, Nvidia raised the price to $300, but claimed that they had cut the MSRP of the GeForce RTX 2060 to $300.
A little over a month later, the cheapest RTX 2060 on New Egg is $300. It's also refurbished. The cheapest new RTX 2060 on New Egg is $316. Even if you're willing to count rebates, the cheapest is $304 after rebate if you include shipping. So much for that $300 MSRP. The prices look about the same as they did when the MSRP was $350. The price cut was a lie.
So what about the Radeon RX 5600 XT that the RTX 2060 price cut was supposed to counter? That has an MSRP of $280, right? Well, New Egg does have one in stock at $280. It's $284 if you include shipping. With shipping, the next cheapest is $297, and then the rest are $300 and up. So much for a $280 MSRP.
Of course, neither of the cards are really all that relevant when you can get a faster Radeon RX 5700 for $325, or $295 after rebate. On the AMD side, it shouldn't be particularly surprising that the RX 5600 XT isn't a great deal, as third bins of GPUs are typically low volume parts, especially when the second bin is already a salvage part. AMD doesn't need to make the RX 5600 XT a great deal to sell off their inventory, and they aren't terribly keen on crippling more Navi 10 dies that work right in order to sell them as a lower bin.
Meanwhile, Nvidia doesn't really have anything to counter at a little higher price tag. An overpriced RTX 2060 is it. The next bin up, the GeForce RTX 2060 Super, starts at $400. Or $384 after rebate, if you want to go that route. That's a very different price tier from $280. It's also slower than a Radeon RX 5700 XT that you can have for $359 after rebate.
It shouldn't really be that surprising that Nvidia isn't inclined to start a price war in a tier where their dies are nearly double the size of their competitor's. People sometimes scoff when I say that the price tag at retail depends heavily on the cost of production, but it's true.
The nearest Nvidia card that actually is interesting is a GeForce GTX 1660 Super, available for $214, or $204 after rebate. Not coincidentally, that's based on a much smaller die. It's only slightly larger than AMD's Navi 10 die, and on an older process node, it might well be cheaper to produce. That makes it a lot easier to cut prices and offer an interesting deal.
Comments
Nvidia does have a couple of performance tiers above what AMD can offer. The RTX 2080 Super for $700 is in line with what dies of that size have cost ever since the GeForce 8800 GTX way back in 2006. The RTX 2080 Ti might be the cheapest commercial product ever made with a die size over 700 mm^2.
I get the impression that what people really want is for the TU102 die to not exist, so that the RTX 2080 (named 2080 Ti instead) at $700 would be the top of the line. I think it was a mistake for Nvidia to make a 754 mm^2 die, considering how well it hasn't sold, but I don't think that it's outrageous.
Personally my issue with Nvidia is their dumb G-Sync. They should give it away instead of charging for it and support Freesync at the same time. I would never waste money on a G-Sync monitor, there are far more important options for a monitor.
This silly excitement over Nvidia's upcoming 3000 series is just dumb. They are going to be even bigger die size GPUs and the price will be eye-opening to say the least. Especially ridiculous when you consider that most of these modern GPUs already run most things on high now. Unless you are into ray tracing there is just no need for faster GPUs at present.
I currently run an older 1000 series GPU on my main system and run my games at 2k. I just see no reason for 4k. When you are sitting 2 feet from the screen you notice little difference in most games. I still see no real reason to upgrade my GPU at this point in time.
My best guess is that Nvidia's next flagship gaming card will have a die size around 550 mm^2, which is in line with what they've historically done. On a 7 nm EUV process node, that could offer quite a bit more performance than an RTX 2080 Ti. It's going to cost at least $700 at retail, though, and we'll see how much Nvidia wants to push for higher prices. How well the higher end Turing cards didn't sell is likely to constrain them somewhat.