Geforce 9 series question

[bombfirst885]

Does anyone have a ballpark on how much these will cost when they launch in Feb? How much did the GTX launch for earlier this year?

 

[trog100]

cards like the ati 3870.. nvidia 8800gt and soon to be gts.. have kinda changed the price structure.. i think the new top end cards will at least for a while be cheaper than the old ones.. i cant see how things can rocket back up to where they were when the gtx was launched..

so your guess is as good as anybodies..

trog

 

[JC316]

I would think that a top end card would be based in the $400 range, but like Trog said, with the release of the 8800GT and 3870, you could see top end as low at $300.

 

[bombfirst885]

I would think that a top end card would be based in the $400 range, but like Trog said, with the release of the 8800GT and 3870, you could see top end as low at $300.

I would think otherwise if the rumors are true with them being 100% performance boost, and DX 10.1.

 

[smartphone]

if they are twice as fast as the current gen, than $500+.

 

[DarkMatter]

My guess is they will cost as much as 8800 did in its debut. But as smartphone said they will problably be twice as fast as 8800GT, so they will probably cost twice too.
G92 and 3870 are so cheap because they were made in a smaller proccess. In 65nm you can make two times the chips compared to 90nm and same with 80nm/55nm, so the prices for 8800GT and HD3000 are more or less what they should be.

If you think about it, it's as if Nvidia and Daamit released the midrange cards before the top-end ones. Indeed in my imagination they are just how midrange GeForce 9 and next generation Ati midrange series would be, but instead of releasing them in June 2008, they are here now. Compare the 8800GT to 7600GT and 6600GT. All of them where made in a smaller proccess, half wide memory bus, same or close performance compared to previous generation flagships, half the price... G92 and HD3000 are next generation midrange. Even the name in the case of Amd (HD3xxx instead of HD2xxx), suggests they are next gen. Note that R600 was called HD2900 and not HD2800, as in previous generations, so maybe x9xx is the code for high-end.

 

[bombfirst885]

My guess is they will cost as much as 8800 did in its debut. But as smartphone said they will problably be twice as fast as 8800GT, so they will probably cost twice too.
G92 and 3870 are so cheap because they were made in a smaller proccess. In 65nm you can make two times the chips compared to 90nm and same with 80nm/55nm, so the prices for 8800GT and HD3000 are more or less what they should be.

How much were the 8800's when they launched?

 

[trog100]

My guess is they will cost as much as 8800 did in its debut. But as smartphone said they will problably be twice as fast as 8800GT, so they will probably cost twice too.
G92 and 3870 are so cheap because they were made in a smaller proccess. In 65nm you can make two times the chips compared to 90nm and same with 80nm/55nm, so the prices for 8800GT and HD3000 are more or less what they should be.

wise up to the real world my friend.. what a thing costs to makes is not what the price is based on.. the price is based on what the market will pay for it..

u can blame or thank ATI for the current low price of decent cards.. the only reason nvidia came up with the 512 meg 8800gt (cheap) was to torpedo the coming ati release which they knew about..

why did ati plan the new "cheap" approach.. cos they are in trouble.. know they cant beat nvidia on a performance basis so are doing it on price right from the launch..

but if the new 9xx cards are twice as fast as the old ones.. yep the price will be very high.. but somehow i dont see any way they can be..

ati were helped by the new smaller die size with their price.. but cheaper to make or not if they performed better than an nvidia card they would cost more than an nvidia card irrespective of how much they cost to make..

i think we will have to wait and see how it all pans out.. one thing is clear.. when red and green are both neck and neck the prices are high at the top end.. but when one gives up the performance race and starts a price race i recon things just have to get cheaper..

its happened with CPUs it about to happen with GPUs.. least thats my take on the scene.. its no bad thing we have been ripped off for far too long anyways..

trog

 

[erocker]

Spot-on Trog!

 

[DarkMatter]

wise up to the real world my friend.. what a thing costs to makes is not what the price is based on.. the price is based on what the market will pay for it..

u can blame or thank ATI for the current low price of decent cards.. the only reason nvidia came up with the 512 meg 8800gt (cheap) was to torpedo the coming ati release which they knew about..

why did ati plan the new "cheap" approach.. cos they are in trouble.. know they cant beat nvidia on a performance basis so are doing it on price right from the launch..

but if the new 9xx cards are twice as fast as the old ones.. yep the price will be very high.. but somehow i dont see any way they can be..

ati were helped by the new smaller die size with their price.. but cheaper to make or not if they performed better than an nvidia card they would cost more than an nvidia card irrespective of how much they cost to make..

i think we will have to wait and see how it all pans out.. one thing is clear.. when red and green are both neck and neck the prices are high at the top end.. but when one gives up the performance race and starts a price race i recon things just have to get cheaper..

its happened with CPUs it about to happen with GPUs.. least thats my take on the scene.. its no bad thing we have been ripped off for far too long anyways..

trog

You have to learn better about how the market works, my friend. Things have the price based on how much they cost to produce. And of course a little bit in demand, or in other words, how much people are willing to pay. But mostly in production cost. I'm talking about the sugested retail price. Once they are released it's when prices start to go up if people want to pay (as with 8800GT and HD3000). For example if they had released 8800gt for $400, since the price was well above production costs and Amd was in the same production cost level (indeed lower), they could have released a lot cheaper and then 8800 would never be competitive. What happenes with GTX, GTS and HD2900? They should go down in price, but they can't because retailers can't sell them for less than what they paid for them.

EDIT: You want another example? Nvidia 7900 was not cheaper than X1900 regardless of its performance or what the market would pay for them.

 

[btarunr]

GeForce 7900 was a better performer than Radeon X1900, my friend. Its higher price was justified. It was the X1950 that outperformed the 7900 and things tipped back with the 7950 GX2.

 

[AddSub]

if the rumors are true with them being 100% performance boost

To really have an across the board "100% performance boost" they would have to up the ROP counts and/or core clocks by a lot. And I mean up them by a LOT! That isn’t going to happen. Ain't cost effective. All they are going to do is increase the pixel pipeline coun...urm.. oh yeah unified shader proc count, and your latest bloom-fest of a GOTY will run much faster, though in reality not much will have changed. You can also expect some PureVideo HW acceleration tweaks so HD playback will be smoother by a bit. Voila, GeForce 9 series.

 

[DarkMatter]

GeForce 7900 was a better performer than Radeon X1900, my friend. Its higher price was justified. It was the X1950 that outperformed the 7900 and things tipped back with the 7950 GX2.

Sorry, but X1900XTX was a little better than 7900GTX and X1900XT clearly better than 7900GT. X1950 was even better. But yeah I was talking about the complete series. In the end of their lifetime, 7900's price was higher than X1950's, at least in Europe. It's price wasn't justified at all from a value standpoint.

 

[SK-1]

GeForce 7900 was a better performer than Radeon X1900, my friend. Its higher price was justified. It was the X1950 that outperformed the 7900 and things tipped back with the 7950 GX2.

x1900>7900 in almost all instances, be it synthetic or actual game play.I did my due diligence when I bought mine.

 

[trog100]

yes the 1900 was king of the hill when it first arrived.. it cost king of the hill prices as well.. my xtx was £375.. ouch..

trog

 

[WhiteLotus]

in £££££ i am going to guess £350.


hell we should do a sweep stake for this

 

[bombfirst885]

in £££££ i am going to guess £350.


hell we should do a sweep stake for this

How much was the 8800GTX when in launched?

 

[WhiteLotus]

edit: btw i am going on the assumption that like always us brits are going to get bent over and rap*d on the pricing on these like everythin else

 

[Darkmind]

8800GTX was about $550-$650 when it first came out

 

[bcracer220]

i agree with trog on this, its really nothing to do with the cost of the cards. if u look at the price of the materials in the card itself its nothing compared to the retail price. the R+D put in to make these cards costs a lot of money, which also contributes to the high retail price of the cards INITIALLY, and on top of that theres what trog is saying, what people are willing to pay. if ud ask me i think the only way to get rid of these ridiculous prices they are charging for a video card is just by boycotting them altogether. but clearly not everyone is going to do that...

 

[DarkMatter]

i agree with trog on this, its really nothing to do with the cost of the cards. if u look at the price of the materials in the card itself its nothing compared to the retail price. the R+D put in to make these cards costs a lot of money, which also contributes to the high retail price of the cards INITIALLY, and on top of that theres what trog is saying, what people are willing to pay. if ud ask me i think the only way to get rid of these ridiculous prices they are charging for a video card is just by boycotting them altogether. but clearly not everyone is going to do that...

Its not the silicon itself, its the production cost. If we were talking about agriculture, would you say production cost is how much the seeds cost?
Chips are made out of silicon wafers, by a proccess called lithography. Those wafers need to be treated with different chemicals and exposition to light for long time in cryogenic chambers. That costs a lot. All that is made to wafers, if you can take double the number of chips out of one wafer, your production cost is one half. Simple. Then it is also very important yields. G80 (8800GTX, GTS and Ultra) were made in the same wafers. GTX was the target chip, the chip they wanted to create. GTS were (in part) defective GTX and Ultras were some exceptional GTX chips that exceeded the intended goals. The same with HD 2900 XT/Pro/GT and G92 and RV670.

R&D costs something but look at how much:

http://www.marketwatch.com/tools/quotes/financials.asp?symb=NVDA
http://www.marketwatch.com/tools/quotes/financials.asp?symb=ATI&sid=160919&report=1&freq=1

Its a good chunk, but nothing compared to other costs. Also look at how low is their net income compared to their revenue. Pretty much any other industry has better margins, or at least, more balanced ones. And this is a fast changing industry too, they can't afford to risk even one quarter, so they can't take out a card a lot higher than what they should cost in the hope they will sell well.