Will GPUs Ever Get Cheaper? GPU Pricing Update

[BadThad]

What is going on with the Intel cards? Dead already? I haven' see one for sale and nobody's talking about them anymore.

 

[takaozo]

What is going on with the Intel cards? Dead already? I haven' see one for sale and nobody's talking about them anymore.

Only Gordon at Pc World stil cover this subject. There is also a monthly driver review by Brad.

 

[wiyosaya]

PC gaming is probably going to die a slow death.

Various people, including experts in the industry, have been saying that for years. So far, it has failed to materialize. IMO, PC is far more flexible than consoles, and is also more capable. PC gamers are here to stay, IMO.

I don't think that death is going to happen any time soon - if it ever does happen. If it did, it would hurt companies like Nvidia, AMD, and, yes, Intel. Before that happens, I think they will all rethink how much money their customers are willing to spend on GPUs (and other semiconductor products) and lower the prices on their products.

 

[GoldenGoat]

Various people, including experts in the industry, have been saying that for years. So far, it has failed to materialize. IMO, PC is far more flexible than consoles, and is also more capable. PC gamers are here to stay, IMO.

I don't think that death is going to happen any time soon - if it ever does happen. If it did, it would hurt companies like Nvidia, AMD, and, yes, Intel. Before that happens, I think they will all rethink how much money their customers are willing to spend on GPUs (and other semiconductor products) and lower the prices on their products.

I hope you are right.

 

[tellmewhy]

What if the government passed a law forcing NVIDIA to open up the CUDA code and make it available to anyone that makes a video card?

In a similar way, force Microsoft to open up the code that runs the applications and make it available to anyone who makes an operating system.

This would make competition work efficiently (or more 'violently', if you like) and lead to lower prices and greater innovation. ⚡

 

[neeyik]

I think numbers where 2021

It was certainly a lot higher in the past, before datacenter really revenue took over:

FY23 = 35%
FY22 = 46%
FY21 = 46%
FY20 = 51%
FY19 = 53%
FY18 = 57%
FY16 = 56%
FY15 = 44%

 

[WhiteLeaff]

What if the government passed a law forcing NVIDIA to open up the CUDA code and make it available to anyone that makes a video card?

In a similar way, force Microsoft to open up the code that runs the applications and make it available to anyone who makes an operating system.

This would make competition work efficiently (or more 'violently', if you like) and lead to lower prices and greater innovation. ⚡

How will multiple violations of intellectual property rights in software and economics (since the software was developed through investment) help lower the price of hardware caused by the complexity of manufacturing processes and lack of competition in chip production?

 

[nnguy2]

"If Nvidia is driving people away from their premium RTX 4090 and into the $1,200 tier, there is actual competition to be found there from AMD, and we suspect many buyers will be more interested in the cheaper, better value 7900 XTX than the overpriced RTX 4080."

Whoa! I can't believe I just read that here!

 

[ddferrari]

The smartest option still remains to buy a previous-to-the latest gen at a good discount.

An RTX 3080 (especially the 12GB variant) will serve 1440p gamers at high refresh rates, and those at 4K who are okay with 60FPS, for three to four years. I do not game competitively online, however.

Update: I should mention that the 12GB variant seems hard to find now, at least in the USA. I went for it back in May, 2022 because it was on a Newegg flash sale for $810 bucks- about $200 less than the cheapest 10GB version. It does have a little more CUDA, RT and Tensor cores in addition to the extra 2GB of Vram. It's almost a 3080ti.

Being just a few more bucks than my AORUS 1080ti from 2017 - with literally 2X the performance at 1440p - I have no regrets! Sure, now the 4070Ti is available at nearly the same price for maybe another 20% performance . Hindsight is 20/20 right? But it wasn't in existence at the time.

 

[koblongata]

Not if 8K is going mainstream, and 16K is the new top-of-the-line gaming requirement

 

[BadThad]

Various people, including experts in the industry, have been saying that for years. So far, it has failed to materialize. IMO, PC is far more flexible than consoles, and is also more capable. PC gamers are here to stay, IMO.

I don't think that death is going to happen any time soon - if it ever does happen. If it did, it would hurt companies like Nvidia, AMD, and, yes, Intel. Before that happens, I think they will all rethink how much money their customers are willing to spend on GPUs (and other semiconductor products) and lower the prices on their products.

There is no better platform for gaming, it's not going anywhere.

 

[m3tavision]

I got a Merc310 XTX for $1079.

My friend bought an ASUS watercooled 3080 card for $1,800 just 9 months ago. I am getting +100 more frames than him in the game we compete in.


Regardless, I feel that $999 would have been a suitable price for an aftermarket OC'd XTX.

 

[phenomx8]

It wont get as cheaper as before in my opinion. Both AMD and Nvidia are gouging the price intentionally to find new equilibrium that still higher than before but still perceived as cheaper, or at least worth it, by market. Thats how our psychology work sadly... Remember that pay 2 win and loot box controversy in gaming years ago, it was created so nowadays we perceive cosmetic micro transaction and season pass as common and sadly thats what happen

 

[michalcz]

I've been a PC gamer for 25 years but I refuse to accept this game that Nvidia (and unfortunately also AMD) are playing with us. I bought my first console ever (PS5) in december for a price of mid-range GPU and I'm happy with that decision.

 

[WhiteLeaff]

Not if 8K is going mainstream, and 16K is the new top-of-the-line gaming requirement

It won't, anything above 4k makes little to no difference, and some recent titles already make the 4090 barely hit 60-70fps in 4k.

 

[koblongata]

It won't, anything above 4k makes little to no difference, and some recent titles already make the 4090 barely hit 60-70fps in 4k.

But have you seen 8K, it's mesmerizing, almost automatically 3D.

 

[Avro Arrow]

The good news is that games still look great even at 1080p so nobody is dying to get a new video card. According to Steam, the most popular card in the world is the GTX 1650 which is a considerable drop from the formerly most-popular GTX 1060. The GTX 1650 is almost laughably weak and yet so many gamers are just fine with it.

As long as you have a card that works (and if you didn't, posting here would be near-impossible), just keep on truckin' with it. Sure, you won't be able to play something like Hogwarts: Legacy or Spider-Man but there are lots of older titles that many of us have missed that are still amazing games. Right now, I'm actually playing Borderlands 3 because it didn't strike me as interesting when it came out but Epic had it for free some while back and I grabbed it. Sure, the graphics are a serious step down from CP2077 but I'm still having a blast with it and I'm willing to bet that it would run well on pretty much anything these days.

I was able to play games like Assassin's Creed: Odyssey and Godfall with one of my old R9 Furies while I was using my RX 5700 XT and RX 6800 XT in a small mining rig for 6 months. Sure, I played at 1080p with nothing cranked up but it doesn't take long to become immersed and then you don't even notice the graphical details anymore. Godfall specifically is not what I would call a great game but it was a graphical masterpiece and didn't really look much different at 1080p than it did at 1440p. I turned the shadows to minimum to get over 60FPS and they looked weird (kinda cubic actually) but who actually looks at shadows in a game like that (except for the odd nut who's obsessed with ray-tracing)? I never felt like I was "suffering" because I was playing a video game. No true gamer feels like they're "suffering" when engaged in one of their favourite passtimes. I only buy high-end cards because they last a long time and I have a 4K display to play with. Even then, the difference between 1080p and 2160p isn't huge and since my display is a TV, I suspect that it has hardware upscaling to make 1080p content look good on a 55" panel (because who broadcasts in 4K?). Not having 120FPS at 1400p or 2160p doesn't ruin the experience for true gamers because we just like to game, period.

Using an R9 Fury when I had two cards that were significantly more potent didn't take away from the fun of it for me, that's for sure!

 

[wiyosaya]

(because who broadcasts in 4K?).

When ATSC 3.0 sees rollout in your area, that may change. But don't hold your breath.

 

[loki1944]

If they want to charge that kind of money; then those GPUs should have lifetime warranties.

 

[lripplinger]

I paid $273.95 back in August of 2016, for my GTX 1060 6GB from B&H. I think it is beyond ridiculous how NVIDIA is pricing the RTX 3060. They have pushed people like me out of the market. Might be time to look at the Radeon 6650XT, since it is in a price I can live with.

 

[mbk34]

I paid $273.95 back in August of 2016, for my GTX 1060 6GB from B&H. I think it is beyond ridiculous how NVIDIA is pricing the RTX 3060. They have pushed people like me out of the market. Might be time to look at the Radeon 6650XT, since it is in a price I can live with.

I also have a 1060 6GB with a very old i5-3570K. Normally I would of built a new PC by now but GPU's simply cost too much for what they offer - or at least what I expect. Without a decent GPU, there's just no point in upgrading anything else. I just spend my money on other stuff.

I'll admit I'm not interested in 4k gaming. I'm also not interested in paying stupid money for a mid range card. I did look at the 6650XT but I'm unsure how well it will cope with UE5 based games. It might be an interesting article to see how new GPU's cope with UE5 games or even games based on a range of different engines.

 

[rsmith222]

But I really hope prices will get better until end of the year.

Hope, the ambrosia of monopolization and the cure for the predations of the corporation.

 

[Branch]

All the high prices do is make me skip a generation that I normally wouldn't.

Exactly. Going on year 3 of 'the skip'.

 

[rsmith222]

'Will GPUs Ever Get Cheaper?'

Only if we get one of two things, or both:

1) Actual strong competition.

2) Deflationary market for long enough. (This may merely provide the illusion of greater cheapness, though.)

Deflation is rare so I wouldn't rely on it. Actual strong competition in tech is also rare. So many industries are dominated by one to three players. This competition issue includes the fab competitiveness/access constraint.

Wait all you like for our dear duopolists (and Intel) to lower margins out of the kindness of their corporate hearts.

Will having Intel as an at least reasonably strong competitor be enough to move beyond the current duopoly pricing? Perhaps. Maybe we'll see the return of the low end having hardware that is current tech. There is already a burble of that with Intel's reduction of its A750 to $250.

 

[loki1944]

I paid $273.95 back in August of 2016, for my GTX 1060 6GB from B&H. I think it is beyond ridiculous how NVIDIA is pricing the RTX 3060. They have pushed people like me out of the market. Might be time to look at the Radeon 6650XT, since it is in a price I can live with.

If you can snag a 1080Ti for $200 it is still a great card.