NVIDIA to make even more FE cards - could overall prices rise?

[thesmokingman]

This is how they price fix their product stack. Open markets be damned.

 

[Nicholas Peyton]

There's been a roomer going around that Nvidia were binning FE cards and selling off the chips that didn't make the mark to their partners.

Many people will also go with a FE due to ease of compatibility with water-block/mods.

If you want to volt mod your card or do anything physical to it, there's always a vast array of step-by-step guides available.

A lot of people also believe they're the cheapest option (because they just don't bother looking).

Nvidia support staff are trained to tell FE customers that overclocking your frequency/boost is "dangerous"; even when you don't touch the voltage slider, lol.

Nvidia has a MASSIVE R & D budget; barely any of that budget goes on your future GPU.
Just watch the Nvidia portion of CES 2017 and you'll see exactly what I mean.

A large portion of what you paid for your new Nvidia GPU this year / last year went on research into AI cars (self driving cars).

 

[R-T-B]

We going on strike?

Do you like herding cats?

 

[rtwjunkie]

Do you like herding cats?

Yep, damned near impossible! Like nailing Jello to a tree.

 

[qubit]

Do you like herding cats?

Yep, damned near impossible! Like nailing Jello to a tree.

Lads, it's actually quite easy to herd cats as demonstrated by this groundbreaking video.

 

[eidairaman1]

Yep, damned near impossible! Like nailing Jello to a tree.

Making a horse drink

 

[FYFI13]

I haven't got a chance to play with FE cards by now, are they THAT bad?

 

[GhostRyder]

I haven't got a chance to play with FE cards by now, are they THAT bad?

Well, they are not horrendous. Its just they are not as good as almost all the aftermarket cards. For the most part mine can manage my card pretty well even overclocked it just runs significantly warmer than I like. I think its the problem of they cost more for less performance since "reference" model cards are normally supposed to be the cheaper option especially considering the coolers overall design. I think its one of the most quiet reference cards I have ever owned up to full speed, but its definitely not the best I have ever owned and runs my card hotter than I would like to even without overclocks.

Many people will also go with a FE due to ease of compatibility with water-block/mods.

True, but unfortunately since they cost more its pointless to pay more if your going to rip the cooler off.

 

[yogurt_21]

remember the days when Ati and Nvidia got nailed for price fixing? Highend was 500$ next down 400$, then 250$ then 150$ and finally they had 75-100$ market where they recycled the 150$ card from 3 years ago.

I miss those days.

 

[eidairaman1]

FE- Fancy Name to overcharge on a Reference part

 

[Dippyskoodlez]

Its a business move and probably is motivated by the shrinking PC market. This way they have more $$ of the shrinking pie. What happens if one of their AIBs decided to close shop because of the continuing shrinking pie. This way they have a channel to the customer in place if that happens Didnt a Euro or Asia AIB close for them last year.

This started with the Titan, no AIBs being able to modify. Expanded with Founders Edition.

By shrinking pc market you mean record setting pc gaming market that has never been bigger?

 

[Xzibit]

By shrinking pc market you mean record setting pc gaming market that has never been bigger?

You mean if you add Peripherals which inject an up tick but didn't include them in last years report which was trending down.

How big will the Console market be (Which outsells the PC market in units according to the same firm) if you include the TVs and stereo systems to its sales

The consistent niche of PC gaming that's always growing is the "MMO/Microtransaction"

 

[Beastie]

I'm surprised there is such a market for them. Unless you want a card specifically to put under water and throw away the cooler I can't see the point.

 

[Grings]

Founders cards have already made all other cards cost more, when the 10xx series released non-founders cards were up to £100 cheaper (KFA2 and a few others had 1080 cards at 520-530, while founders cards were all 600+, usually 620)

For a good while now, founders editions have been some of the cheapest cards you can get, but only because the aib cards have all gone up in price

 

[kn00tcn]

remember the days when Ati and Nvidia got nailed for price fixing? Highend was 500$ next down 400$, then 250$ then 150$ and finally they had 75-100$ market where they recycled the 150$ card from 3 years ago.

i dont want a recycled card, i want lower power usage for the same performance

all this talk about 'midrange overpriced' ever since kepler keeps omitting the fact that the performance per dollar seems to usually be on track

why should i care if the biggest gpu in the family is $1,000 if the middle gpu for $300 is faster than the last gen mid/bigger/biggest that used to be $300 (or even higher)?

intel's pricing is much worse & has been around for a longer period, remember when 'extreme' or 'unlocked' cpus were $1,000 but otherwise almost identical to the $350 one?

 

[Dippyskoodlez]

You mean if you add Peripherals which inject an up tick but didn't include them in last years report which was trending down.

How big will the Console market be (Which outsells the PC market in units according to the same firm) if you include the TVs and stereo systems to its sales

The consistent niche of PC gaming that's always growing is the "MMO/Microtransaction"

https://www.techpowerup.com/229785/...ket-mints-billions-exceeds-usd-30-billion-jpr

6% growth is pretty strong and not even close to just a 'tick' when you have intel posting record numbers and produce none of these peripherals? Or maybe Microsoft also beating expectations for the year?

Or maybe PC shipments that have remained stable?

Or maybe steam breaking their concurrent users record?

 

[Xzibit]

https://www.techpowerup.com/229785/...ket-mints-billions-exceeds-usd-30-billion-jpr

6% growth is pretty strong and not even close to just a 'tick' when you have intel posting record numbers and produce none of these peripherals? Or maybe Microsoft also beating expectations for the year?

Or maybe PC shipments that have remained stable?

Or maybe steam breaking their concurrent users record?

Like I pointed out in that thread

This was JPR most recent report

This study is with-in the stagnation and the decline of the overall picture of PCs. The inclusion of Accessories & Peripherals just boost overall numbers. I don't know how much clear it can be if you read the article itself.

Besides JPR who else is reporting a up-tick of combined 60% in PC Gaming market YoY ?

Some of the US east coast is currently in the midst of a cold, winter storm, so maybe more people than usual are staying inside to play games.

Top games played DOTA 2 & CS:GO.

 

[Dippyskoodlez]

Besides JPR who else is reporting a up-tick of combined 60% in PC Gaming market YoY ?




Top games played DOTA 2 & CS:GO.

Uhhh i guess you just ignored the rest of my links showing others blowing past expected performances for the year?

And I don't see why the games played are relevant, CS has been #1 by a huge margin for an extremely long time.

 

[Xzibit]

Uhhh i guess you just ignored the rest of my links showing others blowing past expected performances for the year?

And I don't see why the games played are relevant, CS has been #1 by a huge margin for an extremely long time.

Nope didn't ignore.

I got passed the Headline and read the source

Intel

Client Computing Group revenue of $32.9 billion, up 2 percent from 2015

Desktop platform volumes decreased 6% - YoY

Microsoft

"More Personal Computing" continued to have the highest revenue per segment, at $11.82 billion, falling 5% compared to the same time last year

Gaming revenue on this segment for the quarter was down 3%,

 

[R-T-B]

remember the days when Ati and Nvidia got nailed for price fixing? Highend was 500$ next down 400$, then 250$ then 150$ and finally they had 75-100$ market where they recycled the 150$ card from 3 years ago.

I miss those days.

I also remember when $100 actually could buy a fair bit more everywhere than it can now.

 

[MustSeeMelons]

I just hope they quickly reach the threshold where people stop buying cards for such prices.
I know my threshold has been reached already and for the time being my 970 is performing fine.

 

[Vya Domus]

There's been a roomer going around that Nvidia were binning FE cards and selling off the chips that didn't make the mark to their partners.

I thought it was just me when I noticed that most AIB's couldn't achieve the same overclocks as FE's despite obvious VRM and cooling advantage. My 1060 can OC to almost 2100mhz without even touching the voltage limit but then again there is no FE of this card available. It does seem strange.

I always viewed FE's as a way to artificially increase the price of their products , not sure why people haven't seen through their tactic.

 

[Komshija]

You really shouldn't make blanket statements like that. Some of us actually buy them because they perform better than the competition.

For the same price range AMD beats NVidia. Just remember the marketing hype about the GTX 970 being faster than the R9 390. The truth was that R9 390 is faster in neutral and AMD-sponsored games, except in some NVidia-sponsored games which "recognize" AMD thus artificially bogging them down.

 

[TheoneandonlyMrK]

i dont want a recycled card, i want lower power usage for the same performance

all this talk about 'midrange overpriced' ever since kepler keeps omitting the fact that the performance per dollar seems to usually be on track

why should i care if the biggest gpu in the family is $1,000 if the middle gpu for $300 is faster than the last gen mid/bigger/biggest that used to be $300 (or even higher)?

intel's pricing is much worse & has been around for a longer period, remember when 'extreme' or 'unlocked' cpus were $1,000 but otherwise almost identical to the $350 one?

Why should we care, I'm dumfounded, but I'll stick with my wallet cares mate and he gets the biggest vote.
It's exactly the mid range kit for top end prices that stops dead ,people like me buying Nvidias wares.
I vote with my wallet and bare much mocking for my peasantry, but I'll live.

 

[qubit]

For the same price range AMD beats NVidia. Just remember the marketing hype about the GTX 970 being faster than the R9 390. The truth was that R9 390 is faster in neutral and AMD-sponsored games, except in some NVidia-sponsored games which "recognize" AMD thus artificially bogging them down.

NVIDIA cards cost more because they perform better (power, heat and noise, not just framerate) so that's not an argument. Also, both sides have sponsorship deals to make their cards work better on certain games. It's a dirty political trick to boost sales that I don't like, but it's a fact of life unfortunately.

Hopefully Vega will give proper head-to-head competition which should take AMD out of the "value" market they've been stuck in for so long with underperforming cards. I know there were a few exceptions there, but by and large NVIDIA cards perform better. In particular, AMD have had nothing to touch NVIDIA at the top end, especially lately and that really matters.

The 3.5GB memory issue with the 970 was indeed a bit of a scandal and I loudly criticized them on TPU at the time and would never buy a card like that. You don't have to convince me that NVIDIA are far from perfect!