We've been there since 2016 lol.
Not really... depends on what ya wanna play
Witcher 3 and RoTR were in low 40s on the 1080
Just Cause (low 50s)
Hitman (upper 30s)
GTAV (low 50s)
Far Cry Primal (low 40s)
Crysis 3 (mid 30s)
CoD (High 30s / Low 40s)
BF4 (mid 50s)
Anno 2205 (low 50s)
AC: Syndicate (upper 50s)
That's 75% of the games in the TPU test suite
I won't look at 4k until GFX cards can maintain frame rates high enough such that most games are above the point (75 fps) where they benefit from adaptive sync and ULMB can be used. I dunno if the 1180 Ti (or whatever name of the 1080 Ti successor is) will deliver that.
GFX card prices have been remarkably stable over the past 17 years
Never gonna happen hahaha. Nvidia has been trying to make the high-end start at $799 for a bloody decade. The 290X was the last time AMD really tried to keep prices down, and the lemmings bought the 780 Ti instead. It's over
Actually, when the 290x / 780 Ti came out, I bought the 780 for $490 (2 actually) because the $600 290x's heat problems and aggressive in the box clocks left it with measly OCing ability. On average the 290x was about 7 - 8 % faster than the 780 "outta the box" and everyone, including myself, was excited that AMD took the title. But that excitment faded on the test bench. The 290x only overclocked in single digits ... a typical AIB 780 could OC 32% over stock settings, obliterating the initial 'out of box' advantage of the 290x.
nVidia can charge what it wants because from the 1060 on up there's no competition. I don't understand the ire , corporations are legally required to act in the best interests of their shareholders, not to do so is malfeasance. Two things determine market pricing a) competition and b) what the market will bear. nVidia is sitting pretty ...With 7xx , they had the top 2 tiers, that grew to 3 with the 9xx and to 4 with 10xx. If you won't spring for a 1080 Ti, you will take a 1080 .... and so on to the 1070 and 1060. So any pressure on pricing is only going to come from 2 sources:
a) Someone offers something comparable cheaper. *
b) Consumers stop buying
* Note that the "value" argument is almost always oversold. Whats the better value when building a new box ?
Option 1- Let's say $500 card gets you a performance index of 500
Option 2 - Investing an extra $100, you can get to a performance index of 590
While most would say option 2, ... 18% increase in speed for a 20% increase in price. I'd say that's a false equivalency. First off, most folks would rather be in 1st place than 2nd... You don't see silver medalists on the Wheaties Box. It's also the one that everything else will be compared to ... the one that i the days of trade mags "made the cover. The one with all the "mindshare". Back in the 90s and early 00s the yearly laptop review always had the IBM A20p on the cover. It might set ya back $5k but it always topped the performance and feature charts. It didn't sell a lot but , no businessman wanted to walk into a meeting w/o that IBM Logo. At some point a bean counter @ IBM said this is unprofitable ... we don't sell enough of these to make it worthwhile. The subsequently lost the mag covers, the mindshare and eventually, the laptop business. To gain markeshare, AMD has to gain mindshare and that's gonna require more than a 2nd place or "value" showing.
More importantly, the investment on the delivery of that level of performance is delivered by your entire PC, not just the card so if you spent $800 on everything else, then that's a 7% increase in price ($390 vs $1300) ... for an 18% performance increase, that's a "no brainer'.
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