Why are graphics cards so expensive?

[Vishera]

Just now, Zando Bob said:

Comparing to the 2080 Ti? So the 2080 Ti is like 200% the price for more than 300% more performance, how is that actually more expensive? In order to make that argument you have to completely ignore the entire reason people buy GPUs, which is their performance. The Radeon VII (AMD's flagship) also massively outperforms the 7970 even with it's $699 MSRP. The 5700 XT (so far the flagship for Navi) would best that even more due to only having an MSRP of $399 (the 7970 would be over $550 in today's money) while massively outperforming it. 

Again, where and how are you coming to the conclusion that GPUs cost more now, other than sorting all the GPUs by price (highest to lowest) and picking the top one? 

A flagship card is a card that can play all games in the year of release on ultra and 60 at high resolutions of that year,

That's what flagships are all about.

 

Paying for ultra 60 FPS at high resolutions of that year at 2012 $499,at 2019 ultra 60 FPS at high resolutions it's more than double.

 

With your philosophy the 4080 Ti is supposed to be $10000 because the higher performance.

[melete]

11 minutes ago, Zando Bob said:

Comparing to the 2080 Ti? So the 2080 Ti is like 200% the price for more than 300% more performance, how is that actually more expensive? In order to make that argument you have to completely ignore the entire reason people buy GPUs, which is their performance. The Radeon VII (AMD's flagship) also massively outperforms the 7970 even with it's $699 MSRP. The 5700 XT (so far the flagship for Navi) would best that even more due to only having an MSRP of $399 (the 7970 would be over $550 in today's money) while massively outperforming it. 

Again, where and how are you coming to the conclusion that GPUs cost more now, other than sorting all the GPUs by price (highest to lowest) and picking the top one? 

Pretty easy to come to the conclusion that GPUs cost more.

 

All prices in 2019 US dollars:

 

980 Ti - $703 MSRP

1080 Ti - $732 MSRP 

2080 Ti - $1226 MSRP

 

It's a fairly significant price increase between the 10 series and 20 series generations. GPUs always get faster in each generation (1080 ti was faster than 980 ti). I personally tend to think the price increase is in large part because Nvidia wasn't really worried about competing with AMD's cards at the time, especially Vega. But whatever the reason, prices went up quite a bit.

 

edit: forgot 2080 Ti came out last year so I updated the price so as to keep everything in 2019 dollars.

[Vishera]

2 minutes ago, Mathieu9836 said:

Cars are getting more fuel efficient and more equiped, they don't sell them 200% higher then 5 years ago....

That's what i am trying to explain

[Mick Naughty]

They aren’t expensive. Consoles exist for a reason. 

[Vishera]

2 minutes ago, melete said:

Pretty easy to come to the conclusion that GPUs cost more.

 

All prices in 2019 US dollars:

 

980 Ti - $703 MSRP

1080 Ti - $732 MSRP 

2080 Ti - $1199 MSRP

 

It's a fairly significant price increase between the 10 series and 20 series generations. GPUs always get faster in each generation (1080 ti was faster than 980 ti). I personally tend to think the price increase is in large part because Nvidia wasn't really worried about competing with AMD's cards at the time, especially Vega. But whatever the reason, prices went up quite a bit.

I agree,but games are less demanding than ever too,so more people are sticking to their older GPUs.

Like i said the 7 years old HD 7970 is still capable of 60 FPS 1080p high settings in 2019.

[melete]

1 minute ago, Vishera said:

I agree,but games are less demanding than ever too,so more people are sticking to their older GPUs.

Like i said the 7 years old HD 7970 is still capable of 60 FPS 1080p high settings in 2019.

Yeah, it's true that it's easier to run stuff at 1080p high these days. But I'd also say that 1080p wasn't the standard forever, we were running games at 1024x768 for a long time. And lots of people are adopting 1440p, 4K, and ultrawide resolutions today.

[Vishera]

1 minute ago, melete said:

Yeah, it's true that it's easier to run stuff at 1080p high these days. But I'd also say that 1080p wasn't the standard forever, we were running games at 1024x768 for a long time. And lots of people are adopting 1440p, 4K, and ultrawide resolutions today.

But the pixel density of 1080p is so high that the difference isn't as it used to be with lower resolution,

1080p to 1440p is not a huge upgrade,but 1024x768 to 720p is a big deal.

[Zando_]

16 minutes ago, Vishera said:

A flagship card is a card that can play all games in the year of release on ultra and 60 at high resolutions of that year,

That's what flagships are all about.

My point is that you can beat that flagship card at it's own game with a low-midrange card now, or beat it in today's midrange resolutions with a mid-midrange card, both of which are cheaper. Today's high resolutions are massively, massively harder to run than yesteryear's (I assume it was somewhere around 1080p in 2012, 4K is around 4 times that size). Prices went up, but performance per dollar also massively increased. Performance per watt as well. 

It's the same with everything else, on paper it may cost more, but it actually doesn't if you take into account what it can do. New trucks can tow way more than old ones, for example. A 2019 F-150 has a base MSRP of nearly $35,000, whereas my 2002 F-150 had an MSRP of nearly $22,000 (mine has options though so it would have been more, I'm comparing base model XLTs). But the newer truck also tows more than mine, is better on gas, safer, yada yada a good list of improvements. Though in 2019 $ the 2002 F150 would have started at around $31,000, meaning the gap is actually way narrower. 

Yet again, you can't argue that GPUs nowdays cost more unless you completely ignore any changes to resolutions used and/or improvements in performance. If you ignore what GPUs do (run stuff at a resolution), why people buy them (performance), and also inflation, then sure GPUs are more expensive now. 

[Vishera]

3 minutes ago, Zando Bob said:

My point is that you can beat that flagship card at it's own game with a low-midrange card now, or beat it in today's midrange resolutions with a mid-midrange card, both of which are cheaper. Today's high resolutions are massively, massively harder to run than yesteryear's (I assume it was somewhere around 1080p in 2012, 4K is around 4 times that size). Prices went up, but performance per dollar also massively increased. Performance per watt as well. 

It's the same with everything else, on paper it may cost more, but it actually doesn't if you take into account what it can do. New trucks can tow way more than old ones, for example. A 2019 F-150 has a base MSRP of nearly $35,000, whereas my 2002 F-150 had an MSRP of nearly $22,000 (mine has options though so it would have been more, I'm comparing base model XLTs. But the newer truck also tows more than mine, is better on gas, safer, yada yada a good list of improvements. Though in 2019 $ the 2002 F150 would have started at around $31,000, meaning the gap is actually way narrower. 

Yet again, you can't argue that GPUs nowdays cost more unless you completely ignore any changes to resolutions used and/or improvements in performance. If you ignore what GPUs do (run stuff at a resolution), why people buy them (performance), and also inflation, then sure GPUs are more expensive now. 

Yeah,and you can beat the 2080 Ti with the RTX 4070 for 850$,

4080 Ti is better buy for $5000 though.

 

That philosophy is very strange.

[Mathieu9836]

6 minutes ago, Zando Bob said:

Yet again, you can't argue that GPUs nowdays cost more unless you completely ignore any changes to resolutions used and/or improvements in performance. If you ignore what GPUs do (run stuff at a resolution), why people buy them (performance), and also inflation, then sure GPUs are more expensive now. 

Do you think that making the RTX 2080TI cost 500$ more then the GTX 1080ti a 2 years ago? I don't think it's worth the extra 500 they charge for a very very small increase in performance compared to the 980ti vs 1080ti.

Edit: prices match what costumers are willing to pay, pickup truck prices increases because more people buy them to make the groceries then back in 2002, and trust me... i'm working for a dealership.

[melete]

3 minutes ago, Zando Bob said:

Yet again, you can't argue that GPUs nowdays cost more unless you completely ignore any changes to resolutions used and/or improvements in performance. If you ignore what GPUs do (run stuff at a resolution), why people buy them (performance), and also inflation, then sure GPUs are more expensive now. 

New hardware performs better, that's kind of how PC hardware works. Doesn't mean you can't compare prices to past and previous generations of hardware from the same company. 

[Vishera]

3 minutes ago, Mathieu9836 said:

Do you think that making the RTX 2080TI cost 500$ more then the GTX 1080ti a 2 years ago? I don't think it's worth the extra 500 they charge for a very very small increase in performance compared to the 980ti vs 1080ti.

Who knows maybe the RTX 7080 Ti will cost $20,000 with that philosophy

After all it's better than the RTX 5080 Ti and the RTX 2080 Ti.

[Mathieu9836]

1 minute ago, Vishera said:

Who knows maybe the RTX 7080 Ti will cost $20,000 with that philosophy

The only reason i see why the 2080ti cost that much is because Nvidia can charge whatever they want, if you want 4K resolution with a high refresh rate you have no other choices. I confident Nvidia didnt made a GPU that is that much more expensive to make then then 1080 for a very low increase in performance, that make no sense to me.

[Vishera]

2 minutes ago, Mathieu9836 said:

The only reason i see why the 2080ti cost that much is because Nvidia can charge whatever they want, if you want 4K resolution with a high refresh rate you have no other choices. I confident Nvidia didnt made a GPU that is that much more expensive to make then then 1080 for a very low increase in performance, that make no sense to me.

The bigger the die the more expensive the GPU.

So the GPU with the biggest die in history is the most expensive one.

[Zando_]

22 minutes ago, Vishera said:

Yeah,and you can beat the 2080 Ti with the RTX 4070,

4080 Ti is better buy for $5000 though.

 

That philosophy is very strange.

Those cards don't exist yet so IDK what the performance jump is. And performance is what matters in a GPU so you can't calculate whether or not they'd actually be more expensive for what you get. The 4080 Ti may only increase the price by $200 and still be a marked increase in performance, it may stay the same price, no idea. 

19 minutes ago, Vishera said:

Who knows maybe the RTX 7080 Ti will cost $20,000 with that philosophy

It's better than the RTX 5080 Ti and the RTX 2080 Ti.

Keep in mind I'm calling cards better based on performance/$ and performance/W, that's my philosophy in this discussion. The 2080 Super is a bit faster than the 1080 Ti for the same price and lower power consumption, would you call that more expensive? 

21 minutes ago, melete said:

New hardware performs better, that's kind of how PC hardware works. Doesn't mean you can't compare prices to past and previous generations of hardware from the same company. 

Beyond the fact that you mentioned the performance improvement and then immediately threw it out the window, here goes: On the AMD side, compare the Fury X to the newest 5700 XT ($525 MSRP vs $399 MSRP), see how they stack up. Or the $399 MSRP Vega 64 to the $399 MSRP 5700 XT, which performs better at the same price. Even the Radeon VII (if you want to only count Vega cards) at $699 offers a good improvement in performance over the Vega 64, though being an oddball card I can't say it offers a better value (I think the price increase is about equal to the performance increase). On Nvidia's side, see my answer to the next thing:

22 minutes ago, Mathieu9836 said:

Do you think that making the RTX 2080TI cost 500$ more then the GTX 1080ti a 2 years ago? I don't think it's worth the extra 500 they charge for a very very small increase in performance compared to the 980ti vs 1080ti.

I can agree that Nvidia GPUs kinda plateaued from Pascal to Turing. The 2080/2080 Super is basically a 1080 Ti for the same price, the 2070/2070 Super are closer to the 1080 and IIRC about the same price, on down the line. The only actual price increase was the 2080 Ti, about a 72% increase in price for around a 30% increase in performance.

 

I'll concede that the 2080 Ti is more expensive, everything else stayed the same or actually got cheaper, again they added a lot more tiers. I'll pull up MSRPs and everything and try to make a chart tonight to better illustrate my point that tiers have changed and people get hung up on that. Mid-range cards now are doing what flagships used to do. Especially if you take 1440p as a high resolution, more modern mid-range stuff like the 1660 Ti, 2060, 2060 Super, Vega 56, RX590 I'm pretty sure, GTX 1070, etc push 1440p60 fine. If you take only 4K as the modern high-res, then you've got the 2080 Ti, 2080, 2080 Super, 2070 Super, Radeon VII, and 1080 Ti as your modern flagships, and then you can argue that modern flagships cost more, but again you have to refuse to believe that tiers have changed, and ignore performance (and the fact that running 4K60 is quite a feat compared to 1080p60, which the lowest midrange cards do fine and low end cards can do decently). 

[Vishera]

2 minutes ago, Zando Bob said:

Those cards don't exist yet so IDK what the performance jump is. And performance is what matters in a GPU so you can't calculate whether or not they'd actually be more expensive for what you get. The 4080 Ti may only increase the price by $200 and still be a marked increase in performance, it may stay the same price, no idea. 

Keep in mind I'm calling cards better based on performance/$ and performance/W, that's my philosophy in this discussion. The 2080 Super is a bit faster than the 1080 Ti for the same price and lower power consumption, would you call that more expensive? 

Beyond the fact that you mentioned the performance improvement and then immediately threw it out the window, here goes: On the AMD side, compare the Fury X to the newest 5700 XT ($525 MSRP vs $399 MSRP), see how they stack up. Or the $399 MSRP Vega 64 to the $399 MSRP 5700 XT, which performs better at the same price. Even the Radeon VII (if you want to only count Vega cards) at $699 offers a good improvement in performance over the Vega 64, though being an oddball card I can't say it offers a better value (I think the price increase is about equal to the performance increase). On Nvidia's side, see my answer to the next thing:

I can agree that Nvidia GPUs kinda plateaued from Pascal to Turing. The 2080/2080 Super is basically a 1080 Ti for the same price, the 2070/2070 Super are closer to the 1080 and IIRC about the same price, on down the line. The only actual price increase was the 2080 Ti, about a 72% increase in price for around a 30% increase in performance.

 

I'll concede that the 2080 Ti is more expensive, everything else stayed the same or actually got cheaper, again they added a lot more tiers. I'll pull up MSRPs and everything and try to make a chart tonight to better illustrate my point that tiers have changed and people get hung up on that. Mid-range cards now are doing what flagships used to do. Especially if you take 1440p as a high resolution, more modern mid-range stuff like the 1660 Ti, 2060, 2060 Super, Vega 56, RX590 I'm pretty sure, GTX 1070, etc push 1440p60 fine. If you take only 4K as the modern high-res, then you've got the 2080 Ti, 2080, 2080 Super, 2070 Super, Radeon VII, and 1080 Ti as your modern flagships, and then you can argue that modern flagships cost more, but again you have to refuse to believe that tiers have changed, and ignore performance (and the fact that running 4K60 is quite a feat compared to 1080p60, which the lowest midrange cards do fine and low end cards can do decently). 

Sorry mate i don't understand what you are saying 

[Zando_]

1 minute ago, Vishera said:

Sorry mate i don't understand what you are saying 

The Vega 64 was the Flagship Vega card. It was $399 MSRP. Radeon VII is the only Vega II card, also the flagship so prices did hike there to $699 (but there was also a performance and efficiency jump, keeping relative cost probably about the same). The 5700 XT is the current Navi flagship and taking only the newest gen into account, thus AMD's current flagship. 

Meaning the current $399 AMD flagship is cheaper than the last one (the $699 Radeon VII) and the same price as the one before that (the $399 Vega 64), while performing better than the V64 and being more efficient and much cheaper than the RVII (it's only slightly slower as well IIRC). 

On the AMD side the flagship price really hasn't gone up. Compared to the $649 Fury X the 5700 XT is cheaper, compared to the $429 R9 390X it's cheaper, compared to the $549 290X it's cheaper, compared to the compared to the $499 7970 GHz Edition it's cheaper. AMD had a hike with the 290X and the Radeon VII, other than that they've stayed consistent or gotten cheaper. All while performing better as well. 

I've actually gotta work so I'll be able to do a rundown on Nvidia flagship pricing once I'm done with that. Also keep in mind this is only flagships, I'll need to do a midrange comparison later as well, but yet again they changed all the tiers up* so that will overcomplicate it. 

*Look at just Pascal vs Turing:
1030 - 1050 - 1050 Ti - 1060 3GB - 1060 6GB - 1070 - 1070 Ti - 1080 - 1080 Ti - Titan X
1650 - 1650 Ti is rumored - 1660 - 1660 Ti - 2060 - 2060 Super - 2070 - 2070 Super - 2080 - 2080 Super - 2080 Ti - Titan RTX

Can't tell me all the tiers didn't change, there's still a low end and flagships on the high end, but everything in the middle shuffled quite a bit, and this is just a single generation jump. 

[Zando_]

Here's my best efforts at a table for Nvidia cards from 2009-2019. Skipping wacky or OEM variants, going off launch price, or MSRP (if there were different versions with the same name then the lowest, other than for the 1060 where I used the 1060 6GB number) if available, most numbers were pulled from Wikipedia's pages because that's the best central source I could find, the rest by googling and looking at reviews, tracking down the MSRP or as close to it as possible that way. All prices converted to 2019 dollars to account for inflation. 

 

 

As you can see prices have gone up much higher in the past (the oddball 690 and the titans are the main offenders), they're high now but kind of in between the extremes, and mostly on the high end. Some cards are actually cheaper, for example the 1070 costs less than the 670 and 770 did, and only $50 more than the 970. 

This is all by price as well, if you factor in the performance improvements then new cards are much cheaper than old ones. 

@Vishera 

[Mathieu9836]

1 hour ago, Zando Bob said:

Here's my best efforts at a table for Nvidia cards from 2009-2019. Skipping wacky or OEM variants, going off launch price, or MSRP (if there were different versions with the same name then the lowest, other than for the 1060 where I used the 1060 6GB number) if available, most numbers were pulled from Wikipedia's pages because that's the best central source I could find, the rest by googling and looking at reviews, tracking down the MSRP or as close to it as possible that way. All prices converted to 2019 dollars to account for inflation. 

 

 

As you can see prices have gone up much higher in the past (the oddball 690 and the titans are the main offenders), they're high now but kind of in between the extremes, and mostly on the high end. Some cards are actually cheaper, for example the 1070 costs less than the 670 and 770 did, and only $50 more than the 970. 

This is all by price as well, if you factor in the performance improvements then new cards are much cheaper than old ones. 

@Vishera 

Do you realise the RTX 2080ti is in the Titan's territories?

[masethekiller]

See

Pretty easy to come to the conclusion that GPUs cost more.

 

All prices in 2019 US dollars:

 

980 Ti - $703 MSRP

1080 Ti - $732 MSRP 

2080 Ti - $1226 MSRP

 

It's a fairly significant price increase between the 10 series and 20 series generations. GPUs always get faster in each generation (1080 ti was faster than 980 ti)

 

That's my point. And every other computer product improves without huge price increases.  The "extra features" are largely marketing gimmicks that are used to peddle the price higher.

 

I think the other problem is computer building had been largely made easy and marketed to "gamers". Anyone can watch some YouTube video or read a guide. It used to be able something you have to figure out yourself. Which while only required a little still this kept out the dummies.

 

Almost every computer product has some heavily pushed "gaming" adjustment which does nothing or offers minor improvement. Same with super resolution which Linus even demonstrated in a blind test people couldn't tell the difference.  Unsophisticated buyers are pushing up prices. Probably more than limited competition.

 

[Firebird_Gaming]

I feel as if the reason these prices have gone up (especially on the Nvidia side) is because they see a market where they can simply use the word "gaming" and then ramp the price up $300 and they figure people will still need them anyway and most will shell out the extra $300. 

 

 

[masethekiller]

Yes exactly my point and the other thing about all this "gaming" marketing is it makes gamers look like idiots. I thought that's what's console games were for

[Mick Naughty]

Guess all the RnD tech should get cheaper. No point in bitching about it. Isn’t gonna change the price. 

[DarkflameZM]

On 10/11/2019 at 9:36 PM, Mick Naughty said:

They aren’t expensive. Consoles exist for a reason. 

 

On 10/11/2019 at 10:41 PM, Zando Bob said:

The Vega 64 was the Flagship Vega card. It was $399 MSRP. Radeon VII is the only Vega II card, also the flagship so prices did hike there to $699 (but there was also a performance and efficiency jump, keeping relative cost probably about the same). The 5700 XT is the current Navi flagship and taking only the newest gen into account, thus AMD's current flagship. 

Meaning the current $399 AMD flagship is cheaper than the last one (the $699 Radeon VII) and the same price as the one before that (the $399 Vega 64), while performing better than the V64 and being more efficient and much cheaper than the RVII (it's only slightly slower as well IIRC). 

On the AMD side the flagship price really hasn't gone up. Compared to the $649 Fury X the 5700 XT is cheaper, compared to the $429 R9 390X it's cheaper, compared to the $549 290X it's cheaper, compared to the compared to the $499 7970 GHz Edition it's cheaper. AMD had a hike with the 290X and the Radeon VII, other than that they've stayed consistent or gotten cheaper. All while performing better as well. 

I've actually gotta work so I'll be able to do a rundown on Nvidia flagship pricing once I'm done with that. Also keep in mind this is only flagships, I'll need to do a midrange comparison later as well, but yet again they changed all the tiers up* so that will overcomplicate it. 

*Look at just Pascal vs Turing:
1030 - 1050 - 1050 Ti - 1060 3GB - 1060 6GB - 1070 - 1070 Ti - 1080 - 1080 Ti - Titan X
1650 - 1650 Ti is rumored - 1660 - 1660 Ti - 2060 - 2060 Super - 2070 - 2070 Super - 2080 - 2080 Super - 2080 Ti - Titan RTX

Can't tell me all the tiers didn't change, there's still a low end and flagships on the high end, but everything in the middle shuffled quite a bit, and this is just a single generation jump. 

Indeed.

 

It is team green hat has gotten greedy.

 

Navi 10 in which the the 5700 / 5700 XT are based on are AMD's current mid-range cards however, Navi 20 (AMD high end cards) are due next year.

 

Even AMD mid-range cards have increased in price this year, in 2016, the RX 480 launched at £250, 5700 launched at £350.

[jones177]

To me prices were close to the same until I started using a 4k monitor.  Then there was a jump to around $700 but things did not go crazy until the 2080 ti.

 

Here is a list of all the cards I have bought since 1006.

 

2006  =  GIGABYTE GeForce 7950GT $322

2007  =  XFX PVT88PYDD4 GeForce 8800GT $316

          =   EVGA 320-P2-N815-AR GeForce 8800GTS $301 

2008  =  XFX PVT88GYDD4 GeForce 8800GTS $252 (The EVGA 8800GTS was RMAed and I thought it would not go though. It did.)

2009   =  EVGA GeForce GTX 260 Core 216 SC $205 (Bought this for the vram.)

2010  =  EVGA GeForce GTX 470 SC $349

2011 =   EVGA GeForce GTX 570 SC $370

2012 =  EVGA GeForce GTX 670 $420

2013 =  EVGA GeForce GTX 680 w/ Backplate 4GB $558 (vram for modded Skyrim)

2014 =  EVGA GeForce GTX 970 $352

2015 =  EVGA GeForce GTX 980 $579 (I bought a 4k monitor)

         =  EVGA GeForce GTX 980 Ti  SC+ $695 

2016 = EVGA GeForce GTX 980 Ti  SC+ $455 (For SLI)

         = EVGA GeForce GTX 1080 SC $657

         = GIGABYTE GeForce GTX 1080 XTREME Gaming Premium Pack $707 (Son's birthday present)

2017 = EVGA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti SC2 $760

         = EVGA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti SC2 $760

2018 = EVGA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti Black $657 (Son's birthday present)

         = EVGA GeForce RTX 2080 Ti XC $1200

2019 = EVGA GeForce RTX 2080 Ti FTW3 Ultra $1400
 

I have only bought the performance I needed and only went top end after purchasing a 4k monitor in 2015.

If I would have stayed at 1080p I would still be using my 2014 rig for the types of games I play.

 

The real culprits are the monitor companies and now the game developers.  

Even with a cheap 4k or 144hx 1440p monitor with a 2080 ti you feel like a GTX 470 at 1080p 60hz. You are just not powerful at the monitors refresh rate and that fuels the desire for more GPU power that costs more money. 

Now with releases like RDR2 I will probably have that potato feeling at 4k for a very long time.