HELP 24 hours b4 BIG BUILD!!!

[fstroupe]

LOL....nVidia does not manufacture video cards, motherboards, or any other end product purchased by the consumer. How can you "price gouge" if you don't sell anything that "Joe" can buy?

Video cards cost pretty much the same now as they have for the past 6-7 years, like PrOLifIC_onE said. Actually, the "vanilla" models of the lower-end cards have been a little cheaper than a few years back. If you want the top-end newest card, you have always had to pay the big bucks.

You're also not able to get a card that's labeled by the scene as capable for any kind of 'serious' gaming in the current generation....

"labeled by the scene" is the key to that statement. Hardware manufacturers bank on the fact that people with endless budgets, rich parents, or get free review items, will make everyone else believe that if you don't have the newest, biggest, and best, you can't be a "serious gamer"...and that you should be ashamed to own the bottom end or the last generation.

Having a new rig that cost you 4 grand still won't keep you from getting your a$$ kicked on your favorite FPS. The difference now is that those people are telling you that you need the $600 card rather than the $300 one.

[Telexen]

Originally Posted by fstroupe

LOL....nVidia does not manufacture video cards, motherboards, or any other end product purchased by the consumer. How can you "price gouge" if you don't sell anything that "Joe" can buy?

Easily...nVidia charges licensing, charges for the GPU itself, and basically sets a base price for a card based on their reference design.

Originally Posted by fstroupe

Video cards cost pretty much the same now as they have for the past 6-7 years, like PrOLifIC_onE said. Actually, the "vanilla" models of the lower-end cards have been a little cheaper than a few years back. If you want the top-end newest card, you have always had to pay the big bucks.

I will again point you to the fact that the top end card right now is not far under $1000. Please show me a desktop gamer card with that pricetag in the GF2/3/4 era

Originally Posted by fstroupe

"labeled by the scene" is the key to that statement. Hardware manufacturers bank on the fact that people with endless budgets, rich parents, or get free review items, will make everyone else believe that if you don't have the newest, biggest, and best, you can't be a "serious gamer"...and that you should be ashamed to own the bottom end or the last generation.

Reread your second sentence in that paragraph. Is that not price gouging? ... Taking advantage of your customers because you know they'll pay it? But everyone who brings up a cheaper card is told, EVERYWHERE, "...if you want to play games, don't get that card...get this more expensive one." Just above yellowhello said you need an 8800 series card. Last I checked those pushed $300. My point was that the 8600GT is a little more affordable...and lets be honest - it IS an extremely powerful component - there should be no reason game designers be allowed to slop together code and force gamers to pay for faster cards because they didn't take time to do things properly. How else can a console last for several years?

[fstroupe]

Hmmm....didn't mean for this to be an arguement.

First, what is price gouging? Is Lexus price gouging...I mean, it doesn't cost Toyota that much more to build a Lexus than an Avalon. Or a Caddy over an Impala. Price gouging would be if everyone needed a video card, and every company sold them for 500%-1000% more than it cost for to research, develop, design, build, market, etc. There are plenty of other cards out there.

Its all market driven. As long as there are people out there willing to pay nearly a grand for the newest, biggest, best video card out there, that's what the price is gonna be. Yeah, guys like me, that have a hard time scraping up $300 for a new card are out of luck...but I can't afford a Lexus either.

And those people that buy those cards will always look down upon any lesser card, and tell everyone that they can't be a serious gamer without one, cause you gotta have a million fps with all settings maxxed, and an infinity symbol as a 3DMark score to be in their club. To be honest, I do just fine with my 7900GS, 7600GT, and 6600GT. Hell, the 8 series will probably be discontinued before I can swing one....though I will have to do something when Crysis comes out. :)

In 2002, the top end new ATI and nVidia cards launched at $499. That's all that the market would bear out, and I'm pretty sure that they didn't sell a helluva lot of them at that price. But there were a lot of guys that did buy them, and they snubbed my Radeon 9600Pro the same way that the 8500 and less is snubbed by them today.

Each generation since then launched at more than that. 5 years later, there are probably 100 times as many enthusiasts and gamers out there buying rigs, so there are lots of guys willing to pay those kinds of bucks.

Just above yellowhello said you need an 8800 series card. Last I checked those pushed $300. My point was that the 8600GT is a little more affordable...and lets be honest - it IS an extremely powerful component

My point exactly. Why do you need an 8800 series card? 'Cause someone that can afford one told you that you did.

What I'm trying to say, I guess, is that none of us have any idea what it cost nVidia and the manufacturers for R&D, design, labor, materials, tooling, marketing, and the fact that the card will eventually sell for less than 1/2 of what it does today. Don't blame them for the price...blame the guys willing to pay it, and telling you that you need to....and don't be ashamed that you can't afford one.

[Telexen]

No argument here...just a debate. :) Let me warn you I'm seeing double right now so if something I say here doesn't make sense - that's why.

First, I think with vehicles there's a obvious jump in a lot of fields that can determine it's price. Luxury, quality, power, features; so it's a little like apples vs oranges...but with video cards you're really only getting a relatively small increase in power. By relatively small - I mean that you're not going to go from lower resolution settings in the more affordable cards (we'll use an example of the 8600GT) to a high resolution with max settings in these DX10 games by spending the difference between a $150 card and a $750 one.

You really don't *need* that 8800 series card to play current gen games right now. Let me take this sentence to clarify, lets say I mean the 320mb 8800GTS when I say at least an 8800 series card, which I think is what I've seen slightly under $300 lately.

My biggest problem is the loop you can potentially dig yourself into by buying an 8600GT (because I've done it twice with the 6600gt and the 7600gt). When that GPU generation is new, that *600GT (this means this level of card from either of the 3 last generations, 6600,7600,8600) performs just fine because it's not really being used to any kind of it's potential - games are still designed on old software technologies. Then suddenly a game comes out only a few months later where you're forced to below 1024x768 - a rather medium-low end resolution - unless you're willing to turn quality settings mostly to low. Then you decide, "OK, well I see a pretty good deal I guess on this better card, that should let me play this game better."

So it comes down to it's not the video cards fault you can't play a game. These are all extremely powerful graphics processors. They ARE capable of producing graphics for games they just don't seem to handle well. They only have a problem because the game designers decided to take shortcuts while creating the game and not do a very good job of optimizing it and making it more playable (obviously this is often a business ended decision - game companies can't control their costs). The real proof in this theory is shown by the long lifespan gaming consoles have. The Xbox was supported officially for 7 years, a GPU equivalent to a GeForce3! My video card won't play my PC games for 7 years, I can't get close to that with any video card in my PC :(

So these games with sub-par optimizing and design are what's forcing the PC gaming community as a whole to constantly have to reinvest in new graphics cards to keep up with games - which is all in itself driving the market to new insane heights with every new generation of GPUs.

If nVidia and ATi are having a hard time controlling their costs and aren't profiting substantially then there's really a simple solution to cut costs - stop spending so much in R&D and production/testing costs then stop producing a new generation of products every several months! The costs for new fabs to support the newest geometries alone certainly hurt them. Something tells me they don't exactly want to do this though, because they've got us purchasing plenty to keep up with them.

[stinger608]

LOL, Ok, although very informative discussions on the prices of video cards both past and present, and lots of other hardware, this discussion has really kind of gotten of subject of what the author was asking

Lets please at least attempt to keep on subject