Nvidia start to price drop cards.

[jigger]

Finally Nvidia start to bring prices into the realms of reality but I don't think it's enough TBH, I would still go with AMD in just about every segment.

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/sho...php?t=18552568

http://www.techpowerup.com/192257/nv...r9-series.html

[GoodZE]

Pricing battles at its finest, I bet a load of people are going to start changing opinions now..

Intense.

[kalniel]

The 780 is about to be obseleted by the ti, but it's the 770 I think is the best card of the nVidia line up. Sadly, they agree, and the price cuts are tiny.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

The problem is the price cuts don't look enough,especially with the R9 290 looking to be well under £400. Moreover,custom cooled versions of both the R9 290 and R9 290X are also being released in the next few weeks and I expect them to have a decent improvement in performance over the current reference cards.

Having said that its hilarious how people on OcUK are saying the R9 series is finished because of the price cuts,because its slower(really??) than a GTX780. Hilarious TBH. Even though I own an Nvidia card myself,I do think some people who own Nvidia cards have got to be a marketeers wet dream.

The funny thing is Nvidia has realised the R9 290 is going to be a major thorn in the side,so this is why the price cuts have happened.

[dodgydrains]

Let the wars begin. I am looking to buy either R9 280X or GTX770. If the pricing of the 770 is in the same bracket as the 280X (£230-£250) then there is no competition.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Let the wars begin. I am looking to buy either R9 280X or GTX770. If the pricing of the 770 is in the same bracket as the 280X (£230-£250) then there is no competition.

TBH,I not entirely sure that is correct. The thing is that the £230+ R9 cards are already massive pre-overclocked,and the GTX770 cards are not.

You already get cards like this for example:

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/3gb-a...2xdl-dvi-plusf

That is a very high end pre-overclocked HD7970 for £240.Its slightly faster than an HD7970GE and has a very good cooler.

Then you have even faster pre-overclocked R9 280X cards for £240 and £260:

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/3gb-g...ms-dl-dvi-i-hd
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/3gb-s...reams-dvi-hdmi

The GTX770 has pretty much quite high baseclocks and since it uses non-deterministic boosting so if you do overclock,you will see bigger gains with the AMD cards including pre-overclocked cards. The AMD cards have tiny boost clocks whereas the Nvidia ones boost much more agressively,so in reality are running at a much higher clockspeed.
I can see this even with my GTX660.

This has lead to situations where if the cooling was not good enough,GTX660TI,GTX760 and Geforce Titan cards have had huge performance drops,as the boost has hardly activated.

Look at the TPU,HC and HT4U reviews of the HD7970GE against the GTX770:

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/N...TX_770/27.html



http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum...review-13.html



http://ht4u.net/reviews/2013/nvidia_...st/index43.php



Performance is very similar out of the box with reference GTX770 and HD7970GE cards. The thing is with the greater amount of VRAM and better gains from pre-overclocked cards,I see the HD7970 and R9 280X still being better value than the GTX770 and cheaper.

[Scainer]

94c for me rings alarms, causes the case temp to heat up and in turn causes the CPU to have cooling issues. Custom coolers will surely either maintain the heat with a higher clock (uber) or provide cooler running in (silent) mode. I just think these cards have been max'ed out to compete with nVidia and is a risk.
I feel disappointment with the R9 cards as I expected more and it feels like they are trying too hard. I just fear that the high temps are a cause for future problems. I had heat issues with a 9800 Pro and I just fear its going to repeat itself. Once bitten twice shy. Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice.....

[dodgydrains]

TBH,I not entirely sure that is correct. The thing is that the £230+ R9 cards are already massive pre-overclocked,and the GTX770 cards are not.

Are you saying that if the 770 price is dropped to the levels of the 280x then you would still buy the 280X? Or you cannot see nVidia reducing it that low?

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

94c for me rings alarms, causes the case temp to heat up and in turn causes the CPU to have cooling issues. Custom coolers will surely either maintain the heat with a higher clock (uber) or provide cooler running in (silent) mode. I just think these cards have been max'ed out to compete with nVidia and is a risk.
I feel disappointment with the R9 cards as I expected more and it feels like they are trying too hard. I just fear that the high temps are a cause for future problems. I had heat issues with a 9800 Pro and I just fear its going to repeat itself. Once bitten twice shy. Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice.....

My mate had a 9800 and it worked fine for years. TBF,the non-reference GTX480 cards seem to be OK too. Remember,the HD6970 and HD6990 ran hot too. It could be an issue for the R9 290X,but then I suppose we would need to look at the components used and see whether they are rated at high enough a temperature.

It could be worse. The bumps issue with certain GPUs from the G80 era was a worse problem,and yet people forget about how massive an issue it is. That was basically a cost cutting issue,and this is why I never was a fan of the reference GTX670 PCB. It looks very under engineered for such a graphics card,and more cost engineered, for its price and TDP class and this is why I always recommended ones with custom PCBs.

Are you saying that if the 770 price is dropped to the levels of the 280x then you would still buy the 280X? Or you cannot see nVidia reducing it that low?

I just see Nvidia pricing it at a premium for the better cards,compared to the 280X and HD7970. Even then,if it were my choice I would probably take the 7970/R9 280X over a GTX770. I see the extra VRAM being useful if games move to higher resolution textures and break the 2GB limit which is a possibility with the new generation consoles being released. You can already do that now ATM via 3rd party mods for some games.

Now of course,there might be games which you run,which work better on Nvidia,so that is another consideration too I suppose.

The thing is according to TPU power consumption is not much better either:

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/N...TX_770/25.html

The cards are not appreciably shorter either.

Don't get me wrong the GTX770 is a great card,and I am on a GTX660 myself(which I chose over similarly priced HD7850 cards),but I just think now with the improvements in cards designed around AMD Tahiti and the improved driver situation,the HD7970 and R9 280X cards are better buys IMHO of course.

[dodgydrains]

Don't get me wrong the GTX770 is a great card,and I am on a GTX660 myself(which I chose over similarly priced HD7850 cards),but I just think now with the improvements in cards designed around AMD Tahiti and the improved driver situation,the HD7970 and R9 280X cards are better buys IMHO of course.

I am extremely frustrated with nVidia and the firefox freeze issues they are having with drivers after 314.22 (mostly with Fermi cards, mine is an MSI 560ti). Now that the Gigabyte 770 is £260, I have no idea what to get. Back to doing more research......

http://www.ebuyer.com/510172-gigabyt...-gv-n770oc-2gd

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I am extremely frustrated with nVidia and the firefox freeze issues they are having with drivers after 314.22 (mostly with Fermi cards, mine is an MSI 560ti). Now that the Gigabyte 770 is £260, I have no idea what to do. Back to doing more research......

http://www.ebuyer.com/510172-gigabyt...-gv-n770oc-2gd

I had that issue with my GTX660 and FF. I didn't know it was a Nvidia driver problem!

I thought it was a FF being fail issue.

Edit!!

Good price on the GTX770.

However,you did miss the £210 Asus and MSI HD7970 cards two weeks ago. That was the peak of the price reduction in the HD7970 cards.

It might be interesting to see if AMD does a price cut themselves.

[dodgydrains]

I had that issue with my GTX660 and FF. I didn't know it was a Nvidia driver problem!

ManuelG (nVidia Forum Moderator) had admitted as such. They have been investigating for months and requested that I send my card for testing to help. As I live in the UK they could not arrange this. The system randomly freezes when idle or browsing with firefox.

Reverting back to 314.22 seemed to fix the problem for everyone.

[Scainer]

ManuelG (nVidia Forum Moderator) had admitted as such. They have been investigating for months and requested that I send my card for testing to help. As I live in the UK they could not arrange this. The system randomly freezes when idle or browsing with firefox.
Reverting back to 314.22 seemed to fix the problem for everyone.

I am convinced its a 2D power state issue. I've tried to get people to help themselves and at least test is out but its fallen on deaf ears.
I have been on 331.58 since the 22nd and had no disasters (to date), not tested today's release.

I came to my conclusion due to discovering the issue didn't happen after I added another monitor. The monitor runs at 120Hz and due to this the card remains at full state and doesn't reduce into 2D mode.

[Agrippa]

Here in Norway the GTX 780 has dropped by about a hundred quid and custom models like Windforce, Twin Frozer and such now cost the same as the reference 290X. That isn't nearly enough I think, unless you're a die-hard Nvidia fanboi. Personally I'd like to upgrade before X-mas and would ideally like a GTX 780, but there's no way I'll go with Nvidia unless it drops in price by at least another fifty.

Aiming for near price parity when your card is fairly seriously outmatched in terms of performance doesn't make it all that tempting....

[dodgydrains]

I am convinced its a 2D power state issue. I've tried to get people to help themselves and at least test is out but its fallen on deaf ears.
I have been on 331.58 since the 22nd and had no disasters (to date), not tested today's release.

I came to my conclusion due to discovering the issue didn't happen after I added another monitor. The monitor runs at 120Hz and due to this the card remains at full state and doesn't reduce into 2D mode.

You may be right, but should this not be something nVidia sort out at their end? Now people have proper alternatives with the release of the new AMD cards. Hopefully nVidia get their act together and sort this mess out.

[kalniel]

AMD also have issues with instability in low power states occasionally - it seems to be something very tricky to get right across the range of frequencies that different models use these days. It'll be fine for some driver versions, then break in another, but only in certain systems. It's not something that only one side suffers from.