Predictions for what the 6xxx series will do to market prices?

[Emirzan]

I recently bought a GTX 460 (hand forced by a card failure) and a friend of mine has been rather impressed by the performance (as have I). He is pondering the same purchase, but asked me if I thought it was worth waiting until after the Radeon 6xxx cards will be out since this might bring prices down for cards like the Nvidia GTX 460.

I personally don't know what to say, does someone more knowledgeable have any thoughts?

[barker967]

I`d say it wont have that much effect on the price of the GTX460 as that card has already had a large price reduction, it will more than likely have more of an effect on the higher tier cards and especially the older 5000 series. IMO.

[scaryjim]

I'm inclined to think that the 6 series cards will end up costing pretty much the same as the 5 series cards they are nearest to in performance and that the overall market prices won't move that much. There's no pressure on AMD to produce a cheap card at the minute as the "bang for buck" between themselves and Nvidia is pretty close: at the minute no-one is seeing any pressure to drop prices as (presumably) all cards are selling pretty well.

The odd thing is that, if we are close to a new product line launch, there doesn't seem to be any significant slowing in supply of the incumbent cards. Ebuyer still has good stock of the 5750, 5770 and 5830, which are meant to be the product ranges in the 6770s firing line. I just don't see how it makes sense to launch a new range of cards at the minute...

[Emirzan]

Interesting, I was thinking the 460 seems a bit of bargain at the moment. Thought I might have been a little biased though seeing as I recently bought one.

[DanceswithUnix]

Well yesterday I got fed up of waiting and ordered a 2GB 460GTX as I needed to order a replacement CPU fan for the wife's PC and had to add something to the order to get the free Scan shipping

The 768MB cards seem a bargain atm, so I don't see them dropping much tbh. The 1GB/2GB cards have some room to come down, but not so much that it put me off (annoyingly the card I bought was 5 quid off on Today Only a week ago but I dont' see any point in waiting for a fiver).

The thing is, these are all on a now rather old 40nm silicon process and that kind of sets the price/performance. If the 6000 series is faster, then unless they got something wrong last time (which I don't believe they did) they can only get substantial performance by making the GPU die bigger and that makes the card cost more.

Wait a further generation and get 32nm/28nm silicon and things will change, but that means waiting quite a few months.

[jim]

Sooner or later they will drop, but there's not really any telling when.

As far as I'm concerned, the old rule always works.

If you need it now, buy the most suitable component you can afford. If you can wait, why are you worrying?

[scaryjim]

... I was thinking the 460 seems a bit of bargain at the moment. ...

It's a good card no doubt, but realistically it sits between the 5770 and 5850 in both performance and price, so there's no pressure on it to get cheaper, and no pressure from it to make AMDs prices move. The 5770 is already cheaper than it, and 5850 outperforms it so can afford to be more expensive (the 5830, incidentally, isn't really much of anything, and I'm ignoring it ). It has a performance and price segment all to itself. It's also nvidia's only compelling card at the minute: the lower GTS450 has almost identical performance and price to the 5750, the GTX470 and 480 have their own well documented issues in terms of price, performance, heat and noise. That makes for a generally flat market, with no pressure on anyone to change prices.

Let's also not forget that we're still crawling out of a global recession, so graphics cards are unlikely to go flying off the shelves, and also that the current batch of graphics cards don't provide a better performance / price ratio, in the UK at least, compared to the provious generation because the pound crashed during the recession pushing prices up again. As a result people who invested in AMD 4k series and nvidia Gxx 200 series graphics cards a couple of years ago probably aren't seeing much that would make them think about upgrading yet.

All in all, it's not really a good market situation for promoting price cutting, I'm afraid. We'll just have to wait and see what the 6 series brings when it comes out

[Zak33]

and with GTX260's selling second hand for about £70..... the range of price to performance options is staggeringly good.

[Rys]

I don't really agree with die size dictating price just now, but the end result of the real factors is much the same.

Wait a further generation and get 32nm/28nm silicon

Neither NV or ATI will do bulk manufacture at 32nm with their fab partners. TSMC don't have 32 so NV won't use it, and ATI are going straight to using 28 at GF too.

[DanceswithUnix]

Double post, thanks company firewall!

[DanceswithUnix]

I don't really agree with die size dictating price just now, but the end result of the real factors is much the same.

Neither NV or ATI will do bulk manufacture at 32nm with their fab partners. TSMC don't have 32 so NV won't use it, and ATI are going straight to using 28 at GF too.

lol, last I heard ATI were going to 28 bulk *at TSMC*.

28nm step has been bandied around, but then also Llano which will have 400/480 shaders implemented in 32nm will be out before long in which case *technically* that would be the next graphics card tech. Basically though the roadmaps have changed so much over the past year with rumours of different upcoming feature sizes and moves from TSMC to GF or not, I just don't believe a word of the rumours any more

I suspect after the joys at 40nm TSMC everyone will have a plan-B in place as well.

Interesting times

[Rys]

ATI will manufacture at both foundries