Nvidia GeForce Ampere graphics card countdown begins – 21 days

[Kovoet]

Since the demise of AMD we all knew the prices would go high. Guess we will have to live with it.

[Xlucine]

They normalised the 1000 quid graphics card, so I'm really curious how they are going to shaft us this time. I hope they at least include glitter to make it pretty.

Sprinkling some glitter into the card would be evil, as soon as the fans spun it'd get everywhere in your case

Gotta be honest, current GPU prices are actually not bad. It's just the RTX 2080 and 2080 TI that are extremely expensive because of Ray-tracing.

Much like 3D, SLI, VR, PhysX and other Nvidia crap in between, RTX will die off in the next generation. How do I know RTX will die off? PC games follow console tech, and since console tech doesn't have RTX, very few games will have proper RTX implementation, which makes it not worth the investment.

I for one am waiting on the new mid-high ranger (RTX 3700-3800 and RX6700 XT) so I can switch to 1440p 144hz.

The new xbox has DXR, ray tracing isn't going anywhere

[Spud1]

Gotta be honest, current GPU prices are actually not bad. It's just the RTX 2080 and 2080 TI that are extremely expensive because of Ray-tracing.

Much like 3D, SLI, VR, PhysX and other Nvidia crap in between, RTX will die off in the next generation. How do I know RTX will die off? PC games follow console tech, and since console tech doesn't have RTX, very few games will have proper RTX implementation, which makes it not worth the investment.

I for one am waiting on the new mid-high ranger (RTX 3700-3800 and RX6700 XT) so I can switch to 1440p 144hz.

The next gen consoles are implementing raytracing, so I don't think it will die off just yet. It's no where near the gimmick level of say 3D, or even VR (which is debatable as to whether that is even a gimmick anymore).

AMD are finally going to offer support for raytracing too this year, and given that it's baked into directx...i think we'll see more raytracing coming along (even if its poor implementations) rather than less.

[DanceswithUnix]

It's no where near the gimmick level of say 3D, or even VR (which is debatable as to whether that is even a gimmick anymore).

3D gaming is sort of a poor man's VR, and wasn't really good enough to take off. I think it is hard to pay Half Life Alyx and still call VR a gimmick though.

Ray tracing sounds nice, but it has to be very cheap for me to care about eye candy like that. Specially if it slows down my VR frame rate.

[jnutt]

I recon the 3070/super will be the sweet spot for me!

[Spreadie]

Time for some predictions again!

3080Ti = $1199 MRRP @ 40- 45% perf. increase over 2080Ti, raw compute, and 100% increase with full raytracing options enabled.
3080 = $849 MRRP @ 40- 45% perf. increase over 2080, in raw compute, and 100% increase with full raytracing options enabled. ~ 10% above 2080 Ti without raytracing
3070 = $649 MRRP @ 35-40% perf. increase over 2070 in raw compute, and 50-100% increase with full raytracing options enabled.
3060 = $449 MRRP @ 35-40% perf. increase over 2060 in raw compute, and 50-100% increase with full raytracing options enabled.

I think they're going to try and open up the performance range slightly, as the differences between 2060, and 2080 were relatively minor last gen, given their price differences. $400 for the RTX2060 vs $700 for the RTX2080, which equates to a 75% price increase for 30% performance bump...

I think you're going to be disappointed.

I'm betting we'll see a 25-30% increase at most, and probably another price bump in all those tiers.

[Percy1983]

The problem for me is performance pricing means upgrades don't work.

ie for years I could spend £250 on a mid-high GPU, a few years later get another mid-high GPU and get more performance (usually around the performance of the last gen top end).

Now my £250 gets me a mid-high, then mid, then low-mid and then low performance (basically tracking the same level of performance and just getting further behind).

I will say my PC is mostly specced for photo/video editing and then spending a little more than needed to game but it seems GPUs are slowly moving out of reach (what I can justify at least).

I really hope AMD can bring some competition back and don't join nvidias pricing structure.

[ik9000]

The problem for me is performance pricing means upgrades don't work.

ie for years I could spend £250 on a mid-high GPU, a few years later get another mid-high GPU and get more performance (usually around the performance of the last gen top end).

Now my £250 gets me a mid-high, then mid, then low-mid and then low performance (basically tracking the same level of performance and just getting further behind).

I will say my PC is mostly specced for photo/video editing and then spending a little more than needed to game but it seems GPUs are slowly moving out of reach (what I can justify at least).

I really hope AMD can bring some competition back and don't join nvidias pricing structure.

sadly the recent ryzen cpu RRP and associated mobo RRP suggests that if they get their stuff together they will join the high pricing, or near to it.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Time for some predictions again!

3080Ti = $1199 MRRP @ 40- 45% perf. increase over 2080Ti, raw compute, and 100% increase with full raytracing options enabled.
3080 = $849 MRRP @ 40- 45% perf. increase over 2080, in raw compute, and 100% increase with full raytracing options enabled. ~ 10% above 2080 Ti without raytracing
3070 = $649 MRRP @ 35-40% perf. increase over 2070 in raw compute, and 50-100% increase with full raytracing options enabled.
3060 = $449 MRRP @ 35-40% perf. increase over 2060 in raw compute, and 50-100% increase with full raytracing options enabled.

I think they're going to try and open up the performance range slightly, as the differences between 2060, and 2080 were relatively minor last gen, given their price differences. $400 for the RTX2060 vs $700 for the RTX2080, which equates to a 75% price increase for 30% performance bump...

£450 for a mainstream GPU. Also the RTX2070 Super went down to around £450ish before all these problems. The RTX2070 Super was around 1/3 faster than an RTX2060.

I think at this point,I might learn to stop hating controllers,and get a console.

The problem for me is performance pricing means upgrades don't work.

ie for years I could spend £250 on a mid-high GPU, a few years later get another mid-high GPU and get more performance (usually around the performance of the last gen top end).

Now my £250 gets me a mid-high, then mid, then low-mid and then low performance (basically tracking the same level of performance and just getting further behind).

I will say my PC is mostly specced for photo/video editing and then spending a little more than needed to game but it seems GPUs are slowly moving out of reach (what I can justify at least).

I really hope AMD can bring some competition back and don't join nvidias pricing structure.

Same here - my PC was specced so I could run some image editing and then with a few minor updates,it would also make a reasonable gaming PC.

I have never spent over £300 on a GPU(even adjusted for inflation in 2020 money),in 20 years. This is getting ridiculous - it seems gamers are just throwing money at these companies to jack prices up by massive inflationary amounts each year. They wouldn't be doing this if it wasn't working.....I hate to think what will happen if we get negative interest rates! More price increases!

[ik9000]

I paid £350 for a pair of v v quiet GTX460 for sli. I'm still running them now as singles in two different machines

edit: thinking about it this is part of the problem. Back then you paired cards for top $ performance. When the top tier was noisy and hot you could go lower and quiet and double up for a better compromise. Now it's all about single card to force higher end $$ and hence all the ti-super tiering too.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I paid £350 for a pair of v v quiet GTX460 for sli. I'm still running them now as singles in two different machines

A pair,not one though so £175 each. The GTX460 1GB was the third Nvidia GPU from the top(GTX480 and GTX470 were above it). Guess what the third Nvidia GPU from the top was for the last two generations?? The GTX1080(Titan and GTX1080TI above it) and the RTX2080 Super (Titan and RTX2080TI above it).

Edit!!

GTX460 1GB was $199 in 2010. That is $235 after inflation. £179 at the current exchange rates!

[DanceswithUnix]

A pair,not one though so £175 each.

That is an expensive one as well

ISTR my 2GB factory overclock GTX 460 was £180 and I thought I was pushing the boat out on that when standard 1GB cards had a street price of about £140.

Now you can buy an RX570 that will play most titles fine at 1080p (just not at the mental ultra settings) for sometimes as low as £125 which is something like 3.5 times faster than the old GTX 460, has modern displayport and HDMI/HDCP interfaces and lots more ram. There are budget options, it is just chasing the Ultra dragon that bites people.

[badass]

I see there are others here that can remember the £140 GFX card that could actually play modern games on release reasonably well. In fact I can remember getting some card that used tile based rendering costing less than £100 that was good enough way back. Must have been 15-20 years ago now. I believe inflation since then covers about 30% ish.

[DanceswithUnix]

I see there are others here that can remember the £140 GFX card that could actually play modern games on release reasonably well.

I had several. The standouts were:

4200 ti
6600GT
GTX 460 (though I paid a little more for twice the usual vram)
R9 285 (that was quite a good discount, usual street price was already heading up at that point).

I think the All in Wonder card was about that price too, but it could do video grabbing (better than its artefact ridden game rendering tbh) so was a bit of an oddball.

Which I guess is why, even allowing for inflation, I struggle to pay £200 for a GPU.

Edit: I'm trying to remember what my wife has had for video cards. I think the HD4670 was in that range.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

That is an expensive one as well

ISTR my 2GB factory overclock GTX 460 was £180 and I thought I was pushing the boat out on that when standard 1GB cards had a street price of about £140.

Now you can buy an RX570 that will play most titles fine at 1080p (just not at the mental ultra settings) for sometimes as low as £125 which is something like 3.5 times faster than the old GTX 460, has modern displayport and HDMI/HDCP interfaces and lots more ram. There are budget options, it is just chasing the Ultra dragon that bites people.

Also in the past you could go even cheaper if you wanted to drop settings. The fact is sub £200 would often get you two,maybe three tiers down from the top. More often that not,the mainstream GPUs of the new generation were close to the top end of the previous generation. Kepler is when things started to go wonky, with all the Titan rubbish,which was just a way of rebranding the top consumer GPUs,another tier above.

I had an RX470 and it struggled with certain games at qHD even a few years ago. But an RX470 was barely quicker than a GTX970/R9 290 which was not massively more expensive years earlier. It took 4.5 years to double GTX970($350) performance,in the form of the RTX2060 Super($400).

Now a £200 GTX1660 Super,is 10th down the tier of Nvidia GPUs. A GTX460 was 3rd. The 8800GT was 3rd/4th. Its no wonder games are slowing down in graphical improvements now. Even RT would be a total damp squib if it wasn't for the consoles.

[mtyson]

There is a special countdown page and blog post now, explaining a bit more about the thing.

https://www.nvidia.com/en-gb/geforce/special-event/

"Get ready for the #UltimateCountdown, concluding 9am PT on September 1st."