NVIDIA & AMD Won't Like This: GPU Price Creep, Greed, and Generational Stagnation

Like I said for years on here,AMD and Nvidia have been mucking around with naming,tiers,etc to hide the worse and worse progression,and price/performance improvements are stagnating. The entry level and mainstream has been affected the most,due to the realworld price inflation of each generation.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_m2i5hU9jM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_m2i5hU9jM

I love GN videos, but this one is poor. Comparing current card price to price of previous products in their final months is a not a great thing to do. And what entitlement do we have to expect improvement for free? I mean, looking at other products, like cars - they've often regressed in quality/performance lately, yet increased in price massively. Welcome to our current world, it's not controlled by NVidia/AMD.

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Originally Posted by kalniel

I love GN videos, but this one is poor. Comparing current card price to price of previous products in their final months is a not a great thing to do. And what entitlement do we have to expect improvement for free? I mean, looking at other products, like cars - they've often regressed in quality/performance lately, yet increased in price massively. Welcome to our current world, it's not controlled by NVidia/AMD.

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It really it isn't. I have tried telling you guys for years,to ignore naming and look at the difference between bottom and top. Also no I am sorry what entitlement do AMD/Nvidia have over consumers?? They depend on sales to survive so are entitled to ask for more?? I find it weird hardware enthusiasts keep defending AMD/Nvidia over price rises when outside PC hardware people are forcing the government to intervene in price rises elsewhere. Rich enthusiasts can't see what is happening to people I know who are mainstream/entry level PC builders - its not great for them as they have to keep stuff longer and longer.

Getting replacement parts then means they have to end up paying massive amounts more compared to a few years ago.

Even with cars have you missed the massive fines,and bad PR companies have gotten when they have screwed up.Or the fact this kind of criticism you see in this video is very common - just look at the bad PR around Tesla from some big channels.

Hardware enthusiasts are utterly spineless - AMD/Nvidia/Intel and many PC OEMs keep selling us items with faults,issues,etc and get away with it. They lie repeatedly about claims,but get away with it. Companies like VW lied about claims,and once it was exposed they got fined billions.

Price/performance has been regressing slowly for the last decade actually and that is what Steve has been saying. Many gamers just look at tiers,but when you look at the relative difference between mainstream/entry level GPUs,you can see the first two drop lower and lower,compared to 10~12 years ago.

Videos like this are important - they are not poor,they are important to educate gamers on what is happening. Or do you prefer,just for the tech press to put its head in the sand,and just keep quiet??

For what reason?? To defend the honour of a hobby you are emotionally invested in? Personally its good if the techpress shows these companies for what they are.

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Originally Posted by CAT-THE-FIFTH

I have tried telling you guys for years,to ignore naming and look at the difference between bottom and top.

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I don't think anyone here goes off naming so you're wasting your energy :p we determine value by performance/price.

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Also no I am sorry what entitlement do AMD/Nvidia have over consumers??

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None, just like we have no entitlement to get something better for the same price.

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I find it weird hardware enthusiasts keep defending AMD/Nvidia over price rises when outside PC hardware people are forcing the government to intervene in price rises elsewhere.

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I haven't seen any forcing of government to intervene in car price rises, or even a hint of it.

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Price/performance has been regressing slowly for the last decade actually and that is what Steve has been saying.

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No, he's saying price/performance increase is regressing. The only surprise is that he's surprised by it. It's already happened far worse outside of GPUs.

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Many gamers just look at tiers,but when you look at the relative difference between mainstream/entry level GPUs,you can see the first two drop lower and lower,compared to 10~12 years ago.

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Same thing happens for many products. Surely no-one is arguing that a product stack must remain fixed for ever?

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Originally Posted by kalniel

I don't think anyone here goes off naming so you're wasting your energy :p we determine value by performance/price.

None, just like we have no entitlement to get something better for the same price.

I haven't seen any forcing of government to intervene in car price rises, or even a hint of it.

No, he's saying price/performance increase is regressing. The only surprise is that he's surprised by it. It's already happened far worse outside of GPUs.

Same thing happens for many products. Surely no-one is arguing that a product stack must remain fixed for ever?

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I remember having these arguments with a few of you years ago when the Titan GPUs came out. I told you the percentage increases for entry level/mainstream over time would decrease,that mainstream GPUs would shift lower and lower down the stack,etc as these are more price constrained. That the mainstream would eventually shift higher and higher in price. It was all about upselling more and more expensive GPUs. That would be seen by showing how low down the stack mainstream GPUs were compared to the top. The effective "midpoint" was actually models much higher up.

Unlike the mostly rich enthusiasts on tech forums,I have seen firsthand how its screwed over those who are more financially constrained. Its meant waiting longer and longer for upgrades,and even when stuff needs to be replaced due to hardware failure the percentage increase is nowhere as high as you would expect,despite paying more. GPUs are by far the worst of all PC components,and CPUs are again heading that way.

Some tried the same weird arguments back then what I said would happen wouldn't happen,people were entitled,etc. Now,people are putting their heads in the sand as they defend those companies blindly. They are just like most enthusiasts,attacking consumers because they feel criticising tech companies they love so much is an attack on their hobby. Its become like a cult.

This mentality is the same with games when people like Jim Sterling pointed out the horrible practices,devs were being exposed to,and the horrible monetisation.He said certain things would happen,and well they have happened.

Yet,most of the PC gamers attacked people like him for years. People who criticised CDPR WRT to its work culture,etc got death threats. In the end all those people were correct and all the naysayers either shut up,or went on the offensive calling workers and gamers "entittled".

Its this mentality of burying all of this by older entrants which is utterly sad - younger people entering the arena should have an idea of how these companies act instead of just reinforcing the crappy behaviour they do. It means instead of people basically refusing to pay the price,they get the impression its "normal" and "you can't do anything about it" so you might as well pay 50% more for something,etc. Instead of saying this is sheer madness,don't buy it!

The moment that happens all these companies WILL give you more.

Gamers/PC Enthusiasts have become some of the most spineless consumers I have seen in my entire life. Its why the tech press is a shadow of itself - everytime tech journalists have tried to highlight the crappiness of what these companies are doing,you have legions of PCMR fanbois just attack them. Steve from Gamersnexus and Steve from Hardware Unboxed have had these problems,when they were trying to help the community. Jim from AdoredTV gave up for that reason. Jim Sterling got so much abuse from Gaming master race fans too.

They blindly defend the companies that define their hobby,even when these companies couldn't give two craps about them. Then using their massive entitlement complex feel everyone should just join in the apathetic cult to prop their favourite companies up.

As much as it is totally capitalistic for these companies to charge anything they want,its totally in my capitalistic rights to say my margins more important and they need to do better! ;) Or was what they did in the USSR,with the Lada fine,where you had apathically accept anything they made or do without criticism? All criticisms of the poor products had to be buried,etc. Because yeah those kinds of systems where companies cannot be criticised for making relatively poor products doesn't work.

I am happy Steve made this video,because the more the PCMR fans get uncomfortable about it the better. The more newer entrances also see how things are going,will hopefully make them more discerning consumers! ;)

You make some really valid points there Cat. PC gaming used to be a rare hobby, then it had some golden years when it became mainstream and now it's heading back to being more rare. One can't say it's been caused largely by GPU price increases though - it's more likely that component prices have increased generally as a result of PCs themselves not being as mainstream now as people use other devices like phones more and more instead. On top of that we have the current raw-component supply issues, compounded (and perhaps caused) by covid and the demand problem from miners.

And I don't think anyone involved in PCs is happy about any of the above.

But ontop of that, we've got the statement that Nvidia and AMD are taking advantage of the situation and increasing prices for a decreasing increase in performance. That's what I'm not sure is a 100% clear cut fair criticism. Rather, I'd challenge what the expectation is that we should expect things to continue as they did in the golden years. Challenging that is in no way a comment that it's good that PC has become less mainstream, or that the chip-shortage situation is anything other than problematic.

At the end of the day I think we're in agreement: If you don't think it's good value, don't buy it.

And I think that's the most common message people on Hexus get.

I wonder where the ceiling is for price, as like houses people just seem to be willing to pay more and more.

I think that PC's in general have been getting more and more expensive for quite a while. In the 90's they were bloody expensive even for a low end machine but they would year by year get cheaper and cheaper and you could get a very decent machine for £400 even around 2007 I feel. Then it seems that to get a computer at a similar level in the the stack you had to pay more from around 2012? With it steadily increasing over time. Now I feel where £400 in say 2007-8 use to be in the stack is now about £800-£1000 if not more. A lot would depend on peoples perception but what would be the Q6600 equivalent now?

The budget side of GPU's certainly have leapt in price in a short period of time and it feels like you are paying triple for cards with biscuit sized heat sinks and artificially limited connections. I certainly feel like some of the old architectures hang around in the bottom end a lot longer now, GT710 for example.

People seem to be willing to pay these prices though, I cant see either company letting them drop much going forward even if supply and cost drop right back down again. That is the new normal.

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Originally Posted by Kumagoro

I wonder where the ceiling is for price, as like houses people just seem to be willing to pay more and more.

I think that PC's in general have been getting more and more expensive for quite a while. In the 90's they were bloody expensive even for a low end machine but they would year by year get cheaper and cheaper and you could get a very decent machine for £400 even around 2007 I feel. Then it seems that to get a computer at a similar level in the the stack you had to pay more from around 2012? With it steadily increasing over time. Now I feel where £400 in say 2007-8 use to be in the stack is now about £800-£1000 if not more. A lot would depend on peoples perception but what would be the Q6600 equivalent now?

The budget side of GPU's certainly have leapt in price in a short period of time and it feels like you are paying triple for cards with biscuit sized heat sinks and artificially limited connections. I certainly feel like some of the old architectures hang around in the bottom end a lot longer now, GT710 for example.

People seem to be willing to pay these prices though, I cant see either company letting them drop much going forward even if supply and cost drop right back down again. That is the new normal.

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Agreed. I guess on the plus side PC gaming is at least a non-essential hobby, unlike having a house (or perhaps a car) so if I were to come down on the side of market regulation (above and beyond the existing) I'd probably prefer to see it on essentials first.

That aside, value is driven by what people think something is worth. So I can understand the wish for amplifying a viewpoint, for example, trying to get others to agree with your own valuation as ultimately that might make it more likely you'll get the value you believe in. And that's where discussion of value is really useful, but I think it's also fair to respect other people's valuations since (especially for luxury goods) I've got no right to expect my value is more correct than someone else's, as personally annoyed as I am that I can't have the latest and greatest myself.

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Originally Posted by CAT-THE-FIFTH

They lie repeatedly about claims,but get away with it. Companies like VW lied about claims,and once it was exposed they got fined billions.

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Oh come on, VW lied about mandatory air pollution requirements, and people living close to roads will have died as a result. Not slightly miffed people because they want something expensive, actual death.

I don't like the way Nvidia have steered the GPU market, but it isn't the same league.

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Originally Posted by DanceswithUnix

Oh come on, VW lied about mandatory air pollution requirements, and people living close to roads will have died as a result. Not slightly miffed people because they want something expensive, actual death.

I don't like the way Nvidia have steered the GPU market, but it isn't the same league.

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I said it not just for Nvidia,but a lot of tech companies such as Intel,AMD and Apple.

Car companies have been fined for lots of relatively small things - tell me the last time any of the large companies like Intel,have actually got around to paying any of their fines(being stuck in court does not count). Software companies get fined more than hardware companies.

You should see the amount of pollution these companies have left and how many countries had to clear the mess up. Everything from toxic spills,excessive air pollution,etc. Most of its buried from national news:
https://www.blueoregon.com/2015/11/i...little-secret/

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What is most baffling is that Intel is also requesting DEQ allow them to increase their CO2 emissions by 260% to 819,000 tons annually. That’s roughly 1.5 tons per minute! At 819,000 tons of CO2 Intel would become the 5th worst greenhouse gas emitter in the State on the scale of a utility-grade natural gas fired power plant.

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It makes you wonder how much pollution these companies are really contributing to.

Do you think AMD and Nvidia are doing environmental assessments for how much pollution their partners are making?? The amount of water the fabs use,etc?? Because surely shipping the parts around the world during production doesn't really seem like they actually care.

All these companies are doing is making hardware last less,by artificially crippling it and then making it harder to repair.

What do you think happens when AMD and Nvidia make mainstream hardware "weaker" it pushes people to upgrade quicker. That includes pushing useless unoptimised effects like RT,PhysX and Gameworks.

Its the same tactics Apple uses,to force people to upgrade quicker too. Make everything entry level/mainstream marginal so you change quicker.

That is why they are making so much money.

Have you even seen where a lot of old electronics ends up?? As environmental laws become stricter,the e-waste is exported abroad. Yes,in 3rd world countries where people are dying because of it. Most of these companies(Apple included) are quite happy to keep making more and more things,but never think of the massive environmental impact production has,let alone throwing stuff away has. Yet with all their record profits and margins why is it governments who have to take the burden of the environmental cleanups? More people probably have died from these companies than VW lying about emissions for a few years.

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Originally Posted by Kumagoro

A lot would depend on peoples perception but what would be the Q6600 equivalent now?

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Tricky one that.
Back when you could still buy components I set up a VR capable gaming machine so everyone in the house could use the Rift. That was a £80 Ryzen 2200G, a £140 8GB RX570 on an £80 B450 motherboard and something like £70 worth of DDR4. I had an SSD, case & psu spare, but still for the level of performance it seemed pretty good value.

But those parts just aren't available any more, or any equivalent. The top end stuff seems stupidly priced, and there just doesn't seem to be a low end any more. I've since put a Ryzen 3600 in there which made it way more responsive, and recently it got a 3060Ti gpu which in that one component roughly doubled the cost of the machine. That is just nuts.

Also,WRT to AMD's issues its not substrates because AMD has shown a massive increase in revenue,so its not a shortage of production overall. They took Huawei's allocations for 2020/2021 and decided to target 70K of the available 90K wafers for consoles. I think I can understand why they did this now. Wallstreet is obssessed about margins,and consoles will be lower margins. Sony and MS commission the volume so AMD gets cash upfront which they want. So IMHO,AMD compensated for the lower margin consoles,by making their GPUs and CPUs more expensive,since they knew they allocated less production anyway. It evens out.

There is also another thing - apparently Nvidia(and maybe AMD) have sold directly to miners,but Steve wasn't looking at street prices,but the RRPs.

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Originally Posted by kalniel

I don't think anyone here goes off naming so you're wasting your energy :p we determine value by performance/price.

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......and availability! :p

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Originally Posted by Iota

......and availability! :p

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Good point!

Actually my 'performance/price' was overly simplistic in general - there are a whole host of factors that people use to determine value - RMA process, environmental considerations etc. But among them I think Hexus users would put the model name on the box as one of the least deterministic of value.

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Originally Posted by kalniel

Good point!

Actually my 'performance/price' was overly simplistic in general - there are a whole host of factors that people use to determine value - RMA process, environmental considerations etc. But among them I think Hexus users would put the model name on the box as one of the least deterministic of value.

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Hexus users are not the majority of PC buyers though. That is the issue if you go into the realworld,and why what Nvidia/AMD have been doing over the last few years with their naming schemes is meant to confuse on purpose.

I have had to explain to non-techy gamers exactly what they need to get,and they started to realise how much things really cost now. A number realised just getting a console makes more sense now.

This is also the bigger issue with what people are getting for their money. If the top end was £500,and £200 GPU is basically in the middle of the performance stack. If the next generation is then 50% more expensive,the £200 GPU is now towards the bottom,and its the £350 GPU which is technically in the middle. If it then moves to £1000,its £450 in the middle.

To obfuscate this you seem more and more submodels being released.

This is what I told quite a few on here,back when the Titan GPUs dropped. The mainstream markets are price sensitive,but when the top moves up you are getting less and less improvements over time unless you match the % price increase.

When you help so many people with builds,you start to notice what is happening,especially if you bother to look at the percentage improvements over time. They are shrinking overall for most of the entry level and mainstream.

This is what Steve is pointing out and is an excellent and neutral piece. This is the sort of journalism the tech press should have been doing years and years ago,instead of accepting that people can find £100s of extra on things. Its focussed too much on the high end and has been oblivious to see what is happening.

Most people are going to buy depending on the budget they will replace like for like. Because most PC gamers are not going to know the ins and outs of performance,etc.

That is the reality of it. AMD/Nvidia/Intel have a history of trying to confuse people,with their naming and tiers.

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Originally Posted by CAT-THE-FIFTH

Hexus users are not the majority of PC buyers though. That is the issue if you go into the realworld,and why what Nvidia/AMD have been doing over the last few years with their naming schemes is meant to confuse on purpose.

This is also the bigger issue with what people are getting for their money. If the top end was £500,and £200 GPU is basically in the middle of the performance stack. If the next generation is then 50% more expensive,the £200 GPU is now towards the bottom,and its the £375 GPU which is technically in the middle. If it then moves to £1000,its £500 in the middle.

This is what I told quite a few on here,back when the Titan GPUs dropped. The mainstream markets are price sensitive,but when the top moves up you are getting less and less improvements over time unless you match the % price increase.

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Yeah, I don't know how much thought the wider market gives to a model number over performance, though I am at least relieved that both sides do occasionally lower model numbers rather than giving us AMD 100000000000000000 series GPUs!

I don't think one can use position in product stack as much of a comparison though - what if you bring out a new model targeted above or below your previous stack? This happens all the time - Audi brought out the A3, then the A1, below their previous car range for eg. Did that suddenly make the A4 and A6 perform better? Nope. When FIAT added Ferraris to the top of their product stack it similarly didn't make the rest of their cars suddenly perform worse (that might have been hard though :p).

A better way of comparing what you get for your money is actual performance in the real world - how well does it perform on the types of games that you play. And that can be a rolling target - if I play RPGs then I might want a card that one year could play Oblivion at near max settings at 1080p. Another year I might want a card that can play Skyrim at my preferred settings at 1440p and so on.

And performance in games is going to be determined by what the developers think the market will have by the time the game is released. So in some ways we should just buy the cards we want and by virtue of numbers devs will target the majority.