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> From a "value-based pricing" perspective a GPU that sells for $1600 and is utilized 10% of the time could be sold for $16,000 to someone who could keep it bu

> From a "value-based pricing" perspective a GPU that sells for $1600 and is utilized 10% of the time could be sold for $16,000 to someone who could keep it busy 100% of the time. Only if you (among other things) ignore the other costs and profit of the cloud gaming service. How much does continuously streaming 4k bandwidth alone cost over the life of a GPU?

Idiot_in_Vain 4y ago
>> How much does continuously streaming 4k bandwidth alone cost over the life of a GPU? Doesn't matter - the bandwidth used by an average user costs a small portion of a montly subscription fee. High prices for GPUs may be a good way to get more subsribers, who will pay a lot more money over the years.
- ClumsyPilot 4y ago
  > Doesn't matter - the bandwidth used by an average user costs a small portion of a montly subscription fee. Citation needed. > High prices for GPUs may be a good way to get more subsribers, who will pay a lot more money over the years. And they set price of both markets. Sounds like market manipulation to me.
  - Dylan16807 4y ago
    You can go into tons of datacenters and pay 10-20 cents per mbps in bulk. If we're using almost 40Mbps for each GPU then we're looking at $4-$8 of bandwidth. And this simplified scenario has 10 users per GPU on the 4k tier, I guess? That's $200 in subscription fees. And that's significantly understating the number of subscribers per GPU, if we're trying to pay off $16000.
    - leereeves 4y ago
      Ten subscribers per GPU means an average player can play at most 17 hours per week, even if the service can somehow load balance across time zones without unacceptable lag. Having significantly more subscribers wouldn't give each player much time to play.
      - Dylan16807 4y ago
        Yeah that was the scenario laid out, that an average player with a $1600 GPU would use it 10% of the time. Whatever you think the real numbers are, you probably need about half a subscription to pay the bandwidth. I'd be more concerned about the electricity bill, since you'd be in the ballpark of 200kWh a month.
        ClumsyPilot 4y ago
        > average player with a $1600 GPU would use it 10% of the time. Average driver uses car <5% of the time, but you can't replace 20 cars with 1 uber if everyone needs to get to work at 9 am
        Dylan16807 4y ago
        Sure, the model is too simple, but that doesn't change the ratio of gpu cost to bandwidth cost.
PaulHoule 4y ago
There is always a conflict in how people see costs you pay ahead of time (like laying in optic fiber) and costs you pay as you go (electricity, truck rolls, replacement costs of hardware for inferior infrastructure.) Firms have to to the capital markets for the first, where capitalists have choices about where to deploy their capital, but in a monopoly market firms can just tack the cost on the second to your bill.
eldenring 4y ago
I don't think the lifespan of a GPU is much of a bottleneck at all. If anything, for the last couple generations, GPUs have been in a race to get as much use out of them, before their generation becomes obsolete to Moore's law.

Idiot_in_Vain 4y ago

>> How much does continuously streaming 4k bandwidth alone cost over the life of a GPU? Doesn't matter - the bandwidth used by an average user costs a small portion of a montly subscription fee. High prices for GPUs may be a good way to get more subsribers, who will pay a lot more money over the years.

ClumsyPilot 4y ago
> Doesn't matter - the bandwidth used by an average user costs a small portion of a montly subscription fee. Citation needed. > High prices for GPUs may be a good way to get more subsribers, who will pay a lot more money over the years. And they set price of both markets. Sounds like market manipulation to me.
- Dylan16807 4y ago
  You can go into tons of datacenters and pay 10-20 cents per mbps in bulk. If we're using almost 40Mbps for each GPU then we're looking at $4-$8 of bandwidth. And this simplified scenario has 10 users per GPU on the 4k tier, I guess? That's $200 in subscription fees. And that's significantly understating the number of subscribers per GPU, if we're trying to pay off $16000.
  - leereeves 4y ago
    Ten subscribers per GPU means an average player can play at most 17 hours per week, even if the service can somehow load balance across time zones without unacceptable lag. Having significantly more subscribers wouldn't give each player much time to play.
    - Dylan16807 4y ago
      Yeah that was the scenario laid out, that an average player with a $1600 GPU would use it 10% of the time. Whatever you think the real numbers are, you probably need about half a subscription to pay the bandwidth. I'd be more concerned about the electricity bill, since you'd be in the ballpark of 200kWh a month.
      - ClumsyPilot 4y ago
        > average player with a $1600 GPU would use it 10% of the time. Average driver uses car <5% of the time, but you can't replace 20 cars with 1 uber if everyone needs to get to work at 9 am
        Dylan16807 4y ago
        Sure, the model is too simple, but that doesn't change the ratio of gpu cost to bandwidth cost.

PaulHoule 4y ago

There is always a conflict in how people see costs you pay ahead of time (like laying in optic fiber) and costs you pay as you go (electricity, truck rolls, replacement costs of hardware for inferior infrastructure.) Firms have to to the capital markets for the first, where capitalists have choices about where to deploy their capital, but in a monopoly market firms can just tack the cost on the second to your bill.

eldenring 4y ago

I don't think the lifespan of a GPU is much of a bottleneck at all. If anything, for the last couple generations, GPUs have been in a race to get as much use out of them, before their generation becomes obsolete to Moore's law.