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Technically, the RTX 4060 also has a 16GB version available ($450). As does the Intel Arc A770 ($320). What's amazing is I recall normally picking up a GPU for

Technically, the RTX 4060 also has a 16GB version available ($450). As does the Intel Arc A770 ($320). What's amazing is I recall normally picking up a GPU for $20, and ultra-premium-performance cards were <$200. Now, a $300 GPU is considered "budget." Premium cards in 1998: https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/comparison-graphics-cards-nvidia,96-13.html https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/comparison-graphics-car... Riva TNT. Literally the fastest consumer graphics card in 1998; best you could do short of splurging on an SGI. $116-$133. Cheapest GPU at my local computer store is now $55 or so, but it's based on Fermi and ancient. I can't imagine driver support much longer.... I miss those days. When did half a grand become "budget"?

zamadatix 3y ago
> Technically, the RTX 4060 also has a 16GB version available ($450) The article talks about the 16 GB variant of the RTX 4060 Ti for that price but I think the actual 4060 only has the single 8 GB variant. If you look more charitably on the present: "budget" is iGPUs in newer CPUs now being good enough we're back to no longer need a dedicated GPU to play current games comfortably at low-mid again. The less fun part of the present is really the price ceiling going way higher if you want to have the best.
- frognumber 3y ago
  I read the article before I posted this, but that doesn't fix the misleading headline (here or there). I don't look at this charitably. GPUs have several functions: 1) Driving monitors. If I want a dozen word processor windows open at the same time, I don't need a thousand CUDA cores, but I do need enough ports 2) Acceleration. This costs more money relative to CPUs today. Most people don't do much that requires this (although this might change with SD, LLMs, etc.) 3) Offloading bus load. Things like screen refresh, for an iGPU, requires constant access to main memory. On a GPU, there is dedicated graphics memory. A server showing a lock screen has constant bus load with an iGPU, but not with a dedicated graphics card. ... and so on. As a footnote, fundamentally, what I would prefer is an architecture where I have: * A normal frame buffer (of the type common in late nineties $20 graphics cards); * A dedicated accelerator (many NVidia cards for server use don't even have graphics ports; they're GPGPU-only); and * some kind of high-speed interconnect At this point, I'm not sure there's much connection between CUDA cores and driving a graphics port. Driving a 4k display at 60 frames per second is about 1 GBps (upper-case B), so it's not a lot of interconnect in 2020-terms for a framebuffer and an accelerator to talk to each other. Framebuffers ought to be simple and generic. There's no reason why GPU driver issues should introduce security or stability issues, or why I shouldn't be able to do multihead with different brands.
  - zamadatix 3y ago
    In what way is the headline misleading? The 4060 Ti is not a 4060 in the same way a Ryzen 7900 is not a Ryzen 7900X3D. The GPU you, and the article, mention is a completely separate model with a completely separate chip and drastically higher price. > 1) Driving monitors. If I want a dozen word processor windows open at the same time, I don't need a thousand CUDA cores, but I do need enough ports My iGPU compact desktop drives 4 monitors just fine. After that... you're not really in budget GPU territory. > 2) Acceleration. This costs more money relative to CPUs today. Most people don't do much that requires this (although this might change with SD, LLMs, etc.) iGPUs can do the same accelerations as dedicated GPUs these days. The difference is in whether it's part of the main SoC or a larger separate chip. As a further example the iGPUs in the MacBook even scale to being better consumer accelerators than mid-high range desktop GPUs for large models. > 3) Offloading bus load. Things like screen refresh, for an iGPU, requires constant access to main memory. On a GPU, there is dedicated graphics memory. A server showing a lock screen has constant bus load with an iGPU, but not with a dedicated graphics card. This I largely agree with, though as its impact on the overall measure of performance not an inherent requirement of a budget GPU. > As a footnote, fundamentally, what I would prefer is an architecture where I have: It's your preference so I'm not going to argue any of it is right or wrong but I'm curious what the value in having the output and accelerator as physically separate cards is. You can already do things like DisplayLink to output over arbitrary bus interfaces and you can indeed multi-head with different brands (works fine, doing it right now) so what's the value difference in the built in outputs being physically separated by some additional interconnect?
  - miga 3y ago
    Most power in a computer is spent on a bus. Most power within CPU is spent on internal bus and memory access. This interconnect between framebuffer and accelerator would limit the speed and eat lots of power, unless the framebuffer would be replicated by GPU during rendering. That is why GPUs normally have a small part that serves as framebuffer, but memory bus is shared with the accelerator that needs it most. Cheaper to reuse the expensive part.
snakeyjake 3y ago
Those cards weren't good. I know this because the Creative Graphics Blaster RIVA TNT was what I bought in late 1998 and I was broke in late 1998. A good setup in late 1998 was a fast VGA card with high quality VGA output like something from Matrox (or a Rage3D with DVD playback acceleration) and then one or two Voodoo2s ($300/ea). $300 in 1998 is $560 today. So a "good" setup in late-1998 would have been about $1300-1400 today.

zamadatix 3y ago

> Technically, the RTX 4060 also has a 16GB version available ($450) The article talks about the 16 GB variant of the RTX 4060 Ti for that price but I think the actual 4060 only has the single 8 GB variant. If you look more charitably on the present: "budget" is iGPUs in newer CPUs now being good enough we're back to no longer need a dedicated GPU to play current games comfortably at low-mid again. The less fun part of the present is really the price ceiling going way higher if you want to have the best.

frognumber 3y ago
I read the article before I posted this, but that doesn't fix the misleading headline (here or there). I don't look at this charitably. GPUs have several functions: 1) Driving monitors. If I want a dozen word processor windows open at the same time, I don't need a thousand CUDA cores, but I do need enough ports 2) Acceleration. This costs more money relative to CPUs today. Most people don't do much that requires this (although this might change with SD, LLMs, etc.) 3) Offloading bus load. Things like screen refresh, for an iGPU, requires constant access to main memory. On a GPU, there is dedicated graphics memory. A server showing a lock screen has constant bus load with an iGPU, but not with a dedicated graphics card. ... and so on. As a footnote, fundamentally, what I would prefer is an architecture where I have: * A normal frame buffer (of the type common in late nineties $20 graphics cards); * A dedicated accelerator (many NVidia cards for server use don't even have graphics ports; they're GPGPU-only); and * some kind of high-speed interconnect At this point, I'm not sure there's much connection between CUDA cores and driving a graphics port. Driving a 4k display at 60 frames per second is about 1 GBps (upper-case B), so it's not a lot of interconnect in 2020-terms for a framebuffer and an accelerator to talk to each other. Framebuffers ought to be simple and generic. There's no reason why GPU driver issues should introduce security or stability issues, or why I shouldn't be able to do multihead with different brands.
- zamadatix 3y ago
  In what way is the headline misleading? The 4060 Ti is not a 4060 in the same way a Ryzen 7900 is not a Ryzen 7900X3D. The GPU you, and the article, mention is a completely separate model with a completely separate chip and drastically higher price. > 1) Driving monitors. If I want a dozen word processor windows open at the same time, I don't need a thousand CUDA cores, but I do need enough ports My iGPU compact desktop drives 4 monitors just fine. After that... you're not really in budget GPU territory. > 2) Acceleration. This costs more money relative to CPUs today. Most people don't do much that requires this (although this might change with SD, LLMs, etc.) iGPUs can do the same accelerations as dedicated GPUs these days. The difference is in whether it's part of the main SoC or a larger separate chip. As a further example the iGPUs in the MacBook even scale to being better consumer accelerators than mid-high range desktop GPUs for large models. > 3) Offloading bus load. Things like screen refresh, for an iGPU, requires constant access to main memory. On a GPU, there is dedicated graphics memory. A server showing a lock screen has constant bus load with an iGPU, but not with a dedicated graphics card. This I largely agree with, though as its impact on the overall measure of performance not an inherent requirement of a budget GPU. > As a footnote, fundamentally, what I would prefer is an architecture where I have: It's your preference so I'm not going to argue any of it is right or wrong but I'm curious what the value in having the output and accelerator as physically separate cards is. You can already do things like DisplayLink to output over arbitrary bus interfaces and you can indeed multi-head with different brands (works fine, doing it right now) so what's the value difference in the built in outputs being physically separated by some additional interconnect?
- miga 3y ago
  Most power in a computer is spent on a bus. Most power within CPU is spent on internal bus and memory access. This interconnect between framebuffer and accelerator would limit the speed and eat lots of power, unless the framebuffer would be replicated by GPU during rendering. That is why GPUs normally have a small part that serves as framebuffer, but memory bus is shared with the accelerator that needs it most. Cheaper to reuse the expensive part.

snakeyjake 3y ago

Those cards weren't good. I know this because the Creative Graphics Blaster RIVA TNT was what I bought in late 1998 and I was broke in late 1998. A good setup in late 1998 was a fast VGA card with high quality VGA output like something from Matrox (or a Rage3D with DVD playback acceleration) and then one or two Voodoo2s ($300/ea). $300 in 1998 is $560 today. So a "good" setup in late-1998 would have been about $1300-1400 today.