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Within the market of discrete gaming GPUs, there has been a hierarchy from "low-" to "high-end" for decades -- since before integrated GPUs even existed. For al

by jrk 2y ago

Within the market of discrete gaming GPUs, there has been a hierarchy from "low-" to "high-end" for decades -- since before integrated GPUs even existed. For almost 20 years, things with 192- or 256-bit memory busses have been "mid-range" (vs. 384- or occasionally 512-bit memory busses at the high end, and smaller at the low-end). NVIDIA's "7"-tier GPUs have historically been the top of the mid-range in this world. Within this world "midrange" has been creeping upward not via big shifts in these fundamental characteristics but via: 1. Prices increasing steadily across the board, due to shortages and market power 2. Power budgets (and corresponding board/cooler sizes) increasing across the board The fundamentals (memory bus width -- still 256-bit; die size and performance relative to the top of the line) remain "mid-range" in exactly this same sense.

MrBuddyCasino 2y ago
Expressed differently: the memory bus and chip size of a 4070 is equivalent to a 3060, NOT a 3070. Nvidia has shifted its portfolio to the left, so they can charge more for a smaller chip. I suspect this is mostly due to increasing manufacturing costs, not (just) pricing power. This is also a reason why they are banking on AI upscalers to drive improvements in the future.
- xmodem 2y ago
  Put another way, they took the gains in technology and process improvements and banked them for themselves, releasing a new generation that achieves similar performance (in some cases worse) to last gen, albeit at an improved power envelope, at the same price as last gen, but that they have higher margins on. The fact they can do this speaks to the lack of competition in the GPU market at the midrange and up. Compare this to the CPU market, where we now have Intel and AMD giving it everything to leapfrog each other every 6-9 months. I don't begrudge nvidia wanting to spend a generation consolidating their market position - that's their right - just as it's mine to look at a GPU that performs roughly the same as one I bought 7 years ago at almost the same price and say "no thanks".
  - MrBuddyCasino 2y ago
    > releasing a new generation that achieves similar performance (in some cases worse) to last gen Afaik the new gen still manages to improve over the old one, albeit modestly, do you know of an example where is that not the case?
    - xmodem 2y ago
      See this GN review: https://youtu.be/WS0sfOb_sVM?t=666&si=Xt62b_2BfQM-fnuH https://youtu.be/WS0sfOb_sVM?t=666&si=Xt62b_2BfQM-fnuH Specifically, at 4K, the 3060 outperforms the 4060 in Cyberpunk. Most of the charts do show a gain, but I'd describe it as marginal rather than modest.
      - MrBuddyCasino 2y ago
        Yeah the smaller memory interface hurts at 4k, that is unfortunately to be expected. Raw rasterizer/raytracer power shouldn't regress It think.
  - dahart 2y ago
    > a GPU that performs roughly the same as one I bought 7 years ago Out of curiosity, which GPUs are you referring to, and how are you measuring or comparing perf?
    - xmodem 2y ago
      1080Ti vs 4060Ti. Factoring in nvidia's price creep and a worse exchange rate, the 4060Ti costs today roughly what I paid for my 1080Ti 7 years ago. I'm comparing perf by looking at sites likes userbenchmark and reading/watching reviews of newer cards. I'm running into games I can't play at a level that I'm happy with, but based on reviews I don't think a 4060 or 4060Ti would make a meaningful difference.
      - dahart 2y ago
        That’s a very tricky comparison at best, 3 gens up but 2 product lines down. Comparing 1060 to 4060, or 1080 to 4080 might be more fair, even accounting for the skew in product lines. I’m not sure how you’re doing the price comparison. 1080ti launched at $699 (with inflation that’s $870 today). The 4060ti launched at $399. Why does that seem the same to you? We’re in a ray tracing thread and for ray tracing, there’s no contest, the 4060ti wins there by a long way. UserBench says today the 4060ti is 17% faster for 20% lower price today, which is about 33% better perf per dollar… which interestingly tends to match their user score and sentiment. https://gpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Nvidia-RTX-4060-Ti-vs-Nvidia-GTX-1080-Ti/4149vs3918 https://gpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Nvidia-RTX-4060-Ti-vs-... Also worth noting that some old games are bottlenecked on the software, not on the GPU, so it’s not surprising to find a game that was around for the 1080 or before and doesn’t get any better with more modern GPUs. Comparing the 1080 to the 4080, fp32 perf went up ~5x, and due to Amdahl’s law, game benchmarks tend to see more like ~3x in overall system perf.

by jrk 2y ago

MrBuddyCasino 2y ago

Expressed differently: the memory bus and chip size of a 4070 is equivalent to a 3060, NOT a 3070. Nvidia has shifted its portfolio to the left, so they can charge more for a smaller chip. I suspect this is mostly due to increasing manufacturing costs, not (just) pricing power. This is also a reason why they are banking on AI upscalers to drive improvements in the future.

xmodem 2y ago
Put another way, they took the gains in technology and process improvements and banked them for themselves, releasing a new generation that achieves similar performance (in some cases worse) to last gen, albeit at an improved power envelope, at the same price as last gen, but that they have higher margins on. The fact they can do this speaks to the lack of competition in the GPU market at the midrange and up. Compare this to the CPU market, where we now have Intel and AMD giving it everything to leapfrog each other every 6-9 months. I don't begrudge nvidia wanting to spend a generation consolidating their market position - that's their right - just as it's mine to look at a GPU that performs roughly the same as one I bought 7 years ago at almost the same price and say "no thanks".
- MrBuddyCasino 2y ago
  > releasing a new generation that achieves similar performance (in some cases worse) to last gen Afaik the new gen still manages to improve over the old one, albeit modestly, do you know of an example where is that not the case?
  - xmodem 2y ago
    See this GN review: https://youtu.be/WS0sfOb_sVM?t=666&si=Xt62b_2BfQM-fnuH https://youtu.be/WS0sfOb_sVM?t=666&si=Xt62b_2BfQM-fnuH Specifically, at 4K, the 3060 outperforms the 4060 in Cyberpunk. Most of the charts do show a gain, but I'd describe it as marginal rather than modest.
    - MrBuddyCasino 2y ago
      Yeah the smaller memory interface hurts at 4k, that is unfortunately to be expected. Raw rasterizer/raytracer power shouldn't regress It think.
- dahart 2y ago
  > a GPU that performs roughly the same as one I bought 7 years ago Out of curiosity, which GPUs are you referring to, and how are you measuring or comparing perf?
  - xmodem 2y ago
    1080Ti vs 4060Ti. Factoring in nvidia's price creep and a worse exchange rate, the 4060Ti costs today roughly what I paid for my 1080Ti 7 years ago. I'm comparing perf by looking at sites likes userbenchmark and reading/watching reviews of newer cards. I'm running into games I can't play at a level that I'm happy with, but based on reviews I don't think a 4060 or 4060Ti would make a meaningful difference.
    - dahart 2y ago
      That’s a very tricky comparison at best, 3 gens up but 2 product lines down. Comparing 1060 to 4060, or 1080 to 4080 might be more fair, even accounting for the skew in product lines. I’m not sure how you’re doing the price comparison. 1080ti launched at $699 (with inflation that’s $870 today). The 4060ti launched at $399. Why does that seem the same to you? We’re in a ray tracing thread and for ray tracing, there’s no contest, the 4060ti wins there by a long way. UserBench says today the 4060ti is 17% faster for 20% lower price today, which is about 33% better perf per dollar… which interestingly tends to match their user score and sentiment. https://gpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Nvidia-RTX-4060-Ti-vs-Nvidia-GTX-1080-Ti/4149vs3918 https://gpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Nvidia-RTX-4060-Ti-vs-... Also worth noting that some old games are bottlenecked on the software, not on the GPU, so it’s not surprising to find a game that was around for the 1080 or before and doesn’t get any better with more modern GPUs. Comparing the 1080 to the 4080, fp32 perf went up ~5x, and due to Amdahl’s law, game benchmarks tend to see more like ~3x in overall system perf.