ATI price cuts

[zmatt]

no, the GDDR3 used is about half as fast on the same bus width as GDDR5 is.
It is because of GDDR5 that AMD decided to use a 256-bit bus in the first place.

Exactly. GDDR5 gives ATI the ability to have high memory bandwidth, while keeping costs down. A wider memory data bus complicates the gpu, making it bigger, more expensive and hotter. Faster memory doesn't directly effect the gpu at all. That is why it is always smart to adopt new memory standards. Using GDDR3 puts Nvidia in a tight spot. To match the memory bandwidth of the 4870 they have to have double the data width of the 4870, which means the gpu and ultimately the card has a higher base cost. When you factor in adjustment for profits and so forth the Nvidia cards have a high set minimum "profitable" price than the ATI ones for this generation. In other words ATI can have cheaper cards than Nvidia and still make money.

 

[Ethan_Kaizer]

Exactly. GDDR5 gives ATI the ability to have high memory bandwidth, while keeping costs down. A wider memory data bus complicates the gpu, making it bigger, more expensive and hotter. Faster memory doesn't directly effect the gpu at all. That is why it is always smart to adopt new memory standards. Using GDDR3 puts Nvidia in a tight spot. To match the memory bandwidth of the 4870 they have to have double the data width of the 4870, which means the gpu and ultimately the card has a higher base cost. When you factor in adjustment for profits and so forth the Nvidia cards have a high set minimum "profitable" price than the ATI ones for this generation. In other words ATI can have cheaper cards than Nvidia and still make money.

Well this certainly makes the next few months/years interesting. Amazing graphics cards that can handle higher resolutions at sub-200 dollar prices is spectacular.

 

[tastegw]

Well this certainly makes the next few months/years interesting. Amazing graphics cards that can handle higher resolutions at sub-200 dollar prices is spectacular.

yes! imagine in about 2-3 years when you can buy a gtx 260/280 for less than $100

i remember when i got my 8800gts, i thought i was ****** ...those were well over $200 @ the time, now you can pick one up for less than a hundo.

 

[scrimstar]

Do you guys think the GTX295's prices will drop a lot? Like $350, because GTX260 216 cores might end up at around $175.. I 'm gonna feel guilty by then. =.=

 

[zmatt]

Video card price drops are dictated by the total cost of production with the desired profit added on top. If the cards are cheap enough to make then you can get away with major price cuts. Rumor is that Nvidia's gt200 cards are expensive to make for several reasons. This means that Nvidia can't lower the price as much as they would like to. I doubt we will see this version of the gt200 at $350 msrp. Used, I could see it down the road, but the chips will need to be much cheaper to make to justify the price. Otherwise Nvidia would be loosing money.

 

[scrimstar]

Why can ATi make the 4830, and 4850's so cheap with DDR3?

 

[zmatt]

They use GDDR3 not DDR3, GDDR3 has more in common with DDR2 hence the lower cost. They also use pretty small memory data buses.

 

[Kharn]

I would buy more ATi cards if they had better unix support, I know you can get them working but the whole process is not as quick as it is with nvidia cards.

 

[Apokalipse]

Faster memory doesn't directly effect the gpu at all.

It's important to a point;
It needs to be fast enough to feed the GPU with enough data/instructions at a time, so that the shaders don't have to wait too long doing nothing.
But if the GPU is being saturated with instructions, and none of the shaders are sitting idly, then faster memory isn't going to increase performance.

 

[zmatt]

It's important to a point;
It needs to be fast enough to feed the GPU with enough data/instructions at a time, so that the shaders don't have to wait too long doing nothing.
But if the GPU is being saturated with instructions, and none of the shaders are sitting idly, then faster memory isn't going to increase performance.

That's not what I mean. I;m saying that in reference to the cost of the gpu. using GDDR5 doesn't increase the cost of an R700 gpu at all, but using a 512bit bus does. In terms of performance memory speed has a profound effect as we can see in the benchmarks.