So here we are once again to find out what you guys think about some aspect of graphics hardware. In response to our recent articles on multiGPU scaling, set to conclude with a 4-way shootout coming soon, we have gotten a lot of feedback about cost and value.
Our attempt to distill some of the decision making process will always be clunky, as there is no perfect way to present all possible data. There is also no way to present any subset of data in all ways that would be relevant to everyone. So we've got to stick to producing a reasonable subset of data presented in a reasonable subset of forms to best assist our readership. And there's no better way to do that than to just ask you what you think about the subject. Hooray for polling.
While we may ask more specific questions in the future on methods, we are currently listening to any and all feedback left in the comments of our articles. We would also love to see some general comments on benchmark presentation on this blog post.
But the major purpose behind this particular poll isn't to determine the best way to display data. We starting at a more general point and will try to drill down in future polls. But for now, we would like to know how much both cost and value matter to our readers.
Obviously we spend a lot of time on the high end. It's an exciting market and even if we can't afford the parts it's neat to look at what will be affordable in about 18 months time. But we suspect that the majority of our readers, while interested in high end or even halo parts, will care much more about lower price points and bang for buck metrics.
We are interested in focusing more squarely on the market segments the majority of our readers are interested in, and we are also very interested in understanding just how value relates to the decision making process within those market segments.
We could make some extremely complex polls based on all this, but we've decided to try and keep it as simple as possible for now. The first question is straight forward. Rather than focusing on what vendor or what performance you want, we would like to know what your maximum budget for buying a new graphics card is when you upgrade.
The second question is a bit more complex. Basically, we want to know how much more /or/ less you are willing to spend if another part near your price offers significantly more value.
For instance, if you are considering part A and part B costs 10% more but your investment gains you more than 10%, will you break the bank a little and spend outside of your price range for the part B?
On the flip side, if you are considering part A and part B costs 10% less but performance drops less than 10%, will you choose to save some money to go with the part that might not perform exactly as high but gives you more for the money?
So, look at the first question as the price you are fixed on spending to get a specific level of performance. The second question modifies the first by asking how flexible you would be in the performance segment if you could get a better value by spending slightly more or slightly less.
I know, I know ... it's a little convoluted. But the alternative is a much more complex poll that associates price points with specific differences in performance and cost ... and I don't think we're ready for 100+ question polls ... We're certainly open to your suggestions on how to ask the right questions to get to the heart of this sort of data though. But for now, here's the poll.
{poll 122:1200}
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Demon-Xanth - Saturday, February 28, 2009 - link
I generally buy cards at the 150+/-40 point. It takes a great card for me to fork out $180, and a great bargain for $110.If I had to get a new card, I'd probably get either a 9800GTX+ 512MB ($150 before rebate) or a 9800GT 1GB ($150 before rebate) on nVidia's sideor be split between a 4870 512MB ($165 before rebate) and a 4850 1GB ($162, no rebate) on ATI's side.
The 4870 1GB's are too much, and the 4870 X2 and GTX260's are well out of my range at this time.
lplatypus - Saturday, February 28, 2009 - link
Noise and power consumption are more important to me than either price or performance. I tend to buy the fastest passively cooled GPU available (excluding the occasional power-hungry GPU with crazy big passive cooling which would require me to beef up case cooling).lplatypus - Saturday, February 28, 2009 - link
There are still interesting trade-offs, eg does this small increase in wattage give me a big increase in performance? Also idle power consumption is often more relevant than max power consumption (I can cope with a bit of extra noise when playing a game).W4R - Saturday, February 28, 2009 - link
The poll was hard for me to anwser. I always run more then one machine. Usuallly i have one thats armed to the teeth with bleeding edge hardware, and three others ranging from mainsteam to enuthist level gear.Example. Currently my main rig is a water cooled QX9650 running at 3.6 24/7 with a 4ghz profile in my bios mainly for crysis on a Evga 790i. 8 gigs of DDR3 1600 linked and sync'd, 2 intel SSD 80g MLC's raid 0, running recently installed 3 EVGA GTX 285 FTW's on a 1080P 42" display.
Ok yes i understand 90 percent of games get minimal gains if any at my resolution with these GPUs. For this rig i honestly care about the maximum visuals and filtering Vsync'd un the most demanding games with filtering vsynced when possible. So do i care if card number 3 losses me 15 frames overr 2 cards but i can still lock up my vsync. Who cares. They are frames my monitor never would have seen anyways. Now take a frame rate and drop below my 60...then i start to care. On this rig at least.
My last upgrade is an excellant example. I had 3 8800GTX's. The basically played ever game on the block maxed out with filtering at a factor of 8 save crysis until the release of Far cry 2 (could do max visuals but only 2x filtering and still vsync) . So for good reason i didn't see much point when the 280's hit a year ago to buy new cards as at the time only crysis could cripple my system and 3 280's at stock still wouldn't vsync crysis with any filtering. A stock 280 gives you like a 20% performance increase over a 8800GTX.
Only with far cry 2 and EVGA's new FTW's did my mind start to change. with such a high over clock the 285's by EVGA convinced me to upgrade...the first time i vsynced crysis at max setting and 8 filtering followed by the same on far cry 2. I stopped doubting my purchase. It was beautiful.
Now all my other systems...I still like high frame rates but its much more about bang for the buck. A Phenom II @3.6 with 3870X2 + 3870 tri-fire on a 28" 1920x1200. A Q9300 at 3ghz again with 3870's tri-fired on 52" 1080P doubling as a HTPC. Have no plans upgrading those cards/rigs tell Direct X 11. They are basically LAN machines for friends/family. Tri-fire for that series of card and resolutions works well in 95% of games with maxed out settings are possible with 4 to 8x fitlering.
Generally in terms of GPU's unless there is a game presently able to drop my main rig below 60fps...i find i need to upgrade every other GPU generation.
Ultimately i think every rig I build i do so with differant budget and frame rate in mind....though the later weighs heavily. No one likes playing crap frame rates with bad visuals. On the same note i don't need every rig i own to leave me gushing O negative to have me feeling satisfied with my gaming experience.
gochichi - Sunday, March 1, 2009 - link
Indeed. I mean, I'm less extreme... but it's the same concept. Main system I want most games to work great, but I become even more value conscious with other systems. And in particular, if things changed from how they are right now, I'd be willing to upgrade my main computer's power supply to say a 700W supply and add a $300 video card say (not with the current games and the current offerings but if things changed). But there's no way, I mean NONE that I'd have my other computers killing a bunch of electricity for the two or three times a month someone might use it for gaming.Other issues for me that's dear to me are noise level, hassle and driver compatibility. I run Ubuntu from time to time and SLI or crossfire "scares me".
StormyParis - Saturday, February 28, 2009 - link
It's funny (or rather... sad ?) and very revealing that the second question is also about price. Personally, I'm not willing extremely flexible on price, especially since a higher price generally actually lowers the perf/price ratio. There's a lot of money to be saved playing 2y old games on 2y old hardware.I am willing to spend more for quality, durability, stability, and silence. The first free are barely ever mentioned in reviews. Noise, for some reason, has made it. I've been repeatedly disappointed (stuff not working, becoming very noisy fast, bad service...) by Asus, which for some reason seems to have a sterling reputation with journalists, for example. I've never had a problem with Asrock, go figure.
gochichi - Sunday, March 1, 2009 - link
Yeah. I here you.All in all, I'm all about current yet fully established technology. I mean, my 8GB of DDR2 ram suits me just fine, I don't need 12GB of DDR3 RAM for four times the cost. Even the very act of trying to be a computer snob leaves me open to "value priced stuff" because what you just "had to have" last year is now available in an overall better package at a lower cost.
I think a healthy budget is where you can afford to update your equipment at that price every 18 months or so. Like if you're budget is $3000 for a desktop but you can only afford to do get a new one in five years... then you really couldn't afford the $3000 desktop to begin with . Even as improvements have cooled down somewhat because of decreased demand, I still think progress is quick. So, you're better off updating frequently, even the resale value of your used equipment is maximized at that time when it's still not quite obsolete.
JimmiG - Saturday, February 28, 2009 - link
I used to buy the $499+ cards but I've realized that I get just as much (or little) enjoyment out of my games using a $200 card.I am however flexible enough that I'd spend 25% more if that translated into a >25% performance improvement.
I think it's ridiculous the way the market is flooded with very similar cards that are only a few FPS apart and are also priced <$10 apart. Does the world really need one $149 card, one at $155, another at $169, another at $172 etc? Surely if you can afford a $149 card you can also afford a $169 card - it's the same market segment IMO.
I would have preferred if ATI and especially Nvidia had fewer cards in their lineups.
$99 for new pc gamers just coming from integrated
$199 for the mid-range/mainstream crowd (possibly also one at $149, but I personally feel that it's unnecessary - the $199 card would drop to the $149 - $169 price point soon enough anyway)
$299 for the enthusiasts
$499+ for those with more money than brains.
icrf - Saturday, February 28, 2009 - link
Agreed, but that's what makes these reviews so important. Options are good, especially if there's no clear winner, but having too many definitely complicates things.I'm a $200 GPU consumer, but I'll go up or down $50 to find the sweet spot. I'm not sure how to answer the questions based on that. I think I said $150-200 with a $50 swing, but I don't think I'd ever buy a $100 video card.
crimson117 - Sunday, March 1, 2009 - link
My friend picked up a 9800 GT for ~$100 three months ago; I think it was a great buy. I would have done the same had I not just bought an 8800GT in April 2008 for $200!