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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cosmotic - Saturday, February 28, 2009 - link
How did you guys decide on the granularity for those two questions?If I was targeting the highest figure in any of those ranges or the lowest or the middle, the maximum spread using the highest flexibility is still just 2. Assuming people picked price points within the ranges given evenly and using the results people gave in their flexibility, you really didn't learn anything from asking the question on flexibility.
After reading the question I came up with the answer +100, but the highest option was 50!
Consider this: I was willing to spend $250 on a graphics card and when the 8800GTs were at $112, it was stupid not to buy one of those. It was well below my target price but the price/performance was so great, I would have been a moron to pick anything else. The people spending $20 less for 1/3rd the performance were also equally stupid. Are people really this inflexible when it comes to picking a graphics card?
strafejumper - Saturday, February 28, 2009 - link
i skimmed the articlereally all i think you need is a brief line and then the two questions
also the article can sometimes skew results.
"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."
you wouldn't think this would affect anything, but sometimes, lines like this actually can effect peoples answers to the questions.
no biggie though
reactor - Saturday, February 28, 2009 - link
I typically buy a new gpu every 2 years or so and try to stay under $300 unless there is a good deal at another price point(higher or lower).My main concern these days is that it can run modern games at 1080p with high/max details, and do hdmi out w/ audio.
DerekWilson - Saturday, February 28, 2009 - link
This describes my philosophy as well :-)I'm a fan of hooking my PC to my TV for gaming. I like big :-)
If I could afford a 2560x1600 monitor for personal use I'd totally be there, but I'll opt for a 50" 1080p TV over a smaller monitor.
i know, i know, i always complain about DPI ... i'd like smaller pixels everywhere, but >2x AA becomes increasingly useful with larger TV sized pixels :-)
spunlex - Saturday, February 28, 2009 - link
I think it is important to keep a distinctions between regular computer user, gamers, and people doing 3D modeling, because the demands are completely different. I liked the way you separated things in your christmas round up I like to se more of that, and more articles in $100-105 range. Although I do a faire bit of gaming and will spend up to $250 on a card, most of my friends who I would build computers for would not.spunlex - Saturday, February 28, 2009 - link
sorry about the typo, I meant $100-150DerekWilson - Saturday, February 28, 2009 - link
that would have been a good question to ask ... perhaps in a future poll we'll try to determine how much of our readership are PC gamers, console gamers, both, or neither ...faxon - Saturday, February 28, 2009 - link
thus far, when i have aimed at getting a new graphics card for gaming, my budget has landed somewhere in the $200-250 range (average). there are a couple instances when i have gone with less because thats all i needed at the time (HD4670 at 1240x1024 for quake wars?), but in general i aim for the kickers, since i like the pretty, but i dont want to have to upgrade every 6 months to keep it that way. usually the $200-250 cards are good for at least a year and a half to 2 years at at LEAST medium quality textures at 1650x1080 with maybe 8xAF 2xAA. it varies from game to game, but you get the picture. however, there have been times when i aimed my budget +/-$50 from my usual price range, like i will probably be doing when i upgrade my video card soon. assuming that there isnt anything new out by the time i do it, im going to be picking up an HD4850X2 2GB. the card may cost $40 more, but the extra performance over say an HD48701GB is insane. of course, at $8 an hour part time, that may be a little while, since i have other higher priority items on my plate first. if what im hearing is true, the HD5XXX series is coming out this summer. maybe i will look into picking up something from that, depending on the performance gains/$ the cards offerLazerFX - Saturday, February 28, 2009 - link
I tend to aim for £150 - £200 (UK Pricing), which works out to around $250. I'm quite flexible though, but I find that such pricing gives the best bang-for-the-buck; like the 1GB 8800GT Palit Overclocked card I've got now - runs 1920x1200 with no issues, but didn't break the bank.JustSomeDude - Saturday, February 28, 2009 - link
For a particular level of performance (i.e. 60fps, 1920x1200, full eye-candy) what is the cheapest way to get there. This will be different for different games, as well as being unobtainium for some games.