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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josh6079 - Saturday, February 28, 2009 - link
With what's out there today, I'd prefer to stay between $100-$150, +/- $15. Although, 1680x1050 is my resolution so I can afford to fall within that price segment. Had I a larger display, I would likely have to increase the amount I was willing to spend.KingstonU - Saturday, February 28, 2009 - link
I like the article and the simplified take on the poll. Just a small thought however: considering the the price different between a cheap card and the highest end cards is several hundred dollars, I think the choice increments of $5 in the 2nd question is a bit moot and should perhaps be something like +/- $10, $25, $50, $75, $100 and infinitely.I also like the idea of a poll on people's take on coupons and mail-in rebates and if they affect their purchase decision.
mindless1 - Saturday, February 28, 2009 - link
Agreed, I didn't know which price category to pick because often the after-rebate price of something I buy puts it into a lower category.Another question helpful in differentiating customer needs would aim to sort by non-gamer, infrequent gamer, and frequent gamer, though I suppose the non-gamer these days has little reason to buy a video card at all except for features instead of performance.
BigToque - Saturday, February 28, 2009 - link
I make a decent living, but in my opinion, no computer is really worth more than $500 (in the same way I feel no phone plan/internet plan is worth more than $20 per month).Am I willing to spend a little bit more if it gets me a little more performance? Sure, but I definitely have limits. I would never spend more than $200 on a video card.
I just use the internet, play music and watch movies. If I had an actual reason for needing a good video card (such as having an interest in working with any kind of 3D modeling) then I would certainly feel differently.
I just consider myself a "regular" computer user, with no special needs other then having a picture come on my screen without any major slowdowns.
As an aside, I am a console gamer. With my salary, I simply can not afford to keep buying the new parts required to play the newest games.
JPForums - Monday, March 2, 2009 - link
"As an aside, I am a console gamer. With my salary, I simply can not afford to keep buying the new parts required to play the newest games." (quote function doesn't seem to be working)I understand that there are valid reason to stick with console gaming, but price isn't nearly as clean cut as you imply. You said yourself that you are a regular user and $500 seems to be your target price. If you were wise in the purchase of said system, the cost of making such a system gamable is usually the cost of a decent video card. If you spend ~$150 for a Radeon 4850 or GeForce 9800GTX(+), you can get some pretty stellar gaming on reasonable monitors. I consider 1680x1050 monitors to be reasonable as the price jumps going to higher resolutions. Given your target price, I'd say you're looking at 1280x1024 or similar. If this is true you could spend even less on a card like a Radeon 4670 and still get good results. Of course you could also spend ~$250 on a GTX260+ or a Radeon 4870 1Gb and push games some modern games at max settings (sometimes even high AA levels) at resolutions of 2560x1600. If you need memory, 4Gb DDR2-1066 can be had for less than $50 (less for slower modules).
Now compare this to the price of a console. Consider that consoles max out at the graphics capability of an X1900XT/7800GT (XBOX360/PS3). Sure, the 360 utilizes 3 PowerPC cores for its CPU and the PS3 has the cell processor. However, only two of the three PPC cores in the 360 really get used in games. Further, the power of the cell currently only really shows value in blueray decode. By the time they make good use of these (if they can while being graphically limited) quad cores will be extremely cheap and much of the cpu load (I.E. physics) will be shifted to the video card anyways.
Now think about the price of games. In my experience, big release titles are 1/5 to 1/3 more expensive for console releases than PC releases, even for the same title (examples: Fallout 3/CoD:World at War/FEAR 2 PC:$43/$47/$45 360:$57/$57/$57). So even if you decide to spend a little more for upgrades, depending on how much you game and how long between upgrades, you can still spend less overall.
I have a system based on an Athlon64 X2 5600+ with 2Gb RAM and a Radeon 4850. This system allows me to max out C&C: Tiberium Wars, C&C: Red Alert, Stalker: SoC, and Stalker Clear Skies (DX9 as I'm using WindowsXP) on my 1680x1050 monitor (Far Cry 2 runs extremely well, too). I have a buddy with a single core P4-2.8GHz (no HT), 1Gb ram, and a Radeon 3670 ($80 at the time). I can still play Stalker (both) with full dynamic lighting and some settings scaled back on his monitor (1440x900 I think). It still looks good and is a very enjoyable experience. I could name a whole lot of cheaper systems that are used in the small LAN parties I host that are perfectly adequate for modern games.
Note: We typically playing Stalker, Tiberium Wars (tried Red Alert 3, but didn't like the system as much), FarCry (might switch to or add FarCry 2 when I can convince some people that FarCry isn't the end all be all), and even some old school Deus Ex. We would still play Generals if it weren't for the endless "sync errors".
The point is, you only have to upgrade your system if you feel the upgrade in gameplay is worth the money. I could have just stuck with my X1900XT and got almost exactly the same gameplay experience as an XBOX 360 (save control differences). With newer games, I'd just adjust the settings to my system. It would still look as good as comparable games on a 360. The situation is slightly more complicated for the PS3 due to developers having a harder time extracting performance, but it's still effectively the same situation. The beauty of the PC is that, if I deem it worth the cost, I can move beyond the current capability of consoles.
I have an old AthlonXP based system with a Radeon 9700Pro that I use as a spare in LAN parties (We use it for Tiberium Wars mostly). It still plays many modern games at low levels of detail. Sure the eye candy isn't as nice as my newer systems, but it is nice to still be able to play a modern game on a system that's around the age of the original Xbox. Try playing a 360 game on the original XBOX.
v12v12 - Wednesday, March 4, 2009 - link
Props and +1pt for that very detailed break down. See folks, this is the reason the Post-a-comment feature. If not, people read an article and just assume it's unbiased and exactly the way to go — until you read guy's comment above! Thanks bro!I personally won't purchase a card over $200, realistically $200 + MIR. The vid card industry has INFECTED PCs and now basically dominates/controls the industry. Note how PSU makers have directly catered to this ridiculous SLI crap. PSU prices have gone up, power requirements have risen, heat, noise, dust, blah blah all have increased b/c of POS "gaming" zombies... take all that money spent on fanboy upgrades and zealotry = could be taken a trip overseas, paid for certs, treat yourself to something in real life Vs colors on a screen... lol You noobs will learn when you get much older (some of you will never learn) all that time and money spent was in VAIN on an isolated, "experience!" Get off the tube/keyboard and save your cash.
BTW- Unplug yourselves and listen to Alex Jones INFOWARS: Distractions in the form of "entertainment" are keeping people stupid watching sports and "gaming," while people are robbing us all blind!
pourspeller - Monday, March 2, 2009 - link
+1 to JP on that.No offense to the original poster, but to say that you make a decent living, then follow it up with "can't afford PC gaming" is bizarre.
If you want your 360 to look even halfway decent, you must have a hi-def TV or monitor, so you could afford that. You can afford the more expensive games. What about the costs of Xbox Live service? And where can I pay less than $20 a month for decent high-speed internet access? Sign me up!
I've got an ancient athlon 3700+ and an 8800GT. Right now I'm playing Fallout 3 at high detail with HDR lighting etc. and it looks great at 1280x1040 or whatever the default is on my monitor. The GT cost me $120. Before that, I had a 7600GT that cost me about $110. I upgrade my card every 18 months and my PC every four years. No, I'm not a stickler for ultra-high graphics, but I've played 360 lots and I'm not missing out on anything. In fact, many times, I can customize the graphics to look better than the 360 version. Plus, I can login to Steam and play TF2 for FREE anytime I want.
Console gaming is great, but it's not really any cheaper than PC gaming, unless your talking about pushing the resolutions on the PC game well beyond anything a console can handle. And if you do that, you're comparing apples to oranges.
Exar3342 - Monday, March 2, 2009 - link
So I would assume you don't have a mobile phone and broadband is out of the question for you as these are generally >$20. For your needs, it doesn't even look like you need a computer. Get a $200 netbook to surn the net, watch movies on your TV, and use a stereo to listen to music.KingstonU - Saturday, February 28, 2009 - link
That's a popular point that for most people there is no reason to spend so much on a computer to do jut regular tasks. This is why Netbooks are emerging. (I wish they had Netbooks when I started university 4 years ago)For some people however, who do very intensive computing for their job or for fun, and time is money, then spending the extra few hundred dollars or even one thousand can be worthwhile if it saves them 1 hour a day, every day. Or if not money then it is time that could be spent doing other things.
ltcommanderdata - Saturday, February 28, 2009 - link
I guess this validates AMD's strategy of focusing on winning the mid-range ($150-$199) and performance ($200-$300) markets since that's where the customers are. Any breakthrough in the high-end would be a bonus given the small amount of capital put in up front. (A dual die HD4870 X2 is cheaper to come up with than a mega chip).