[Miksu]

TG Daily is reporting that Q3 2006 graphics cards sales are down over 12% from Q3 2005 and 4.4% down from Q2 2006.

The strongest graphics card market continues to be the performance segment between $200 and $300 with a unit share of 75%. Mainstream cards (below $200) accounted for 13% of units sold, followed by workstation cards (5%), enthusiast devices (4%) and entry-level cards (below $100, 3%).

[Graham]

I guess we are at a point where there (to the casual observer) seems little to justify spending up large on a new card. We don't have any half-life 2s, Doom 3s, etc.

Me? I'm happy with my x1800xl until a decent vista card hits. (*Sigh* this card was top of the line a year ago!)

If only I could upgrade my laptop. It's 6600 is by far the weakest link.

[Arun]

Those numbers are interesting - I'd like to mention that TG Daily is confusing unit shipments and revenue though. The revenue of entry-level stuff would be downright laughably low if these numbers would be accurate

Still, I'm surprised by the $200 to $300 segment. That certainly makes NVIDIA's strategy this gen quite ecnomically logical; G73 and G71 covered it nearly perfectly, and now that G73 dropped, it's just plain G71 ftw. ATI has been very nicely aggressive there with recent products too - I ponder how good their margins are though, but marketshare with 20-25% margins is better than no marketshare with 50% margins, definitely!


Uttar

[CaptainGinger]

Coincidently Valve is updating the steam survey right now.

After I sent my info in I took a look the current steam survey results and it seems ATI's current X1 series is being soundly out sold by Nvidia's 7 series equivalent cards.

NVIDIA GeForce 7600 : 26,027
ATI Radeon X1600 : 13,135

NVIDIA GeForce 7900 : 20,131
ATI Radeon X1900 : 8,198

NVIDIA GeForce 7950 : 6,701
ATI Radeon X1950 : 2,930

NVIDIA GeForce 8800 : 2,478

At the time of posting they have 671116 Unique Samples.

ATI must be hoping the R600 family does better.

[Geo]

Those are fairly ugly high-end numbers for AMD right there. 2.5-1 for GF7900 vs X1900? Ouch.

[Skrying]

The size of the 8800 group is rather weird there. Why is it so large already? Well, the survey does always target the crowd of those wanting to show off their rigs/being proud of the equipment they are using (Haha!).

[Acert93]

Originally Posted by CaptainGinger

At the time of posting they have 671116 Unique Samples.

I am always shocked (continually) how poor the average PC gamers hardware is. The listed GPUs cover a little over 10% of the market in the survey of users with Steam. I think the consoles will slowly improve the bottom end in the next 24 months in regards to what developers aim for, but after that will be holding back PC hardware for another 3 years. I think that is what has been happening to the PC to a degree. Lack of quality games on a regular basis to justify the hardware costs as well legacy hardware holding back development houses and the "Xbox1" effect where most games released in 2005 on the PC could have run in one form or another on an Xbox1. Seeing all the PC developers targetting the consoles with big franchises is slowly making PC gaming less enticing imo. Of course KB/MS, mods, ultra high end graphics, demos, free apps, niche game genres, and so forth keep many of us coming back, but I do wonder how the impact of so many "PC" titles getting console love (id's next game, C&C3, LotR:BFME2, Oblivion, etc) is impacting the market and thus GPU sales.

[digitalwanderer]

The strongest graphics card market continues to be the performance segment between $200 and $300 with a unit share of 75%.

Nice to see sanity prevailing at least.

[Skrying]

Originally Posted by Acert93

I am always shocked (continually) how poor the average PC gamers hardware is. The listed GPUs cover a little over 10% of the market in the survey of users with Steam. I think the consoles will slowly improve the bottom end in the next 24 months in regards to what developers aim for, but after that will be holding back PC hardware for another 3 years. I think that is what has been happening to the PC to a degree. Lack of quality games on a regular basis to justify the hardware costs as well legacy hardware holding back development houses and the "Xbox1" effect where most games released in 2005 on the PC could have run in one form or another on an Xbox1. Seeing all the PC developers targetting the consoles with big franchises is slowly making PC gaming less enticing imo. Of course KB/MS, mods, ultra high end graphics, demos, free apps, niche game genres, and so forth keep many of us coming back, but I do wonder how the impact of so many "PC" titles getting console love (id's next game, C&C3, LotR:BFME2, Oblivion, etc) is impacting the market and thus GPU sales.

There's also the reverse of that though. You mentioned the Xbox effect and I do believe that to be true to a point, but we're not heading into the 360 effect. With Microsoft's added support and tools to make the transition extremely easy we are seeing games that I would not have expected to come out on PC. I believe that the console effect comes into play towards the end of that consoles life in a negative form anyway. I fully expect a rebound from PC gaming, no it will never be "the" gaming platform for the mainstream but I do believe that it will grow a bit in the coming years.

[RobertR1]

GPU's are competing against 2 high end consoles and 1 very desierable one. And with GPU's, the return on investment seems to be getting lesser and lesser so more people get turned off even more.

For PC gaming to do well, DX10 really needs to come through on the effeciency side. What I mean by that is, when you get a new $300 GPU, it needs to have good performance for atleast a couple of years. Soon the 360 will be at $300 and if the new GPU is running at $300 but say a game like RB6:Vegas or SC-DA is still running better on the 360 than your brand spanking new $300 GPU, you're going to have a hard time convincing yourself to get the GPU. It's is NOT the smarter choice. That's really my take on PC gaming as of late. It's a money pit and that sorely needs to change.

The most alarming thing about valve survey is the amount of audience it captures. I'd say a fairly large chunk of PC gamers are exposed to Valve/Steam and to see those pitiful numbers is a shame.

[Skrying]

A large amount of Valve's gamers have low end hardware though. Was the server asked of everyone? For example what about people still playing good ole CS 1.6? These people tend to have extremely low end gear and there's still a decent amount of them. Or what about CS:S? That group has higher end hardware but because Source can run on damn near everything well a lot of people see no reason to upgrade. I always submit my information and the pop up came up after a game of CS:S, so I'm curious as to what segment of gamers this captures, the attitude of gamers it captures (some people do not like sending this information,etc). The Valve survey is however just about our best representation, if not that great of one.

I'm also of the thought that if you want to just play a game then the PC is not for you. The PC to me is about control. For example, where would CS:S be at on a console? Not so well, but probably not for the reasons you'd expect. Nearly every servers (I'd venture nearly 85%) out there for CS:S run a mod of some sorts, the vast majority running some type of admin mod, its very difficult finding a CS:S server without Mani Mod for example. This is what draws me into PC gaming still, its the fact that the gamers have control over the product once its on our PCs. I also generally believe that and the control scheme is why the high end market is very dedicated, if not that large.

[Supernatural]

Sorry to ask, but... how much 12% amount to?

I mean: how many DX9 graphics cards sell every year, and how many have sold till now?

[Maintank]

The steam surveys are run from the client or have been in my experience. It prompts if you want to participate, you click yes, and it lists your hardware for submission.

The numbers being down in the 3rd qtr doesnt surprise me that much. The next gen was on its way and time to clear inventory.

[Rangers]

Originally Posted by Maintank

The steam surveys are run from the client or have been in my experience. It prompts if you want to participate, you click yes, and it lists your hardware for submission.

The numbers being down in the 3rd qtr doesnt surprise me that much. The next gen was on its way and time to clear inventory.

So it's a voluntary survey, which means the results are more innaccurate..

Bummer.

[3dilettante]

Originally Posted by Rangers

So it's a voluntary survey, which means the results are more innaccurate..

Bummer.

How significant a factor would it be?
It's all of one click. Unless there's a big reason why one person would care more than the other, the distribution of opt-ins should be close to random.

Except for the ultra-high end rigs. The e-penis factor would probably make them over-represented.

[Skrying]

Its a bit more than just one click. You have to say if you have a microphone, tell your connection speed, and then it lists your specifications and you hit submit.

[poopypoo]

Originally Posted by 3dilettante

How significant a factor would it be?
It's all of one click. Unless there's a big reason why one person would care more than the other, the distribution of opt-ins should be close to random.

Except for the ultra-high end rigs. The e-penis factor would probably make them over-represented.

I think it's pretty significant. Not only is anyone who's purchased a graphics card more likely to be enthusiastic about getting support for it (which would seem to be the ultimate result of these surveys), but you have to factor in all those people with low-end hardware who don't even know what they have. There's a lot (the majority) of people who only know they have "a pentium".

As an aside, when I was a young kid, I'd fill out surveys for fun, and always lie on every detail. I'm not saying this is necessarily significant, but I bet it's not rare, either...

[Razor1]

Originally Posted by poopypoo

I think it's pretty significant. Not only is anyone who's purchased a graphics card more likely to be enthusiastic about getting support for it (which would seem to be the ultimate result of these surveys), but you have to factor in all those people with low-end hardware who don't even know what they have. There's a lot (the majority) of people who only know they have "a pentium".

As an aside, when I was a young kid, I'd fill out surveys for fun, and always lie on every detail. I'm not saying this is necessarily significant, but I bet it's not rare, either...

Can't really lie on this survay though the game already knows your system specs

[poopypoo]

Originally Posted by Razor1

Can't really lie on this survay though the game already knows your system specs

o lolz

[Cowboy X]

Originally Posted by Razor1

Can't really lie on this survay though the game already knows your system specs

Someone could be smart and defer doing the survey and even do it on another person's ultra-high end rig using their steam password . Or just throw some stuff that they have lying around into the rig and turn up the AA etc to unplayable settings , Valve would be none the wiser .


Well until they see a 128 mb FX5200 running at 1600X1200 with 6XAA , 16XAF and all of the possible goodies turned on .

[3dilettante]

Originally Posted by Cowboy X

Someone could be smart and defer doing the survey and even do it on another person's ultra-high end rig using their steam password . Or just throw some stuff that they have lying around into the rig and turn up the AA etc to unplayable settings , Valve would be none the wiser .


Well until they see a 128 mb FX5200 running at 1600X1200 with 6XAA , 16XAF and all of the possible goodies turned on .

How many people would care enough about a stupid survey to bother with all that, two?

[Cowboy X]

Originally Posted by 3dilettante

How many people would care enough about a stupid survey to bother with all that, two?

The number who would stoop to such may surprise you .

[trinibwoy]

Originally Posted by Cowboy X

The number who would stoop to such may surprise you .

Yeah maybe 3 or 4. What you've described is a lot of effort for absolutely no gain.

I'm not too surprised with the slow down in GPU sales.

• Two major console launches
• Few compelling titles
• DX10 "wait-and-see" mode in full effect

[Maintank]

Originally Posted by Cowboy X

The number who would stoop to such may surprise you .

Doubtful it is more than a handful. Most Steam surveys have thousands if not hundreds of thousands of submissions. Even if a few hundred bothered with such a convoluted plan, it would probably amount to needle in a haystack.

[CaptainGinger]

There seems to be some people in the R600 thread who find the steam survey unbelievable on account that its possible to falsify the information that is sent in. I question wether the numbers of people who might be interested in doing that would be significant in a survey of this size but everyone is entitled to thier own opinion. In the end wether these figures are absolutly accurate or not they are the best we have access too.

Looking at the survey right now it has 734435 Unique Samples.

Originally Posted by acert93

I am always shocked (continually) how poor the average PC gamers hardware is. The listed GPUs cover a little over 10% of the market in the survey of users with Steam.

I think lots of people who are interested in this 3d stuff find it hard to believe everyone isn't playing on the latest and greatest kit. Just take a look at all the reviews and coverage of SLI and Crossfire. How many people have such systems? Less than 1.5% of those surveyed according to steam, with the vast majority of those being SLI based. As a gamer though its nice to see that two thirds of those surveyed default to DirectX 9 Shader Model 2 Path on Source or higher (though I doubt they are all playable). Hopefully this will help push things forward a little.

Originally Posted by geo

Those are fairly ugly high-end numbers for AMD right there. 2.5-1 for GF7900 vs X1900? Ouch.

Its not getting any better with more results in either, current results...

NVIDIA GeForce 7600 : 29,030
ATI Radeon X1600 : 14,421
ATI Radeon X1650 : 1,273

NVIDIA GeForce 7900 : 22,064
ATI Radeon X1900 : 8,960

NVIDIA GeForce 7950 : 7,585
ATI Radeon X1950 : 3,510

NVIDIA GeForce 8800 : 3,040

The x1950 pro looks like a great card to me and yet the figures here are dissapointing. Its puzzling, obviously my opinion is in the minority here.