Why dont PC makers include good Video cards?

M

metallinikil

Newcomer
I was just checking out some current PCs and 90% have shitty video cards. Im talking ballsy PCs with 3ghz cpus and 512 ram. Its a wonder why people dont play PC games since they cant runa damn thing on their Intel 8xx or Prosavage garbage.

Its sad these people pay 1500 bucks and they get shit. Im not saying the other components arent good its just come on companies.

Also why dont graphics card makers have comercials show off their wares. Then people would request them maybe help offset the R&D expense. In those comercials they should put things like 3ghz piece of crap video vs 2 ghz monster Radeon 9800 running unreal upclose at 1600x1200!

People would get excited and buy it.:)
 
It's a conspiracy so that the graphic card makers can sell two boards for every PC sold since everybody has to upgrade it :D
But more seriously, pretty much the only thing which seems to sell PCs is how powerful the CPU is (and even worse, it's the MHz which counts!). Prebuilt systems NEVER skimp on the cpu, but (depending on the price of course) on everything else - intel must have done a good job with advertizing. People do not realize that a PC with a 3Ghz CPU won't be faster (well for games, but for most other things "the average joe" does with the PC - browsing, word etc it really doesn't matter at all if you have the top-end cpu or not) than one with a 2Ghz CPU if all you have is a 64bit FX 5200. And of course they don't realize that the system with a 2Ghz CPU and a 9600Pro instead of the 3Ghz CPU and the 9200SE would not only be cheaper, but way faster.
Selling by "CPU Mhz" is not a new phenonem, though. You could get prebuilt systems with a P4 2Ghz and 128MB sdram and before that other stupid configurations - always with way too much money spent on the cpu but lacking in other areas.

mczak
 
It strictly so the computer seller can advertise a lower price. Buyers can almost always upgrade.
 
Its sooooo incredibly STUPID. If I was Gateway's CEO I would release a bunch of ads destroying the MHZ myth and showing solid configurations maybe paralleling them to cars etc. AND THE GEEKS WILL SUPPORT ME!

What iratates me more is my friend has this 2400+AXP and he can barely run wolfenstein and yet because he spent hella money on his ECRAP he is too cheap to upgrade his Vcard.
 
When I sold computers for Dell, no one would ever upgrade the vidcard. Of course, I was in the busines division but I would say 90% of the calls were people getting the complete systems for $499. I had a hard time talking people into upgrading from 128mb of ram to 256mb. Some people just don't deserve a good system.
 
Not many people game, so it makes sense for major manufacturers to make merely functional graphics cards as standard. If you want to game, there's nothing stopping you from slapping in a faster card, but there's no sense if everyone paying for a 9600 or 5600.

FYI, my $50 (if the rebates come in...) 64MB 9100 gives me 55+fps average (via FRAPS) in Wolf: ET at 8x6 w/16xAF, all settings maxed (detail and 32-bit textures, 32-bit color depth, 24-bit z, etc, etc.). I wasn't using detail textures before, and turning them on was an incredible IQ increase. I don't think it affected my fps that much, either.
 
Ya but they mostly dont even give decent cards like I wouldnt say anything if they popped in a GFFX 5200 no but they are doing things like Prosavage 8 aka tech thast like 5 years old.

I mean really.
 
The FX5200 isn't cheap if you're selling thousands or even millions of PCs. $40-50 extra per PC will add up to a huge chunk of your bottom line.
 
$50 is 10% of a $500 PC.

10%.

Gross margins in the PC OEM business are around 15-20%, and in the budget sector probably more like, oh, 10%. Congratulations, you just made $0. And that's before operating costs.

Of course $50 is just the unit cost of a low-end discrete graphics card. You also have to pay someone to install it. And you've just introduced another point of failure. Congratulations, you've just increased your support costs. And increased the likelihood that the customer will get a system that won't boot out of the box, in which case they send it back to you (on your dime), you pay someone to diagnose the problem, you replace the graphics card (another $50), and send it back to them (again free). (That happened to a Gateway PC I bought once, BTW.)

All in all, the amortized cost of sticking in a cheapo discrete card is probably pushing $100, or 20% of that low-end PC. Meanwhile, the cost of an integrated chipset is roughly $4. In fact, if you go with one of those integrated chipsets that doesn't also include an AGP slot, you actually save about $8 at the chipset end, and possibly much more in the form of a complete motherboard.

Now. Are there people who pay a lot for a computer with a high-end CPU but crap integrated graphics? Sure. Some of them actually want to do this. There are other reasons for owning a fast computer than just playing games.

But those who don't can always, gasp, buy their own fricking graphics card. (Generally it's only the low-end budget machines that don't have an AGP slot.) If they buy online and install it themselves, they've just saved a lot of money (and gained a much better selection) over having the same card installed by the OEM. If they buy retail and have Best Buy install it, they're still not any worse off.

Integrated graphics are a good thing. They're not going away. And believe me, the PC OEMs are much better off with them.
 
You make a valid point but I say jack up the cost of a PC 50 bucks:)

Done problem solved. With education consumers will flock to those PCs.
 
Better video just ain't gonna happen on low ball PC's. Show me one buyer who cares about the video card and I'll show you 19 more that don't care.

The big PC makers advertise a fast CPU and 512MB Ram and a 120G hard drive because that's the numbers that count to most people. They have to cut corners elsewhere to get that 3.0 P-IV out the door at $500 bucks. No one looking for that ultra cheap PC cares if the Ram is SDRAM or the HD is a 5400 RPM unit instead of a faster 7200 RPM item. Or if the Video is a 2 -3 yr. old technology GF-4 MX. All they care about is the bottom line.

Why do I know this? Because I have a small business Building Custom PC's and I run up against it all the time. People expect Me to be able to give them the same thing. Pretty hard to do when I have to pay $94 just for an OEM copy of WinXP. Because of the huge price breaks the Big PC Makers get by buying 100,000 widgets at a time, there is no way for me to compete at the low end against Dell, HP, Compaq etc.

Most buyers aren't educated enough about PC's to know what's a Good part and what is not. As long as Ignorance prevails, They will continue to get Savage4, SiS, and MX video solutions. The bottom line is they are not great video cards, but they are adequate for "Joe Sixpack" who plays Solitaire and Trophy Deer Hunter.
 
Heh....;) $1500 is dirt cheap considering that the last OEM system I bought was in 1995 from Micron and cost me $4400 + (included external Jazz drives and scsi HD's and other stuff completely outmoded today) . Considering that cpu performance is way up since then, along with memory subsytems and buses, and that ram is comparatively "free" today (about 40-50x cheaper, not factoring in performance differences) and much faster and hard drive space is 100 of x larger, not to mention much faster as well...and considering how much better the OS's and software are today...$1500 is a steal of a deal...;) Especially considering the OEM software bundles--some of which are actually useful.

I guess that if everybody knew how easy it was to roll their own systems instead of buying prepackaged through an OEM, the big OEMs would all be out of the desktop business today...;) But....people buy them because by and large assembling a PC from off-the-shelf components is a complete mystery to them, and they like the warranties the OEMs provide. Of course, if you buy quality components you don't need to worry about such warranties--which of course is why the OEMs have been so liberal with them in the first place....;)

While the cost of higher-end 3D cards has not gone down like OEM system prices have, the capabilities of that 3D hardware have improved at least 100s of x in the last several years. It's all in your point of view, isn't it?
 
I guess the question is: why? Why do people need 3ghz p4s and flock to them but not give a crap about the graphics card? As has been said, for the vast majority of people, the only applications that will require that kind of power are games. Games work better with better video cards. I think the reality is that people don't have a fucking clue what they are buying. I've known very smart people wonder why their new Sony VIAO can't play Soldier of Forture II worth a crap. They were amazed when I explained it was the video card. Of course this is all anecdotal and I haven't done any research--maybe all these people want to crack codes and stuff. What the heck do I know :LOL:
 
TheMightyPuck said:
I guess the question is: why? Why do people need 3ghz p4s and flock to them but not give a crap about the graphics card? As has been said, for the vast majority of people, the only applications that will require that kind of power are games. Games work better with better video cards. I think the reality is that people don't have a fucking clue what they are buying. I've known very smart people wonder why their new Sony VIAO can't play Soldier of Forture II worth a crap. They were amazed when I explained it was the video card. Of course this is all anecdotal and I haven't done any research--maybe all these people want to crack codes and stuff. What the heck do I know :LOL:
Click to expand...

I think it stems from the same reason people buy OEM to begin with--they don't understand the various components in the boxes they buy and what they do. If they did--they'd build their own systems, certainly. Most of them I think would ask the question "What's a 3D card?"....;) All they know is that "the box" they buy is supposed to do this or that without really understanding the discrete components that go into the box to make it capable of doing what it does.
 
90% of the customers are just ignorant about computers. They don't care that computres today are $1000 versus $4000 6 years ago. I would venture to say most of these people buying today couldn't afford a computer when it was $4000 so this is their first experience pricing one out. They don't care if they have no agp slot or no upgrade path. They don't know that 128mb of ram is insufficent for running WINXP. They see the ad for $399 they want it and any upgrade suggested is an attempt to rip them off. I say give them what they want. How many people in these fourms get calls from family members complaining about how slow their computer is blah blah blah. That's why I refuse to build systems for family and friends. I send them to Dell so when their budget computer doesn't work like they want it to they have someone else to cry to.
 
The only thing that half counts on a graphics card to your average newbie pc buyer is the amount of vram, hence the 256mb editions of 9200 and FX5600 and possibly 5200 and 9600.
 
I mean if they are going to do integrated video I have no problem at least go Nforce 2 they still save a bundle. I mean really Sis 730S if they even went with a Xabre I wouldnt say anything. A Savage 4 based prosavage come on!!!! The difference in intergrated board costs would prolly be like 10 bucks oh well.
 
Because OEM's WANT you to upgrade, and ONLY upgrade through them, which is why they dont include agp slots in 90 percent of their comps and provide overpriced upgrade patshw when customizing computers
 
I hate to say this, but in my opinion it is cheaper to get an OEM box now. When I built my first machine you could build one with the same processor, obviously better MB, and same vid card, HD and so forth for cheaper. Now if you get a quality motherboard and other components the same OEM's are cheaper, that is why a cheap pc is no longer $1200, and is like $300.
 
It may be cheap to get an OEM box, but if you can't get the parts you want in an OEM box the savings aren't worth it.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

A
Full transcript of John Carmack's QuakeCon 2005 Keynote
3 4 5
Replies
98
Views
32K
nemisis
N
Back
Top