Nvidia GeForce RTX 50-series product value

[neckthrough]

The reality of the situation as seen from Microcenter is that 5070ti will realistically cost $900USD before tax with many models costing more.

I agree that this is an important concern. Value should be judged based on actual off-the-shelf prices. Scalping makes this difficult though.

The reality is that the 5070ti is a bad product.

Nope. That absolute statement is meaningless. What else can you get for said price TODAY (or in the near future, if you are waiting for AMD's offerings).

Price aside, it's a bad product because the performance gains when compared to it's predecessors historically is well below average.

Exactly. So it's bad value compared to your imagination of what a good product should be.

 

[DegustatoR]

So it's bad value compared to your imagination of what a good product should be.

And I mean that's fair, everyone can have their own opinions on something which is selling on the market. Some people may think that 5070Ti is bad value because it's not faster than 4090 or something - and because of that avoid buying it and get something else. The problem with this though is that "something else" won't be a GPU and will actually be something else completely. So in this sense it's "bad value" against a new sofa for the same price or a TV set for your living room.

 

[Boss]

Nope. That absolute statement is meaningless. What else can you get for said price TODAY (or in the near future, if you are waiting for AMD's offerings).

For $900 - $1000? Most people won't even be able to buy anything new at that price range because realistically speaking, the 5070ti won't be readily available. If you're willing to look on your local facebook market place, there are lots of options below that price. As for the 9070xt, we'll have to how the performance and pricing turns out. I'll be just as critical if they pull the same nonsense.

Exactly. So it's bad value compared to your imagination of what a good product should be.

No It's a bad product compared to historical average generational increases. That's not imaginary data and has been tracked by many many outlets. In fact, you can chart that yourself using the data available at tech power up.

 

[trinibwoy]

No It's a bad product compared to historical average generational increases.

Ok we get it. It doesn’t match up to prior generational leaps. I also miss the good all days. Now can you tell us why this matters to someone buying a card today? All of the raging is irrelevant without addressing this point.

 

[Boss]

Ok we get it. It doesn’t match up to prior generational leaps. I also miss the good all days. Now can you tell us why this matters to someone buying a card today? All of the raging is irrelevant without addressing this point.

You’re free to call it raging as much as you like but, the way you use the term raging, it’s more akin to a synonym of integrity.

I’m pleased to see that most reviewers didn’t compromise their integrity in attempt to paint the 5070ti as something that it’s not, which is good value, regardless of their preferences for GPU vendors.

It’s particularly important to track the data because it serves as a reference point to consumers to understand what value they’re receiving from their purchases. Having this data’s allows us to hold manufacturers accountable when they fail to meet the standards they set previously. It allows consumers to voice their displeasure while pointing to irrefutable data points that act as the foundation for the expression of displeasure.

If you purchased a 4000 series GPU, the 5000 series does not deliver a notable performance increase to consider upgrading.

If you purchased a 3000 series GPU and chose not to upgrade to the 4000 series, the 5000 series does not do much to improve the value proposition.

If you purchased a 2000 series GPU and chose not to upgrade to the 3000 series or 4000 series due to a perceived lack of value, the you almost certainly should ignore the 5000 series.

In this era of greedflation and low wage inflation, it’s important that reviewers represent a product truthfully to consumers.

If a company delivers a terrible product like the 5070ti, it’s not the consumers job to rationalize it away. It’s not our job to do mental gymnastics to explain why we should keep pumping Nvidia’s balance sheet at the expense of our wallets. The defence force on here for the 5070ti is frankly incredulous and far divorced from the value perspectives of the average person.

 

[Cappuccino]

I have my critiques of Nvidia but genuinely proposing that the 7900XTX is an equivalent product to literally anything Nvidia is selling is wild. DLSS alone means it’s almost never worth buying an AMD card. I cannot take anybody seriously that suggests that we evaluate AMD cards on a like for like basis, they might as well be different product categories lol.

That said, the 40 series brought a huge price increase across the stack and the 50 series basically continued it. Yeah, there’s no alternative, and within the parameters of the current market I’d probably recommend a 5070ti (or 5070). That doesn’t make it sting any less that 2020 brought us 2080 tier performance for under half price with the 3060ti and 2080ti performance for still under half price with the 3070. We are simply witnessing a great stagnation and price increase as process improvements cease to provide ‘free’ generational leaps.

 

[Cappuccino]

In this era of greedflation and low wage inflation, it’s important that reviewers represent a product truthfully to consumers.

Off topic but ‘greedflation’ isn’t real. Companies didn’t get ‘greedier’ in 2022 and beyond, they charged what the market would bear just as they did pre-2022.

Unfortunately a lot of people are simply being priced out of the market, due to rising demand.

 

[Boss]

Off topic but ‘greedflation’ isn’t real. Companies didn’t get ‘greedier’ in 2022 and beyond, they charged what the market would bear just as they did pre-2022.

Unfortunately a lot of people are simply being priced out of the market, due to rising demand.

No it's very real.... Greedflation. I work at a company that is very much guilty of greedflation. It's lead to an almost 4x increase in stock price in the last 2.5 years. While our revenue and profits have increased, my salary has only seen a 7% increase over that time period. If not for the bad tech market, I'd have already left to go get more money on the open market.

 

[trinibwoy]

If a company delivers a terrible product like the 5070ti

You have yet to provide any rationale for why someone purchasing a 5070 Ti for $750 is receiving a terrible product. It seems you’re willfully ignoring the use case of someone actually purchasing and using the card.

The average person as you put it doesn’t do in-depth historical analysis to determine value. I think you may be mistaken in your representations of how the average person shops for a graphics card.

 

[Boss]

You have yet to provide any rationale for why someone purchasing a 5070 Ti for $750 is receiving a terrible product. It seems you’re willfully ignoring the use case of someone actually purchasing and using the card.

Well if you ignore all the previous discussions, then I can see how there is no rationale why someone purchasing a 5070ti at $750 and receiving barely 4080 super performance at $1000 performance is terrible.

 

[trinibwoy]

Well if you ignore all the previous discussions, then I can see how there is no rationale why someone purchasing a 5070ti at $750 and receiving barely 4080 super performance at $1000 performance is terrible.

You keep saying it’s terrible but not explaining yourself. You came in hot accusing Rich of bias and misleading his readers. He made a simple claim that a 5070 TI for $750 is a good buy. You have not given any evidence to counter Rich’s position. Will a person purchasing a 5070 TI “today” receive a good product or not? All of the what ifs that require a time machine are not relevant.

 

[Subtlesnake]

If you purchased a 2000 series GPU and chose not to upgrade to the 3000 series or 4000 series due to a perceived lack of value, the you almost certainly should ignore the 5000 series.

The 5070 Ti delivers double the performance of the 2080 Ti, so I don't see why it wouldn't be a worthwhile upgrade. If the 3080 had offered this performance level at $750 (or even 999$, the launch price of the 2080 Ti), no one would have been complaining about the value, so the "complaint" must be in reference to some hypothetical world where new processes still allow the cost per transistor to halve each generation. How relevant is that hypothetical world to the one we actually live in?

 

[Albuquerque]

Even further to the point, a deep historical analysis would show us the era when transistor counts were in the single-digit millions, when lithography processes were in dozens or hundreds of microns, when PCBs were just three or maybe four layers deep, when power was in the double-digit watts and thermals were just bigger cast-aluminum heatsinks with single 80mm fans.

The modern era of high performance compute is nearing a rather serious collection of bottlenecks; lithography advancements has slowed dramatically, power densities are approaching (or maybe even exceeding) reasonable limits of air cooling, board complexity of an add-in GPU has eclipsed the complexity of entire motherboards from just a few years ago, and transistor counts of a modern GPU are literally what you might get out of an entire raised floor datacenter from a decade ago.

Trying to reflect on historical pricing takes literally none of this into account. "Oh it used to be cheaper to make chips!" has no bearing on the modern IC industry whatsoever.

 

[Florin]

The 5070 Ti is now clearly the card to get in the enthusiast space. It's got solid performance, a good amount of memory, and the most complete feature set.
It is well positioned at its MSRP but demand is likely to be very high for some months and so prices will certainly be inflated.

It makes a lot of sense to wait for 9070(XT) reviews to see how that stacks up. But if you see a good price on a 5070Ti right now you may as well go for it - it isn't likely to get cheaper any time soon, no matter how the 9070 turns out. And I think it's fair to say that previous RDNA releases always disappointed one way or another, so that's something to keep in mind.

The 4080(S) is comparable in most (but not all) ways so it is a sensible purchase IF you can get it at a reasonable discount.
The 7900XT(X) has nothing over either of them and no longer makes any sense for the average consumer unless it comes at a sizeable discount.

So that's where we are. If you were looking to spend under $1K on a solid, future proof GPU right now, this is the one.
Mock, grind your teeth, organize a consumer strike, do what you need to do to get it out of your system, but that's where we're at.

 

[Boss]

The 5070 Ti delivers double the performance of the 2080 Ti, so I don't see why it wouldn't be a worthwhile upgrade. If the 3080 had offered this performance level at $750 (or even 999$, the launch price of the 2080 Ti), no one would have been complaining about the value, so the "complaint" must be in reference to some hypothetical world where new processes still allow the cost per transistor to halve each generation. How relevant is that hypothetical world to the one we actually live in?

I'd argue that the type of person who would purchased a 2080TI would also have jumped at the 4090 which is 2.5x faster than the 2080ti......

Even further to the point, a deep historical analysis would show us the era when transistor counts were in the single-digit millions, when lithography processes were in dozens or hundreds of microns, when PCBs were just three or maybe four layers deep, when power was in the double-digit watts and thermals were just bigger cast-aluminum heatsinks with single 80mm fans.

The modern era of high performance compute is nearing a rather serious collection of bottlenecks; lithography advancements has slowed dramatically, power densities are approaching (or maybe even exceeding) reasonable limits of air cooling, board complexity of an add-in GPU has eclipsed the complexity of entire motherboards from just a few years ago, and transistor counts of a modern GPU are literally what you might get out of an entire raised floor datacenter from a decade ago.

Trying to reflect on historical pricing takes literally none of this into account. "Oh it used to be cheaper to make chips!" has no bearing on the modern IC industry whatsoever.

The problem with this argument is that you'd actually have a point if there was a 1 to 1 relationship between the rise in input costs and the rise in gpu prices. Where this argument falls flat on it's face is the fact that from just Jan 2020 to Jan 2025, Nvidia's gross margin has increased from ~62% to ~75%. People like to make this argument as they attempt to rationalize the rapid increases in prices of products from their favorite manufacturer and this argument has no legs. As I said earlier in a thread, I work in a company that is 100% guilty of greedflation. I know it when I see it and more importantly, I see it clearly when I look at their balance sheet and financial statements.

 

[Subtlesnake]

I'd argue that the type of person who would purchased a 2080TI would also have jumped at the 4090 which is 2.5x faster than the 2080ti......

For at least 60% more than the launch price of the 2080 Ti, which would only equate to a ~60% improvement at $999, scaled down. The 5070 Ti is considerably better value than that, even at $999. So the question is again, if you are a 2080 Ti owner, why wouldn't the 5070 Ti be a worthwhile upgrade?

 

[techuse]

At 750$ it’s solid by current standards. A 25% discount for 4080 tier performance.

At 900$ it’s lousy.

 

[Kaotik]

Last time doesn't matter. As much as we want to, last time != this time. Times have changed dramatically, due to silicon technology limitations and macro-economic conditions. Some of those conditions are local to the US, but unfortunately these things seem to transplant across the oceans. We can -- and do -- complain about these global issues (cue old man screaming at clouds), but specific product values need to be compared vs. what else is available contemporaneously.

To many if not most people it does matter, past experiences (including that last time) is something you compare it to, all of the actual changes in the world, technology etc that lead to what's available now are if not completely irrelevant, at least very little concern compared to that. Psychology is a funny thing.

It's totally fair to reserve judgment until AMD shows their hand, which we know will happen in a matter of days/weeks. If AMD comes out with some decent value plays, by all means, declare these offerings as poor value. It's also fair to compare vs. last-gen products that are still available on the market today. But the comparison has to be against something a prospective buyer can purchase today, or a handful of days in the near future. It doesn't make sense to any potential buyer to assess value by comparing against a historical generational uplift -- that's totally an imaginary and emotional benchmark.

I'm not judging the card one way or another, just bringing a perspective why some might not see it as good value.

 

[Boss]

For at least 60% more than the launch price of the 2080 Ti, which would only equate to a ~60% improvement at $999, scaled down. The 5070 Ti is considerably better value than that, even at $999. So the question is again, if you are a 2080 Ti owner, why wouldn't the 5070 Ti be a worthwhile upgrade?

The type of person that would purchase a 2080ti at launch is not a price sensitive customer in the first place. We've seen historically that those who buy high end products upgrade frequently. Now if this niche high end consumer that you hypothetically invented exists, then it's likely that they would have been just as enticed with the prospect of buying the 4080super last year at the exact same price that purchased their 2080ti. So if they chose not to buy a 4080 super at $1000, I don't see how a $900 -$1000 5070ti would change that narrative especially since we know the $750 price point is fake.

Then again, I think we both know the general buying patterns of those who purchase high end gpus and they don't traditionally align with the scenario you've presented.

 

[Cappuccino]

No it's very real.... Greedflation. I work at a company that is very much guilty of greedflation. It's lead to an almost 4x increase in stock price in the last 2.5 years. While our revenue and profits have increased, my salary has only seen a 7% increase over that time period. If not for the bad tech market, I'd have already left to go get more money on the open market.

The header of that article that it’s “neutrality is in question” lol.

Your salary not going up 1:1 with company revenue is not only not ‘greedflation’, that’s not even what inflation is.

To bring it back to GPUs: there’s no malevolent force that’s making them more expensive, it’s just that people are willing to pay more for GPUs now than they did 6-8 years ago.