This site may earn affiliate commissions from the links on this page. Terms of use.

NV-vs-AMD Nvidia

Whenever AMD and Nvidia launch a new GPU family, there's always at least a few weeks of uncertain pricing and express availability. Early on shortages and brusque-term higher prices don't hateful much in the grand scheme of things, which is why near review sites keep a casual eye on store shelves, but don't stay laser-focused on the issue. Now that the 14/16nm refresh cycle is essentially consummate (at to the lowest degree for at present), it'southward time to take stock of where the market is — and it's non good.

More than three months afterward Nvidia officially kicked things off, GPU prices are however running hot. While the particulars vary, many of the products AMD and Nvidia take introduced are sitting significantly above their suggested MSRP (Manufacturer's Suggested Retail Cost) or SEP (Suggested E-Tail Pricing) price point. In some cases, this price-warping is enough to require rethinking whether purchase a given GPU or switch to a different model.

Methodology

All of the pricing data below is fatigued from NowInStock.net. Because NIS is an up-to-the-minute tracker, nosotros cannot guarantee that the exact in-stock notifications we saw when writing this story will correspond to what you encounter when you read information technology. Our price information is based solely on cards listed equally in-stock for all of the given GPU SKUs at the time of writing.

Note: GPUs with extensive aftermarket modification, similar h2o cooling plates, were omitted from this comparing. These cards tend to exist $100 to $200 more expensive than comparative air-cooled cards and would inflate our boilerplate cost calculations. In a few cases, we were unable to compare pricing confronting MSRP/SEP because no public SEP for certain GPU RAM configurations has been published.

Because GPU manufacturers have always built a multifariousness of SKUs to address various market segments, we expected to meet GPU average selling prices that were higher up the MSRP / SEP. We've likewise included information on the best-case price for a given GPU to account for this. Full general availability has improved compared to before this summer; all of the GPUs we'll hash out beneath had at least several SKUs in stock around the country. Nosotros'll break things down by manufacturer first, then compare their relative positions.

AMD'southward 14nm RX family

AMD introduced 3 new GPUs this summertime: RX 460, RX 470, and RX 480. SEP for the RX 460 was $109 (AMD never specified if this was for the 2GB or 4GB variant), the RX 470 4GB was supposed to be $179, and the RX 480 came in at $200 for a 4GB menu and $239 for an 8GB bill of fare.

PowerColor's $109 RX 460

PowerColor's $109 RX 460

At the low-end, at that place's a single 2GB RX 460 at $109, merely given the RX 460'southward performance, that's really where the 4GB GPU ought to sit down. Performance-wise, the RX 460 is generally faster than the GTX 750 Ti, but is slower than the GTX 950 in DX11 titles. The least expensive RX 460 4GB GPU we saw was $129, and the low-end GTX 950 at $139 is arguably a better value. At $109, a 4GB RX 460 has legs. At $129, it doesn't. Average price on the 4GB RX 460 was $140, which puts it firmly in GTX 950 territory.

RX470

Specs on the RX 470. Toll inflation has left this GPU covering what's supposed to be the RX 480's market.

The RX 470 is supposed to sell for $179; the least expensive RX 470 we found was $199, which is where the RX 480 4GB is supposed to sit down. The 8GB RX 480 is consistently about xiii% faster than the 4GB RX 470 — knock off a few percent for the divergence in memory speed, and the RX 480 4GB should be 7-10% faster than the RX 470 4GB that's sitting in its toll bracket. Boilerplate selling price for the RX 470 4GB variant was $207. There are 8GB variants of the RX 470 also, but these are truly terrible deals with an ASP of $242.

RX480-Position

The RX 480 is meant to sell for $200 (4GB) and $240 (8GB). The cheapest RX 480 we could find was $229 for a 4GB GPU; the cheapest RX 480 8GB GPU was $269. This is problematic for AMD even if we ignore Nvidia. The cheapest 8GB R9 390 can be had for $259 and is faster, on the whole, than the RX 480 (though power consumption is markedly higher). [Note:  The R9 390 we had priced at $259 has jumped dorsum to $299, indirectly highlighting the difficulty of writing stories like this. The cheapest R9 390 on NewEgg correct now is $289].

The RX 480 4GB is supposed to exist matching the GTX 1060 3GB at $200 and slipping beneath the GTX 1060 at $240. Instead, the RX 470 4GB is matching the GTX 1060 3GB, a comparison which does AMD no favors. Boilerplate price on the 8GB RX 480 is $279, 17% college than normal.

Compared with its own previous 28nm GPUs, AMD'southward 14nm cards still typically offer significantly better performance at the same price point. The RX 470 4GB, for example, is markedly faster than the R9 380 or R9 380X. We'll examine the competitive standings in greater detail in one case nosotros interruption down Nvidia'due south results.

Nvidia'southward 16nm 10xx family

Nvidia began its refresh wheel in late May with the launch of the GTX 1080 and continued it throughout the summer with the GTX 1070 and 1060 (this final is available in 3GB and 6GB flavors). Unlike AMD, Nvidia opted for a standard elevation-down refresh bicycle. The internet consequence of this is that Pascal well-nigh ever offers better performance/dollar ratios than the old Maxwell cards did, even later on accounting for price inflation. Prices, however, arestill inflated compared with what Nvidia told us to wait three months ago.

GTX1080-Feature2

MSRP on the GTX 1080 was set to $599, while the Founder's Edition variant of the GPU had an MSRP of $699. More than three months later on launch, only the Fe card variants accept hitting their $700 MSRPs (Zotac even has a Founder'south Edition GPU for $676). Asus has several SKUs in the $619 to $629 range, but no GTX 1080 GPU tracked by NIS has always hit the $599 price point. A $619 listing price is merely 3% above list MSRP. But again — later on three months we'd expect to meet at to the lowest degree some GTX 1080 cards hitting their suggested retail price. Average toll for the GTX 1080 was $668, 11% over MSRP.

GTX1070

The GTX 1070, minus its cooler.

The GTX 1070 has been on the market for ii.five months and shows the worst price inflation relative to the rest of the Pascal family unit. The everyman price we found on a GTX 1070 is $409, $30 over the $379 MSRP. Again, the only Pascal GPUs that have hit their MSRPs are the Founder's Edition cards at $449. The boilerplate toll for a GTX 1070 is $441, 16% above the recommended MSRP.

GTX1060-Feature

Both the 3GB and 6GB variants of the GTX 1060 are as well priced to a higher place their MSRPs on average. Simply in that location are a handful of 3GB and 6GB SKUs available for their listed prices of $199 and $249, respectively. The GTX 1060 is the only Pascal card that competes head-to-caput against new 14nm GPUs from AMD and it'south also the merely xiv/16nm GPU that's managed to hitting its MSRP targets. This is unlikely to exist a coincidence. Boilerplate price on the GTX 1060 3GB is $217 (there are no Founder'south Edition of this GPU), while average price on the 1060 6GB is $290.

Comparing the market

At present that we've discussed the impact on AMD and Nvidia products throughout their specific price bands, let's look at how this plays out beyond both companies. First, here'south a comparison of SEP/MSRP pricing in green versus bodily average pricing in xanthous. The RX 460 (4GB) and RX 470 (8GB) are missing light-green bars because AMD never released formal price information on where it expected those GPU configurations to land. The slides below will walk through three different means of comparing AMD and Nvidia's respective GPUs, and what each tells us.

As the slides in a higher place evidence, AMD's RX 480 8GB prices have been pushed high enough to put that carte in disharmonize with the R9 390 — and the R9 390 is faster, overall, than its ostensible replacement. Nvidia doesn't have this problem, since the GTX 1070 and 1080 are however faster than the cards they replace, fifty-fifty at inflated MSRPs, but that doesn't let Team Green off the hook. 3 months after Nvidia launched the GTX 1080 with an MSRP of $599 and two.5 months after the GTX 1070 debuted at $379, it's impossible to buy either GPU at that price. Nor is this a new development — when nosotros first looked at 14/16nm availability last June, nosotros saw the GTX 1080 selling for betwixt $800 to $900, while the GTX 1070 was $525 to $609. Prices were nonetheless significantly inflated when nosotros checked in a calendar month ago.

One time you account for how long information technology's taken Pascal prices to arroyo their MSRPs, it'south articulate Nvidia's guidance back in May was blatantly false and AMD'due south has been only slightly better. The about charitable read of the available data suggests that both AMD and Nvidia were taken off-guard by general yield issues at both TSMC and GlobalFoundries. Even if this is true, it doesn't alibi launching parts at toll points that the market couldn't support — and the market conspicuously couldn't support the list prices both AMD and Nvidia published.

Who's making the coin?

Information technology's non clear that AMD and Nvidia are actually making whatsoever money off these increased prices. Typically, both companies sell both completed boards and standalone chips to the various AIBs. Completed boards typically rely on AMD or Nvidia's reference cooler but carry MSI/Gigabyte/Asus-specific branding, while standalone chips are used for the AIB's customized product lines. We don't know anything almost what AMD or Nvidia charge for these products, only we practice know that AIB partners set their ain prices for retail hardware.

When the cryptocurrency craze blew AMD'southward GPU pricing into the stratosphere several years back, sources I spoke to at the company expressed deep frustration over the situation. AMD, y'all encounter, hadn't raised its prices at all. The toll inflation and profit-taking came courtesy of the various AIBs. Nvidia has a much stronger market position than AMD does and and so we can't draw firm conclusions well-nigh where the money is going. Just the one thing we can say is that neither company has washed an acceptable task of delivering book hardware shipments at their stated MSRP / SEP.

As for why this is happening, nosotros can adventure a guess, equally we suggested above. We see elevated prices on both AMD and Nvidia cards, including segments where this negatively impacts AMD'due south ability to compete against Nvidia. This suggests that both companies have seen lower-than-desired yields at xiv/16nm. Overall availability is much improve for all GPUs than it was when they launched and prices have been coming downwardly. AMD'south prices are more distorted than Nvidia's, but the RX family has been out less time than the 1080 or 1070. The fact that Nvidia'south prices are finally approaching their MSRP targets, still, doesn't excuse the months of aggrandizement and limited availability. Similarly, AMD's Suggested Eastward-Tail Pricing (SEP) appears to be simply that — a proposition with only a limited human relationship to the facts of the state of affairs on the ground.

These price discrepancies are more dangerous for AMD than Nvidia. The RX family has been effectively shifted one price bracket out of launch alignment. There's non enough operation headroom in the various RX GPUs to warrant that positioning, either confronting lower-cease Maxwell hardware or Nvidia'southward GTX 1060.