Yeah tell that to the people who didn't get their mir. That is definitely one company I will not buy when a rebate is involved. People have had to many bad experiences for me to deal with them.
Nvidia have had loads of time AND have loads of money to get the 580 successor out the door.
Except when they mispredict future products and end up with nothing or a crappy GPU for a few months while they wait, and wait and wait some mroe. Gotta suck if you are a BF3 player and that happens to you.
Additionally, smart isn't exactly the word I would use. I'd say it is more ambition than anything else.
Regarding the GTX580 being discontinued, that seems strange. If we look at Newegg, it could very well be the case that holiday demand has resulted in half of those cards selling out. I remember there were shortages of HD6970 / 6950 cards on Newegg too. That didn't mean those cards were being discontinued, just that demand had outstripped supply during that short period of time.
The thing I find odd on Newegg is it lists the GTX 580s as "Sold Out" and not as "Price XXX.xx" with the Autonotify when in stock button.
Why bother when there is no competition and you can just sit around and milk your 10 year old, now pennies on the dollar, product forever?
I believe that blatant trolling is not appropriate for threads in this section.
Firstly the cards are not even very old at all. They are actually less than a year old. What exactly are you talking about?
It's a little silly to extrapolate based on one company's actions. If multiple companies aren't pushing more product out the door, something's definitely up. Could be that Zotac doesn't want to commit to another order when the next generation is right around the corner. They'd probably end up with a lot of extra stock that would need to be discounted.
Yeah tell that to the people who didn't get their mir. That is definitely one company I will not buy when a rebate is involved. People have had to many bad experiences for me to deal with them.
Yeah tell that to the people who didn't get their mir. That is definitely one company I will not buy when a rebate is involved. People have had to many bad experiences for me to deal with them.
That's my guess. 7950 probably going offer >=580 peformance at $350 and a 580 at <$350 isn't profitable or profitable enough for NV.They discontinued the 200 series when ATI released Cypress rather than cutting their prices to try and compete. Maybe the same thing is happening now?
Zotac is a fine company. Piss off.
How educated are you to say "piss off" and call me a name.
Zotac is a lower budget company. Sorry for being harsh.
Hey if it works for you then , God bless man, dont hate!!!
How educated are you to say "piss off" and call me a name.
Zotac is a lower budget company. Sorry for being harsh.
Hey if it works for you then , God bless man, dont hate!!!
You do realize that Zotac, EVGA, etc pool from the SAME people...but of course you do, you know everything.
Its not a "cheap" company by any means. I swear tweakboy with every post you seem to just come inside from falling off you're bike.
How educated are you to say "piss off" and call me a name.
Zotac is a lower budget company. Sorry for being harsh.
Hey if it works for you then , God bless man, dont hate!!!
Sorry, I was a little grumpy, but dude, saying they're a "retarded" company and "that's what you get for buying from them" isn't going to put people on your side.
Nevertheless, I was harsh and for that I apologize.
That's my guess. 7950 probably going offer >=580 peformance at $350 and a 580 at <$350 isn't profitable or profitable enough for NV.
That's impossible. GTX570 and GTX560 Ti 448 Core are the exact same chip (GF110) as GTX580, aside from reduced specs. Even if you subtract lower PCB costs due to less complex memory bandwidth (less pins), that's still a marginal cost difference. All NV does it take lower yielding GTX580s and resells them as 570s and 560 Ti 448s for ~ $290-330. So if the GTX580 chip is profitable at $290, it for sure would be at $350. In fact, NV sells 2 of those chips as GTX590 for $750, which means we know 100% that selling a GF110 chip is already profitable at $375 price level.
When you produce GF110 chips in a wafer, the cost per chip is exactly the same, whether it is a full-fledged GTX580, a GTX570 or GTX560 Ti 448 Core. But instead of throwing out the 570 and 560 Ti 448 chips, NV sells those as lower priced SKUs.
Considering NV's profit margins were 52.2% in the last quarter, it's very reasonable to assume that GTX580 at least has that profit margin since it's one of their highest priced SKUs. The $499 MSRP includes all the supply-chain related mark-ups too (retailers get a cut, etc.). So at minimum NV can sell the card for $240 or so and still break-even.
I bet NV could easily sell GTX580 for $250 and still make $. How do I know? They sell the exact same GF110 chip as GTX560 Ti 448 core for $289. You think they are only making $40 on each of those?
Also, you can't use the argument that because NV isn't selling GTX580s below $350, that they are probably not profitable. Why would they lower the price when people are buying those GTX580 cards for $450-500?
I am unsure why you have a hard time believing they make a profit of around 40$ for each of a mainstream mid market product TBH. It is about volume.
560 Ti 448's are binned 580s. It's a way to decrease the "cost" on the 580.
The thing I find odd on Newegg is it lists the GTX 580s as "Sold Out" and not as "Price XXX.xx" with the Autonotify when in stock button.
This, and the jumps aren't as impressive now. I blame consolitis.Exaggeration sure, but fact is this generation of GPU has been out forever. What happened to the 6 month product cycles? They pretty much slowed down since ATI was absorbed.
8 Reasons:
1) Nature of the market segment: High-end discrete GPUs are historically high-margin, low volume products. Anything that's above $199 is high-end for NVidia since it comprises just 14% of overall market share.
2) Financials: NV's profit margins are > 50%. We know that some products are much greater than 50% (such as their Quadro and Tesla business), while other products are less than 50% (such as sub-$100 GPUs). Since GTX560/570/580 cards are all > $199, it's far more logical to reason they all have > 50% profit margins, esp. the 580 since it's at the very high-end of the consumer segment.
3) Ability to cut prices by $100-150 and still make $. NV cut the price of GTX280 from $649 to $499 and GTX260 from $399 to $349 or so and later to $299 when HD4870 launched. This shows that high-end desktop GPUs have insane mark-ups built into them.
4) Manufacturing costs decrease over time; as well as component prices (VRAM) drop. As 40nm process matures and yields improve, the cost to product a working GF110 chip decreases. That means, if NV was only making $40 at launch on GTX580 (your assumption), then today they have to make way more than $40.
5) Product SKU pricing structure. GTX560 Ti 448 ($290) / GTX570 ($300) / GTX580 ($450-500) / GTX590 ($750) are all the same chip! So it's impossible that NV only makes $40 per each of those cards. The profits would have to be different since there is such a huge discrepancy in their price, while the cost per each GF110 chip is the same. We know VRAM is not expensive since AMD sells HD6950 2GB for only $239. So we can't say that because GTX580 has 1.5GB of VRAM vs. 1.28 for the 560 448 core and 570, that the cost is a lot more. Also, the more potent voltage regulation might cost $10 more on the 580, the wider 384-bit memory over 320bit adds to the cost, but prob not more than $30-40. That means from $290-300 GTX570 to $450-500 on the GTX580 there is a TON of profit baked in.
6) A colleague used to work for ATI for years. He could buy every single ATI GPU for 50% of its MSRP (even the high end $549 cards). Do you think ATI would sell its graphics cards for 50% less than MSRP and actually lose $? He was allowed to buy at minimum 10 videocards per year for himself/friends....and the same was true for a lot of ATI employees.
7) Historical pricing trends. NV eventually cuts the price on its ageing line-up. If NV cuts the price of GTX580 from $500 to say $350 in the next 2 months, what then? With your theory, they would be losing $110 per card. We have seen GTX470/480 cards drop in price in retail after GTX570/580 came out. That doesn't mean NV was losing $ by selling the 470 and 480 at the time.
8) GTX590: is 2x GTX580s for $750. In the most simplest terms, that means half of the GTX590 costs $375. And yet, NV sells 1 GTX580 for $450-500. That GTX580 is a cash cow darling of the line-up. It would be the same in the high-end audiophile world. Sennheiser HD800 headphones retail for $1499, while you can find HD650s for $350-500. That doesn't mean the cost to make HD800 headphones is 2x more than the lesser model. Consumers who want the best are willing to pay huge premiums for just a 10-20% improvement, which results in extremely high profit margins for the top parts.
There is no way NV only makes $40 off a single GTX580 it sells. It sells the GTX580 for $500 because it's the single fastest discrete GPU. It's about supply vs. demand, and little to do with how much the GTX580 costs to manufacture.
That's one way to look at it. However, you can't decrease the cost of GTX580 by selling a GF110 chip and make no $ on it, correct? So if they are selling a 448 core GF110 chip for $289, they are still making $ on the 560, correct? Now if GTX580 sells for $450-500, you are telling me the manufacturing costs of GTX580 are $150+ more than it costs to produce the GTX560 448 core card? You guys must be reading too much SemiAccurate to believe this. The incremental costs that go into a more complex PCB and slightly larger VRAM for the 580 are small, and yet the card has a $200+ price hike over the GTX560 448 Core.
The reason the GTX580 sells for $500 and not for $350 like the GTX570 is NOT because GTX570 costs $150 less to manufacture. It's because consumers are willing to pay those prices. HD6970 doesn't cost more for AMD to manufacture than an HD6950. AMD just pockets way more $ from the 6970 because some people are perfectly fine with paying $100 more for 14% more performance.