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  • SaolDan - Wednesday, May 18, 2016 - link

    Neat!!
  • lazarpandar - Wednesday, May 18, 2016 - link

    Even though it's cheaper, it sounds like the Founders Edition is even less important on this card.
  • Kjella - Wednesday, May 18, 2016 - link

    The interesting part is just how long nVidia will gouge the market until partner cards at the normal MSRP shows up, if you had day one availability I imagine the Founder cards would be pretty much DOA. Everybody knows graphics card devalue over time though so if it's a Founder card today or a regular card two months from now...
  • Yojimbo - Wednesday, May 18, 2016 - link

    Stop misusing that word "gouge". You can post how much you dislike them making early editions of the cards and charging more for them all you want, but don't misuse words just to try to sound as pejorative as possible. Next you're gonna tell us that NVIDIA is literally Hitler.
  • Impulses - Thursday, May 19, 2016 - link

    Milk the market is probably the more appropriate slang.
  • dsumanik - Thursday, May 19, 2016 - link

    I have to agree with kjella. Nvidia has had 0 competition in this space, their product cycles have slowed dramatically, and the new "founders eidtion' program is quite simply a way to squeeze another 100 bucks out of an already severely overpriced card.

    In 2016 chips of all sorts should be going down in cost, not up...this is marketing games plain and simple.

    If people would all like this behavior to stop from Nvidia, don't purchase the founders edition cards. Every person who makes the overpriced purchase, gets nvidia board of directors salivating over another price increase, even higher for the next round.
  • jasonelmore - Thursday, May 19, 2016 - link

    they spent billions on R&D for pascal. Do you know how many quarters of revenue it will take for nvidia to even break even on R&D? and thats not counting one cent of bill of materials. It will take nvidia over a year to recoup R&D
  • Ecdmuppet - Thursday, May 19, 2016 - link

    This is exactly correct.

    Marginal costs for electronics, meaning the cost of the materials for each unit, are laughably small. If they sold the cards at their unit cost, the cards would probably be about $15.

    But the cost of developing the chips, the machines to make the chips, the machines to make the cards, and setting up all that infrastructure is astronomical. We are talking about hundreds of millions, or even billions of dollars to set up a fab for cutting edge chips.

    What you end up with is the first card that rolls off the line cost a billion and ten dollars to make, and the second card cost ten bucks.

    Having early adopters pay more mirrors this phenomenon. It helps the manufacturer recoup some of that money while demand is super high and supply hasn't caught up yet.

    Those without the coin to pay the early adopter fee may feel like it favors the rich, but also consider that it means when those wealthier buyers pay extra, it helps the manufacturer take the prices down that much sooner for the rest of us. It's acasually a natural form of progressive taxation that benefits the real-world marketplace. For all the ways Capitalist markets fail society, this is actually an example of how it produces a pretty fair outcome, in my opinion.
  • Murloc - Thursday, May 19, 2016 - link

    exactly, only fools and the very rich will buy the founder's edition, and that's all better for us.
    If nvidia gets more profits without making us reasonable people pay more, maybe they will price the other cards more aggressively.
  • bananaforscale - Thursday, May 19, 2016 - link

    Or those who want to give nV a bigger slice of the price. There *are* those. Sell direct to consumer and you're cutting at least one step from the supply chain (probably two, since they'd be sending cards to retailers anyway), and those willing to pay more get their cards earlier than those who wait for third parties. It's kinda an early adopter tax, but also goes towards recouping the R&D costs faster, so nV can release the next generation faster if technology allows it.
  • ggathagan - Thursday, May 19, 2016 - link

    The company restructuring and additional personnel required is usually why companies such as NVIDIA don't sell direct to the end-user.
    There's a whole host of advantages to avoiding retail business, from their perspective.
  • just4U - Thursday, May 19, 2016 - link

    To be fair.. if it's using the nifty stock coolers from their higher end cards it will keep it's value... and be considered a selling point.
  • JonnyDough - Friday, May 20, 2016 - link

    Now if Nvidia were only to pay their janitors like their stockholders your statement would ring true. Capitalism itself is arguably the problem. Debt slave society anyone?
  • Fusion3RB - Sunday, May 22, 2016 - link

    Spot on.
  • Codex77 - Thursday, June 23, 2016 - link

    NET profits for Nvidia were $1.26bn for the last quarter alone. That's 'net', meaning after business expenses, including R&D, depreciation etc.
  • grant3 - Thursday, May 19, 2016 - link

    People who pay extra for their cards are subsidizing everyone else who waits and buys the cheaper ones later.

    You're cutting off your nose to spite your face!
  • close - Thursday, May 19, 2016 - link

    Gouge is EXACTLY the term to describe this as it perfectly fits the definition of overcharging. \but maybe you can cut it out with the obvious exaggerations trying to devalue a valid point by associating it with outrageous comparisons that only you are thinking of.

    Now you're free to get swindled all day long if that's your hobby. But stop trying to make those who point this out look like the bad guys.
  • hbsource - Thursday, May 19, 2016 - link

    I'm really not sure this is price gouging. Nvidia developed and released this product. They're a private company. They can charge whatever they like.

    I live in the UK and I have literally never heard the term 'price gouging' applied to a product or service. I don't actually think it exists as a concept. It's just supply and demand.
  • BurntMyBacon - Thursday, May 19, 2016 - link

    @hbsource: "I live in the UK and I have literally never heard the term 'price gouging' applied to a product or service. I don't actually think it exists as a concept. It's just supply and demand."

    It does exist as a concept and is pretty well defined. However, as you seem to suspect, it is a concept that describes a more extreme case of limited supply and high demand.
  • close - Thursday, May 19, 2016 - link

    "Price gouging is a pejorative term referring to when a seller spikes the prices of goods, services or commodities to a level much higher than is considered reasonable or fair, and is considered exploitative, potentially to an unethical extent."

    Nobody says they can't do it. But when they do sell the product at a higher price than considered reasonable by consumers it's called price gouging. This is based on the fact that Nvidia is enjoying temporary exclusivity and the lack of proper competition makes it even more apparent.

    I guess you'll see this when the price drops once other vendors show up with their own take on the 1080.
  • hbsource - Thursday, May 19, 2016 - link

    Reasonable or fair? Literally, what are you talking about?

    I'm sorry to appear slightly rude but I have no idea what you're complaining about. Am I missing something here? Are Cadbury's price gouging their Creme Eggs because I consider 60p too expensive?

    I don't get it.
  • close - Saturday, May 28, 2016 - link

    Yes, you don't get it. And this is more than obvious judging by you comparing Cadbury who has exclusivity on their product from one end to the other to Nvidia who just manufactures the GPU and has plenty of partners to manufacture the actual cards. It's the cards that matter because you DON'T BUY A GPU, smart guy. And the proof that Nvidia was price gouging? Other manufacturers buy the GPU from Nvidia, put it in a better, faster, cooler, more silent design and it's still cheaper. When I manage to buy Cadbury Creme Eggs, put them in a guilded box and still sell it to you cheaper than Cadbury does you can bet that every minute Cadbury insists on exclusivity is a minute of price gouging.

    http://www.anandtech.com/show/10360/zotac-and-evga...
    So, $50 less, 100MHz more than the "Founders" edition, my how technology advances in... 2 weeks?

    "I don't get it" incoming ;).
  • Yojimbo - Thursday, May 19, 2016 - link

    "NVIDIA is enjoying temporary exclusivity"

    ...on a product they researched and developed? What are you smoking?

    Price gouging is when there is a hurricane and bottled water prices go up 1000%. It's not charging 17% more for a special-edition graphics card. There's no such thing as price gouging on luxury items. The odd entitlement it takes to think there is. Additionally, ignoring the fact that it's a luxury item for a moment, it's not even possible for them to be "gouging" when competitive alternatives exist. Hell, even 3rd party cards based on their own GPUs are competitive alternatives to the card. You sound like some crying baby whose mommy won't give him a lolipop. Get a grip.
  • close - Saturday, May 28, 2016 - link

    So if Nvidia developed the product and it's normal for them to have exclusivity on it how come most GPU sales actually come from partners? The product is the GPU. Every second Nvidia had exclusivity on products with their GPUs was a second where they got more money out of the product then would have been possible otherwise. And the proof is that 2 weeks later you have better and cheaper products.

    I don't care about your "personal" definition of price gouging or luxury. By your definition if I live in a landlocked country I cannot suffer from price gouging. Billions of people consider your "basic needs" as luxury. But you look like a guy who thinks he's some sort of reference point. You are, just not how you'd like it.
  • Meteor2 - Thursday, May 19, 2016 - link

    'Price gouging' can only be applied to necessities, not luxuries.
  • Murloc - Thursday, May 19, 2016 - link

    it would be if they had a monopoly, but they don't, and the price is only for the founder's edition.

    Book publishers selling hardcover version at high price first, and then the pocket edition, are applying the same strategy, and nobody ever accused them of price gouging.
  • just4U - Thursday, May 19, 2016 - link

    Not quite true.. (on the founders edition etc.) Nvidia has been pushing up their pricing for two release cycles now.
  • Sushisamurai - Friday, May 20, 2016 - link

    Well, there is also inflation. Prices can't stay the same forever...
  • crimson117 - Thursday, May 19, 2016 - link

    Price Gouging cannot by definition apply to optional, luxury goods like high end graphics cards. There's nothing unethical about releasing a hot new graphics card and charging top dollar for anyone who wants one. If you don't think it's worth it, don't buy one, and your GAMES - not your lung machine, or your pre-mature infant incubator, or your Flint Michigan water purifiers - your VIDEO GAMES will run slightly slower than they would have otherwise.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_gouging

    "Price gouging is a pejorative term referring to when a seller spikes the prices of goods, services or commodities to a level much higher than is considered reasonable or fair, and is considered exploitative, potentially to an unethical extent. Usually this event occurs after a demand or supply shock: common examples include price increases of basic necessities after hurricanes or other natural disasters. In precise, legal usage, it is the name of a crime that applies in some jurisdictions of the United States during civil emergencies. In less precise usage, it can refer either to prices obtained by practices inconsistent with a competitive free market, or to windfall profits."
  • 78stonewobble - Thursday, May 19, 2016 - link

    "Price Gouging cannot by definition apply to optional, luxury goods like high end graphics cards."

    According to the wiki you linked it can tho.

    The definition is:
    "Price gouging is a pejorative term referring to when a seller spikes the prices of goods, services or commodities to a level much higher than is considered reasonable or fair, and is considered exploitative, potentially to an unethical extent."

    The rest about necessities... are examples of price gouging, not the definition of it.

    So yes I'd say you could call graphics card pricing, at times, for "price gouging"...

    But I don't see why anyone would expect them to do anything less in periods in which demand rises, supply is low and competition is lacking. It's their jobs to make money after all.

    As consumers it's our jobs to figure out whether we wanna pay extra when demand is high, supply is low and competition is lacking... or wait til the prices normalize and the companies cannot "price gouge".

    PS: Your definition would be correct if going by the legal usage, but... it's a silly distinction since it's still the same free market effects and principles and the only real difference being a subjetive moral judgement... as to when it's ok and when it's not.
  • evilpaul666 - Thursday, May 19, 2016 - link

    "Price gouging" is rhetorical nonsense. Whether it's something that basically nobody actually needs (a super fast gaming card) or gasoline or water after a natural disaster when there's extreme shortages. In both cases it's just supply and demand with "price gouging" being buyers complaining about prices being "unfair."

    Politicians can score points being full on demagogues about the latter, but nobody's in power's going to care about Nvidia charging ~$100 more for a GPU for a month.
  • Eidigean - Thursday, May 19, 2016 - link

    The level of entitlement that you think you're owed is astounding. You are not entitled to a low-price high-performance video card simply because you're a gamer. Teraflops of compute power just 13 years ago cost millions of dollars.

    1,100 Apple Power Mac G5 computers were assembled in the summer of 2003 to gain 12.25 teraflops. You can now buy a single 9 teraflop GTX 1080 for $699. But all you care about is shaving a few hundred dollars more off that.

    Go back to Xbox or Playstation if that's your budget. But quit complaining that you're entitled to a supercomputer on the cheap.
  • JeffFlanagan - Thursday, May 19, 2016 - link

    I don't know if calling the people who call making a product available early at a slightly higher price "gouging" "bad guys" is appropriate. Maybe "whiny, cheap guys, who live to complain" is a better description.

    Thinking paying $449 to get a card this powerful is being "swindled" is obviously totally clueless, and a bit toxic, but I don't think that makes you a "bad guy."
  • BurntMyBacon - Thursday, May 19, 2016 - link

    @Yojimbo: "Stop misusing that word "gouge"."

    Price Gouging - The act of retailers increasing prices when no alternative is available.
    http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/price...

    Price Gouging - Pricing above the market price when no alternative retailer is available.
    http://www.thefreedictionary.com/price+gouging

    Price gouging is a pejorative term referring to when a seller spikes the prices of goods, services or commodities to a level much higher than is considered reasonable or fair, and is considered exploitative, potentially to an unethical extent.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_gouging

    While perhaps not to an unethical extent, Kjella clearly believes that Founders cards are increasing prices above market price due to insufficient alternative availability. Kjella also seems to believe that the price increase is exploitative, increasing well beyond what would be considered fair and reasonable.

    @Kjella: "The interesting part is just how long nVidia will gouge the market until partner cards at the normal MSRP shows up"

    Finally, Kjella's statements suggest that third party availability would render such pricing impractical.

    @Kjella: "... , if you had day one availability I imagine the Founder cards would be pretty much DOA."

    You may disagree with the sentiment, but I think the usage of the term is accurate in this case. I prefer Impulses "Milk the market" slang, but that's just because I'm more forgiving in the PC market.

    @Yojimbo: "Next you're gonna tell us that NVIDIA is literally Hitler."

    Since when was Hitler associated with price gouging. As I understand it he was responsible for ending Germany's period of hyperinflation, dropping prices back down to normal levels. Quite the opposite of price gouging. Note: This in no way constitutes supports for actions taken by his regime or under his authority.
  • Yojimbo - Thursday, May 19, 2016 - link

    If you really need me to explain the "...is literally Hitler" analogy then just ask. I think you're just trolling, though.

    As for price gouging, see my reply to close above. If you need more help with the term after reading that post, I can point you to some web sites on the issue.
  • Ecdmuppet - Thursday, May 19, 2016 - link

    By definition, the market price is the price a buyer is willing to pay. It's established by supply and demand.

    Also consider that those paying the early adopter fees are helping the manufacturer recoup the R&D costs a little faster, which promotes more R&D in the future as well as reducing the price they have to charge on future offerings to retain the same profit margins. The fee prices some out of the market short term, but it actually subsidizes the ability to lower the price they charge in the future.
  • JoeMonco - Thursday, May 19, 2016 - link

    So your first definition basically invalidates. In what universe do you live that there are "no alternatives available" to either of these GPUs? There dozens upon dozens of other GPUs you could purchase.
  • grant3 - Thursday, May 19, 2016 - link

    There's plenty of alternative graphics cards people can purchase.

    Jeez people are getting hysterical over a piece of luxury hardware.

    Maybe they'd be happier if there wasn't any "founders" edition and EVERYONE had to wait 2 months to buy this model.
  • cknobman - Thursday, May 19, 2016 - link

    It is gouging, and blatant at that!
  • pashhtk27 - Thursday, May 19, 2016 - link

    Can we stop with the english please. We are moving away from the 'issue'.......Or maybe that is the point. :)
  • bananaforscale - Thursday, May 19, 2016 - link

    I think his handle is a clue. :D
  • JoeMonco - Thursday, May 19, 2016 - link

    Nope, because there are plenty of alternative cards that you can purchase.
  • just4U - Thursday, May 19, 2016 - link

    EXACTLY!

    If you think Nvidia is charging to much speak with your wallet and by an alternative or last gen product.
  • P39Airacobra - Tuesday, May 31, 2016 - link

    And yet another dumbed down pseudo intellectual, pretending to know the English language better than anyone! Bernie lost it's over! Jonestown drank the Kool-Aid!
  • P39Airacobra - Tuesday, May 31, 2016 - link

    Literally Hitler? Your pretending to be intelligent and you say Literally Hitler? Since Hitler was actually Hitler, That would mean that only Hitler is literally Hitler! Dumbed Down SJW Moron!
  • Hrel - Wednesday, May 18, 2016 - link

    Gouge the market

    No one's forcing you to buy early. Personally I always wait till November to shop anyway, better prices, later revisions, more stable, proven tech. Advantages abound.

    If you wanna be an early adopter then you ARE investing in the company, that's what you're doing. No one's forcing you to buy a new GPU. It's a computer part, not water or food.
  • BurntMyBacon - Thursday, May 19, 2016 - link

    I agree with pretty much all of your points, but that doesn't necessarily make it not price gouging. That just means that it is easily avoidable. All the more reason to wait get the advantages you stated.

    Price gouging only really works when there are insufficient alternatives on the market anyways. Both founders and partner cards are launching on the same date. I guess we'll find out what availability looks like at the end of the month.
  • JoeMonco - Thursday, May 19, 2016 - link

    So the fact that there are dozens of alternative GPUs you can buy means that the claims of price gouging are total bunk.
  • Flunk - Wednesday, May 18, 2016 - link

    Nvidia has already announced that the 1080 founders cards and partner cards are both due on May 27th.
  • bananaforscale - Thursday, May 19, 2016 - link

    So, you think it's wrong to take advantage of those who want their cards first? Welcome to capitalism. Wait for a while and you'll have cheaper third party cards. What you're whining about is that you want *both* cheap and first, for something that's largely optional.

    What I'm seeing here is entitlement. You're not entitled to anything.
  • pashhtk27 - Thursday, May 19, 2016 - link

    The one thing I worry about is nvidia partners overpricing various editions of the card because of the founder edition.....but can't blame someone before the act. :(
  • CaedenV - Friday, May 20, 2016 - link

    it is not gouging, it is called 'playing well with others'
    If nVidia made their own stock card at retail prices then they would piss off all of their other vendors. This is completely normal behavior for manufacturers that also sell their own products. They set a price typically $1-200 higher than what their retail partner MSRP is so that they do not take over the market.
  • EricZBA - Wednesday, May 18, 2016 - link

    Is this card going to have a full 8GB GDDR5 or 6GB GDDR5 + 2GB EDO RAM?
  • Yojimbo - Wednesday, May 18, 2016 - link

    It doesn't come with RAM, it comes with 8 billion bottles of Gatorade.
  • Flunk - Wednesday, May 18, 2016 - link

    You wish, 2GB of EDO is worth a fortune.
  • Furunomoe - Thursday, May 19, 2016 - link

    Nah, 7.5GB GDDR5 + 0.5GB magnetic core memory.
  • Ryan Smith - Thursday, May 19, 2016 - link

    Full 8GB. The boys over at PCGH already made sure to ask NVIDIA this question.
  • azrael- - Thursday, May 19, 2016 - link

    TBH, there should be a "step-up program" for users who got shafted with the GTX 970 and its 3.5 GB of memory.

    On a related note, why doesn't nVidia implement a switch in its drivers, so you can disable that useless 0.5 GB of memory? I'd much rather have a bit less memory for textures than risk slowdowns.
  • MrSpadge - Thursday, May 19, 2016 - link

    If you're running out of memory you get far more severe slowdowns, so this wouldn't help at all.
  • BurntMyBacon - Thursday, May 19, 2016 - link

    @azrael: "On a related note, why doesn't nVidia implement a switch in its drivers, so you can disable that useless 0.5 GB of memory? I'd much rather have a bit less memory for textures than risk slowdowns."

    I think you'll find swapping out to main memory to be a bit slower than the GTX970's last 0.5GB of memory. (0_0)
  • Yojimbo - Thursday, May 19, 2016 - link

    You're not going to get faster memory access by removing a memory controller. There's no risk for slowdowns anyway because, as I understand it, that .5 GB partition isn't used for frame buffering.

    No one got shafted, except maybe people who planned to use the card for compute tasks. As far as I know, people gave up trying to find non-pathological use cases where the memory bandwidth or capacity could be demonstrated to be limiting the card's performance while playing games.

    Do you actually really own a GTX 970? Or are you just trying to pretend you do? If you don't have a 970 who cares what you'd "rather have"?
  • xTRICKYxx - Thursday, May 19, 2016 - link

    7GB + 1
  • MrSpadge - Thursday, May 19, 2016 - link

    Please read the article.
  • kaesden - Thursday, May 19, 2016 - link

    actually it uses rambus ram. Intel is overjoyed to see its return.
  • hpglow - Wednesday, May 18, 2016 - link

    Why isn't the 980 in that table with the rest? I mean now I have to use my google-fu.
  • Ryan Smith - Thursday, May 19, 2016 - link

    Width reasons, mostly. I wanted to show the GTX 1070 next to the 1080, and then the last two generation x70 cards.
  • HollyDOL - Thursday, May 19, 2016 - link

    In case you had the data in a DB, you could make one column selectable with dropdownlist? [NiceToHave feature]
  • geniekid - Thursday, May 19, 2016 - link

    The 1070 MSRP and FE price bracket a good number of 980s today. A lot of people will want to know how they compare.
  • zeeBomb - Thursday, May 19, 2016 - link

    Great cards in general. What a time to be alive...a PC GAMER!
  • Michael Bay - Thursday, May 19, 2016 - link

    My god, I HATE that meaningless leftie phrase with a passion. As if you have a choice when to live your life.
    The only worse one is "to be human". I guess with the current tide of mentally ill genderfluid queerkin you might as well identify with a broom.
  • Spunjji - Thursday, May 19, 2016 - link

    -4/10, not even a convincing troll. Poor show.
  • BurntMyBacon - Thursday, May 19, 2016 - link

    @Michael Bay

    Your comments about the GTX1070, its performance, and its pricing are flawless. I have no room to retort.
  • timbotim - Thursday, May 19, 2016 - link

    "mentally ill genderfluid queerkin" Wonderful expression. Well done, sir!
  • xthetenth - Friday, May 20, 2016 - link

    It's derivative as hell.
  • bananaforscale - Thursday, May 19, 2016 - link

    "Leftie"? :D What are you on and can I get some? :)
  • JoeMonco - Thursday, May 19, 2016 - link

    Hey look a sexually-insecure, closeted bigot. *golf clap*
  • xthetenth - Friday, May 20, 2016 - link

    How insipid. An inability to choose when you live in no way prevents judging the quality of life in the time you are alive. A pathological inability to comprehend people's quality of life is at least one of the more interesting justifications for conservatism though, so points there.
  • Impulses - Thursday, May 19, 2016 - link

    Hmm, two GTX 1070 might be the heir apparent to my 2x R9 290... I don't think 1x GTX 1080 is quite enough for 4K still, and 2x is a little rich for my blood. ($760 vs $1,200)
  • Impulses - Thursday, May 19, 2016 - link

    Will still wait for AMD's Avnet tho, not exactly desperate to run away from my 290s just yet... Hell I'm still running EF/Surround, haven't found an ideal long term 4K display.
  • Zeraine - Thursday, May 19, 2016 - link

    The 1070 with the loss of GDDR5X from the massive cut down GTX 1080. The optimal cut-down variant is directly related to wafer-sort statistics. The FE edition makes more sense now, a marketing spin to make up for the failure rates. These are smaller dies and yet they are looking to charge a much higher premium. granted the performance is there to almost justify it, the real reason is poor yields.
  • Spunjji - Thursday, May 19, 2016 - link

    Looks a lot like that what with the retrograde step in performance gain per dollar over the previous gen release and this "founders" nonsense.

    It definitely looks like they felt they gave away too good of a deal with the 970 given how they've widened the x70 to x80 performance gap, too. Shame.
  • blzd - Thursday, May 19, 2016 - link

    I hope not. GTX 970 was the first time I even considered paying $400 (CDN) for a graphics card where as normally I'd pay $200 every 2 years or so.

    Basically they convinced folk like me to spend twice as much per upgrade cycle with the 970 level of performance.
  • just4U - Thursday, May 19, 2016 - link

    I felt the same way about the Radeon 390 8G.. Been awhile since I've spent $400+ on a video card.. usually try to keep it to the high 200s or very low 300s.
  • Jon Tseng - Thursday, May 19, 2016 - link

    I'd disagree with your contention that CPU configuration is "directly related" to yields. Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't; it can also be a commercial decision.

    Remember the config of the 1070 doesn't just affect sales of that SKU is also has knock-on implications for market share vs. AMD an also for unit sales of 1060 (when it arrives) and 1080.

    You need to factor the margin profiles of these into the equation e.g. you might be cutting down the 1070 more than the yields require, but the gap in performance could drive more sales to the 1080 so you do better in absolute gross profit dollars.

    It's more of an art than a science - it's not as simple as "we'll whack the configuration to the highest that yields allow us to do".

    Also bear in mind that unlike previous leading edge nodes 16FF has been battle-tested by Apple A9 which must be one of the highest volume high end processors in history, even assuming the Samsung 14nm split. Now I know the 16FF process for NVDA won't be the same as the low-power process, and the die size is significantly bigger, but that massive volume run would definitely be a tailwind for yields.
  • TristanSDX - Thursday, May 19, 2016 - link

    GF 1070 do not have 7.2 B transistors. With dsabled 25% shaders, it have 5.4+ B. Shaders account for some 90% budget of transistors.
  • casperes1996 - Thursday, May 19, 2016 - link

    That's not how these tables work. Anandtech always shows the amount of transistors on the GPU, whether they are disabled or not. A GP 104 will show 7.2 billion no matter if it's cut down or not on Anandtech
  • MrSpadge - Thursday, May 19, 2016 - link

    It's not only about the tables, it's also about the physics and manufacturing. Each GP104 die contains 7.2 billion transistors, whether they're used or not.
  • joex4444 - Thursday, May 19, 2016 - link

    The transistors are present but not electrically active. If they reported 5.4B then they'd have the die size incorrect.
  • mortenelkjaer - Thursday, May 19, 2016 - link

    Volta it is.
  • Eden-K121D - Thursday, May 19, 2016 - link

    I'll wait for volta.....on a serious note lets see what polaris 10 has to offer
  • TheinsanegamerN - Thursday, May 19, 2016 - link

    I sure hope polaris 10 is good. My 770 is 3 years old in 11 days, and that was built on a year old chip. It's finally starting to show it's age, and even SLI cant save it.
  • ChefJeff789 - Thursday, May 19, 2016 - link

    I seem to be in the minority, but I don't really care that Nvidia is charging more for the FE cards. It's not a long wait for the AIB cards. If you don't want to pay for the FE cards, then don't... What's the big freaking deal? Just vote with your wallet. If they don't sell many, they will likely drop the price. They certainly will the next time around if FE sales numbers are garbage.
  • LostWander - Thursday, May 19, 2016 - link

    Seems like most would have rather skipped that voting with their wallets step and just gotten a consumer friendly release without a fair margin of these (already in short supply) cards being made into overpriced editions. It's nothing to freak out over, just annoying.
  • TheinsanegamerN - Thursday, May 19, 2016 - link

    i think the concern is that OEMss will use this as an excuse to jack up the price on their 3rd party cooled 1080s. Even if they sold it at $680, it would still be cheaper than a founder edition, while being much higher than the $599 MSRP of the card. or perhaps over $700, since you ARE getting a much better cooler, they could hold that as advertisement "only $20 more than the founder edition, but runs 45% cooler!"

    I can see many companies doing exactly this. They had no issue jacking up the prices on AMD cards during the bitcoin rush, they'll have no issue jacking up the price now. The only 1080s that will be $599 will most likely be the cheap models with plastic shrouds and loud fans. Any decent card will probably be around the FE pricing.
  • kaesden - Thursday, May 19, 2016 - link

    unfortunately I fully expect you to be 100% correct. the $599 / $379 prices will be vaporware. The only way to reign in prices on these cards will be for AMD to release something competitive at a lower price point.
  • milkod2001 - Friday, May 20, 2016 - link

    The deal is: NV is expecting us to pay extra for just average reference design and to believe that 3rd party cooler solution would be $599(1080) and $379(1070) which will never happen. That was always more expensive than reference cards. I find it almost as NV is scamming us. Why they just did not say: Hey, this are $699 and $449 GPUs and 3rd party solution are coming?
  • jasonelmore - Friday, May 20, 2016 - link

    reference cards area always valued more. go on ebay and type gtx 980 reference. and notice how they are all $50-$75 higher than a ACX type cooler.
  • xthetenth - Friday, May 20, 2016 - link

    For people who don't want a fancy version of a bad cooler type with an inability to deliver enough power for a proper overclock, all it is is a way to paper over a launch and claim a release date when what they're interested in won't be available.
  • Cranky Yankee - Thursday, May 19, 2016 - link

    I guess us procrastinators will get the last laugh. After the 1070 comes out, you geeks won't have Dick Nixon, err, I mean my 460SE, to kick around anymore.
  • rocky12345 - Thursday, May 19, 2016 - link

    I do not know if it is price gouging as so many have stated but they are over inflating the price because at the moment there is no new released cards from AMD so Nvidia is pricing their cards at a premium right now. Will they go down in price yes most likely but it will be over a long period of time. Now the founders edition cards are completely a waste of money & are a money grab for sure but the extra money they cost are worth it to some & they will pay the extra for those cards. If you want companies to stop using these types of business tactics then stop supporting them when they do these types of things. I was reading about the movie Assassins Creed & how they are going to have some sort of pre order thing & different editions of ticket levels that will cost a lot of money for the top package. I'm sorry but that would be considered price gouging or just plain & simply put trying to snag a lot more money out of the fans but there will be a lot of people that will pay the $1200 for the highest package so they can brag they have the best tickets & a whole lot of trinkets to go with it. If this is successful you will see a lot more of this type of crap in the movie industry just like we have seen this crap in the gaming industry. All it does is drive up the prices to a point that the common Joe can not afford to buy a game or soon to be even go to the movies because of the greed factor if we as the consumer stooped supporting these types of actions the big companies would be forced to stop using these types of practices but there are just to many suckers out there that have to be first for everything or have bragging rights to say oh look I just spent $1200US to go to a movie & get all these useless trinkets..yay for me...lol
  • fanofanand - Thursday, May 19, 2016 - link

    Having "premium" editions of a product is not price gouging. I get that the average reader here is closer to being an engineer than an economist, but the ignorance is a bit shocking. The only way to have actual gouging is if the product is a necessity, which a cutting edge graphics card is not. Rather than complain that a company is maximizing their profits, just go AMD. That's what I did. But wit, they "gouge" when they can too.....the great thing about free markets, is that eventually all non-necessary goods and services will eventually reach a price equilibrium base on the market's reaction to the pricing. This is common sense folks.
  • lornecaine - Thursday, May 19, 2016 - link

    If you really studied economics, you would know that a perfect equilibrium is a fantasy of theory and that almost all markets suffer from the distortions of market power.
  • Murloc - Thursday, May 19, 2016 - link

    it's not a fantasy, it's a theory that approximates reality in a not very good way.
    The principle stands, if AMD can come up with a similar card and starts a price war, prices go down.
    The reality is that AMD always come up short and the price is distorted but that's not the point here. The point is that some people are calling the FE price gouging, when in reality it's just a common tactic of capturing the higher reservation price of certain customers.

    Publishers do the same with hardcover books, which have a negligible cost difference but a huge price difference from the softcover books that come a few months later.

    If I was ready to start selling a long-awaited item but only in small quantities at the beginning, I would do this too.

    Actually nvidia is even more honest than the publishers because they aren't withholding parts on purpose, they're simply ramping up the supply.
  • xthetenth - Friday, May 20, 2016 - link

    AMD only comes up short in marketing, the most compelling products of the past five years are pretty much all theirs. The 7970 is still roughly competitive at a level right around 200, the 290/390 is competing well against the 970 while the 780 and 780 Ti it launched against have fallen off into a shameful demise. Meanwhile NV is the brand behind the Titan, which has tanked horribly against the 290X, the 960 2 GB which is already constrained by its memory, and has made multiple generations that start competitive with AMD and age so poorly they need a replacement years sooner, directly costing their customers money.
  • Murloc - Thursday, May 19, 2016 - link

    actually those readers are closer to being entitled angry nerds than to being engineers because engineers always have to think about cost, and so economics aren't that foreign to them.
  • xthetenth - Friday, May 20, 2016 - link

    Apparently noting that NV's margins are climbing to the sky makes one an entitled angry nerd.

    I guess that means you have Stockholm syndrome.
  • rocky12345 - Thursday, May 19, 2016 - link

    I just posted about the inflating prices etc. I wanted to say I am not a fanboy I buy what ever suites my needs at the time. The last time it was a pair of Sapphire 390X 8GB cards this time around if it pans out that the GTX 1070 8GB is pretty fast & can at least come close to or match the 980 Ti in games I will pick up a pair of those. Some will say oh just get 1 card that is better but why would I go for slower when I already have a setup that will be as fast as a GTX 1080 with my 2 390x cards in crossfire overclocked to 1270Mhz each and memory outputting at 435GB's a second on each card. My idea is the GTX 1070 will be or at least should be a lot faster than a single 390x so for those times when SLI or crossfire does not work I have a very strong base card for those times and a overclocked GTX 1070 should be able to smoke a 390x overclocked in everything. SO no not a fanboy buy whats a good value at the time. I use at the moment AMD's VSR maxed to what they support on my projector so I am looking forward to trying out Nvidia's DSR to see how it works as well.
  • fanofanand - Thursday, May 19, 2016 - link

    Hard to call an incremental step in performance that costs nearly $1,000 a "value play" but that's the beauty of free markets. What seems like a value to one, could be considered foolish to another. They are both right.
  • rocky12345 - Thursday, May 19, 2016 - link

    You are right & I may have played right into it by buying cards that were a small step up from the last ones that were made. In my defense I came from Nvidia Geforce GTX 680's SLI OC'd to the max so going to the 390x's was a huge jump in performance for my gaming needs. I also sold my 680 4GB cards sold for $265 CAD each to a friend so I had $530 CAD from that & I splurged & added the rest to get my 2 390x cards. He was happy & so was I win win for both of us.
  • just4U - Thursday, May 19, 2016 - link

    Only problem for you is what will those prices on the 1070 be like here in Canada. Yeah sure .. we recently got a price drop on the 970/80s but... it's still not in line for what it should be. Plus with demand I can easily see those 1070s hitting $600 CAD.
  • rocky12345 - Friday, May 20, 2016 - link

    I most likely will be able to sell the pair of 390x cards for a nice price still considering they are selling retail for $499.99 - $629.99 Canadian at Mem Express. So I am not worried about selling them & not having enough money to get either the 1080 or the 1070 cards. My cards were bought in the fall of 2015.
  • webdoctors - Thursday, May 19, 2016 - link

    Its funny how ppl are complaining about price, but AMD paper launched a $1500 card on anandtech last month:

    http://anandtech.com/show/10279/amd-releases-radeo...

    Where's the outrage there?

    I'm one of those mainstream $200 market folks, and the deals there are amazing now (GTX970 for ~$225 now!). Those drops wouldn't have happened without this product. Lets wait for the Anandtech table that shows what's the best card to buy in each $ category this summer.
  • JamieK - Thursday, May 19, 2016 - link

    That is a HPC card. Priced accordingly.
  • vladx - Thursday, May 19, 2016 - link

    It's not a HPC card like a Tesla or Firepro. Just a dual Fji, price giouging is very accurate here since it's a lot more expensive than two Fiji.
  • RussianSensation - Thursday, May 19, 2016 - link

    Nobody cares about the Radeon Pro Duo in the mainstream market. This is a Pro card with FirePro certified drivers too and is made for VR development. They could have priced it at $5,000 US. Otoh, most of us do care about the $300-700 market. Anyone comparing Radeon Pro Duo to the price increases NV implemented since $249 GTX560Ti -> $499 GTX680 -> $549 980 -> $599-699 1080 is grasping at straws. GTX1070 is also the most cut down x70/x75 series card ever made, and NV jacked up the price from $329 970 to $379-449 for the 1070 while separating them in performance by 20-30%.
  • vladx - Thursday, May 19, 2016 - link

    Doesn't matter, this is price gouging at it's finest since the only difference are the drivers.
  • xthetenth - Friday, May 20, 2016 - link

    At least the drivers have the excuse of being a long-standing form of market stratification and much more importantly having major QA costs for a generally niche market.
  • abrowne1993 - Thursday, May 19, 2016 - link

    So how will this likely stack up compared to the 980 Ti?
  • joex4444 - Thursday, May 19, 2016 - link

    6.5TFLOP vs 6.0TFLOP, it should be about the same. Thing is you'd need a stock 980Ti to compare it to, and most 980Ti cards actually come with a 10-20% OC so I'd expect the 980Ti to still win. Better value depends on what the prices for 980Ti settle to and how important power consumption is to the buyer.
  • TallestJon96 - Thursday, May 19, 2016 - link

    NVIDIA definitely seems to be pulling the x70 series back some. If I remember correctly, the gtx 970 outsold the 980 by about 3:1 (steam hardware survey). the 1070 is definitely less impressive relative to the 1080 than the 970 was compared to the 980. Some numbers for you based on hardware (not performance or FPS)

    970 vs 980:

    80% cuda cores
    97% clock speed
    100% memory bandwidth

    For 60% of the cost

    1070 vs 1080:

    75% Cuda cores
    97% clock speed
    80% memory bandwidth

    For 63% of the cost

    If you analyze cost per cuda core, relative to the higher end chip, the 970 had 133% of the value of the 980 while the 1070 is only 119% of the value of the 1080. Basing it on memory bandwidth changes those numbers to 166% for the 970 and 127% for the 1070.

    On top of the performance and price difference, NVIDIA is holding the 1070 back 2 weeks, and is not giving it any press.

    I own a 970 and upgraded to 1440p/144hz so I'm just debating between the two cards. 970 was the clear winner last time, but it's a tough call now.
  • metayoshi - Thursday, May 19, 2016 - link

    Hardware numbers are one thing, but what really matters is overall gaming performance with these cards. With the 970, one could get roughly 85-90% of the 980's performance in games for 60% of the 980's cost. Here, we don't have performance numbers yet in actual games, but the 1070 is ~63% of the 1080 price. If the performance somehow proves to be still in the high 80 percent range of a full 1080, I'd say the 1070 is still worth it, but it's still too early to call.
  • TallestJon96 - Thursday, May 19, 2016 - link

    Yes, or coarse we should wait for benches. Everyone will be different as to what is worth it or not. To some, 980 was worth the money, to me its not. For some spending even $330 on "just graphics" is not worth it, but to me it is. I'm right on the fence between the 1080 and 1070 right now
  • bartendalot - Thursday, May 19, 2016 - link

    Someone let the kids have access to their parents computer and they found this comments section.

    I know there is a fandom for both of the graphics card companies, but these comments don't make AMD look good - unless they are trying to get more angst-ridden 12 year-olds to join their cause.
  • xthetenth - Friday, May 20, 2016 - link

    Do you actually buy your graphics cards based on smug condescension towards comment sections? We all know people are bad at choosing metrics that turn dollars into frames but this one takes the cake.
  • kaesden - Thursday, May 19, 2016 - link

    I wonder how long until we find out it only has 7gb full-speed memory :P
  • Acarney - Thursday, May 19, 2016 - link

    I haven't bought a video card in like ten years (been a MacBook user) but I'm aiming for a HTPC/Console replacement now. Can you underclock these cards without major bios hacking or anything? I know they've made simple over clocking settings but no one talks about underclocking (which I totally understand). The goal for me is bringing the TDP closer to 100 - 120w. I know I'll trade some performance but this would be connected to a 1080p plasma so I don't need 4K performance. What I do need is lower TDP to fit into a fanless enclosure... Yet I would like to keep the 256bit memory bandwidth and full card. The next step down will probably be a pretty cut down card and maybe only 4gb of ram and 192-128bit memory :-/
  • Mugur - Friday, May 20, 2016 - link

    Maybe you should get a Nano... Or wait for the inevitable miniITX version for the 1070 (970 had some).
  • TheinsanegamerN - Friday, May 20, 2016 - link

    Yes you can underclock with things like afterburner, but if you are pushing a 1080p display, you really dont need a 1080, or even a 1070. For a HTPC/console, something like the 1060 (when it comes out) would be a better idea.
  • bill44 - Thursday, May 19, 2016 - link

    Nothing about audio?
    Does it support 88.2khz, 176.4khz,192khz?
    Decode DTS-HD, Atmos? Just an example.
  • Dorek - Thursday, June 2, 2016 - link

    >Does it support 88.2khz, 176.4khz,192khz?

    Does it matter? None of those have any advantage over 44.1kHz audio.
  • cmdrdredd - Thursday, May 19, 2016 - link

    Would like to get a 1080 but I'm going to hang on to my SLI 970s until the next round I think. Not enough incentive for the upgrade yet. Unless 4k @ 60fps with ultra settings is a thing with it but I'm not expecting that.
  • wumpus - Friday, May 20, 2016 - link

    Any guesses if the 250W limit will have any effect on this beast (I wouldn't be surprised if it is artificially limited lower than the 1080). When I heard the comments about that (and the >2GHz clock last Friday) I had to wonder if slapping on a closed-water cooler would have a similar (immense) effect as doing same on a 390.

    Note the (nearly) full blown memory system. If it can take the clock, it should do well.
  • CaedenV - Friday, May 20, 2016 - link

    so...
    1920 is the cuda count
    1080 is the chip name
    Either this is a bunch of marketing BS still, or someone went out of their way to make this similar to TV spec.
    Oh, and the aspect ratio of a 16:9 TV is 1.77... that boost frequency is suspiciously close at 1.68
  • Yojimbo - Wednesday, June 1, 2016 - link

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lincoln%E2%80%93Kenn...
  • soldier45 - Friday, May 20, 2016 - link

    All the hate for these cards yet it will be about a 70-80% boost over my 780 classified of 3 years. Been gaming at 4K on low settings for a year now and can truly go ultra on 4K with this card. Having said that I will certainly wait for the EVGA ACX version or Classified or see what ASUS or MSI come up with before I buy July timeframe.
  • SeanJ76 - Monday, June 20, 2016 - link

    I can't wait to get my 1080GTX!!
  • SeanJ76 - Monday, June 20, 2016 - link

    Not bad for a $450 card, but you gotta go with the 1080GTX, the increase in performance is definitely justified for the extra $$

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