If PC gamers have been willing to pay too much for Nvidia GPU's all these years, then there's little reason why AMD should accept much less if they can come close or match Nvidia going forward. 

If Nvidia had kept prices reasonable without getting too greedy in the first place, AMD wouldn't be daring to charge more for RDNA now either. Though AMD isn't free of blame because their lack of competition led to Nvidia choosing to raise prices, but Nvidia and Nvidia gamers have indirectly led AMD to choose higher pricing as well.

I'm more inclined to support AMD this time. If they launch a card in a similar ballpark as the RTX3070/RX3080 with RT and I can save some some money I might go that route. Assuming they fix their driver issues it could be a good alternative.

FidelityFX features makes a good case vs DLSS. Two reviewers like Ars Technica prefer that to DLSS and works on Nvidia GPU's on their previews on Death Stranding on PC.

But when you think of it that way, what other choice do I have in that already small high end market?, buy lesser hardware, in the hopes AMD might one day actually bring their A-game?.

AMD just isn't trying hard enough, and they've allowed Nvidia to gain quite a great deal of leeway and mind share. Because they are going to charge high means that those paying higher prices allow for it. I personally don't, because my limit budget is at least £7-800, but the recent prices for high end have gone beyond that already.

Really though, we could say this to just about any market in the games industry. MT's are now steadily grounded in many games, because casuals don't think they are harmful and thus allow them to permeate throughout the entire industry, to a point that we laughably are seeing the car industry enforcing a subscription service for heated car seats, and I know the media side (Netflix) and the gaming side (consoles/MT's) have shown a different industry that it's okay to adopt a bad practice, because casuals will allow and support it's growth.

Those that are paying even more out the backside for the latest RTX cards are thus setting a bad example, in saying that AMD and Nvidia can charge high, because those people can seemingly somehow afford those cards, despite people like me currently not being able to. It's just a different number of people auto dictating how a market should be run, without actually telling the market directly. It's just how we are as a species sadly, just look at shitty laws being passed, because normie folk don't care, or don't read too much into it. Look at the car industry with subscriptions for heated seats, or high end GPU's now all costing a kidney.

There's no core co-operation and dedication within each industry's group of consumers, because everyone wants what they want for themselves, not what their choices could do to the industry in general. Look at consoles and how one console charged for online, because now all 3 do, because one group of consumers said "yeah, that's fine, keep charging me", and now all 3 suffer that fate. 

In short, I hate normies, casuals and the 0000.1% rich folk that pay out the arse for something that could be far greater than what it currently lacks. Both sides cause their own damage, and they either don't care, or don't know what they are doing. 

I was mainly being sarcastic loll.

With that being said, the problem is, if a company is in second place, it's gonna be up to them to bring out the competition and have competitive pricing. Imo Nvidia has both the brand power and the product. 5000 series is a good value sure but it doesn't offer much more than Pascal did in terms of features while being priced similar to Turing. You want ray tracing? You have to go Nvidia. You want DLSS? You have to go Nvidia. You want full compatibility with Direct X 12 Ultimate? You have to go Nvidia. You want the best performance? You have to go Nvidia.

Like you look at the two very talked about features right now... DLSS and Ray Tracing... You can't even bring RDNA1 gpus into the conversation...

Yea they are pricey but I wouldn't say people are over-paying for Nvidia if their only alternative is nothing or less performance. The 5000 series really should have had Pascal pricing since it doesn't have a lot of Turing's features yet it didn't. And the problem with that is Nvidia can lower it's price to match which is exactly what they did. Not to mention the driver issues that still plagued Vega and RDNA at launch.

The thing that made Ryzen a success against Intel isn't AMD charging a similar price. It's AMD showcasing how much of a (imo) shit value Intel really has been. Yea Intel was and still are the gaming king but AMD is close enough while offering better value and dominating performance in many other areas. Like one of the benchmarks that reviewers did is showcase gaming + streaming. Ryzen 1700 did it without little to no issues doing it vs a quad core i5 or i7 was like, pls buy HEDT, thanks or do some process priority adjustments and etc. Of course the Ryzen 1000 launch wasn't very smooth but since CPUs rarely need driver/bios updates, once you got past it the issues, Ryzen was smooth.

For me personally to get RDNA2 GPU, they not only need to make a GPU that has similar performance to Nvidia all the way up to a 3080 but they also need to make sure they are on top of drivers. Cause I have Cyberpunk 2077 pre-ordered. And if Nvidia is ready day 1 with their drivers and I have to wait a week or two for AMD to release theirs, no thanks. I am not gonna buy gaming GPU where I have to wait to play new games... And I will also be looking at their launch drivers as well.

Yea it's a lot to ask but there's a reason why Nvidia is king right now... Like an expensive hooker, she will swallow every time without hesitation...

Compute has always been Graphics Core Next's strong point, which is why AMD benefited so much during the crypto-craze.

I think you are on the money with the assertion that Vega will form the basis of AMD's CDNA efforts... In saying that, RDNA isn't that different from GCN anyway, not from an instruction perspective.

Navi made allot of heavy architectural investments to bolster non-compute aspects, so from a pure compute perspective, Navi is actually inferior to Vega... Vega 64 for example can double the performance of the Radeon 5700XT in pure compute in some scenarios... And do so with only 20% more transistors.

But in gaming the 5700XT can beat Vega 64 by a good 40% in some scenarios... And it's a smaller and cheaper chip.

For APU's, I don't understand AMD's desire to cling to Vega other than cost reasons.

Yes, that would be the other choice, if you can't stick with what you already have or buy used.

AMD isn't just fighting one giant, it's fighting two. Expecting more from them recently is like asking for perfection, and that doesn't exist.

Yes, people with more money than brains, along with the people who don't use their brains, are a bigger part of the price problem as per consumers.

Intel could certainly find a place in the dedicated GPU market shortly, if their tech is reasonably worthy while priced and marketed correctly.

Ah. Thought you might be but wasn't all that certain.

Only if AMD wants Radeon to gain considerable market share and mind share. The problem is, AMD has never really dominated the GPU market like Nvidia has for so long. For Radeon GPU's, it might make more sense to just make as much money as possible instead of fight a losing battle in terms of having the most products out in the wild. Not to mention the highest tier. Nvidia may be cocky, but they didn't push in the clutch like Intel did. Ryzen could change the game, but RDNA may not be able to do the same no matter how competitive. In that case, make what you can, while you can.

Nvidia may be offering new features, but how much are those new features actually put to (good) use, and would gamers prefer those minor upgrades plus new features for their money vs simply beefing up existing features until the new features can really make a big difference across the board? 

AMD has had it's problems as well, but if they can get away with it like their competition can in their own ways, why should they bother doing a much better, more finalized job before launching? Companies do what they have to, to get consumers money. If you give it to them too easily, they will take it for granted the majority of the time.

Ryzen had much more of an opportunity to make waves than RDNA has so far. Intel was asleep at the wheel while Nvidia has always been ready to shift into next gear, it's how much gas do they have to give it after shifting is the question Jensen struggles with. Ryzen and it's chiplets and IF allow for much cheaper pricing as well, which RDNA doesn't have the benefit of. At least not yet. Who knows?

People who won't wait are like fish who jump straight into the fisherman's boat. All the fisherman has to do is paddle out and crack a beer. If you want bait, or the very best bait at that, you've got to at least nibble at the worm and make them hook you and work for it.

Not everyone wants to be king though, or maybe they do, but are content with their lands and don't wish to wage war to take slightly more. Sometimes it's unavoidable pressure or necessity that's required to drive expansion.

Well the problem with being in AMD's position and competing against Nvidia is that Nvidia will try to match almost every price point. AMD releases 5600 XT, Nvidia responds with 2060 KO. AMD releases 5700, Nvidia responds with 2060 Super price cut. AMD releases 5700 XT, Nvidia sandwiches it by re-releasing 2070 and releasing 2070 Super. AMD releases anything lower than a 5600 XT and Nvidia has a billion iterations of 1650/1660/1660Ti.

The thing with beefing up existing features is that it only really works if the competition sacrificed existing features for those new features therefore having less performance in return. Nvidia stayed relatively the same sure but AMD only caught up. So you have a situation where Nvidia is giving you good-excellent rasterization performance + giving you a taste of the future while having the full feature set ready for next generation vs AMD is giving you good-very good rasterization for the similar price with worse driver support...

There is certainly a market for AMD cards no doubt and the once in a few years crypto boom that seems to happen also helps with AMD's sales. But it's a position of uncertainty as Nvidia is playing in the same space.

I like this analogy but I don't think it's quite works in this comparison. Waiting for AMD drivers doesn't get you a better driver than what Nvidia gives you in day one. Waiting on AMD driver allows you to play the games like the Nvidia people have been playing all this time.

And yea that's true but it is a risky business being in second place as your competitor gets to dedicate how much profit you can have which I would say isn't very good for business.

Well that is something I cannot personally vie for, as I would place myself in a worse off position, while AMD continues to not do much, and my meagre "charity" purchase wouldn't really do anything to sway the tide. With the way the prices are, I'm at an impasse, since I likely won't be able to afford the 3090 model, but also won't settle for an inferior AMD model either. But again, I place that primarily on AMD, the 000.1% and the casual crowds respectively, for the current predicament we're in. 

So if AMD can't beat Nvidia on price point since they will match it or come close, what's AMD's incentive to undercut Nvidia or themselves? Why bother with dedicated (consumer) GPU's at all if you're surrounded?

Could Nvidia have done more with existing (hardware) features if they left out things like RT on the 2000 series? Did they really do the right thing that was best for the consumer? Based on the 3000 series leaks, it seems like the consumers agreed, prices be damned. AMD likes money too just by chance.

I don't just mean drivers. What about waiting for prices to get to a point where they are at the very least, reasonable, top to bottom? If fewer people bought in so early, the prices would flat line and remain there since they won't drop much without serious competition along with a price war. Some people won't wait though, so why offer better pricing? In fact, why not keep increasing?

Second place has it's benefits as well though. You aren't expected to always have the newest features. You aren't expected to have the best tech. You're seen as the underdog, which helps a lot if you ever decide to take a shot at the title. The fall is a lot further from the top.

But that's the thing though, AMD is coming in now with lesser drivers, lesser tech and still going for Nvidia's pricing ideals, which is just going to end with them at a net loss, and hardly anyone will want to bother with them, when Nvidia is already on their 2nd gen RT, while AMD charges the same price and hardly bothering, let alone not adding in tech like DLSS, GFE (still lacking in the AMD dept for many features GFE has) as well as GFN (which was a boon for CDPR showing off Cyberpunk to review outlets during the pandemic, where's AMD's neato extremely helpful feature and pro push for that?).

MS has also been the underdog for years now in the console space. Sony's been pulling ahead time and time again, they've got the money and mind-share, deals made all around, now we've got the sweet spot Epic+Sony buddying up, with MS and no one (Nvidia isn't helping them, AMD, god knows wtf they are pushing that's as worthy as what Nvidia is bringing to PC gaming, to Xbox levels). MS has been playing that title for years now and it's hardly helped them pull a massive, heavy hitting, outta the park hit, that lands them a top spot, which you would naturally and eventually think an underdog would achieve in the end, but they've yet to get to that point, and we both know they won't, because Sony's got next gen in the bag thanks to mind-share and partnerships, just like how Nvidia has an insane amount of mind-share with their GPU's and tech. 

I just don't see how being an underdog-=being the same as top place or it somehow being a good position to stay comfortable in for decades on end. Being 2nd place for years just shows you cannot last forever, and that you're just not good enough. I already look at MS as having lost the console space for some time now. I'm just waiting for them to eventually drop it and move back to PC, because let's face it, that's where they started, that's where they ultimately belong.

They never really belonged or fit in all that well with the console space, and sales, lacking mind-share and memorable content (outside of shooty shooty bang bang titles) just prove this over time. Maybe if they take this upcoming gen by a complete storm, and firmly secure it throughout the new gen, then maybe I'd pay credence to that underdog anology, but right now, I don't see it as being something of a good thing.