Makers considering increasing graphics card prices, says paper

Graphics card makers are considering increasing graphics card prices due to shortage of GPUs from AMD and Nvidia, and increasing memory prices, according to a Chinese-language Apple Daily report.

[uie4rhig]

you're gonna kill the gaming market.. i went onto the consoles coz i cudn't afford the already high prices of graphics card..

[champ21]

prices wont rise. you just increased your costs by going console.

consoles are more costly then pc. heres why:

The price difference between console and pc games are enough to turn the tide.

PC gaming doesnt need yearly upgrades maybe on the 3rd year minor gpu upgrade will be good.

take the example of a ps3:

300usd price for the console
2655 usd price for games (over a period of 3 yrs if only 15 games are bought a year) this is if you are staying in the usa. If you stayed outside then the this figure would be 3375usd for games alone.

cost of playing the ps3 over 3 years 2955usd in the usa
out side the usa it would be 3675usd

While paying the above costs the console user played at 720 or below graphics and low/med res textures, no mod support, no kb/mouse support.

Cost of playing on pc:

500usd for a gaming pc
150usd gpu upgrade after 3years
2205usd cost of 3 years of games 15 games each year.

PC gaming cost the user usd 2855 over a period of 3 years regardless of where he stays. while it provided user with higher resolutions, overall better experience and the user didnt get ripped buy middle men like sony or micro. Overall the pc was cheaper by 100usd if played in the usa or 820usd if played outside the usa. This gap increases as more games are bought, more taxes for sony or micro.

also note the ps3 does 720p at best and once the pc user gets the 150usd upgrade 3 years later his system will again be very capable of handling the latest games... ps3 on the other hand by that time will be doing 480 or for the same game while the pc user will still be at 1080p.

@matnum

you dont need to dish out 600usd for a card, usd150 are enough for a great one. USD180 would get ya a 4890 something 3x as powerful as any of the consoles.

[djfullshred]

champ21 - your cost comparison is flawed because of only looking at a 3 year period. Based upon what Sony has said & done in the past, one can expect at least a 10 year lifecycle for the PS3. During that time period, the console owner will only need to buy games, not upgrade hardware. I would expect to upgrade my entire PC at least once during that time frame if I wanted it to stay viable for gaming. Software for PCs is not very forgiving about playing nice with 5 year old computers.

[champ21]

The price difference of games will more then make up for an entire upgrade :)

specially if a comparison was to be done with the xbox.

anyways.. even if the pc wasnt cheaper it would be more or less the same as the console.

however the difference is.. ppl need a pc at home for work, web browsing. only costs a little etc to convert that into a gaming system.

consoles arent really needed unless somone just wants to game. which is why pc is cheaper imo.

[RedDragan]

I do agree that PC gaming is far too expensive and not worth the expense at all.

Which is why I consider the PS3 as the most powerful mass market option for gaming. It is a simple fact that less that 0.5% of gamers can afford a PC capable of playing games at PS3 Exclusive Game Title quality.

They should be lowering these prices to boost PC sales, increasing them is only to price even more people out.

[Tehdaza]

This doesn't sound legit at all.

[ThanatosDMC]

I'll buy more AMD if it's cheaper than Nvidia with almost the same output.

[Sarick]

Doesn't this sound like price fixing? I remember an article a while back when multiple companies gathered together to set the price for LCD screens.

In this case they seem to have a supply and demand excuse, but still doesn't seem legal to say "Makers have agreed to raise prices."

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1...

[Fishy Fingers]

Oooh, a 2 line article. Informative.

[Kakkoii]

Well Digitimes is a well respected industry reporting website. They don't really write articles.

[JsonHenry]

Well, I don't wanna pay more either. But I will if that is what it takes to have the newest/best on the market.

Remember, there is a mainstream card area that will still be in the bugdet for lower income buyers. (and people smarter than me to not spend so much when the old one does just fine)

[matnum]

But they cost so much. im only a collage student and im scraping together about 600 for cards, i dont want to spend moar. i hope that this is fabricated

[STONEY4]

Just when I though prices were getting alot cheaper lately. I remember 8800s being like $800.