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The Great NVIDIA Switcheroo | GPU Shrinkflation.

gamersnexus.net

The Great NVIDIA Switcheroo | GPU Shrinkflation | GamersNexus

We look at how NVIDIA has downsized essentially all of its gaming GPUs in terms of relative configuration compared to each generation’s flagship

  • This article expands upon our "RTX 4080 problem" by looking at the entirety of the RTX 50 series, including how the RTX 5070 looks an awful lot like a prior 50-class or 60-class GPU.
  • NVIDIA is giving you the least amount of CUDA cores for a given class of GPU than ever before.
  • GPU prices have crept higher across the board, but NVIDIA's, in particular, have lost step with what we came to expect from generations of GPU launches.
9 comments

  • On one hand I agree with GamersNexus Steve that 'line go down = bad,' but on the other hand you could consider it as the flagship becoming more and more of an outlier. (In other words, if the graph were normalized such that the 80 series line were flat, then I think the lower-model lines would also be flat but the 90 series line would be going up.)

    If Nvidia "fixed" it by just not offering the 5090 in its current form at all and instead having the fastest non-pro/compute/AI card be one with a lower price and fewer cores, would that make Steve and gamers happy?

    • This is true. But it also ignores price dynamics.

      One of the first GPUs that I "bought" (convinced my father to pay for an upgrade) was the GeForce 6600 for ~$250 or so (maybe $275 max) in 2004. This is the true price, not American-style list price. We bought it for that price (in local currency) at a computer store. I believe US true prices were (much?) lower that $275 at that time, but I could be wrong.

      $275 in 2004 is around $470 in 2025. You are not getting a Nvidia 6600 class card for $470 (all in) from AMD or Nvidia. The closest would be the Intel B580 which goes for around $340 (true price) where I live. But I would argue the B580 is not comparable to what the 6600 was in 2004. And the 6600 was broadly available in 2004 (at relatively competitive prices) even though I did not live in the "western world".

      And keep in mind that I don't remember the exact price of the 6600 that we bought in 2004. My memory tells me that it was around $250 which would be $420 is current dollars (solid price difference to the $470 mentioned earlier).

9 comments