The Great NVIDIA Switcheroo - GPU Shrinkflation
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Date: 2025-04-07
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Comments and reviews: 20
janak132
So.. nVidia doesn't have competition in the top field, AMD has pulled out, intel isn't there yet.. if ever.
Mid-line AMD has cards, but.. there's the fake MSRP issue.
One would normally have thought that future sales would keep manufacturers in line, but what is the future
Systems on a chip solutions are getting better and better. Look at what a modern phone or Apple's expensive M solutions can do.
At the same time there's a ceiling to how much development time/funds a game company will sink into a game which places a cap on graphical fidelity.
Sooner or later discrete GPUs will be unnecessary for good enough gaming graphics. When SOCs incorporate AI boost circuits into their models, a hardware design that doesn't only run AI better, but can either directly be used for graphics or indirectly through scalers and frame generators.
Or alternatively: AI's will be good enough that they take over as chip and circuit designers and some company goes straight from having no product to producing competition, then another company does the same.
Either way we get the same result.The future gets to a point where nVidia no longer can expect to have the best cards anymore.
The writing is on the wall: They know they won't be able to keep earning the way they are today.
Unfortunately this means we are in a situation where the sales future is an expected eventual downturn, there is no real competition right now, because the competition F'ed up MSRP.. because they see the same future. They're also both probably looking at how future real world wars will F with the markets... They're just into earning money now, because the rosy colored upgrade forever future, one way or another, dies.
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So.. nVidia doesn't have competition in the top field, AMD has pulled out, intel isn't there yet.. if ever.
Mid-line AMD has cards, but.. there's the fake MSRP issue.
One would normally have thought that future sales would keep manufacturers in line, but what is the future
Systems on a chip solutions are getting better and better. Look at what a modern phone or Apple's expensive M solutions can do.
At the same time there's a ceiling to how much development time/funds a game company will sink into a game which places a cap on graphical fidelity.
Sooner or later discrete GPUs will be unnecessary for good enough gaming graphics. When SOCs incorporate AI boost circuits into their models, a hardware design that doesn't only run AI better, but can either directly be used for graphics or indirectly through scalers and frame generators.
Or alternatively: AI's will be good enough that they take over as chip and circuit designers and some company goes straight from having no product to producing competition, then another company does the same.
Either way we get the same result.The future gets to a point where nVidia no longer can expect to have the best cards anymore.
The writing is on the wall: They know they won't be able to keep earning the way they are today.
Unfortunately this means we are in a situation where the sales future is an expected eventual downturn, there is no real competition right now, because the competition F'ed up MSRP.. because they see the same future. They're also both probably looking at how future real world wars will F with the markets... They're just into earning money now, because the rosy colored upgrade forever future, one way or another, dies.
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Alex-uo9dq
Interesting video Steve. You have your point but i believe there is another way of looking at this. And it is by comparing it to the competition. For example, AMD has always been relatively close to the Nvidia flagship, and this changed with the introduction of the 4090. Lets take the 20 series, the AMD flagship back then was radeon 7 which was around 30% slower to the Nvidia flagship of the time 2080 ti). Then the 6900xt, around 10% slower to the 3090. Taking this into account, the new AMD flagship is around 20% slower than the 5080, and we all know that the 5080 overclocks better. Therefore it seems to me that the flagship of comparison should have been the 5080 rather than the 5090 since the 5080 seems to be the 2080 ti and the 3090 of the past and the 5090 is just a crazy powerful and expensive thing that nvidia introduced since the 40 series, simply to ensure that it has the crown of the most powerful gpu, with a significant margin compared to what AMD or anybody else can come up with. Just saying my opinion.. :) ps I am not an Nvidia employee
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Interesting video Steve. You have your point but i believe there is another way of looking at this. And it is by comparing it to the competition. For example, AMD has always been relatively close to the Nvidia flagship, and this changed with the introduction of the 4090. Lets take the 20 series, the AMD flagship back then was radeon 7 which was around 30% slower to the Nvidia flagship of the time 2080 ti). Then the 6900xt, around 10% slower to the 3090. Taking this into account, the new AMD flagship is around 20% slower than the 5080, and we all know that the 5080 overclocks better. Therefore it seems to me that the flagship of comparison should have been the 5080 rather than the 5090 since the 5080 seems to be the 2080 ti and the 3090 of the past and the 5090 is just a crazy powerful and expensive thing that nvidia introduced since the 40 series, simply to ensure that it has the crown of the most powerful gpu, with a significant margin compared to what AMD or anybody else can come up with. Just saying my opinion.. :) ps I am not an Nvidia employee
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Cherijo78
As an Old Gamer one of the realities I see is the need to upgrade is nothing like what we went through in the '90s into the '00s. We have entered an era of nice to have visuals, but really it's eye candy. 1080p is basically solved. The brands are now pushing us to 2160p, which is the current shiney target. The reality though is that outside of the top cards, you're really not going to be able to push 60 frames with all the bells and whistles at 2160p. They KNOW most people are either fine with 1080p, or maybe pushing 1440p. This, they can get away with a lower core count because pushing even 1440p isn't nearly as demanding as what's necessary for 2160p.
I personally have decided I just don't even care anymore. I'm so used to potato games as an Old Gamer that the shinies just don't really attract me these days. I'll take a potato game if it has a great storyline and good gameplay. I'd like to thank a lot of my fellow gamers are in the same boat. We are tired of the graphics, race, and just want good games that run decently.
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As an Old Gamer one of the realities I see is the need to upgrade is nothing like what we went through in the '90s into the '00s. We have entered an era of nice to have visuals, but really it's eye candy. 1080p is basically solved. The brands are now pushing us to 2160p, which is the current shiney target. The reality though is that outside of the top cards, you're really not going to be able to push 60 frames with all the bells and whistles at 2160p. They KNOW most people are either fine with 1080p, or maybe pushing 1440p. This, they can get away with a lower core count because pushing even 1440p isn't nearly as demanding as what's necessary for 2160p.
I personally have decided I just don't even care anymore. I'm so used to potato games as an Old Gamer that the shinies just don't really attract me these days. I'll take a potato game if it has a great storyline and good gameplay. I'd like to thank a lot of my fellow gamers are in the same boat. We are tired of the graphics, race, and just want good games that run decently.
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gamersnexus
Insane to hear people keep saying that graphics cards are becoming more expensive...
I can play cyberpunk at 40 to 50 fps on QHD medium with a 3050 8gb adapted to a mini pc from 2020 via an oculink port that i have installed, running in power saving mode to keep cpu temps down!!!!! ( I5 9500f, 32gb ddr4 2666, ssd running at pcie 2.0 x1, oculink running at pcie 2.0 x4). And yes, pcie 2.0 ( pcie slots running from the intel h310 pcie 2.0 only). The cpu doesnt even get to 100% usage.
In 2015 i bought a r9 270x 2gb that came out in 2013 ( for an AMD rig), proper mid range at the time, for 185, and i couldnt play crysis 1 from 2008 at 1080p high...
This kind of performance for this price from an rtx 3050 8gb for 190 was unthinkable even 10 years ago. Even for those wanting to play at 4k, a sub 500 here in europe rtx 4060 ti can play anything at 4k. 4k at under 500, 10 years ago didnt exist...
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Insane to hear people keep saying that graphics cards are becoming more expensive...
I can play cyberpunk at 40 to 50 fps on QHD medium with a 3050 8gb adapted to a mini pc from 2020 via an oculink port that i have installed, running in power saving mode to keep cpu temps down!!!!! ( I5 9500f, 32gb ddr4 2666, ssd running at pcie 2.0 x1, oculink running at pcie 2.0 x4). And yes, pcie 2.0 ( pcie slots running from the intel h310 pcie 2.0 only). The cpu doesnt even get to 100% usage.
In 2015 i bought a r9 270x 2gb that came out in 2013 ( for an AMD rig), proper mid range at the time, for 185, and i couldnt play crysis 1 from 2008 at 1080p high...
This kind of performance for this price from an rtx 3050 8gb for 190 was unthinkable even 10 years ago. Even for those wanting to play at 4k, a sub 500 here in europe rtx 4060 ti can play anything at 4k. 4k at under 500, 10 years ago didnt exist...
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uhurunuru6609
Please use this Generational comparison chart, with every GPU Revie, adding AMD & Intel GPUs as well, this is vital buying information.
I hate, but understand why Nvidia promotes EOL software crutches that are part of each game & update over time as things you need, because they chose to downgrade the cards, to make Crutches essential when you unbox that brand new GPU.
What I hate, but DO NOT understand is why Tech Tubers do that too, at least GN still shows Native Raster & Native Raster RT, what can the hardware in the GPU power & Render with, 30% headroom at the Native Display Res (Now Low=1080p, mid=1440p, high=4k).
This chart shows why the 3080 Ti was my choice for Native 1440p, I saw mothing cabable of Native 4k in 2021, now only the paper 5090 can, because of the huge chasm to the 5080, I'll use Nvidia's EOL crutches until AMD makes a 4k Native GPU (thanks Jensen).
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Please use this Generational comparison chart, with every GPU Revie, adding AMD & Intel GPUs as well, this is vital buying information.
I hate, but understand why Nvidia promotes EOL software crutches that are part of each game & update over time as things you need, because they chose to downgrade the cards, to make Crutches essential when you unbox that brand new GPU.
What I hate, but DO NOT understand is why Tech Tubers do that too, at least GN still shows Native Raster & Native Raster RT, what can the hardware in the GPU power & Render with, 30% headroom at the Native Display Res (Now Low=1080p, mid=1440p, high=4k).
This chart shows why the 3080 Ti was my choice for Native 1440p, I saw mothing cabable of Native 4k in 2021, now only the paper 5090 can, because of the huge chasm to the 5080, I'll use Nvidia's EOL crutches until AMD makes a 4k Native GPU (thanks Jensen).
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lloydmilton
I went for a 4080 super TI about 8 months ago for my game development machine... Stepping up from a 2070 super... It was a massive performance boost... I only went for the NVIDIA card because I did not want any possible driver issues in my game development rig and the AMD cards at the time were having some minor driver issues... A lot of the AMD Driver issues seem to have been resolved and I do suspect my next card will be an AMD based card... I cannot in any way justify upgrading to a 5080 / 5090 not only as a gamer but as a game developer... Perhaps I will do similar to the past (I have run NVIDIA cards in my gaming rigs since the GTX 4xx series cards) and wait 2 generations and see what is on offer from AMD, INTEL and NVIDIA at the time when the 60 series cards release.
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I went for a 4080 super TI about 8 months ago for my game development machine... Stepping up from a 2070 super... It was a massive performance boost... I only went for the NVIDIA card because I did not want any possible driver issues in my game development rig and the AMD cards at the time were having some minor driver issues... A lot of the AMD Driver issues seem to have been resolved and I do suspect my next card will be an AMD based card... I cannot in any way justify upgrading to a 5080 / 5090 not only as a gamer but as a game developer... Perhaps I will do similar to the past (I have run NVIDIA cards in my gaming rigs since the GTX 4xx series cards) and wait 2 generations and see what is on offer from AMD, INTEL and NVIDIA at the time when the 60 series cards release.
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Silicone2Software
I'm typing this from a laptop with a 470 mobile so it's a little bit of a hypocrite statement
but this is why I never understood the hate on AMD like yes they are step behind, yes they are faster in old school gaming ways like pure rasterization and stuff like that, I've noticed recently especially in some of the more optimized games coming out with Ray tracing they actually can hold up fairly well with the competition
people put their nose up at the 7900XT and 7900 XTX and we are getting more and more games where you can VRAM limit 16 GB at reasonable resolutions. at least they tried to cater to this with their 20 GB and 24 GB offerings.
I need I think it's going to be a day where our children are asking what's better further video card AMD or Intel
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I'm typing this from a laptop with a 470 mobile so it's a little bit of a hypocrite statement
but this is why I never understood the hate on AMD like yes they are step behind, yes they are faster in old school gaming ways like pure rasterization and stuff like that, I've noticed recently especially in some of the more optimized games coming out with Ray tracing they actually can hold up fairly well with the competition
people put their nose up at the 7900XT and 7900 XTX and we are getting more and more games where you can VRAM limit 16 GB at reasonable resolutions. at least they tried to cater to this with their 20 GB and 24 GB offerings.
I need I think it's going to be a day where our children are asking what's better further video card AMD or Intel
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hydrargyrumnight
% of CUDA cores plot is highly misleading. It's pretty clear from both the abs. performance figures and prices that it isn't so much the case that 80-series cards got smaller, but rather that 90-class/flagship cards got much, much bigger.
100% of CUDA cores should be the 80-series cards for those charts, and everything else normalized against it. If done so, it'll be very obvious that the flagship is the sole and consistent outlier - cards that are getting more expensive than 80 card by an increasing factor, and contain more CUDA cores, by an increasing factor. While the entire rest of the lineup (80 series and down) is, albeit not entirely consistent through the history, is much more consistent than this review portrays.
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% of CUDA cores plot is highly misleading. It's pretty clear from both the abs. performance figures and prices that it isn't so much the case that 80-series cards got smaller, but rather that 90-class/flagship cards got much, much bigger.
100% of CUDA cores should be the 80-series cards for those charts, and everything else normalized against it. If done so, it'll be very obvious that the flagship is the sole and consistent outlier - cards that are getting more expensive than 80 card by an increasing factor, and contain more CUDA cores, by an increasing factor. While the entire rest of the lineup (80 series and down) is, albeit not entirely consistent through the history, is much more consistent than this review portrays.
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80s_Gamr
The only significant pushback I can see would be if developers just simply quit trying to push the envelope. Graphics and the overall capabilities of what's out there has been great for a long time... program games to stay in that lane. Back in the day games were made to be the best they could within the limitations of what was out there (when consoles ruled the roost). Now it seems games are made to a degree where the hardware continues to have to catch up for them to run at their best. Slow down on the cutting edge eye candy and focus on making games with good gameplay, like they were once forced to. If gamers don't constantly need to upgrade hardware they won't buy these new low-value overpriced products.
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The only significant pushback I can see would be if developers just simply quit trying to push the envelope. Graphics and the overall capabilities of what's out there has been great for a long time... program games to stay in that lane. Back in the day games were made to be the best they could within the limitations of what was out there (when consoles ruled the roost). Now it seems games are made to a degree where the hardware continues to have to catch up for them to run at their best. Slow down on the cutting edge eye candy and focus on making games with good gameplay, like they were once forced to. If gamers don't constantly need to upgrade hardware they won't buy these new low-value overpriced products.
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ArdgalAlkeides
One of the rare big fails by GN. No, just because they sell even higher-end models does not mean they need to drag the 4060 up with the 4090 and increase its price further (because it WOULD be more expensive to produce). That's nonsense. Sorry you got stuck in the zone that you think the marketing names have a meaning and that 4060 should be whatever % of the flagship, but that's just .. nonsense.
You might just be able to do this comparison if you cut off anything higher than the 80 series since those haven't really been inflating that much, but really all that matters is perf per dollar no matter what the name.
How much perf can you get for inflation adjusted $500 or whatever
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One of the rare big fails by GN. No, just because they sell even higher-end models does not mean they need to drag the 4060 up with the 4090 and increase its price further (because it WOULD be more expensive to produce). That's nonsense. Sorry you got stuck in the zone that you think the marketing names have a meaning and that 4060 should be whatever % of the flagship, but that's just .. nonsense.
You might just be able to do this comparison if you cut off anything higher than the 80 series since those haven't really been inflating that much, but really all that matters is perf per dollar no matter what the name.
How much perf can you get for inflation adjusted $500 or whatever
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RN1441
Graphics is a question of throughput, and to get throughput one needs bandwidth. For compute heavy tasks cache is helpful, but for everything else, bus width really matters. Going back over many many generations anything with a 256 bit bus was high end back in the early 2000s like with the 9700 pro, while now it's considered midrange (like the 3060 Ti, the 9700 XT, etc.). Anything with a wider bus is high end, like the 384 bits on the 3080 was, and anything lower is low end like the 192 bits on the 4070 was. Part of this relationship is that memory bus width costs really space and design effort on the PCB and real memory chips to be installed to feed it.
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Graphics is a question of throughput, and to get throughput one needs bandwidth. For compute heavy tasks cache is helpful, but for everything else, bus width really matters. Going back over many many generations anything with a 256 bit bus was high end back in the early 2000s like with the 9700 pro, while now it's considered midrange (like the 3060 Ti, the 9700 XT, etc.). Anything with a wider bus is high end, like the 384 bits on the 3080 was, and anything lower is low end like the 192 bits on the 4070 was. Part of this relationship is that memory bus width costs really space and design effort on the PCB and real memory chips to be installed to feed it.
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AladimBR
Amazing how many people are falling to the Nvidia GPU Shrinkflation as explained by Steve. Paying more for less, every generation. This is how we went from a top GPU costing US$ 500 to US$ 2000 and counting. This is coming from someone who had the 3 70s (1xxxx to 3xxxx), and in past had Nvidia or ATI/AMD, depending on the generation, power draw and quieteness. GPU consumer since 3dfx Voodoo days, when a GPU was around US$ 300. Sure you can add inflation, but that doesn't get you to US$2K. The whole computer industry was more for less every generation, and I'm afraid now the rule is less for more.
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Amazing how many people are falling to the Nvidia GPU Shrinkflation as explained by Steve. Paying more for less, every generation. This is how we went from a top GPU costing US$ 500 to US$ 2000 and counting. This is coming from someone who had the 3 70s (1xxxx to 3xxxx), and in past had Nvidia or ATI/AMD, depending on the generation, power draw and quieteness. GPU consumer since 3dfx Voodoo days, when a GPU was around US$ 300. Sure you can add inflation, but that doesn't get you to US$2K. The whole computer industry was more for less every generation, and I'm afraid now the rule is less for more.
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MadMetalMacho
The inflation adjusted numbers seem VERY off though. There's just absolutely no way a 699$ 1080 ti from march 2017 would equate to 912$ today. Currency supply went up by about 80% since then, and I don't think anyone that does supermarket shopping thinks prices went up only 25% since 2017. A more realistic 1080ti inflation adjusted price would be about 1300$.
Funnily enough that doesn't even fundamentally change the points being made in the video. But if this was fully true and just purely a cashgrab/borderline scam, amd and/or intel would have an easier time catching nvidia.
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The inflation adjusted numbers seem VERY off though. There's just absolutely no way a 699$ 1080 ti from march 2017 would equate to 912$ today. Currency supply went up by about 80% since then, and I don't think anyone that does supermarket shopping thinks prices went up only 25% since 2017. A more realistic 1080ti inflation adjusted price would be about 1300$.
Funnily enough that doesn't even fundamentally change the points being made in the video. But if this was fully true and just purely a cashgrab/borderline scam, amd and/or intel would have an easier time catching nvidia.
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hazsneax
I miss the days when we could trust a company when they said they had a solid product, and all of them weren't trying to sneakily steal our data in as many ways as they can with each sale... and then on top of that, chopping up sales/features like DLC's for games and on top of everything else theyre doing thats manipulative (not just NVDIA, all companies) -- we have companies openly abiding unnecessarily by the planned obsolescence shtick.... frustrating.
Why the hell did Samsung think it was a good idea to follow Apple in removing their headphone jack.. i don't get them.
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I miss the days when we could trust a company when they said they had a solid product, and all of them weren't trying to sneakily steal our data in as many ways as they can with each sale... and then on top of that, chopping up sales/features like DLC's for games and on top of everything else theyre doing thats manipulative (not just NVDIA, all companies) -- we have companies openly abiding unnecessarily by the planned obsolescence shtick.... frustrating.
Why the hell did Samsung think it was a good idea to follow Apple in removing their headphone jack.. i don't get them.
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StewartWild
The price is what the market is willing to pay Nvidia still can't keep up with demand, though. People are paying those prices, so we could argue Nvidia was under-selling themselves all these years. Given people are gobbling up anything they put out, and at scalper prices... the buyers are telling Nvidia they're perfectly fine with what they're paying.
This last 2 years is the first time I've bought used cards, though. I picked up a nice 2080Ti and a watercooled 1080Ti for my spare PC for really decent prices. They still play everything I play quite happily.
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The price is what the market is willing to pay Nvidia still can't keep up with demand, though. People are paying those prices, so we could argue Nvidia was under-selling themselves all these years. Given people are gobbling up anything they put out, and at scalper prices... the buyers are telling Nvidia they're perfectly fine with what they're paying.
This last 2 years is the first time I've bought used cards, though. I picked up a nice 2080Ti and a watercooled 1080Ti for my spare PC for really decent prices. They still play everything I play quite happily.
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yumeN0dengon
Reacting a bit late, and TBH I still haven't finished watching, but... the 5080 is half the cores of the 5090, sure. It's also half the price. It would've been interesting to see a third chart representing the evolution of cores relative to flagship per dollar. From the charts you showed, it looks like it's essentially the flagship that skyrocketed, while the rest remained more or less stable relative to it if you factor in MSRP (not too sure about the switch from GTX to RTX). Though I guess you can also interpret it as NVIDIA shifting every other card down...
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Reacting a bit late, and TBH I still haven't finished watching, but... the 5080 is half the cores of the 5090, sure. It's also half the price. It would've been interesting to see a third chart representing the evolution of cores relative to flagship per dollar. From the charts you showed, it looks like it's essentially the flagship that skyrocketed, while the rest remained more or less stable relative to it if you factor in MSRP (not too sure about the switch from GTX to RTX). Though I guess you can also interpret it as NVIDIA shifting every other card down...
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anthonycomeaux1804
I have been putting off building a new computer to replace my 1070 build strictly because of what this video is about. Every time I start considering a new build, I look at the current market and just feel dirty thinking about spending money on a graphics card. I'm glad GN continues to highlight and bring attention to how much Nvidia is screwing over gamers. It's not just inflation, it's not just shrinkflation, it's not mixed in with exceptional amounts of greed added on top.
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I have been putting off building a new computer to replace my 1070 build strictly because of what this video is about. Every time I start considering a new build, I look at the current market and just feel dirty thinking about spending money on a graphics card. I'm glad GN continues to highlight and bring attention to how much Nvidia is screwing over gamers. It's not just inflation, it's not just shrinkflation, it's not mixed in with exceptional amounts of greed added on top.
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giupepe3613
This process isn’t just applied by Nvidia it’s a plague that affects all sectors nowadays: food, clothing, cars, and so on. You pay a lot for low-quality stuff that’s been built specifically to be hyped by aggressive and hypnotic marketing.
A return to the old ways, when consumer satisfaction actually mattered, I don’t think that’s coming back. In a globalized market, only numbers and profit matter.
I’m sorry, but you’ve just discovered hot water, my friend.
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This process isn’t just applied by Nvidia it’s a plague that affects all sectors nowadays: food, clothing, cars, and so on. You pay a lot for low-quality stuff that’s been built specifically to be hyped by aggressive and hypnotic marketing.
A return to the old ways, when consumer satisfaction actually mattered, I don’t think that’s coming back. In a globalized market, only numbers and profit matter.
I’m sorry, but you’ve just discovered hot water, my friend.
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theshaka2179
As someone who does care about performance/dollar spent, this is great information.
Watching your dollar purchasing less has been a trend not only in the gaming realm but in everyday purchases like food. This is a problem with the money along with companies prioritizing shareholder value rather than increasing product performance and value.
We need more competition in this segment in order to try to fix this issue but it's still a long way away from happening.
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As someone who does care about performance/dollar spent, this is great information.
Watching your dollar purchasing less has been a trend not only in the gaming realm but in everyday purchases like food. This is a problem with the money along with companies prioritizing shareholder value rather than increasing product performance and value.
We need more competition in this segment in order to try to fix this issue but it's still a long way away from happening.
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gamersnexus
I've been waiting for outlets to call this out. Why has nodoby talked about that when the 4070 launched as was just a 60 card Finally Blackwell has made the shrinkflation obvious...
5070 is a 50 Ti card, in terms of performacne (matches last 70 and flapgen 2 gens before), in terms of die size (25%) and VRAM configuration (1/3). 5070 Ti shoould be a 60, 5080 a 60 Ti. Ada cards should move down 2 tiers as well, e.g. 4070 Ti -> 4060 Ti and so on.
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I've been waiting for outlets to call this out. Why has nodoby talked about that when the 4070 launched as was just a 60 card Finally Blackwell has made the shrinkflation obvious...
5070 is a 50 Ti card, in terms of performacne (matches last 70 and flapgen 2 gens before), in terms of die size (25%) and VRAM configuration (1/3). 5070 Ti shoould be a 60, 5080 a 60 Ti. Ada cards should move down 2 tiers as well, e.g. 4070 Ti -> 4060 Ti and so on.
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