Next-Gen GPUs: Pricing and Raster 3D Performance Matter Most to TPU Readers

Our latest front-page poll sheds light on what people want from the next generation of gaming GPUs. We asked our readers what mattered most to them, with answers including raster performance, ray tracing performance, energy efficiency, upscaling or frame-gen technologies, the size of video memory, and lastly, pricing. Our poll ran from September 19, and gathered close to 24,000 votes as of this writing. Pricing remains the king of our polls, with the option gathering 36.1% of the vote, or 8,620 votes. Our readers expect pricing of next-generation GPUs to remain flat, variant-for-variant, and not continue on the absurdly upward trend it has had for the past few generations, with the high-end being pushed beyond the $1,000-mark, and $500 barely bringing in a 1440p-class GPU, while 4K-capable game consoles exist.

Both AMD and NVIDIA know that Moore’s Law is cooked, and that generational leaps in performance and transistor counts are only possible with increase in pricing for the latest foundry nodes. AMD even tried experimenting with disaggregated (chiplet-based) GPUs with its latest RDNA 3 generation, before calling it quits on the enthusiast-segment, so it could focus on the sub-$1000 performance segment. The second most popular response was Raster 3D performance (classic 3D rendering performance), which scored 27% or 6,453 votes.

Generational gains in raster 3D graphics rendering performance at native resolutions remain eminently desirable for anyone following the PC hardware industry for decades now. With Moore’s Law in place, we’ve been used to near-50% generational increases in performance, which enabled new gaming APIs and upped the eye-candy in games with each generation. Interestingly, ray tracing performance takes a backseat, polling not even 3rd, but 4th place, at 10.4% or 2,475 votes. The 3rd place goes to energy efficiency.

The introduction of 600 W-capable power connectors presented ominous signs of where power was headed with future generations of GPUs as the semiconductor fabrication industry struggles to make cutting edge sub 2 nm nodes available, which meant that for the past 3 or 4 generations, GPUs aren’t getting built on the very latest foundry node. For example, by the time 8 nm and 7 nm GPUs came out, 5 nm EUV was already the cutting-edge, and Apple was making its iPhone SoCs on them. Both AMD and NVIDIA would go on to make their next-generations on 5 nm, while the cutting-edge had moved on to 4 nm and 3 nm. The upcoming RDNA 4 and GeForce Blackwell generations are expected to be built on nodes no more advanced than 3 nm, but these come out in 2025, by which time the cutting edge would have moved on to 20 A. All this impacts power, which a performance target wildly misaligns with foundry node available to GPU designers.

Our readers gave upscaling and frame-gen technologies like DLSS, FSR, and XeSS, the least votes, with the option scoring just 2.8% or 661 votes. They do not believe that upscaling technology is a valid excuse for missing generational performance improvement targets at native resolution, and take any claims such as “this looks better than native resolution” with a pinch of salt.

All said and done, the GPU buyer of today has the same expectations from the next-gen as they did a decade ago. This is important, as it forces NVIDIA and AMD to innovate, build their GPUs on the most advanced foundry nodes, and try not to be too greedy with pricing. NVIDIA’s competitor isn’t AMD or Intel, but rather PC gaming as a platform has competition from the consoles, which are offering 4K gaming experiences for half a grand, with technology that “just works.” The onus then is on PC hardware manufacturers to keep up.