Analyzing Consumer Preferences For The GTX 9 Series Versus GTX 10 Series Reveals Surprising…

According to build data from PCPartPicker, consumer behavior and interest in the GTX 10 Series is outstripping the initial interest in the 9 Series, which was released in 2014. But this trend isn’t holding for every model. The build data suggests that consumers are opting for the GTX 1070 less often than they did for the GTX 970 despite stronger performance among other 10 Series cards relative to their counterparts.

The GeForce GTX 9 Series was based on the architecture that Nvidia had been using since 2010 for its GPUs called Maxwell. The 10 Series provided a leap in performance over the prior generations of GPUs due to a new architecture (Pascal) that had more rendering capability and used less power than the Maxwell. The release of the Pascal architecture was seen as a big moment for gaming PC enthusiasts, and they are clearly showing their preference in adoption. Interestingly, however, this trend is not consistent across models. With every release, Nvidia provides several tiers of performance across many price points. At these price points and performance levels, consumers aren’t uniformly jumping into the 10 Series.

The GTX 1060 Vs. the GTX 960

The GTX 1060 currently retails for approximately $200. At the time of its release, the 960 was similarly priced. At this price point and for the capabilities of the least expensive card examined in this article, consumers are clearly preferring to upgrade to the GTX 1060 faster than they did to the 960. This is probably due to price sensitivity across the entire build. For instance, the 1060 gave a significant performance boost over the GTX 760 without requiring an expensive power supply.

The GTX 1070 Vs. the GTX 970

Although it may be too early to tell in the lifecycle of the GTX 1070, it’s interesting to see that the middle tier card for the 1o series is actually underperforming the GTX 970 in consumer interest on PCPartPicker. The retail price for the 1070 at the time of its release was $379. This middle of the road card for Nvidia is struggling to keep up with the growth with its counterpart middle of the road card in the 9 Series.

The GTX 1080 Vs. The GTX 980

At the premium level, excluding Ti and Titan cards, the GTX 1080 is significantly outperforming the 980. This is good news for Nvidia as these cards bring in a serious premium over their sibling cards. For instance, the 1080 had an initial retail price of $599. The premium buyers seem to have been much more excited about the 10 Series launch than the 9 Series launch. Some of this could be the result of significant performance improvements as well as trends and requirements for virtual reality. Whatever it was, Nvidia is probably pretty excited to see the enthusiasm for these cards and looking forward to the release of the 1080 Ti in January 2017.