Thursday, October 21st 2010
NVIDIA Mulls Price-Cuts on GeForce GTX 460 and GTX 470 to Counter HD 6800 Threat
Tomorrow, AMD will release its much talked about next-generation Radeon HD 6800 series graphics cards, to reinvigorate the company's competitiveness in a price-segment both it and NVIDIA regard as "the gamer's sweet-spot" price segment, which spans between $189 and $249, offering performance levels very close to enthusiast-grade products. To put it in perspective, you should be able to play any DirectX 11 game at 1920 x 1080 (full-HD) resolution with medium-to-high level of detail. Currently, NVIDIA holds the upper hand in this segment with its GTX 460-768 MB and GTX 460-1 GB, which is exactly what Radeon HD 6850 and Radeon HD 6870 seem to be after, with the HD 6870 also holding the potential to disturb higher-end SKUs that are currently priced around the $299 mark.
With no new SKU for this segment in sight, NVIDIA's immediate reaction is reportedly that of introducing "fairly big" price-cuts on the GeForce GTX 460 duo, the company also plans to cut prices of the high-end GeForce GTX 470. To what extant exactly these price cuts would go is not known, but they will be put into effect either today, or tomorrow. Meanwhile, sources close to AMD told us that in response to this development, the red-team will fine-tune the final pricing of the Radeon HD 6800 series, to step up pressure on the competition. We expect as much as $20 to be cut on the currently expected prices of the Radeon HD 6800 series pair.
Update (10/21; 20:50 IST): NVIDIA sent us a circular about revised pricing of certain GeForce products. Details follow.
NVIDIA has cut prices of two key SKUs, the GeForce GTX 460 1 GB and GeForce GTX 470:
With no new SKU for this segment in sight, NVIDIA's immediate reaction is reportedly that of introducing "fairly big" price-cuts on the GeForce GTX 460 duo, the company also plans to cut prices of the high-end GeForce GTX 470. To what extant exactly these price cuts would go is not known, but they will be put into effect either today, or tomorrow. Meanwhile, sources close to AMD told us that in response to this development, the red-team will fine-tune the final pricing of the Radeon HD 6800 series, to step up pressure on the competition. We expect as much as $20 to be cut on the currently expected prices of the Radeon HD 6800 series pair.
NVIDIA has cut prices of two key SKUs, the GeForce GTX 460 1 GB and GeForce GTX 470:
- GeForce GTX 460 1GB: US $199; €169 including VAT
- GeForce GTX 470: US $259; €219 including VAT
35 Comments on NVIDIA Mulls Price-Cuts on GeForce GTX 460 and GTX 470 to Counter HD 6800 Threat
If the 6970 is not as awesome as i hope then i may well be getting a very cheap 460 sli setup :D
I currently own a 4850 and 4650 (and also had many 4xxxx cards ), my plan is to get the 6870, but looking at the price competition, AMD hasn't done any good with 5xxx series in term of price competition, an used 4xxx and a new 5xxx cards are almost at the same price a year later.
So if NV really gets performance/price or even close to it with GTX460 I'll sure get one instead.
I think we must drop AMD a little (on VGA), to force them to drop prices or else NV will be exterminated and we will have to pay $500.00 for a mid range card soon.
I just hope the price cuts filter through to retailers tomorrow. Would rather not have to wait until next week to get one - I've planned my weekend around building my new PC.
With DX11, microsoft opened a brand new page for both ATI and Nvidia. This meant that both company's talent to make GPU is exploited to the fullest. So far, the ATI philosophy is still the same i.e. make the best performance per mm^2 GPU. On the other side, Nvidia philosophy also remained the same, i.e. do whatever it takes to win top performance.
In regards to price war, I think that is great news. I have been rather disappointed to see no price war in the 5xxx/gtx4xx era.
And we didn't have enough competition and price wars this time around because nvidia released their lineup almost half a year after amd, and could tweak their cards accordingly, so that they fit in around amd's lineup and fill up the "empty" performance/price points. That was great from a marketing stand point but not great for the end consumer.
Good move, nV, good move.
Now what's AMD to do? They should get on the teamspeak server in the evening and ask for help. :laugh: