Thursday, May 15th 2014
AMD Radeon R9 Series Prices Cool Down
AMD stabilized end-user pricing of its Radeon R9 series graphics cards, restoring them to their original launch prices in most cases, and even lower in some. Pricing of most AMD Graphics CoreNext architecture-based GPUs inflated over the past 6 months, due to the frenzy created by Cryptocoin currency miners, who leveraged the chips' GPGPU performance to 'mine' currencies such as Litecoin. Sensing that high prices are driving gamers away from Radeon, AMD swung into action by dealing with the problem at two levels. First, VP Global Channel Sales, Roy Taylor micro-managed the supply chain in China, and next, the company dealt with distributors and retailers.
At the time of preparing this article, most Radeon R9 series-based graphics cards, including high-end ones such as the R9 290X, and non-reference cards, are back to their original price-points on US retailer Newegg.com. The R9 290X can now be had for as low as US $519.99 (launch-price $549.99, was inflated to $750), the R9 290 for $379.99 (launched at $399.99, was inflated to $600), the R9 280X as low as $279.99 (launched at $299.99, was inflated to $400); the R9 280 as low as $229.99 (launched at $249.99, was inflated to $280); and the R9 270X at $199.99 (was inflated as high as $250).
Source:
Forbes
At the time of preparing this article, most Radeon R9 series-based graphics cards, including high-end ones such as the R9 290X, and non-reference cards, are back to their original price-points on US retailer Newegg.com. The R9 290X can now be had for as low as US $519.99 (launch-price $549.99, was inflated to $750), the R9 290 for $379.99 (launched at $399.99, was inflated to $600), the R9 280X as low as $279.99 (launched at $299.99, was inflated to $400); the R9 280 as low as $229.99 (launched at $249.99, was inflated to $280); and the R9 270X at $199.99 (was inflated as high as $250).
51 Comments on AMD Radeon R9 Series Prices Cool Down
I lol when I saw this, :wtf: "Quote" Sensing that high prices are driving gamers away from Radeon, AMD swung into action by dealing with the problem at two levels. First, VP Global Channel Sales, Roy Taylor micro-managed the supply chain in China, and next, the company dealt with distributors and retailers. "end quote"
Douchbags! They say DEALT WITH the sellers!!! And with all These "Mining" cards that have flooded the markets like Ebay for easy well over a month now, and NOW They step up?
Nice PR AMD but a little late to the game arn't we! :nutkick:Oh and you going to refund all of us the difference in price? I thought not! o_O
Either AMD is a shithead for retailers.....retailers......retailers, marking up the price after AMD sells the chip...just the chip....only the GPU core....not setting the pricing in retail.... to board makers who are then wholesaling them to the retailers, who who then set the final price, retailers that is, who sell card to the public at whatever price the "free" market commands.
or AMD is a shithead cause they are forcing retailers to bring prices back down to reasonable levels, so AMD can sell more, and so gaming customers don't get screwed by high prices....like $3000 for a gaming card that is twice the price at not even the same performance.......I mean, who really would go for anything like that......surely no logical or sane person would think a company who set a price like that for the default suggested MSRP could be anything but greedy.........and think its customers are complete tools.
Or you are applauding how AMD is trying to help the consumer of any background and help themselves to gain market share, and understand how reasonable business works. Congratulation, you are not a douchebag, and are promoting healthy competition in the marketplace.
do you know how many companies defunct because they started innovating more than Intel in the '90s and '00s. Probably you should devote some time reading before posting comments with zero content.
You should be thankful for Via and AMD and also for the competition on the other side of the river like Arm.
When someone pays $ 3000 for an air cooled 3 slot card that can't beat its twice cheaper rival, which is fast and cool, I know it is a symbol of stupidity.
For any sense, and a price drop is a good thing. Why the complains?
My question is who was pocketing the difference? Did AMD and partners raise the channel prices or did the retailers like Newegg do it... I suspect BOTH!
Bottom line, because of the craze, miners were buying the cards at that price and gamers were getting screwed. Now the shoe is on the other foot! The only monetary value something has is what someone else is willing to pay. If someone would pay you $900 for a $550 card, would you not take it?
The market forces of the free market took hold, and had the retailers who were watching 100's of cards, in so case in just hours fly from their inventories had not raise price it could've been worse for gamers. If they didn’t raise the prices miner's would continue buy cards and the cheap ability to pay off and then turn a healthy profit would just been adding fuel to the fire. Had the Mt. Gox issue not been in the news and exchanges dropped the value, we would've seen plenty more folks stepping in to try their hand at the get rich scheme. It would have proliferated even more and even if gamers could've seen "nice" pricing, what would it matter as all the AMD stocks would have been non-existent.
Saying that AMD could do anything is not having a good grasp of business, or how such product moves through the supply chain. AMD played it the best they could, if they tried to load the scheduled production to meet the crazy demand would mean paying a premium for parts that by the time they got to the retailer mining could have gone bust. That would mean having a ton of inventory they paid to have the rush put on and we the gamers would to some respect have to pay that. Letting the market forces of supply-and-demand is what has been proven time-and-time again, and is what is taught in business college. If you can't stomach it's too bad for you; theirs someone beating down the retailers doors to make them take their money (but you’d say oh no here have it for the regular price… how upstanding you are). When those crazed miners go away the market will adjust back, and that’s what we have. So in your mind you either had to overpaid…gone without, or paid for a competitor product that was also at a premium, because heck they could given AMD’s troubles. But you don’t see that as badly-behaving, but a good thing? Well if you don't have a problem with purchasing a card that ran 24/7 for 5 months... and have no warranty, you can be a suppose benefactor of the mining craze. Good for you! But these prices are not all that out-of-line with the historical norm for the market after the 6+ months the card(s) have been in the market. Actually somewhat high as Nvidia has not yet weighed into vying price-wise.
At this point I'd rather wait to see what Maxwell brings to the table.
Yes, a $3000 car is a status symbol, like having someone walk around with a sign saying you are an idiot for buying one.
@Casecutter true and yet there are quite a few gents out there that bought several r9's, looking to sell them for a profit, willing to take a small loss now to get rid of em just cause the craziness has passed.....might just pick up one to play with myself :D
One would think that if AMD was working toward improving the situation for the past months they would keep the public (or at least their shareholders) informed. This is the first official statement from AMD regarding them having any direct involvement in lowering prices other than the one time someone pointed out the $900 R9 290X on Newegg. To anyone skeptical it seems like AMD saw the prices drop naturally and then made a statement saying "yeah, we did that."
Here in EU it was always at the same price, Mining didnt affect it and there is also a law for such things, no etailer would want to risk it and then get inspection.
R9-290x from 400€ customs
geizhals.eu/?cat=gra16_512&xf=1440_R9 290X&sort=p
R9-290 from 330€
geizhals.eu/?cat=gra16_512&xf=1440_R9 290&sort=p
While nvidia on the other hand was always expensive, like a fine whoe lol
780Ti from 550€
geizhals.eu/?cat=gra16_512&xf=1439_GTX 780 Ti#xf_top
780GTX from 380€
geizhals.eu/?cat=gra16_512&xf=1439_GTX 780#xf_top