Monday, August 21st 2017
AMD Issues Official Statement on RX Vega 64 Pricing Woes
Update: Related to this story, feast your eyes on Newegg's deal of the day, with a reference, standard Sapphire RX Vega 64 for $689.99 with two "free" games. I don't think I've ever seen such a conturbated launch as this. Also, considering the scope and content of the article, I will be updating the tag for this piece as an Editorial.
There has been somewhat of an uproar in recent times regarding AMD's lack of clarity on pricing of their newly-launched Vega 64. While AMD themselves told reviewers and consumers that their RX Vega graphics cards would be available for $399 (Vega 56) and $499 (Vega 64), recent events have, at the very least, cast some doubts on Vega's supposedly clean-cut pricing. Some popular reviewers and YouTubers have even gone so far as to say they won't be accepting any more samples from AMD due to a perceived slight at the erroneous information provided by the company; when someone reviews and analyses a product based on a fixed price-point advanced by a company, and then that pricing seems to have turned out nothing more than smoke and mirrors... People's work is put out the window.
Now, AMD has come out to put rumors of false Vega pricing announcements to rest. Except the skeptic in me remains, well... skeptic. Here's what AMD has said: "Radeon RX Vega 64 demand continues to exceed expectations. AMD is working closely with its partners to address this demand. Our initial launch quantities included standalone Radeon RX Vega 64 at SEP of $499, Radeon RX Vega 64 Black Packs at SEP of $599, and Radeon RX Vega 64 Aqua Packs at SEP of $699. We are working with our partners to restock all SKUs of Radeon RX Vega 64 including the standalone cards and Gamer Packs over the next few weeks, and you should expect quantities of Vega to start arriving in the coming days."
Do you agree with me when I say that AMD isn't committing to a base $499 pricing for RX Vega 64? Expressions like "limited launch quantities included standalone Radeon RX Vega 64 at SEP of $499" don't really clear the air as to when (if) such pricing will be restocked. At best, AMD seems to only be saying that they'll restock some token offerings for their RX Vega graphics cards, if nothing else, simply looking to curb doubts on RX Vega's MSRP. Yes, it does start at $499 - but there is no true availability at that pricing, because AMD only restocks limited quantities at that pricing through (apparently) rebates and other offerings to retailers. And AMD left a crystal clear sentence of "we'll be restocking Vega SKUs at the announced $499 pricing" conspicuously absent.
The issue is that multiple retailers have come out, one way or another, to say that AMD have, in fact, issued changes to the RX Vega 64's retail pricing. OC UK's Andrew Gibson (Gibbo), the source we quoted in our first story that put forward some doubts on AMD's real RX Vega pricing intentions, gave KitGuru some clarifications on his initial claims on OC UK's forums: "Launch price was $499 with NO games for the Black card, as outlined to us by AMD as a launch only price. AMD allowed us to sell a set amount at this price, which was several hundred, clearly not enough as they were sold out in approximately 15 minutes. After this the regular price was $599 with FREE games for both the black and silver cards, $699 for the aqua card plus taxes." Another retailer, this time Norwegian komplett.no, also said that AMD's RX Vega 64 stock to be sold at MSRP $499 was limited to 275, as the company was "allowed to sell at a favorable price at launch. The RX Vega 64 version we had for sale was in a limited edition of this price and will unfortunately not be put up for sale again."
OcUK's Andrew Gibson went on to say that AMD's launch price of £449 "(...) is not possible, $499 is below what they cost us direct from the board partners by a large chunk of cash, AMD rebated us to hit $499 on a set amount of units. As such $599 is now the minimum." The retailer representative also went on to say that "Unfortunately AMD did not make the launch pricing plan clear at all to the press or the consumer, which has caused a lot of confusion, if we could sell cards at £449 and make money, they'd be at that price. If that was the case we probably would have sold around 5,000 units now at OcUK, whereas the reality is we've sold a little over 1000."
Over at Gamers Nexus, Steve Burke has voiced what sources inside the retailer family have been quietly putting out: that AMD did allow retailers to sell limited quantities of the RX Vega 64 SKU at $499 through time and quantity-limited rebates so as to allow retailers to sell part of their Vega 64 cards at AMD's announced pricing. AMD's Radeon Packs have apparently seen the highest alocation of Vega graphics cards on AMD's part, because this allows the company to recoup their losses at selling RX Vega 64 - and soon, RX Vega 56 - at their announced MSRP. It seems that AMD's BOM for their monolithic, 484 mm² dies and exotic HBM2 memory (as well as R&D expenses, naturally) have increased RX Vega's manufacturing cost to the point where (sources are claiming; take this with a grain of salt) AMD loses more than $100 on each RX Vega consumer card sold. Perhaps it's only a coincidence that Vega's retailer pricing increase covers both AMD's estimated manufacturing costs, as well as retailer's margins. Perhaps not. But there has been enough smoke dotting the aftermath of Vega's rise that it's likely there is fire.
Sources:
IO Tech, via Videocardz, JayzTeoCents @ Twitter via Reddit user wickedplayer494, KitGuru, Tek.No, Gamers Nexus
There has been somewhat of an uproar in recent times regarding AMD's lack of clarity on pricing of their newly-launched Vega 64. While AMD themselves told reviewers and consumers that their RX Vega graphics cards would be available for $399 (Vega 56) and $499 (Vega 64), recent events have, at the very least, cast some doubts on Vega's supposedly clean-cut pricing. Some popular reviewers and YouTubers have even gone so far as to say they won't be accepting any more samples from AMD due to a perceived slight at the erroneous information provided by the company; when someone reviews and analyses a product based on a fixed price-point advanced by a company, and then that pricing seems to have turned out nothing more than smoke and mirrors... People's work is put out the window.
Now, AMD has come out to put rumors of false Vega pricing announcements to rest. Except the skeptic in me remains, well... skeptic. Here's what AMD has said: "Radeon RX Vega 64 demand continues to exceed expectations. AMD is working closely with its partners to address this demand. Our initial launch quantities included standalone Radeon RX Vega 64 at SEP of $499, Radeon RX Vega 64 Black Packs at SEP of $599, and Radeon RX Vega 64 Aqua Packs at SEP of $699. We are working with our partners to restock all SKUs of Radeon RX Vega 64 including the standalone cards and Gamer Packs over the next few weeks, and you should expect quantities of Vega to start arriving in the coming days."
The issue is that multiple retailers have come out, one way or another, to say that AMD have, in fact, issued changes to the RX Vega 64's retail pricing. OC UK's Andrew Gibson (Gibbo), the source we quoted in our first story that put forward some doubts on AMD's real RX Vega pricing intentions, gave KitGuru some clarifications on his initial claims on OC UK's forums: "Launch price was $499 with NO games for the Black card, as outlined to us by AMD as a launch only price. AMD allowed us to sell a set amount at this price, which was several hundred, clearly not enough as they were sold out in approximately 15 minutes. After this the regular price was $599 with FREE games for both the black and silver cards, $699 for the aqua card plus taxes." Another retailer, this time Norwegian komplett.no, also said that AMD's RX Vega 64 stock to be sold at MSRP $499 was limited to 275, as the company was "allowed to sell at a favorable price at launch. The RX Vega 64 version we had for sale was in a limited edition of this price and will unfortunately not be put up for sale again."
OcUK's Andrew Gibson went on to say that AMD's launch price of £449 "(...) is not possible, $499 is below what they cost us direct from the board partners by a large chunk of cash, AMD rebated us to hit $499 on a set amount of units. As such $599 is now the minimum." The retailer representative also went on to say that "Unfortunately AMD did not make the launch pricing plan clear at all to the press or the consumer, which has caused a lot of confusion, if we could sell cards at £449 and make money, they'd be at that price. If that was the case we probably would have sold around 5,000 units now at OcUK, whereas the reality is we've sold a little over 1000."
Over at Gamers Nexus, Steve Burke has voiced what sources inside the retailer family have been quietly putting out: that AMD did allow retailers to sell limited quantities of the RX Vega 64 SKU at $499 through time and quantity-limited rebates so as to allow retailers to sell part of their Vega 64 cards at AMD's announced pricing. AMD's Radeon Packs have apparently seen the highest alocation of Vega graphics cards on AMD's part, because this allows the company to recoup their losses at selling RX Vega 64 - and soon, RX Vega 56 - at their announced MSRP. It seems that AMD's BOM for their monolithic, 484 mm² dies and exotic HBM2 memory (as well as R&D expenses, naturally) have increased RX Vega's manufacturing cost to the point where (sources are claiming; take this with a grain of salt) AMD loses more than $100 on each RX Vega consumer card sold. Perhaps it's only a coincidence that Vega's retailer pricing increase covers both AMD's estimated manufacturing costs, as well as retailer's margins. Perhaps not. But there has been enough smoke dotting the aftermath of Vega's rise that it's likely there is fire.
153 Comments on AMD Issues Official Statement on RX Vega 64 Pricing Woes
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I get what you mean though that SK Hynix/Samsung/AMD are trying to get volumes up so HBM2 will become more affordable. At the same time, NVIDIA is in a lot better financial position to do that than AMD is. I'd still argue what AMD did is incredibly stupid if it's true.
The 314 mm² GP104 must have given them countless sleepless nights.
i wonder if any of the aib/aic partners are going to lift the lid on this hot box and let us all see what these smoke and mirrors are hiding?
i doubt it, but we can live in hope, right :D
help us msi, you're our only hope!
price listed is $689.99
so according to the article thats $100 for the games, games I dont want have no interest in playing. That leaves $90 for price gouging or whatever excuse there is for Newegg to tack on, or is this AMD's aggressive price "structuring"?
Vega may be a stepping stone for AMD, but people were expecting another Ryzen and Vega is not one. As soon as Nvidia bothers to slash prices a little on the 1080 and 1070, Vega will be forgotten.
I'm still going to get one because the hashrate is high enough, and i pay peanuts in electricity cost, so it fits my needs... but as a gaming GPU i would never consider this power Hog. It's not horrible, just late and too power hungry.
Seriously though I wish @W1zzard can alter the review score for the Vega64 and 56. As it stands now it is quite misleading in terms of performance per dollar.
Bad Raja, bad RTG. As someone who has been exclusively using ATi GPU to this point I am disgusted
As for the whole "Performance per dollar" thing and all the bitching over price shift, people really look at those numbers alone when deciding for purchase? When I checked for GTX 1080Ti, I just scrolled through tests of interest at 1080p, roughly compared it to my current card to see how much of a difference there is to evaluate if it's worth it and when I was satisfied with the findings, I went to online stores and checked the models I fancy. When I found one of my liking, I bought it. It's literally that simple and I've been buying graphic cards like this for years and years. This becomes even more of an issue when looking fancy aftermarket cooled ones where prices can vary quite a lot. I could go with cheapest one, but decided to go with beefier cooler, better cooled VRAM, better backplate etc. Perf per dollar really only applies between reference models where design isn't a factor in the pricing. I don't know, I just make the decision how much certain performance is worth on my own.
And regardless, even with very underwhelming mining performance, everywhere sold out within hours if not minutes. We also got the price gouging right at launch as well. I honestly don't know why someone would purchase one for mining with it's MH/s and power numbers. Unless Ether doubles in price soon buyers will never even break even much less a profit. I can only imagine how bad inventories would be if the Vega actually did do 70-100 MH/s if the false pre-release rumors had turned out to be true.
Vega is modestly competitive at retail prices. At $100+ over retail, people must have money to burn.
and amd will have expierence with hbm2, and next generation navi will be much better and cheaper if we compare perfomance per price.
I swear to almighty Jen-Sun Huang that if Nvidia had done this, it'd be WW freaking 3. (I'm trying to swear less).
I watched the Linus WAN thing somone posted up recently and it was fun to watch. He was quite clear that AIB partners made a lot less money from AMD. Also, he was critical of Nvidia too for the unboxing nonsense for 1080ti but hey - it's the fashion now- free press for either brand. Then he went back to the panel and they said it would be quite correct for all reviewers to re-evaluate scores based on value as AMD simply lied about the general pricing.
Yeah, AMD lied, misled or were dishonest. Suck on those shiny red plums.
I have nothing to say. AMD screwed up the prices. Doesn't benefit anyone really , AMD makes probably close to nothing on these cards. I am not surprised at all , I have said it long before this , Vega is expensive as fuck to manufacture , seems like they tried to price is too low to the point when it became unprofitable not only to them but to AIBs and retailers as well and it all backfired.
Considering how few of these were available in the first place , I am hard pressed to say this is such a huge thing. After all prices of 1060/1070/480/470/580/570 in the last months have screwed up the perf/price ratio as well , haven't they ? And in much larger quantities. We can't see the forest for the trees or what ?
If AMD cannot manufacture a competitor in terms of R&D and BOM costs to the competition (who we know is fleecing us), in terms of business, they are in very big trouble. We're not talking abouty mining screwing up price/perf like you appear to be trying to deflect, we're talking about a company barely able to push out a top tier competitor at a reasonably profitable margin. If you can't make a profit margin on a product it's game over. Not that I'm saying AMD is finished but for this round Vega is a concrete block around their neck.
We all wanted Vega to be a match for 1080ti (look back a few months - that was the TPU wishlist ballpark) so we could see a price war but no, it's nowhere near a match and it's wildly more expensive than we're used to for AMD pricing. AMD need to change their approach.
Every time I say Vega is not for gaming but for datacenters everyone loses their minds. There you have it , this situation is the ultimate argument for that.
AMD didn't have to beat anyone , more precisely they cannot afford to beat anyone this round , they don't have the resources. RX Vega fulfilled it's purpose as far as AMD is concerned , and that is to make people know they are still in the game. Not top dog but still alive. What they'll do next remains to be seen.
Vega was intended to be the gaming king, but it turns out the performance per clock is worse than Fiji. Those who have been following it closely noticed a change in narrative around the demo at the end of last year, when AMD realized Vega10 would be in the GP104 league. Ever since then they've tried to focus on the "value" of Vega (with FreeSync) and it being "good enough".