Thursday, August 24th 2017
Retailers are Buying AMD RX Vega 64 at $675 Each
The Radeon RX Vega series launch has been particularly disappointing for gamers and PC enthusiasts because their otherwise interesting price-performance ratios at $499 for the RX Vega 64 and $399 for the RX Vega 56, were quickly stripped away by dwindling stock and sky-rocketing prices, with the RX Vega 64 even going above $1k in some places. We are not even sure if the miners are to blame or whether supplier-level pricing has been adjusted after the launch to a higher price point that makes AMD's promised pricing impossible to achieve.
It turns out that retailers might not be the ones making a quick buck at this madness. Leaked invoices show that distributors (entities that supply inventory to retailers) have inflated prices even at their level. A San Jose-based distributor, Ma Laboratories Inc., is quoting USD $675 per unit of a reference-design (not Limited Edition), Radeon RX Vega 64 SKU to a computer store. The $499 price AMD launched the RX Vega 64 at, is supposed to be the end-user price (minus government taxes). The retailer we're in touch with confirmed that they were offered no volume pricing discount due to low stock at the distributor itself. A distributor should ideally sell the product to a retailer at a much lesser price than $499, so the retailer can make their margin. The higher up the supply-chain, the more control AMD gets. The company is in a better position to rein in on distributors than retailers. If distributors are inflating prices with apparent impunity, it wouldn't surprise us if this goes even higher up.
Can AMD do anything about this? It can work with AIB partners to significantly increase production to bring down prices. But that would be a huge gamble, which will either work, putting cards in the hands of gamers at the prices they were promised; or won't, by creating more miners; or worse still, end up as bankruptcy-causing unsold inventories, if the mining craze were to somehow subside.
There is another option AMD can try, in our opinion. It can re-launch RX Vega 64 and RX Vega 56 as new SKUs which come with crippled cypto-currency mining abilities (a special BIOS or something driver-level, or even something at the silicon-level), and discontinue the RX Vega 56 and RX Vega 64. The new SKUs could be clearly advertised as not being meant for crypto-currency mining (so as to deter false-marketing lawsuits). This is important for AMD, because the Radeon brand is under threat.
The more overpriced Radeon cards end up in the hands of miners, the fewer cards end up in the hands of gamers at the prices AMD promised; and conversely the lesser game developers are inclined to optimize their games for AMD Radeon, because fewer gamers use Radeon. NVIDIA can accelerate brand Radeon's demise by doubling down on game developer relations and pushing the next-generation of Game Works.
It turns out that retailers might not be the ones making a quick buck at this madness. Leaked invoices show that distributors (entities that supply inventory to retailers) have inflated prices even at their level. A San Jose-based distributor, Ma Laboratories Inc., is quoting USD $675 per unit of a reference-design (not Limited Edition), Radeon RX Vega 64 SKU to a computer store. The $499 price AMD launched the RX Vega 64 at, is supposed to be the end-user price (minus government taxes). The retailer we're in touch with confirmed that they were offered no volume pricing discount due to low stock at the distributor itself. A distributor should ideally sell the product to a retailer at a much lesser price than $499, so the retailer can make their margin. The higher up the supply-chain, the more control AMD gets. The company is in a better position to rein in on distributors than retailers. If distributors are inflating prices with apparent impunity, it wouldn't surprise us if this goes even higher up.
There is another option AMD can try, in our opinion. It can re-launch RX Vega 64 and RX Vega 56 as new SKUs which come with crippled cypto-currency mining abilities (a special BIOS or something driver-level, or even something at the silicon-level), and discontinue the RX Vega 56 and RX Vega 64. The new SKUs could be clearly advertised as not being meant for crypto-currency mining (so as to deter false-marketing lawsuits). This is important for AMD, because the Radeon brand is under threat.
The more overpriced Radeon cards end up in the hands of miners, the fewer cards end up in the hands of gamers at the prices AMD promised; and conversely the lesser game developers are inclined to optimize their games for AMD Radeon, because fewer gamers use Radeon. NVIDIA can accelerate brand Radeon's demise by doubling down on game developer relations and pushing the next-generation of Game Works.
135 Comments on Retailers are Buying AMD RX Vega 64 at $675 Each
...but still waiting for something concrete.
Interesting theory in the first post considering its ROI is higher...
Start around page 35 if you are in a hurry.
So, the chances of you being a current owner of a 508€ RX Vega 64 are so slim, that I would say with certainty that you don't have it.
sellgive away a Vega card. Even if Nvidia doesn't do a move, people will still keep buying GeForce cards because "they need less power and produce less heat". People will always find an excuse to go with Nvidia or Intel brands. If you don't believe me, just look how fast many people change their stance about Ryzen cpus, now that Intel is promising more cores.Another thought. Let's say that AMD, or it's partners like Sapphire, sells the Vega 64 at $450 to the retailer and the retailer, because of mining craze, sells at $700. Who makes the more money? But if AMD, or it's partner, sells the majority of cards at $675 and only offers limited quantities at $499, then they can make some money. The retailers of course will come out crying because they wouldn't be able to enjoy huge(for an electronic device) profit margins.
AMD knows that Vega will sell to miners, to movie studios and professionals as Frontier, FirePro, SSG, Instinct, whatever pro card. And they probably already know that it is a lost cause to try to sell this card at significant quantities to gamers. So they try to sell Vega RX in a way that wouldn't cost them money and would help their partners that sell ONLY AMD cards make some money themselves. AMD puts it's financials and it's partners at top, leaving the retailers crying and gamers unsatisfied and angry. Well, I don't see something wrong here, at least from a business perspective. Gamers will come back when AMD will be ready to offer a true gaming card. For now they don't have the money to offer true gaming products. Both Ryzen and Vega are pro products, not so much for gamers.
PS I try to explain AMD's actions, NOT give excuses. They should have come out and say from the beginning that, because of the cost of the card to make and uncertainties with VRAM pricing, they can only offer limited amount of cards at discounts.
Which is why I asked what the source of the photo was.
Yhea Vega is a compute beast, but cuda is still what's more used (pixar renderman added a denoiser who's only working with cuda, most of the gpu redering software are cuda based and/or the open cl version is limited.) Unlike big studio, the average client can't tweak his software to work better with open cl, so while vega is a bargain for studios, it's not that great for the average joe.
And we may have forgotten this, but the new Imac pro is coming with vega gpu in December, so i'm guessing that a fair amount of vega silicon is being shared by gamers, hollywood, pro and apple. The thing is , I'm not seeing apple putting vega in something as slim as an Imac with the current power draw and heat. They must have tweaked it to be more efficent, but for some reason AMD didn't take any clue from them.
Vega is a nice piece of tech, but the last few weeks showed that AMD didn't take the time to refine it, it's costly to make, and doesn't look like it's ready for the gaming market. Vega is just too much for someone who would just want to game, all the Teraflops, all the benefit of HBM2, and the AI, seems waisted.
The Asus strix has been tested , and the power draw is worse than the reference model.
I got mine at LDLC, and it was delivered monday.
My EK Waterblock was delivered yesterday.
When I ordered it, it was stated as being available within 7-15 days.
You can still pre-order the Vega64 for 508€, so the price isn't a problem, just the supply problem. All the Vega cards are stated as being available in "more than 15 days".
I don't see any limit on the number of customers who are eligible, I even tried my best to see when the "special offer" would end, and could not find any reference to a date limit on their site.
Hardware.fr shop may have had a customer limit, but not that I have seen or heard of.
Ryzen flopped, so they are trying to get their money.
Any price increase is not on their end, it is on the retailers end, gouging out the users wallets.
media.ldlc.com/bo/file/fiches/odr/amd/leaflet-amd_vega.pdf
And LDLC and shop.hardware.fr are pretty much the same store, the product they are selling, and their stock are way too similar to be really 2 different store. hardware.fr only seems to have lower price, but they must be sharing the same warehouse.
1) We don't know for sure how many units AMD have shipped - it might be several thousand units - of course the prices will go up. AMD hasn't revealed any exact numbers.
2) The truth is most AMD cards are used for mining as indicated by Steam HW survey. This whole "give gamers RX Vegas is just BS".
3) Miners are much better off with Polaris cards.
4) Ethereum mining is not as profitable as it was 2-3 months ago, because the difficulty has increased threefold for this period, so blaming miners for everything is very far fetched.
5) RX Vega simply sucks for gaming.
This whole "drama" is too much ado about nothing.
It didn't when I bought the card, and for the next few days.
The wording is a bit weird though, as it states limited to 137 usages (utilisations), rather than limited to 137 customers (clients or acheteurs)....That could be construed to mean you could buy 137 cards at that price, and no more (very illogical, i know, but the wording isn't clear).
i suspect you are right though, and it is limited to only 137 customers.
I did order on the monday, early afternoon iirc (well, as soon as I saw it in stock). i almost sh!t myself when i saw the prices, and then thankfully saw the rebate price.
If there was no rebate, I would have just gone for the Liquid edition, seeing as they were ALL at 749€, no matter which vega you were getting (Black/Limited/liquid).
edit : The prices seem to be a bit better now, but the limited edition aircooled is still the same price as the liquid cooled one...
(only comic book readers may get this)
@W1zzard @btarunr I got busted up for fighting with people more than once on TPU. Yeah, and a good amount of times it was 100% on me for trolling. But, dammit I trolled with honor! With that being said you guys have more mods than ever and the riff raff comes in here and starts insulting all the staff. More and more everyday! Things didn't used to be this way. There used to be a balance. You guys should let me off the leash like the old days. Ill have 90% of these noobs raging quitting life.
On a side note to the staff. Keep killing it guys. The old school guys are still here and got your back.
Take a fu*cking minute to think about it, what does TPU have to gain by publishing this? Endangering its relationship with a major GPU manufacturer. TPU is trying to dig into this whole shitshow of RTG's Vega for the fu*cking sake of consumers.
And hey, I don't see a lot of you lovers of RTG buying a Vega card. How about putting your money where you mouth is first? You support RTG by purchasing their Vega and then we can talk.
"It is a well-known store with physical and online presence"
The one thing that should have been done, is asked AMD about it, maybe even showed them the photo, and asked for a comment on that.
You have a very good point that TPU has nothing to gain from this, apart from clicks and page visits.
There is a lot to lose though, and basically saying AMD should gimp their cards or BIOS's.
For AMD, a card sold, is a card sold, be it to a Miner, or a Gamer, = money in the bank.
AMD do not seem to sell cards directly to end users, so if anyone is to blame, its the retailers and distributors, not AMD or RTG.
One rule of fabrication (and distribution), is not to produce too many of them. Unsold stock is the worst possible thing you can have.
Sold out stock, is usually the best thing to have, just not on release day.....
edit : just one last thing, The picture shows only two being ordered. Is it possible that these are for two liquid Cooled cards ? Wouldn't $675 be not too bad for those ?
I mean, it doesn't explicitly show if its aircooled or liquid cooled in the invoice, as far as i can see...
Wonder how can anyone defend miners now :rolleyes:
/ontopic
@btarunr This is misleading if MaLabs is truly a qualified distributor because they can only sell if the purchaser has a tax code and anyone wanting to be a retailer can get one easily enough. afaik distributors dont have same restraints as a retailer/reseller and can set any price they want, the same as a retailer. The pic is an image of an invoice and is not a final bill of sale. The bill of sale will have on it any discounts, rebates, shipping costs, and,finally the corrected pricing. The invoice seen here is for itemized tracking (and note there is no shipping cost)