Thursday, September 7th 2017
Do Inflated AMD Radeon GPU Prices Have an Official Sanction?
Over the past couple of months, inflation in AMD Radeon GPU prices, in part fueled by silicon shortages, and in part by non-gamers (read: crypto-currency miners) buying up graphics cards, have impacted the AMD Radeon brand in the eyes of its target audience - PC gamers and graphics professionals. It was initially believed that market forces are driving the inflation, and that AMD had little to do with the price inflation. We then uncovered a clue that not just end-users, but even retailers are being sold AMD Radeon graphics cards at prices way above AMD's launch SEP. A Tweet by an official AMD Twitter handle shows that inflated AMD Radeon graphics card prices has the company's official sanction.
"@AMDGaming," a verified Twitter handle held by AMD, which promotes the company's products targeted at gamers, such as AMD Radeon graphics cards, and Ryzen processors; posted a promotion in which an XFX branded Radeon RX 570 graphics card, which is being sold at USD $279, including a free coupon for a "Quake Champions" pack free, was made to appear as if at its price, it's a great deal. The RX 570 was launched at USD $169 for the 4 GB variant, and $199 for the 8 GB variant. The XFX Radeon RX 570 4 GB RS (the card being marketed in the Tweet) was launched at $179. The Tweet was met with angry reactions for how blatantly AMD was marketing price-inflated Radeon graphics cards, without actually doing something about taming the prices.
"@AMDGaming," a verified Twitter handle held by AMD, which promotes the company's products targeted at gamers, such as AMD Radeon graphics cards, and Ryzen processors; posted a promotion in which an XFX branded Radeon RX 570 graphics card, which is being sold at USD $279, including a free coupon for a "Quake Champions" pack free, was made to appear as if at its price, it's a great deal. The RX 570 was launched at USD $169 for the 4 GB variant, and $199 for the 8 GB variant. The XFX Radeon RX 570 4 GB RS (the card being marketed in the Tweet) was launched at $179. The Tweet was met with angry reactions for how blatantly AMD was marketing price-inflated Radeon graphics cards, without actually doing something about taming the prices.
100 Comments on Do Inflated AMD Radeon GPU Prices Have an Official Sanction?
Geforce 1080 MSRP at Launch ??
For a mid Tier Chip ? Nobody seemed to care.
www.facebook.com/AMDGaming/posts/1627347307337750
Maybe if there was some competition in the space a higher intial pricepoint would have been lower. But yeah, this was the lrice, period, vs amds bait and switch pricing they didnt tell reviewers about...
anyone searching the prices will find that some are as much as double and a few 3rd party sellers are pricing over $1000 almost 3x the MSRP. Newegg (#Boycott) are pricing cards $200+ or over 50% price increase because (as I was directly told) of demand. This means they are saying "F-EWE AMD!"
Tell me you are going to sell something at 500 bucks, tell the market reviewers that it will be 500 bucks and they estimate its worth before release misleading potential investors. Release said product at 1000 dollars after the fact is what we like to call a bait and switch and that's EXACTLY what AMD did.
Ill make a prediction here also. 10 bucks says they are going to be sued by shareholders very soon for misleading. If I worked for AMD right about now I would be looking for a new job as I wouldn't want my reputation to be tied to such a shabby business practice. This is coming from someone who's been under FBI investigation TWICE!
No need for dubious marketing tricks.
AMD-RTG goes suicide in the Gaming -Sector... but not a honorable.
finally raping the grave of ATi... very sad.
Sorry to interrupt everyone here but let me remind you that people don't game using AMD GPUs.
They just don't.
Say what you want about "skewed" Steam stats but Steam is the only reliable and broad enough representation of gaming preferences. Leave your theories as to why NVIDIA owners are on Steam and AMD aren't to yourself.
Actually I'm happy that AMD products are sold above MSPR/ESPR - it means their GPUs are in high demand. Maybe just maybe they'll get enough money to polish the next GPU arch better and release a product which is actually competitive.
Companies exist to earn profits. AMD has found a new niche for its products and I commend them for that.
Also 20% of the market is no small share and that's what AMD holds according to that link you sent.
Frankly, I'm not surprised that AMD would pull a stunt like this. Nothing nice about it, for sure, but it proves that they're not the warm, cuddly, fuzzy underdog that AMD fanboys have been bleating on about for years.
Whether it's AMD, NVIDIA, Intel, Volkswagen, <insert company name here> etc, they're all the same. It's all about what they can get away with to maximise that bottom line. End. Right now, AMD cards are really good for mining, so AMD is milking it for all its worth, simple as that. If it includes dirty tricks like bait'n'switch, then so be it.
...can some explain the part im missing?
PS: concluding that those shitty prices are sanctioned by AMD through a single tweet from a promo account seems a bit far-fetched...
There is literally nothing AMD can do about the prices, after AIB buys the chips or even full cards from AMD, it's out of their hands - they can set MSRPs, but no-one has to follow them, and there's nothing AMD (or any other company) can do about it.
Only way to actually prevent this would be stop selling GPUs to AIBs (yes, prices are inflated already coming from AIBs) and make and sell all the cards yourself, which is really just not an option.
Lot of drama and hype about Amd pricing today , yet afaik nvidias cards are almost always dearer, so Amd should continue to sell low and have the price jacked up by shops anyway, I said months ago I would rather Amd upped the price and earned the money then some shop keeper.
At least it might get invested in rnd instead of a house in malta.
I get your hating Amd at the moment and your points are reasonable but the market has decided the prices not Amd ,it seams Amd might have smartened up to just how many shop keepers are getting rich now.
I would at this point appreciate your words more if they were also lambasting shopkeepers personally ,their a key part of this problem.
And finally if you think all amds cards are junk ,fine.
So why care what they sell for ,you weren't buying one.
And before mining picked up nvidia were already gouging ,if the price of the 1070-1080 wasn't already so inflated beyond BOM and reason ,miners would have bought them ,they ARE the efficiency mining kings.
But no ,nvidias inflated prices drove miners to buy the polaris cards and here we are, full feckin circle.
NVIDIA Graphics Cards To See Price Increases Starting This Month Due To Memory Shortages
or are we back into the old habit of attacking AMD and ONLY AMD?
I can already see the reply. Digitimes is NOT a reliable source, a tweet from someone working on marketing on the other hand, is proof of AMD's sinister business plans.That sells as a hi end.Sell me a card with it's correct specs, not specs that make it look better than it really is, more future proof than it really is.
Sell me ONE card under ONE model number, not THREE totally different cards.Yes I bet you would love to work for Nvidia, if not already. Honest guys...
All graphics cards, not just NVIDIA. Sorry if we didn't opt for the clickbait article.
It would read so much better if we had used NVIDIA and green images, wouldn't it?
This article here is strictly about an AMD tweet - an official channel by all means, irrespective of who is running it. If it wasn't official, people wouldn't be losing jobs over some tweets/facebook posts like they do.
See the difference?
With a better communication AMD would have avoided all the hate, it was unfortunate that vega launched at such a terrible time, but they failed hard to follow up with a clear explanation or apologies,you can't blame people for being mad at that.
If i recall correctly when Nvidia is screwing up they are getting toasted too the gtx 970 wasn't a small drama.