Monday, March 16th 2009
GeForce GTX 295 a PR Stunt?
On January the 8th, NVIDIA reclaimed the title of the manufacturer of the world's fastest consumer graphics accelerator, with the launch of the GeForce GTX 295. It was received adequately well by the press, for two factors: its performance, and its competitive pricing. NVIDIA, for the first time in generations of graphics technologies, chose to price its high-end offering competitively, and hasn't used its industry-leading position to warrant a high price. Unfortunately, the company seems to be in no mood to hand over the benefit the consumers, not by stepping up its prices, but by not keeping up to its demand.
NVIDIA, which believes in the concept that selling a GeForce GTX 260 for a price well within US $200, at the expense of profits, relies on sales volumes to do the job of making up for its losses, and/or reduced margins. To an extent, the company's moves to redesign the reference PCB for the GTX 260, and subsequently letting partners have a common design kit to come up with their own PCB designs, seems to have helped the cause. That isn't the case with GTX 295. Its power design and the requirement of two sets of high-grade components seems to have hit the company's plans of letting it sell for its competitive price, which it would rather channelize in subsidizing the GTX 260.
Popular tech commentator Theo Valich in his blog writes:
NVIDIA, which believes in the concept that selling a GeForce GTX 260 for a price well within US $200, at the expense of profits, relies on sales volumes to do the job of making up for its losses, and/or reduced margins. To an extent, the company's moves to redesign the reference PCB for the GTX 260, and subsequently letting partners have a common design kit to come up with their own PCB designs, seems to have helped the cause. That isn't the case with GTX 295. Its power design and the requirement of two sets of high-grade components seems to have hit the company's plans of letting it sell for its competitive price, which it would rather channelize in subsidizing the GTX 260.
NVIDIA's partners sold thousands of GTX 295 boards, and at the price of 520-550 bucks [USD] per card (or Euro), we're talking about millions of USD/EUR. One can only wonder what is going on in NVIDIA's head… there is an alleged recession going on, their quarterly results dropped by 50% to less than 500M USD a quarter, and they fail to deliver already sold boards - backorders.So what did NVIDIA gain out of GTX 295? The bragging rights of having made the fastest graphics accelerator, which in turn the company hopes to impact the sales of its other, more popular, accelerators such as GeForce GTX 260, and the new GTS 250. Inquiries on inventories of GTX 295, have been made by Theo Valich, to popular retailers the world over. Several retailers have replied saying their inventories of the GTX 295 were on a decline, and that the manufacturers (NVIDIA partners) were not keeping up with the demand. Popular American retailer Newegg.com currently has five brands of GTX 295 in stock, with that of one brand already out of stock. If you have plans of buying a GTX 295, it would be a good idea to materialize them now, not that you will be left with no alternatives later on.
39 Comments on GeForce GTX 295 a PR Stunt?
I cant believe your argument is that the product you prefer is widely available, the fact the GTX295 isn't means its in high demand, which means awesome product.
not to mention this thread is about the GTX295, who cares about an inferior X2, they're so last year.
I don't want an argument, and i apologize for the wording of my original statement, i'll refrain from any comments that will insight a retaliation, so please be nice.
also, to anyone that wants to quote me, if your jumping to the defense of the X2 from here on out, i wont reply to that comment, so say what you like, they are inferior in almost every way.
If they were selling well the price would continue to fall. It has not budged much since it's debut. If this clown thinks the 295 is non-existent then he's got something else coming to him. They're still coming out, they're available right now. Ask yourself if you can get one. If the answer is YES then you can probably write this guy's ranting off as mud slinging. In a world with an economic crisis I find it absolutely laughable that you, who writes intelligently enough, would argue about this without first consider that may have affected nV's decision. Their decision was to make a quantity of cards that would supply their target market... the enthusiast community. @ $500+ per card and the world's markets in their current state what is more believable... they didn't want to produce more cards than would sell, or they did it to sell GTX 260s.
Another thing that gets me is that the GTX285 in triSLI beats the 295 in quad. There's no shortage of the 285, and so why would a fanboy with deep pockets squeeze himself and go get a 4870x2 when he could get 2-3 285s for around the same price he would spend on the 295s. This article is just meant to get attention. Computer industry conspiracy theorists make me laugh.
If you want to play any game with hi res ( more than 1920x1200), all filters on, al details set to maximum, FPS over 60. Then you have to buy graphics card like this. And you think this is for noobs ?
Why ?
Of course these cards from nvidia & ATI are an effort in PR (even though they probably do make the companies money). Forgive me if I'm wrong, but I think it was Subaru that ran their WRC teams at a loss for years - because having a world champion WRX car sold a lot of normal Subarus to people that wanted to drive something that looked and sounded like what they were watching on TV. :cool:
One can only speculate as to why the 295 is short of stock. Personally would have tried to sell as many as possible until ATI takes the crown back (yes , yes ... IF they take the crown back). In that respect the stock shortage does seem a bit mad. Maybe the Nvidia production manager needs to be sacked. Maybe it's the market research team that told him they wouldn't sell as many as they have. Who knows? :confused:
(NOTE: please don't accuse me of 4870x2 bias just cause I have one - it is currently RMA'd - the second one that's bricked. I'm sick of it.)
Quick stock check:
eBuyer has no GTX295's listed at all.
Scan has 8 listed but only 3 in stock. (in saying that they have 8 x2s listed with only 5 in stock too)
This happens to be one of my best friends
www.linkedin.com/in/dmakin
VERY VERY VERY few people buy those cards. They only make them for PR the only reason because they lose money on them.
Ok remember the last dual card from N. I went to a lan a week later after it's release.
Not even 20 of them sold. NOT EVEN 20 of them. This included all of the companies at Newegg.
Now they sold when the price went down but not at the release.
The cards people buy are the low end cards. Here at XS and at TPU along with a few other sites a few people do buy them. Other than that Nope. Unless they bought it in a dell machine.....
It's a fact the low end cards sell, mid range is sold to most real pc games. High-end is sold to Over Clockers mainly or the few that make a lot of money and love to have the best of the best.
They make games for them to SHOW THEM OFF.
(By the way -- you're a 9800GX2 owner whose name is "3870x2." I really don't think I need to be listening to your advice, thank you very much. :rolleyes:)In the same way that almost anything a company did could be construed to be a PR stunt.