AMD's RX Vega Launch Prices Might be Just Smoke and Mirrors

[the54thvoid]

Well, if AMD stay quiet, it comes down to who do you believe?

Someone who works in retail can easily show SKU codes and pricing from AMD post pre-order. But.... given what Fury X sold for and how much more Vega has moved on (in tech of not outright performance) I don't find the £450 price to be 'realistic'. That looks very much like a "quick - we need to match the 1080 price" move.

 

[Xzibit]

Overclockers UK staff member Gibbo, who posted the renowned British company's Vega stocks and deals for the red team's graphics cards, has just come out with something that might put our inner buyers to attention. Apparently, AMD has allowed launch prices to be as they currently are ($499 for the Vega 64 and $399 for the Vega 56 in the Americas; £549 for the Vega 64 in the UK) through rebates and other offers to retailers, who, according to Gibbo, couldn't keep those prices at all if that was not the case. According to the Overclockers UK staffer, " (...) the good news is AMD are rebating early launch sales to allow us to hit £449.99 on the stand alone black card which has no games. This is a launch only price which AMD at present are saying will be withdrawn in the near future, when if it happens is unknown, but remember do not be shocked if the price jumps nearly £100 in a few days. This time around there is no early adopter tax, quite the opposite on the stand alone black card, so do be quick."





Doing some digging through Europe, we've been seeing incredible (as in, unbelievably high) pricing for AMD's RX Vega cards all over Europe, with Mindfactory.de also asking users fork out €649 (~$760) for your base, run of the mill reference Vega 64. And if price hikes are to be expected in the near future, I think AMD can count itself out of the game, in all practical realities. At that pricing, Vega just isn't competitive with Pascal's equivalent cards. On Overclockers UK, the cheapest GTX 1080 can be had for just £449 (a whole £100 pounds less, with competitive performance, to the Vega 64.) Over at Mindfactory.de, you can nab an AIB, dual-fan GTX 1080 for just 527€. Let's see what happens to Vega 56's pricing when that one actually finds itself out in the wild, but for now, it seems AMD's bet on HBM2 and a monolithic die is backfiring on them. The company is probably betting most of its Vega profits to come from the professional or AI acceleration markets - and for the looks of it, that is the most sensible play.



Sources: Gibbo @ Overclockers UK, Mindfactory.de, Reddit

If you read page 4 his post says this

Lets get one thing crystal clear here!

Launch MSRP $499, a $100 reduction for launch, regular MSRP of $599, check a site such as newegg for confirmation:
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod...BESTMATCH&Description=RX+VEGA&N=-1&isNodeId=1

UK launch MSRP £449, a £100 reduction, yes we got a full £100 which worked favourably and much cheaper than you can buy one from US, remember US is excluding taxes. Now launch pricing is finished, so £549 which falls in line with $599 MSRP.

So with-in 2hrs 1min that statement/sale/promotion was nullified

Seams he sold all the stock he would have gotten rebates with-in 2hrs if you follow his post

 

[dyonoctis]

This looks ugly. Miners don't want them, and with the new pricing gamers won't want them either.

Vega is a lot of "AWESOME" on tech paper, but the reality is that something as simple, as old tech as a GTX 1070/1080 can do just as much with a better efficiency.

 

[the54thvoid]

According to AMD, you will be able to purchase a Radeon RX Vega 64 with the black reference cooler for $499.

From w1zzard's review. That price equates to £450 here in UK. But it's not available at that price now. So the thing still stands, the initial launch price given to reviewers was $499 but it's not that price in shops... so...

is the CURRENT official MSRP $499 or $599?

Only AMD can answer that.

 

[Xzibit]

Might need clarification because Gibbo is all over the place contradicting his own post the further you read into that thread.

Just sounds like a salesman try'n to be your friend, as long as you buy his stuff.

 

[the54thvoid]

Might need clarification because Gibbo is all over the place contradicting his own post the further you read into that thread.

Just sounds like a salesman try'n to be your friend, as long as you buy his stuff.

Yup. I agree.

I'm pretty sure @Finners is a forum member on OcUK or Scan. He should probe..... Oi mate - probe!

 

[xorbe]

At the moment AMD cannot keep them in stock even with the marked up price - so clearly they don't need you to buy any lol. Plenty of other people are!

Looks to me that a lot went to eBay for insane prices.

 

[the54thvoid]

Scan UK cheapest in stock (just air blower) is £599. Oddly the special edition from Sapphire is also £599. Now I know they're not the same MSRP so there's definitely retailer crap going on.

 

[Crap Daddy]

AMD is trying really hard to NOT sell this card. It's one year late, significantly worse than the 1080ti and Titan Rx, same performance as the significantly smaller GP104 while using significantly more power to get there and now it appears it's significantly expensive. Yet they are sold out. Madness.

 

[R-T-B]

What are you basing this claim on? If I had to guess mining definitely had an effect on availability.

The incredibly piss poor hashrate and high energy consumption, all of which miners avoid like the bubonic plague?

I still retain ties with the mining scene. Believe it, no one is picking these up.

 

[cdawall]

The incredibly piss poor hashrate and high energy consumption, all of which miners avoid like the bubonic plague?

I still retain ties with the mining scene. Believe it, no one is picking these up.

I bet quite a few purchased them waiting for the miners to improve haahrate.

 

[R-T-B]

I bet quite a few purchased them waiting for the miners to improve haahrate.

Quite a few? I don't agree. The eager and stupid? Absolutely. No one bet a farm on these, which is what depletes inventories.

It may have been hyperbole to say "no one" on my part though, heh.

 

[cdawall]

Quite a few? I don't agree. The eager and stupid? Absolutely. No one bet a farm on these, which is what depletes inventories.

It may have been hyperbole to say "no one" on my part though, heh.

I would bet money plenty of people bought them in lots of hundreds

 

[dwade]

With Ryzen and Vega, AMD hates gaming amd overclocking.

 

[snakefist]

It's quite simple.

The cards rule the wavy seas of mining. Miners are buying them at insane prices. This time, differently from Polaris, a nice share goes to AMD, because it's a new card, and not a rebrand.

It's too good for miners to skip, no matter what 'the community' thinks of it. I don't like it either, but mining exists.

Benchmarks are what is to be expected from early drivers and games few years old. They'll get better in time. New games will have optimization for Vega, whatever its marketshare will be.

In the meantime, each unit produced is sold, which probably can't be said for 1080 (TI).

And for a guy sweating alot, all because 100W difference - try turning on your AC while gaming, it will consume 9.6KW / 8h, while 8h of gaming save will save you 0.8KW on world famous electricity saving and most power-efficient architecture in the universe, ever... Taking it to even more ridiculous level, Vega will save you heating money at winter... THE WINTER IS COMING!

People *really* exaggerate on relatively small power saving, making it such a huge deal. Most of us have at least one AC, do we now? And most of us don't have solar panels or thermal pumps, do we? Those things save power, not the GPU/TPU...

 

[Captain_Tom]

Looks to me that a lot went to eBay for insane prices.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/PowerColor-...299827?hash=item41ccf235f3:g:04IAAOSwl-FZkkFb

And people are bidding on them up to $700.

 

[Fluffmeister]

Let miners have them, it's clear the GTX 1080 is obvious choice for gamers with any sense.

 

[Captain_Tom]

It's quite simple.

The cards rule the wavy seas of mining. Miners are buying them at insane prices. This time, differently from Polaris, a nice share goes to AMD, because it's a new card, and not a rebrand.

It's too good for miners to skip, no matter what 'the community' thinks of it. I don't like it either, but mining exists.

Benchmarks are what is to be expected from early drivers and games few years old. They'll get better in time. New games will have optimization for Vega, whatever its marketshare will be.

In the meantime, each unit produced is sold, which probably can't be said for 1080 (TI).

People *really* exaggerate on relatively small power saving, making it such a huge deal. Most of us have at least one AC, do we now? And most of us don't have solar panels or thermal pumps, do we? Those things save power, not the GPU/TPU...

Exactly.

• AMD has limited supply, and so they are baking-in some more profits while supply remains an issue. If sales go down, they can just drop the price $100 while being content that they made some extra profit for a couple months.

• Furthermore if AMD isn't full of shit they will indeed increase performance by probably 10%+ by years end. If that happens, the cards can keep their higher prices; and again if it doesn't - they can just drop the bloody price!

• The power consumption argument really is overblown (At least in America). I have added 1500w+ of extra energy to my house due to mining rigs, and you know what? The power bill didn't seem to change at all lol. Things like refrigerators, AC, and lighting use up WAY more energy than PC's. If power consumption really matters, just run Vega in the included power-saving mode and it will run almost as efficiently as the 1060. Nuff' said!

 

[DeathtoGnomes]

So I called Newegg today, apparently they sold out the entire store stock already to miner(s) that paid a premium. I've been shopping @Newegg for years, so I need a new tech shop that wont price gouge or hold stock for special customers, err miners.

 

[rhythmeister]

AMD is a joke and their graphics division is run by a joke. Vega is a disaster any way you look at it. They haven't made any tangible improvements to their graphics IP since GCN came out back in 2012. Their Chinese design team sucks and they've got nothing going for them. Jim Keller and most of the people who had worked on Zen have left the company too. AMD is a sinking ship. I wouldn't buy any of their products because the competition is better and cheaper.

Try reading the reviews on TPU.

 

[qubit]

@Raevenlord Having read TPU's Vega reviews I'm really not surprised that you're reporting on a launch rebate when the prices are normally inflated. I'm sure those inflated European prices will come down soon enough when sales tank.

The product is garbage in my book. Seriously, it should leapfrog the 1080 Ti after all this development time, but at the very minimum it should match or almost match a 1080 Ti in every performance metric, ie framerate, power, heat and noise. Having a brand new card after two years that trades blows with a second tier 1080 while running hot and sweatily overclocked out of the box (it's not shown as such, but it has to be given what's written about it) to achieve it while sucking down so much power, heat and noise (including noticeable coil* whine that W1zz reported) is frankly, pathetic. I really don't get why they continue with this HBM when it does nothing for them. Just stick to the much cheaper GDDR5X and be done with it. At least they can lower the price of their cards then permanently and bring competition that way.

Great article, as usual.

*Hardly surprising, as consuming more power means drawing more current which will naturally need to more coil whine and better components to keep it at bay.

AMD is a joke and their graphics division is run by a joke. Vega is a disaster any way you look at it. They haven't made any tangible improvements to their graphics IP since GCN came out back in 2012. Their Chinese design team sucks and they've got nothing going for them. Jim Keller and most of the people who had worked on Zen have left the company too. AMD is a sinking ship. I wouldn't buy any of their products because the competition is better and cheaper.

Dude, I wish you were wrong. We really need that competition. I remember that quote from NVIDIA a few months ago where they said they weren't worried about Vega. Clearly they knew what they were talking about and that's bad news for us.

 

[xkm1948]

Vega is

Hot
Slow
Late
Power hungry
Bad in Mining

And now to top it off, it is expensive. Geez it is going from bad to worse. Who in their right mind would even think about spending money on this abomination? Extreme die hard fans?

 

[DeathtoGnomes]

Vega is

Hot
Slow
Late
Power hungry
Bad in Mining

And now to top it off, it is expensive. Geez it is going from bad to worse. Who in their right mind would even think about spending money on this abomination? Extreme die hard fans?

please turn down the fanboism here. Trying to make people feel shitty for brand loyalty is a pretty ugly thing to do and that doesnt make them stupid either.

@Raevenlord Having read TPU's Vega reviews I'm really not surprised that you're reporting on a launch rebate when the prices are normally inflated. I'm sure those inflated European prices will come down soon enough when sales tank.

The product is garbage in my book. Seriously, it should leapfrog the 1080 Ti after all this development time, but at the very minimum it should match or almost match a 1080 Ti in every performance metric, ie framerate, power, heat and noise. Having a brand new card after two years that trades blows with a second tier 1080 while running hot and sweatily overclocked out of the box (it's not shown as such, but it has to be given what's written about it) to achieve it while sucking down so much power, heat and noise (including noticeable coil* whine that W1zz reported) is frankly, pathetic. I really don't get why they continue with this HBM when it does nothing for them. Just stick to the much cheaper GDDR5X and be done with it. At least they can lower the price of their cards then permanently and bring competition that way.

Great article, as usual.

*Hardly surprising, as consuming more power means drawing more current which will naturally need to more coil whine and better components to keep it at bay.


Dude, I wish you were wrong. We really need that competition. I remember that quote from NVIDIA a few months ago where they said they weren't worried about Vega. Clearly they knew what they were talking about and that's bad news for us.

No one should have expectations like this. Nvidia did a bit of driver sandbagging and I really dont think AMD expected to beat the 1080Ti. AMD is right where they probably expected to be, 2nd place.

 

[R-T-B]

I would bet money plenty of people bought them in lots of hundreds

I may actually concede then, as you are far more actively involved atm than me.

 

[oxidized]

AMD is right where they probably expected to be, 2nd place.

Where THEY expected to be, not where WE expected it to be, seen their advertisements and propaganda.

But i guess this was ryzen's years, next year could be RTG's (fingers crossed)