AMD Cuts Prices of R9 290 Series and R9 280 Series Even Further

[eidairaman1]

Weve reached a saturation point. Ive come to notice when i worked for att uverse all people that had a pc were old pos prebuilts of 95-vista, i only seen 1 gamer. Other than that its been pos ipads/phones.

Nothing in any hardware related sector is particularly interesting me. Processors are barely better than sandy, GPU's have only just gotten better after god knows how many years, and every other hardware section is at a standstill bar RAM, and DDR4 has a nonexistant following besides those so desperate to upgrade to Haswell-E

 

[THE_EGG]

Look at these prices.
290x - 47999 INR / 781.743 US Dollar
970 - 27900 INR/ 454.564 US Dollar
I don't know what to say.

LOL pretty much the same as in Australia...I'm surprised it costs similar money in India as it does in Australia though.

 

[EarthDog]

Nice!

 

[Sony Xperia S]

Exactly as W1zz predicted in his review of the 9x0 Maxwells. But still not enough.

Yes, these price drops are not enough. If AMD wants to sell their not so much appreciated by the majority products, they need to make even more appealing offers and deals.

970 is still a best buy at $330.

R9 290X needs to be $250-290 in order to sell, with R9 290 ~ the 200 dollar mark and 280X/280 ~ 170/140.

 

[GhostRyder]

I think people are acting like something is very different this round compared to normal. The only major difference this round is that the new top range cards do not completely blow away the previous generation cards by a much more noticeable margin than in recent history. Considering last round where Kepler was more powerful and better at power consumption by a decent margin than its predecessor Fermi this is nothing beyond the normality in this day and age. The fact is the market every year changes with new cards and new products that generally get more efficient and powerful as time moves on (Well every other year mostly for efficiency when architectures change). AMD has not said they do not have anything ready for a release before holiday season and even if they do not while Nvidia chose to stick with the same die AMD chose to shrink which obviously meant more time was needed before a release.

The R9 and R7 lineup are changing to match the market, but saying that the 290X needs to be way below the 970 is not true as the 290X overall is still a bit more powerful. It needs to be close to its price and well below the 980 which it is at least below the 980 (I would hoping for 350) but its pricing along with the rest of the lineup is decent enough to where everyone can get something nice from both sides for a reasonable price which I feel people should not be complaining about.

All this has done is bring high end gaming into a more affordable realm for everyone!

 

[Sony Xperia S]

...saying that the 290X needs to be way below the 970 is not true as the 290X overall is still a bit more powerful....

Man, you mean literally it is more powerful, requires a lot more energy to run, and occupies more space in one's case...

It doesn't deserve its price tag because virtually you have performance compared in the range of possible statistical error.

R9 290X and its architectural efficiency suck badly compared to anything Maxwell.

 

[GhostRyder]

R9 290X and its architectural efficiency suck badly compared to anything Maxwell.

Was Kepler architecturally inefficient? How about Fermi, VLIW, GCN 1.0, etc...They are all old cards that were great in the years they were released. Some of the competitors might have been a bit better in performance or power in a generation to generation comparison. Right now were comparing a previous generation architecture to a new generation architecture. It would have been like saying when the HD 7970 came out that Fermi was completely inefficient because GCN used less power than Fermi and gave better performance. It was a new generation so that was just expected...

GCN 1.1 is not as efficient as Maxwell in the same way Kepler is not. Its a new generation and was more than expected by everyone to be much more efficient...

 

[Sony Xperia S]

R9 290X is no longer that great. AMD needs to price accordingly and ONLY WHEN they have a new efficient architecture, it would be fair to charge as much as they wish. All right?

 

[eidairaman1]

R9 290X is no longer that great. AMD needs to price accordingly and ONLY WHEN they have a new efficient architecture, it would be fair to charge as much as they wish. All right?

u=b3@bh0r53/dr0k3nR3(0rb

 

[GhostRyder]

R9 290X is no longer that great. AMD needs to price accordingly and ONLY WHEN they have a new efficient architecture, it would be fair to charge as much as they wish. All right?

Its true its not that great when comparing to the new generation cards from Nvidia, that much is apparent. However I do not believe the pricing they have listed is something I would consider "As much as they wish". They might need to drop the 290X another notch, but that is about it.

 

[yogurt_21]

People thinking the 290 needs to be 200$ need to dream on. People are going to by what they like. Do you think someone who has always bought Toyota is going to suddenly swap to GM because they offered a product with better fuel economy and more Horse Power? Of course not. From the brand exclusives like sapphire to the hydravision to eyefinity to specific prefabbed custom cooler options to the fact it says Radeon on it, there are many reasons people buy AMD. Sure Nvidia might have something to match in all areas, but these buyers are accustomed to how things work with AMD.

In fact price cuts that come out well after the product was release rarely come in response to performance drops. AMD is purging inventory to make way for the next gen. It's nice for people like me who were thinking of picking up a second card on the cheap this holiday season, but I seriously doubt the 970 is the driving factor here. It's not like AMD or Nvidia sell direct. When then want to clear distribution channels for the next round they have to offer incentives months in advanced to try to get consumers to clear the items off retailer/etailer shelves/warehouses.

So sure I'd love to see the 290 new in box for 200$, it's just not going to happen.

 

[the54thvoid]

Interesting:

AMD are NOT cutting the prices - it's the partners.

http://hexus.net/tech/news/graphics/75613-amd-cutting-price-radeon-r9-290-r9-290x-gpus/

 

[yogurt_21]

it's interesting for XFX to drop prices on its own without manufacturers incentives. I wonder if they were sitting on a pile of inventory due to the bitcoin mining boom going bust. That would explain why they wouldn't simply wait for the incentives. They want more time at lower prices to purge it all out.

 

[HumanSmoke]

Interesting:

AMD are NOT cutting the prices - it's the partners.

http://hexus.net/tech/news/graphics/75613-amd-cutting-price-radeon-r9-290-r9-290x-gpus/

Not too surprising. The vendors offering the deepest price cuts are XFX and HIS ( also Sapphire locally to me) who also happen to be AMD-only vendors. Unlike Asus, MSI, and Gigabyte they don't have much in the way of options when it comes to alternative graphics revenue streams.
I see XFX and HIS are currently offering the three cheapest 290X models on Newegg at the moment (MIR included). Nice to see Asus sticking to its guns and not budging on the Ares III pricing - way to make a statement.

 

[Fluffmeister]

Not too surprising. The vendors offering the deepest price cuts are XFX and HIS ( also Sapphire locally to me) who also happen to be AMD-only vendors. Unlike Asus, MSI, and Gigabyte they don't have much in the way of options when it comes to alternative graphics revenue streams.
I see XFX and HIS are currently offering the three cheapest 290X models on Newegg at the moment (MIR included). Nice to see Asus sticking to its guns and not budging on the Ares III pricing - way to make a statement.

Definitely not ideal for the AMD only partners, bet they'd love to have a GTX 970 in their inventory.

But then nV can only dream of having a gaming scientist.

 

[Hilux SSRG]

it's interesting for XFX to drop prices on its own without manufacturers incentives. I wonder if they were sitting on a pile of inventory due to the bitcoin mining boom going bust. That would explain why they wouldn't simply wait for the incentives. They want more time at lower prices to purge it all out.

Earlier this year retailers reduced down stock levels to "normal" levels, AMD's 1Q PR said it as much. I see it as a win for AMD and for consumers, which ain't bad.

 

[Drac]

I have been swapping between AMD and NV since I have memory, the most important thing for me is the price/performance and the second one is performance/power consumption ratio. I want to invest my money in the best possible way and for now, the GTX 970 is the best deal unless there is a second price cut before xmas, and I think that's not likely going to happen.

 

[The Von Matrices]

People thinking the 290 needs to be 200$ need to dream on. People are going to by what they like. Do you think someone who has always bought Toyota is going to suddenly swap to GM because they offered a product with better fuel economy and more Horse Power? Of course not. From the brand exclusives like sapphire to the hydravision to eyefinity to specific prefabbed custom cooler options to the fact it says Radeon on it, there are many reasons people buy AMD. Sure Nvidia might have something to match in all areas, but these buyers are accustomed to how things work with AMD.

In fact price cuts that come out well after the product was release rarely come in response to performance drops. AMD is purging inventory to make way for the next gen. It's nice for people like me who were thinking of picking up a second card on the cheap this holiday season, but I seriously doubt the 970 is the driving factor here. It's not like AMD or Nvidia sell direct. When then want to clear distribution channels for the next round they have to offer incentives months in advanced to try to get consumers to clear the items off retailer/etailer shelves/warehouses.

So sure I'd love to see the 290 new in box for 200$, it's just not going to happen.

The problem with your argument is that you're assuming the market is mostly comprised of people who are die-hard fans of a company when in reality they are a very small proportion of the market. Sure, there are people who will stick with a company whatever the price or features are, but those people are overrepresented in enthusiast forums. The vast majority of people will buy whatever works for them and is priced the best.

 

[HumanSmoke]

But then nV can only dream of having a gaming scientist.

LOL. Yep, no one ever accused Huddy of being modest.

The problem with your argument is that you're assuming the market is mostly comprised of people who are die-hard fans of a company when in reality they are a very small proportion of the market.

Made miniscule by the fact that the consumer add-in board market is relatively small anyway compared to OEM contracts, and OEMs love bullet points, feature lists, and new models.

 

[Athlonite]

AMD has stated these price cuts are not permanent but part of an Promotion so get em while you can and sell them to us less fortunates who live outside of the US as we'll never see those prices ever

 

[midnightoil]

Well people did the same when the R9-290/290X edged out Nvidias already aging Keplers. AMD is behind, Nvidia will just counter the 390X with something much more powerful down the track, if need be. Don't get me wrong, I want AMD to compete, I want them to still be around in the future, but at least use your commonsense.

That ain't going to happen. 3xx will be on 20nm and have HBM memory. It should blow NVIDIA away at every price point and in every metric, and do the same to the 20nm version of Maxwell, which will appear at some point in 2015.

NVIDIA have no answer until ~Q2 2016 until their own cards with HBM will be ready (if they aren't delayed).

NVIDIA backed the wrong horse in stacked memory. HBC looked looked bad from the start and it was no surprise that NVIDIA dropped it last year, forcing them to scrap the entire 2015 series of GPUs and institute major changes to subsequent families. They're now pushed into licensing HBM from AMD/Hynix, who co-developed it.

They desperately need to have a good Q4 '14, because for the whole of '15 they're going to be nowhere near any performance crowns, and have to very heavily discount in order to sell.

As far as the market currently stands, AMD 285 and NVIDIA 970 are clearly the bargains.

 

[yogurt_21]

The problem with your argument is that you're assuming the market is mostly comprised of people who are die-hard fans of a company when in reality they are a very small proportion of the market. Sure, there are people who will stick with a company whatever the price or features are, but those people are overrepresented in enthusiast forums. The vast majority of people will buy whatever works for them and is priced the best.

you supported my argument in your rebuttal

 

[The Von Matrices]

you supported my argument in your rebuttal

It's not the same argument. You are arguing that most people will stick with a company no matter what because they have had success with that company in the past. I am arguing that as long as the product has the features they need (i.e. it works for their usage case) then they will pick a product based upon other factors, one of the most important being price.

 

[yogurt_21]

It's not the same argument. You are arguing that most people will stick with a company no matter what because they have had success with that company in the past. I am arguing that as long as the product has the features they need (i.e. it works for their usage case) then they will pick a product based upon other factors, one of the most important being price.

Actually it is the same argument. There wasn't a "no matter what" to my argument. Perhaps in your head there was, but not in the post nor in my intent. There are a variety of factors at play here. One of which is the fact that there are currently only 2 variants of 970's in stock on the egg atm. Both are above the 330$ price range. The cheapest 290 is the same as mine, huge but a nice quiet cooler that works wonderfully it's 60$ cheaper (before MIR for an additional 20$) includes the gold amd bundle of 3 free games as well as 2 more free games Alien Isolation and Star Citizen. Alien Isolation is an additional 50$ value all by itself. The max the extra's plus price discount are worth is 200$ (assuming the games in the gold package are 20$ a piece and you send in the MIR, 60 + 20 + 50 + 20 + 20 + 20 + star citizen)

The 970 also comes with a nice cooler, but other than that it's bundle is a 5$ promotional gift card. So extras + price = 5$ on newegg.

The 970 is 11% faster at 1080p according to TPU reviews, and 7% faster at higher resolutions. It is also a bit more energy efficient, but not exactly a fermi to Kepler jump.

If you see that as worthwhile over the 290, then by all means go for it. I hate to tell you though than any reasonable person will likely decide the other way considering all it includes. This is especially true for fanboys.

 

[vega22]

Nothing in any hardware related sector is particularly interesting me. Processors are barely better than sandy, GPU's have only just gotten better after god knows how many years, and every other hardware section is at a standstill bar RAM, and DDR4 has a nonexistant following besides those so desperate to upgrade to Haswell-E

stackable flash and its knock on effect to system and data storage is about as exciting as i see anything getting atm...how fucked up is that!!!!