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

[Raevenlord]

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 This is a launch only price which AMD at present are saying will be withdrawn in the near future, when if it happens is unknown, but remember do not be shocked if the price jumps nearly £100 in a few days.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.



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[zo0lykas]

 

[Tomgang]

If this is true.

Then AMD you can keep your exspensive power hungry radiators. I am gonna keep my GTX 1080 TI.

Or shut i be an ass to get a whole bunch of them for mining and then also have a great radiator for then winter return to my country

Me sitting in the same room as my mining rig with a bunch of vega 64 cards

 

[ZeppMan217]

Dead on arrival?

 

[wiak]

If this is true.

Then AMD you can keep your exspensive power hungry radiators. I am gonna keep my GTX 1080 TI.

Or shut i be an ass to get a whole bunch of them for mining and then also have a great radiator for then winter return to my country

skal si det samme når geforce blir en radiator om noen generasjoner, skjedd før ;P
shall say the same when geforce becoming a radiator in some generations, has happend before

anyhow back to threadripper and its ripping at intel

 

[FrustratedGarrett]

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.

 

[NicklasAPJ]

skal si det samme når geforce blir en radiator om noen generasjoner, skjedd før ;P
shall say the same when geforce becoming a radiator in some generations, has happend before

anyhow back to threadripper and its ripping at intel

If it just did Rip intel, it would be good.....

 

[wiak]

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.

if you look at what amds does and how many different products they have, ryzen is good, threadripper is awesome, epyc is nice and vega is meh, saying its a sinking ship is like saying intel is going under because they have smaller income than samsung

 

[GorbazTheDragon]

So they are pricing it over the heads of gamers and right in the hands of the crypto miners?

 

[RejZoR]

I'd be surprised if they'll sell any afterwards. Such business model is insane. I guess supporting NVIDIA for one more generation was a good thing after all. Maybe AMD will finally realize they need to pull the Ryzen of GPU's now and not just hope for their fans to support them even with crappy products and even more crappy prices.

So they are pricing it over the heads of gamers and right in the hands of the crypto miners?

What miner is going to buy such expensive and power hungry card? Not many I reckon...

 

[Tomgang]

skal si det samme når geforce blir en radiator om noen generasjoner, skjedd før ;P
shall say the same when geforce becoming a radiator in some generations, has happend before

anyhow back to threadripper and its ripping at intel

Your are right nvidia dit indeed had a hot piece of a card back then fermi came out. GTX 480 any one?

But at least nvidia leaned the lesson after firmi and since then nvidia cards has been very power efficiant. While AMD cards has have high TDP over previous generations like R290X and R390X with a TDP at 290 and 275 watt and remember stock cooler where noisy like an vacuum cleaner. While AMD RX cards is some what alright when it comes to TDP but that still do not take a way that vega cards TDP i high as well.

Oh by the way, intel also have a ripper in there arsenal. It's called walletripper

 

[Suka]

They were to make less but coz of mining demand they can charge higher i guess. It is a big chip anyway and cost of HBM2 doesn't help either. AMD-1, MINERS-1, GAMERS-0 (assumption is it can push the rumoured 60+Mh/s)

 

[Xzibit]

A reseller will try'n to sell his stock for as much as he can

But guys i'm a good reseller. I care about your money.

 

[GorbazTheDragon]

>Gonna sell low first days xd, throw all the stock at the miners even quicker

 

[birdie]

As it's already been mentioned a hundred of times AMD doesn't have enough money to R&D two architectures - one for compute, another for gaming. That's why they are left selling compute cards as gaming cards.

NVIDIA has been developing two archs since Kepler - their last universal arch was Fermi and we all remember it fondly.

They were to make less but coz of mining demand they can charge higher i guess. It is a big chip anyway and cost of HBM2 doesn't help either. AMD-1, MINERS-1, GAMERS-0 (assumption is it can push the rumoured 60+Mh/s)

WTF are you talking about? RX Vega's mining performance results have already been published everywhere. It sucks at that. A pair of GTX 1070 (vs RX64) will be like 40% faster, cheaper and consume a lot less power.

 

[the54thvoid]

OC3D.net have also commented on this and have asked AMD for clarification. AMD have not yet responded.

If it is true (and it may not be) it's a very poor tactic to paint reviews better. Launch at a certain price only because you've given retailers a rebate (i.e. paid them to sell it cheaper on initial pre-order). Does it need to be said that if Nvidia had done this, North Korea might actually have fired those missiles at Guam. The action can be defended from a business perspective but from a 'pissing in the fans face' perspective, it's a tad dishonest.

Let's wait to see what happens. And yes, Gibbo can't be fully trusted, that's why it'll be good to hear if OC3D get a response.

 

[MnkyBrs]

A reseller will try'n to sell his stock for as much as he can

But guys i'm a good reseller. I care about your money.

Yeah, this just screams of some shady marketing by OcUK, not AMD.

 

[Ubersonic]

Or shut i be an ass to get a whole bunch of them for mining

A bunch of cards that cost almost the same as a GTX1080ti, have less mining performance, use significantly more power, run a lot hotter and can't use modified drivers?

Have fun.

 

[Tomgang]

A bunch of cards that cost almost the same as a GTX1080ti, have less mining performance, use significantly more power, run a lot hotter and can't use modified drivers?

Have fun.

If you dit not get it, it where ment as a joke.

 

[R-T-B]

Mining demand has nothing to do with these cards or pricing/stock people, move on to a different scapegoat.

 

[Suka]

As it's already been mentioned a hundred of times AMD doesn't have enough money to R&D two architectures - one for compute, another for gaming. That's why they are left selling compute cards as gaming cards.

NVIDIA has been developing two archs since Kepler - their last universal arch was Fermi and we all remember it fondly.



WTF are you talking about? RX Vega's mining performance results have already been published everywhere. It sucks at that. A pair of GTX 1070 (vs RX64) will be like 40% faster, cheaper and consume a lot less power.

I said "assumption" if there's the magical driver. I've seen a guy push 42Mh/s , not great but better for them

 

[JalleR]

i guess he didnt get alot of preorders on the mining stunt... LOL sikke en kegle.....

 

[Captain_Tom]

If this is true.

Then AMD you can keep your exspensive power hungry radiators. I am gonna keep my GTX 1080 TI.

Or shut i be an ass to get a whole bunch of them for mining and then also have a great radiator for then winter return to my country

Me sitting in the same room as my mining rig with a bunch of vega 64 cards

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!

 

[Captain_Tom]

Mining demand has nothing to do with these cards or pricing/stock people, move on to a different scapegoat.

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

 

[atomiccow]

They are for sale and in stock at a reputable store here in Canada for the equivalent of 650 USD, so there might be some validity to this.