Editorial AMD Issues Official Statement on RX Vega 64 Pricing Woes

[Xzibit]

So do I...

OcUK's Andrew Gibson went on to say that AMD's launch price of £449 "(...) is not possible, $499 is below what they cost us direct from the board partners by a large chunk of cash, AMD rebated us to hit $499 on a set amount of units. As such $599 is now the minimum." The retailer representative also went on to say that "Unfortunately AMD did not make the launch pricing plan clear at all to the press or the consumer, which has caused a lot of confusion, if we could sell cards at £449 and make money, they'd be at that price. If that was the case we probably would have sold around 5,000 units now at OcUK, whereas the reality is we've sold a little over 1000."

Your reading into it and that can be a problem

AIB over charged.
AMD rebated
OCUK now wants rebates FOREVER!!!

Has anyone outside of OCUK said anything similar?

 

[bug]

We did ?

Nvidia at the time announced two prices. A FE and a MSRP. Was the MSRP even available at launch. Take a guess. NO. It was up-to the AIBs if they wanted to make it available and at what quantities. How many reviewers even benchmarked one of the MSRP cards when they became available? Havent found one in the TPU review database. Most reviewers reference the MSRP price pointing to it instead of the FE price of the card they actually reviewed.

Only FE cards were available at launch, that was what got reviewed. Reviewing a month after launch doesn't net many page hits.

Edit: Can we get this thread closed now? I doubt anyone can make sense of anything reading every post in here.

 

[Vya Domus]

I wouldn't give any credibility to retailers in any shape or form. We are talking about the same businesses that increase prices prior to a sale to give you a "discount". I am not saying this has something to do directly with this situation , I am just saying they shouldn't be trusted at all , they have little to lose and will do anything to put themselves in a good light.

 

[EarthDog]

Your reading into it and that can be a problem

AIB over charged.
AMD rebated
OCUK now wants rebates FOREVER!!!

Has anyone outside of OCUK said anything similar?

They overcharged by selling it at the MSRP AMD asked????? How so? They sold it at that price ONLY because of the rebates AMD offered to do so!!! Now, they don't have stock (since it was limited and it seems at least OKUK wasn't told) and are not able to offer it at their suggested price without losing money selling it. Surely the answer is not to sell it, but... really? Think about the ongoing repercussions there...

As far as anyone outside of OKUK, I haven't seen anything.. but I feel not many would... biting the hand that (barely) feeds you in all...but I hear where you are coming from.

I wouldn't give any credibility to retailers in any shape or form. We are talking about the same businesses that increase prices prior to a sale to give you a "discount". I am not saying this has something to do directly with this situations , I am just saying they shouldn't be trusted at all , they have little to lose and will do anything to put themselves in a good light.

That is a great point. However, AMD would surely not want to get caught handing out misleading pricing information (limited to launch time and small quantity) to intentionally or inadvertently skew review conclusions. They are not immune to that effect either. EVERYONE is trying to save face it feels like.

Only FE cards were available at launch, that was what got reviewed. Reviewing a month after launch doesn't net many page hits.

If that is what happened, that is perfectly normal. AIB cards come out shortly after. And when I say AIB cards, I am not talking about rebadged reference models, but the modified units.

 

[Xzibit]

They overcharged by selling it at the MSRP AMD asked????? How so? They sold it at that price ONLY because of the rebates AMD offered to do so!!!

As far as anyone outside of OKUK, I haven't seen anything.. but I feel not many would... biting the hand that (barely) feeds you in all...but I hear where you are coming from.

If looking it from your point of view. Why wouldnt the other units not be rebated as well? I'm guessing because as the statement reads its only certain amount allocated for selling the others are the pack units at a higher price... If you read Gibbos post he/OCUK was selling 3pc per customer then 2pc not the 1pc per customer he claimed.

AMD rebated those units OCUK was overcharged with and if the partner or distro is charging more that eat into his margins, Poor businessman not making enough profits.

 

[EarthDog]

Why wouldnt the other units not be rebated as well?

Because they can be priced there with the "free" games for $100 more. That is an AMD offer, not an AIB offer if I understand things right. AMD is paying for those free games, not the stores...it is not an AIB offer.

I'm not following the rest of what you said there...sorry... You are essentially saying Gibbo oversold his $499 allocation/rebates and is bitter? That may be true, but, I dont see where Gibbo said that...

The issue is that multiple retailers have come out, one way or another, to say that AMD have, in fact, issued changes to the RX Vega 64's retail pricing. OC UK's Andrew Gibson (Gibbo), the source we quoted in our first story that put forward some doubts on AMD's real RX Vega pricing intentions, gave KitGuru some clarifications on his initial claims on OC UK's forums: "Launch price was $499 with NO games for the Black card, as outlined to us by AMD as a launch only price. AMD allowed us to sell a set amount at this price, which was several hundred, clearly not enough as they were sold out in approximately 15 minutes. After this the regular price was $599 with FREE games for both the black and silver cards, $699 for the aqua card plus taxes." Another retailer, this time Norwegian komplett.no, also said that AMD's RX Vega 64 stock to be sold at MSRP $499 was limited to 275, as the company was "allowed to sell at a favorable price at launch. The RX Vega 64 version we had for sale was in a limited edition of this price and will unfortunately not be put up for sale again."

OcUK's Andrew Gibson went on to say that AMD's launch price of £449 "(...) is not possible, $499 is below what they cost us direct from the board partners by a large chunk of cash, AMD rebated us to hit $499 on a set amount of units. As such $599 is now the minimum." The retailer representative also went on to say that "Unfortunately AMD did not make the launch pricing plan clear at all to the press or the consumer, which has caused a lot of confusion, if we could sell cards at £449 and make money, they'd be at that price. If that was the case we probably would have sold around 5,000 units now at OcUK, whereas the reality is we've sold a little over 1000."

(side note, a 2nd retailer said the same thing... komplett.no... as seen above)

From his statement, it seems like he had the quantity known already... "several hundred....sold out in 15 ins........ AFTER THIS the REGULAR PRICE was $599 with free games". Unless you saw him say that somewhere else, I surely can't read what you are from what we have...........


I don't know what to believe...

 

[Xzibit]

Because they can be priced there with the "free" games for $100 more. That is an AMD offer, not an AIB offer if I understand things right. AMD is paying for those free games, not the stores...it is not an AIB offer.

I'm not following the rest of what you said there...sorry... You are essentially saying Gibbo oversold his $499 allocation/rebates and is bitter? That may be true, but, I dont see where Gibbo said that...



(side note, a 2nd retailer said the same thing... komplett.no... as seen above)

From his statement, it seems like he had the quantity known already... "several hundred....sold out in 15 ins........ AFTER THIS the REGULAR PRICE was $599 with free games". Unless you saw him say that somewhere else, I surely can't read what you are from what we have...........


I don't know what to believe...

Not saying he/OCUK is bitter but it was up to them to sell the rest of the inventory they got which they didnt get rebated for (So they purchased those at the fair price) as the statement says set of units were rebated. Once those were gone the others had to be sold at what he got them. No rebates to boost his profits.

The second retailer says the same thing certain units were allocated for the sale, no mention of Rebates. They are not selling them anymore at that price point so market applies.

 

[EarthDog]

The point isn't the rest of the inventory. They don't seem to have an issue with that(?) - will re-read though!

They can sell the others for profit because they aren't selling it for nothing. The rebate gave them profit on the $499 model. The $599 model has profits in there since AMD is taking the hit on the rebate/games, not the stores missing it making it possible to profit with.

Sorry, I thouht you meant 2nd store confirming the limited stock and such... but just because it wasn't mentioned, doesn't it he didn't have any. I don't understand why Gibbo would lie.......... It makes him look so bad it just doesn't make sense!!!

 

[Vya Domus]

I don't understand why Gibbo would lie.......... It makes him look so bad it just doesn't make sense!!!

Well let's put it all together :

He spoke random BS about about how Vega has amazing mining performance.

He appears to be speaking random BS now about Vega pricing.

Andrew Gibson
Purchasing Manager / E-Commerce at Overclockers UK

Hmm , I wonder if he would have had any motives for lying about two things that would have benefited his work for Overclockers UK ...

That's obviously sarcasm , to me it is somewhat clear :

He lied about mining performance to get people hyped up and buy the cards. I mean it's pretty obvious his claim was based on nothing.

He might have also lied about this whole pricing thing to make Overclockers UK look like the good guy that would never screw over customers with price gouging.

 

[EarthDog]

Anything is possible I suppose... the math adds up a bit different to me, however.

Considering these cards were going to sell out anyway due to limited availability, that removes or at least tempers their motive to do lie. I could see if there was some kind of worry, but, they are all gone man...and where within what, Hours? Same with klompett. Why would he pile on when he was sold out and knew damn well they would sell out as well???


Where did he spout BS about Vega mining? I didn't see that...link please!

 

[Vya Domus]

Where did he spout BS about Vega mining? I didn't see that...

https://www.pcgamesn.com/amd/amd-vega-mining-performance

"Andrew 'Gibbo' Gibson is suggesting the hash rate for the Vega GPU is between 70
and 100MH/s. With the RX 580 hitting about 25MH/s, and the GTX 1080 Ti offering
32MH/s, those numbers will be getting the miners all moist in the unmentionables.
And that could also mean stock gets hoovered up before any gamers can get near the
cards."

There was also a forum post if I recall corectly which I cannot find at the moment.

Anything is possible I suppose... the math adds up a bit different to me, however.

Considering these cards were going to sell out anyway due to limited availability, that removes or at least tempers their motive to do lie. Same with klompett. Why would he pile on when he was sold out and knew damn well they would sell out as well???

However the reality is AMD had done a poor job in terms of marketing , they never made it clear if the card was going to be amazing in terms of performance. Also prior to launch they said they will do their best to get these cards off the hands of miners. It could be that fear might have set in that neither miners or gamers will pick them up.

 

[Xzibit]

TPU - AMD RX Vega Mining Performance Reportedly Doubled With Driver Updates

 

[EarthDog]

Thanks for the links guys.

He didn't do a damn thing that the article claimed he was going to do, I don't think (voucher, 1K cards, etc). I can see him speaking out of his arse and from ignorance on minig...
This didn't happen either:

AMD have already said that they delayed the Vega launch so they could get enough stock in place to ensure there will be enough for both gamers and miners,

I see where you are coming from on that point, but at the same time, its tough to believe since hardly a damn thing was true in that article, outside of Gibbo even. Was that fudzilla or wccftech you linked?


But again, both those places knew darn well they were going to sell out. Even on 8/4. There wasn't remotely a need to spread FUD around intentionally. ANd truth be told, before this happened, I had no clue who that dude even was. I wonder how much pull he really has in the market... (guessing not much).

 

[Vya Domus]

Looking at everything I would compile the whole situation like this :

Vega is expansive to make , AMD most likely asked retailers to get these cards on shelves for prices which would have had generated too little profit. AIBs were probably in the same boat as well.

Retailers weren't happy with that , I suspect AMD also did a poor job at communicating with them about how things are.

In the end retailers had to make money somehow , so they price gouged as much as they could wherever they could while sticking with AMD's requirement to have a certain number of cards at MSRP.

Now some of them seem to have devised some excuses by profiting from the confusion.

 

[EarthDog]

Vega is expansive to make , AMD most likely asked retailers to get these cards on shelves for prices which would have had generated too little profit. AIBs were probably in the same boat as well.

They did. They offered the companies rebates on said $499 cards and in limited quantities. This was never shared with reviewers, the BIG problem of it all to me.

Retailers weren't happy with that , I suspect AMD also did a poor job at communicating with them about how things are.

Retailers are making money off the $599+ "SKUs" though. Its just the one. At MINIMUM they did a poor job communicating. At worst, they lied.

In the end retailers had to make money somehow , so they price gouged as much as they could wherever they could while sticking with AMD's requirement to have a certain number of cards at MSRP.

They made money off the higher SKUs, just not the "MSRP $499 card" which is not $499 outside of the units already allocated.... though AMD promises to get back all SKUs... time will tell on that one... but it sure didn't have any at newegg according to Raven...

Now some of them seem to have devised some excuses profiting from the confusion.

I just don't see the value in lieing about that point considering the fact the cards sold like hotcakes. I honestly can't think of a recent situation where brand new cards didn't sell out and needed further hype by [someone] to sell them.

Anyhoo, cheers!

 

[TheMailMan78]

Why is this thread still going? A bunch of 2017 sign ups wanna claim W1zz is incompetent? Well GTFO and uninstall just about any GPU OC software you have on your system.

 

[bug]

If that is what happened, that is perfectly normal. AIB cards come out shortly after. And when I say AIB cards, I am not talking about rebadged reference models, but the modified units.

https://www.hardocp.com/article/2016/05/09/nvidia_founders_edition_cards_yea_or_nay/2

First and foremost, the Founders Edition cards, both GTX 1080 and GTX 1070 sell for $100 and $70 more than MSRP respectively. We all know that these Founders Cards will be the only cards available at the product launch dates...

It was still a crappy move (they were upfront with their intentions at least), but since when does a crappy move excuse another?

 

[EarthDog]

Why is this thread still going? A bunch of 2017 sign ups wanna claim W1zz is incompetent? Well GTFO and uninstall just about any GPU OC software you have on your system.

You are sooooooooo 100 posts ago.

https://www.hardocp.com/article/2016/05/09/nvidia_founders_edition_cards_yea_or_nay/2



It was still a crappy move (they were upfront with their intentions at least), but since when does a crappy move excuse another?

And the price of rice in China has to do with what? So, yeah, NVIDIA made the FE more pricey. The were upfront about it, like it or not. Here, they(AMD) have seemingly misled many.

 

[sweet]

This @EarthDog guy is out of control with his hatred toward AMD.

The whole rebate things can sum up like this: AMD sold GPU to AIB, set MSRP at $499 -> AIBs (might have) pulled an overcharge -> Retailers complained -> AMD offered rebate to some of retailers.

So what is AMD's fault in this situation? Eventually AMD are not the ones who benefit from the overcharged price. They already received their cash after selling GPUs to AIBs.

And the AIBs also have their reason to set that higher price: People are still buying at that price. Heck, most of the inventory are cleared out even before reaching retailers, by big miners.

 

[EarthDog]

Well, you called me in so............

First, I don't hate AMD. Not in the least. I, like many others, have been waiting for a competitive part. Ryzen has changed the game on the CPU side. If you need a good performing chip and need to save some cash, grab it. If you need, or want, the best IPC and gaming performance, go Intel. Is there a big difference there? Heck no. RE: GPUs..... We have that (competitive part) with Vega 56 at $399. Heck, I'd even say to $450 there is a good reason to get the 56. So long as it performs as well as it does against the 1070, which it does. Beats it by 3% at 1080p and 6% at 2560x1440. V64 doesn't look as nice considering price, performance, and power use. Hard to hate AMD holding that opinion in my back pocket, ya know?

The whole rebate things can sum up like this: AMD sold GPU to AIB, set MSRP at $499 -> AIBs (might have) pulled an overcharge -> Retailers complained -> AMD offered rebate to some of retailers.

Are we at that level yet? We are talking three reference models and their pricing + availability and what was told to reviewers and retailers.

So what is AMD's fault in this situation? Eventually AMD are not the ones who benefit from the overcharged price. They already received their cash after selling GPUs to AIBs.

You've seen/heard that they are losing $100 per GPU right? Who knows if that is true, but, if margins were high, do you think ANYONE would be playing these games with prices? Can't say I buy what you are selling as is...

And the AIBs also have their reason to set that higher price: People are still buying at that price. Heck, most of the inventory are cleared out even before reaching retailers, by big miners.

AIB's really have nothing to do with it, yet...the price will go up even higher if all things remain the same.

I mean, I could be off my rocker... it has happened enough before... but as I said, through these eyes, also being a reviewer... how things went down just feels incredibly shady.

 

[sweet]

Well, you called me in so............

First, I don't hate AMD. Not in the least. I, like many others, have been waiting for a competitive part. Ryzen has changed the game on the CPU side. If you need a good performing chip and need to save some cash, grab it. If you need, or want, the best IPC and gaming performance, go Intel. Is there a big difference there? Heck no. RE: GPUs..... We have that (competitive part) with Vega 56 at $399. Heck, I'd even say to $450 there is a good reason to get the 56. So long as it performs as well as it does against the 1070, which it does. Beats it by 3% at 1080p and 6% at 2560x1440. V64 doesn't look as nice considering price, performance, and power use. Hard to hate AMD holding that opinion in my back pocket, ya know?

Are we at that level yet? We are talking three reference models and their pricing + availability and what was told to reviewers and retailers.

You've seen/heard that they are losing $100 per GPU right? Who knows if that is true, but, if margins were high, do you think ANYONE would be playing these games with prices? Can't say I buy what you are selling as is...

AIB's really have nothing to do with it, yet...the price will go up even higher if all things remain the same.

I mean, I could be off my rocker... it has happened enough before... but as I said, through these eyes, also being a reviewer... how things went down just feels incredibly shady.

First I thanked because you lowered your tone.

About the bold part, you are completely wrong. Even the reference cards are sold to retailers from one of the AIBs. You can never buy a bare AMD card, there always are some Asus, MSI, Gigabyte, etc. stickers on the cards you can buy. They have different warranty policies, in-box accessories and of course, difference prices. So, AIBs have everything to do with the price, even for a reference model.

For the miners/gamers stuff, the retailers don't even care whether their customers are gamers or not. Ultimately if the street price is to high, it's your wallet, your choice to not buy. But spreading misleading stuff is the other thing.

 

[EarthDog]

Lowered my tone? I still believe its either outright lies at worst or terrible miscommunication at best. Again, reviewers were lied to. Nobody told us the $399/499 price point was temporary or limited stock. Because of this, review conclusions are skewed. That is not god. I rarely agree with Linus or jay, but, I really think they, and others including Steve Burke, hit the nail on the head.

We can add your speculation of the AIBs jacking up the price to the pile of speculation we already have. I am not sure if I am hooked on that however, considering Gibbo mentioned AMD specifically. If the AIBs jacked the price, it stands to reason Gibbo would have outed them, no?????

There is a polished turd in speculation pile somewhere!

 

[Xzibit]

Selective Amnesia

OcUK's Andrew Gibson went on to say that AMD's launch price of £449 "(...) is not possible, $499 is below what they cost us direct from the board partners by a large chunk of cash

We already went over this...

 

[EarthDog]

Its not selective amnesia... LOL, dont be a jerk... This thread is 148 god damn posts long!!!

Well, maybe it can be the most polished turd in the pile so far...that said, the odd thing is we don't see AMD coming out and saying their AIBs did it either...

Again, my main talking point is how this 'move' from [whoever] borked review conclusions and skewed perception. Maybe the AIBs did it..

 

[Xzibit]

I wasn't being a jerk but its in the OP plus we just discussed it and i cited it to you.