Radeon HD 7970 Price Cuts Not Any Time Soon: Report

[Benetanegia]

Computer hardware companies don't exist to make things nice and happy for enthusiasts.
IF AMD and NV were privately held companies, maybe they would be more sympathetic to the people that buy their products; lower prices to something more realistic, release products in a more consumer friendly manner etc. But, they are not privately held companies, they are publicly traded companies; it is their duty to maximize profit wherever and whenever possible, in order to do everything they can to increase share prices, so that their shareholders benefit. They have no choice, they have to do this, and the management of the companies get rewarded when they succeed. This is all that matters to them, not idealistic arguments about how something could have been done better in order to satisfy the economic and idealistic wishes of young and not so young gamers and hardware enthusiasts who want the next new thing NOW! RIGHT NOW! ....
Yes, there are engineers and others working for them who still have that sentiment deep down, but that doesn't make the companies money, that just drives those engineers to do the best they can to create the best products they can within the business limitations the executives have to enforce.

That's it, no point going over and over and over it, constantly and without any benefit to anyone.

Like Freedom said they do exist to make their customers happy. In fact, that is the pillar of their success and hence the very reason of their existence. Pleasing their shareholders* is part of their duty, but price gouging, supply and demand control and other monopolistic/duopolistic tactics are not part of their duty and are illegal in most places afaik.

* They are NOT forced to please shareholders at any cost BTW. Shareholders can opt to buy and sell their shares and have some voting privileges as to what happens in the company, but that's far, really far from saying that the company has to do anything they can to please them. The only duty that the management is really forced to fullfill is ensuring an ongoing bussiness. (and alienating your customers is fastest way to ensure the opposite)

 

[Inceptor]

Like Freedom said they do exist to make their customers happy. In fact, that is the pillar of their success and hence the very reason of their existence. Pleasing their shareholders* is part of their duty, but price gouging, supply and demand control and other monopolistic/duopolistic tactics are not part of their duty and are illegal in most places afaik.

* They are NOT forced to please shareholders at any cost BTW. Shareholders can opt to buy and sell their shares and have some voting privileges as to what happens in the company, but that's far, really far from saying that the company has to do anything they can to please them. The only duty that the management is really forced to fullfill is ensuring an ongoing bussiness. (and alienating your customers is fastest way to ensure the opposite)

If the practices are illegal, they'll be punished, in some way. But, if it's happening, it's more likely that it's not illegal, simply a grey area, that's why large companies have a large staff of lawyers on the payroll, in the form of legal departments. They're there to make sure nothing blatantly illegal is done by the executives.
They are obligated to increase the value of their stock, if possible, to increase shareholder returns. Not doing so could result in executive firings, eventually. This is the responsibility of a board of directors, who choose a Chief executive, who then chooses other executives, who are all beholden to the board of directors, who are themselves legally beholden to the shareholders. The shareholders own the company. It may take time, but the shareholders can and do have the power to make sweeping changes to a company, if a majority of them want it done.

Ultimately, without having all the information available, concerning pricing decisions and all the rationale that went into those pricing decisions, it's pointless to ascribe any kind of wrongdoing to any company. If there is some kind of illegality at work, it is most likely either something extremely obscure and legally arcane or simply in a 'grey area' where there are no specific prohibitions, otherwise it would have been immediately flagged as a problem by AMD's legal department.
So,
Supply and demand. Charge high, until competition forces you to reduce prices, until then, collect the profit, please the shareholders. The reality is that Nvidia releasing one card, even if it is high end and slightly outperforms the top AMD card, hasn't been enough for AMD to decide to lower prices across the board for their new gpu line. Sounds to me like the usual business person's ploy to make as much money as possible, when it's possible to make the most amount of money.

We may not like it, and think it's unfair, and then go on to rant about how it's somehow illegal and/or unethical and 'bad form', but it happens all the time, everywhere, in every economic domain.
Enough already.

EDIT:
Meanwhile, on Newegg, all the GTX680s are sold out, and the entire line of AMD 7000 series gpus are available.
Looks like they made the right economic decision for their company, and are currently maximizing their profits.

 

[N3M3515]

If the practices are illegal, they'll be punished, in some way. But, if it's happening, it's more likely that it's not illegal, simply a grey area, that's why large companies have a large staff of lawyers on the payroll, in the form of legal departments. They're there to make sure nothing blatantly illegal is done by the executives.
They are obligated to increase the value of their stock, if possible, to increase shareholder returns. Not doing so could result in executive firings, eventually. This is the responsibility of a board of directors, who choose a Chief executive, who then chooses other executives, who are all beholden to the board of directors, who are themselves legally beholden to the shareholders. The shareholders own the company. It may take time, but the shareholders can and do have the power to make sweeping changes to a company, if a majority of them want it done.

Ultimately, without having all the information available, concerning pricing decisions and all the rationale that went into those pricing decisions, it's pointless to ascribe any kind of wrongdoing to any company. If there is some kind of illegality at work, it is most likely either something extremely obscure and legally arcane or simply in a 'grey area' where there are no specific prohibitions, otherwise it would have been immediately flagged as a problem by AMD's legal department.
So,
Supply and demand. Charge high, until competition forces you to reduce prices, until then, collect the profit, please the shareholders. The reality is that Nvidia releasing one card, even if it is high end and slightly outperforms the top AMD card, hasn't been enough for AMD to decide to lower prices across the board for their new gpu line. Sounds to me like the usual business person's ploy to make as much money as possible, when it's possible to make the most amount of money.

We may not like it, and think it's unfair, and then go on to rant about how it's somehow illegal and/or unethical and 'bad form', but it happens all the time, everywhere, in every economic domain.
Enough already.

EDIT:
Meanwhile, on Newegg, all the GTX680s are sold out, and the entire line of AMD 7000 series gpus are available.
Looks like they made the right economic decision for their company, and are currently maximizing their profits.

I amazing as the GTX680 may be, the reason it's sold out i think its low stock, same thing happens all the time with new hardware and more if it's as good as the gtx680.

And the 7970 i think wasn't sold out even before gtx680 was out, because of good stock(supply?) because the launch was almost 3 months ago.

 

[Inceptor]

I amazing as the GTX680 may be, the reason it's sold out i think its low stock, same thing happens all the time with new hardware and more if it's as good as the gtx680.

And the 7970 i think wasn't sold out even before gtx680 was out, because of good stock(supply?) because the launch was almost 3 months ago.

Exactly. That's more than enough reason for AMD to keep the prices of the 7850-7870-7950-7970 where they are at the moment. When Nvidia produces enough GPUs to keep up with demand, availability will be just as good as the AMD GPUs. When that happens, AMD will have to drop prices to be competitive, but only when that happens. Probably 3 months from now, after the 670, 670Ti, and 660 are all released. Maybe sooner, who knows.

 

[Munki]

I had to buy a 7970 because the egg was out of 680's and I am impatient.

Side note.....I tried to reply before and the tab at the top said the domain was seized by ICE...wtf

 

[Inceptor]

I had to buy a 7970 because the egg was out of 680's and I am impatient.

Side note.....I tried to reply before and the tab at the top said the domain was seized by ICE...wtf

I just noticed that too...

...April fools joke I guess

 

[Benetanegia]

If the practices are illegal, they'll be punished, in some way. But, if it's happening, it's more likely that it's not illegal, simply a grey area, that's why large companies have a large staff of lawyers on the payroll, in the form of legal departments. They're there to make sure nothing blatantly illegal is done by the executives.
They are obligated to increase the value of their stock, if possible, to increase shareholder returns. Not doing so could result in executive firings, eventually. This is the responsibility of a board of directors, who choose a Chief executive, who then chooses other executives, who are all beholden to the board of directors, who are themselves legally beholden to the shareholders. The shareholders own the company. It may take time, but the shareholders can and do have the power to make sweeping changes to a company, if a majority of them want it done.

Ultimately, without having all the information available, concerning pricing decisions and all the rationale that went into those pricing decisions, it's pointless to ascribe any kind of wrongdoing to any company. If there is some kind of illegality at work, it is most likely either something extremely obscure and legally arcane or simply in a 'grey area' where there are no specific prohibitions, otherwise it would have been immediately flagged as a problem by AMD's legal department.
So,
Supply and demand. Charge high, until competition forces you to reduce prices, until then, collect the profit, please the shareholders. The reality is that Nvidia releasing one card, even if it is high end and slightly outperforms the top AMD card, hasn't been enough for AMD to decide to lower prices across the board for their new gpu line. Sounds to me like the usual business person's ploy to make as much money as possible, when it's possible to make the most amount of money.

We may not like it, and think it's unfair, and then go on to rant about how it's somehow illegal and/or unethical and 'bad form', but it happens all the time, everywhere, in every economic domain.
Enough already.

EDIT:
Meanwhile, on Newegg, all the GTX680s are sold out, and the entire line of AMD 7000 series gpus are available.
Looks like they made the right economic decision for their company, and are currently maximizing their profits.

Lol, this is the most stupid argument I've ever seen. So because they might not be caught or because it's gray area it's OK to do it. I guess that child prostitution is not so bad after all, because it's being done constantly in some places, it's gray area legally in those places and far from trying to catch them, it's allowed because it's good bussiness and attracts some tourists (sadly).

Yeah not even remotely the same, but you get the idea. Like I said, for them to try and do something is more or less OK, to use shaddy tactics to achieve that, is not so OK, but still more or less normal in bussiness, sadly, but for a consumer to swallow those shaddy tactics and defend them is stupid and obscene. Even if we concede to the false and corrupt expression "in bussiness everything is valid", we as conscious consumers have the right and the obligation to protest when they cross the line and we have to do our best to try to inform other consumers of this morally if not legally bad behavior.

They were caught and punished for practicing price fixing not so long ago, so don't even pretend there's no tactic behind all of this. According to everyone involved 28 nm is a lot better than 40 nm, yet they increased the prices by $150 when compared to 40 nm launch, all in the name of "low supply", a low supply they have forced on themselves.

 

[SIGSEGV]

Exactly. That's more than enough reason for AMD to keep the prices of the 7850-7870-7950-7970 where they are at the moment. When Nvidia produces enough GPUs to keep up with demand, availability will be just as good as the AMD GPUs. When that happens, AMD will have to drop prices to be competitive, but only when that happens. Probably 3 months from now, after the 670, 670Ti, and 660 are all released. Maybe sooner, who knows.

what if they had another reason on why they shouldnt lowering the prices rather than supply/market stock availability? or maybe they're (AMD) offer more than NVidia's GTX680, not only just for gaming, but also on graphics computing performance ??

 

[Inceptor]

Lol, this is the most stupid argument I've ever seen. So because they might not be caught or because it's gray area it's OK to do it. I guess that child prostitution is not so bad after all, because it's being done constantly in some places, it's gray area legally in those places and far from trying to catch them, it's allowed because it's good bussiness and attracts some tourists (sadly).

Yeah not even remotely the same, but you get the idea.

That's right, not even remotely the same, not a valid objection, and so a useless comment.

But, to quibble, in your style, I'll point out that a 'gray area' means something not specifically covered by any law or regulation. It's entirely possible their legal department realizes something is not OK, but that maybe the repercussions are not likely to be serious, and the financial gains outweigh the legal risks, who knows? Only they know.

Like I said, for them to try and do something is more or less OK, to use shaddy tactics to achieve that, is not so OK, but still more or less normal in bussiness, sadly, but for a consumer to swallow those shaddy tactics and defend them is stupid and obscene. Even if we concede to the false and corrupt expression "in bussiness everything is valid", we as conscious consumers have the right and the obligation to protest when they cross the line and we have to do our best to try to inform other consumers of this morally if not legally bad behavior.

They were caught and punished for practicing price fixing not so long ago, so don't even pretend there's no tactic behind all of this. According to everyone involved 28 nm is a lot better than 40 nm, yet they increased the prices by $150 when compared to 40 nm launch, all in the name of "low supply", a low supply they have forced on themselves.

But there is no defense from me, I don't like it either, but that is the reality. If they can do it, they will; which is exactly what I pointed out. Moral questions almost never come up in business decisions where profit is being maximized.

 

[symmetrical]

What if they release the magical driver that unleashes 30% performance boost in all games all resolutions lol. Side note I managed to score a 7950 for 350 from ebay!

The same hotfix they released for Bulldozer?

 

[FreedomEclipse]

The same hotfix they released for Bulldozer?

actually no.....because the BD hotfix didnt actually do much of anything

 

[n-ster]

actually no.....because the BD hotfix didnt actually do much of anything

I think he was using this exact point as sarcasm

 

[EarthDog]

AMD has something under there sleeves... either a victory driver, or they are hiding that it unlocks into a 7990

So it will magically spawn another GPU core? :shadedshu

 

[ensabrenoir]

So it will magically spawn another GPU core? :shadedshu

Yes......and reveal an extra 2 billion transistors when paired with an fx chip

 

[vagxtr]

I know i wasnt contemplating between buying HD7970 or GTX680 because its way over my budget limit for GPU i'm ready to pay. But certainly i wont pay those insane prices for HD7800 or HD7700 series.

DAMN become extremely cocky with this HD700 series just because they wanna kill peoples needs to buy their also limited offerings while their on the side track running GPU business for consoles with their lucrative concord deals. Shame on YOU DAMN.

I just hope envy will be kind enough to quickly release some halfcut GK104 desighns with 1024SFX (Quad 256SFX) as it would more than satisfy my needs in 200-250USD segment which could be hopefully be a killer card for those measly HD7700/HD7800 (HD5700/6700/6800 refresh offerings) that DAMN give us.