AMD cut prices of its Radeon R9 290 series and R9 280 series graphics cards further down from last month's price-cuts. The cuts see the company's flagship single-GPU product, the Radeon R9 290X, drop from $449, down to $399, an $150 overall drop, from its launch price of $549. The Radeon R9 290, on the other hand, has its price cut to $299, from its launch price of $399. The drop in price of the R9 290 is squeezing AMD's sub-$300 lineup like never before. The R9 280X is down to $270, just $30 less than the R9 290. The R9 285, which launched barely two months ago, has its price squeezed to $229, just $10 more than NVIDIA's GTX 760. If you're in the market for a graphics card with about $250 in hand, you're now open to a ton of options, including ramen for a week, in exchange for the $329 GeForce GTX 970.

AMD is apparently working with its add-in board manufacturers and retailers to bring down prices of its flagship single-GPU graphics card, the Radeon R9 290X. The card can now be had for as low as $449, non-reference design, factory-overclocked cards starting at a $50 premium. Prices could settle down somewhere between $450 and $500. This closely follows AMD's move to bring down price of its dual-GPU flagship Radeon R9 295X2 by a whopping 34 percent, down to $999, offering performance competitive to the $2999 GeForce GTX TITAN-Z. NVIDIA is preparing two new graphics cards competitive in performance to the Radeon R9 290 series, the GeForce GTX 970 and GTX 980. The two are based on the company's new 28 nm "GM204" silicon, implementing the "Maxwell" GPU architecture.

With NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 660 and GTX 650 threatening to make things messy in the sub-$250 market, and competitive pricing between NVIDIA partners with high-end SKUs, AMD is preparing yet another round of price cuts to its Radeon HD 7000 GPU series. Its last round followed the launch of GeForce GTX 660 Ti. According to the source, this is what AMD's lineup could look like, when it's done resetting prices:

• Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition - starts at $430
• Radeon HD 7970 standard - starts at $410
• Radeon HD 7950 Boost - starts at $300
• Radeon HD 7950 standard - starts at $290
• Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition - starts at $240
• Radeon HD 7850 2 GB - starts at $200

AMD is working on a new set of price-cuts for its performance-thru-enthusiast lines of GPUs, following the launch of NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 660 Ti. The new pricing will take effect by the end of this week. The $299 GeForce GTX 660 Ti, as reviews show, offers higher performance per Dollar than Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition, and punches above its weight, at the $349 Radeon HD 7950, prompting AMD to change its specifications by increasing core clock speed, and augmenting it with PowerTune with Boost. The resulting HD 7950 with Boost is bound to replace the older HD 7950.

When AMD's new pricing scheme takes effect, this is how the performance-enthusiast segment will shape up:

• Prices of Radeon HD 7950 Boost will go down from US $349 to $319,
• Prices of Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition will go down from $299 to $249,
• Prices of Radeon HD 7850 2GB will go down to $209, and HD 7850 1GB to $189.

Intel is planning a series of price cuts for its three current consumer SSD lines, the SSD 320, SSD 330, and SSD 520. The new prices could take effect from August, and will render several models with price per GB under $1. While prices of most lower-capacity SSD 320 series products are left untouched (partly because they are being phased out of the market), those of the 300 GB and 600 GB are cut significantly. The 300 GB SSD 320 could get a price cut from US $519 to $464, while that of the 600 GB SSD 320 could go down from $1,059 down to $879.

Intel's current mainstream SSD line, the SSD 330, could face price cuts on some of its best selling models. The 60 GB model could see its price go down from $94 to $69, the 120 GB from $149 to $104, and the 180 GB from $234 to $154. Intel's performance SSD line, the SSD 520 series, sees prices cut for nearly every model. The 60 GB model is down from $109 to $99, 120 GB from $189 to $139, 180 GB from $279 to $199, 240 GB from $349 to $259, and 480 GB $809 to $594. The new prices restore competitiveness of Intel's consumer SSD lines against competitors' offerings, as SSD prices continue on their free-fall.

AMD reportedly finalized the adjusted prices. The price cuts were first reported in a little earlier this month. The price of Radeon HD 7970 was slashed by as much as US $70, sending it down to $479, $20 behind that of the GeForce GTX 680. That of the Radeon HD 7950 was cut by $50, which will send its price down to $399. Lastly, the price of Radeon HD 7770 went down by $20, it is priced at $139. Although not formally part of these price cuts, the Radeon HD 7870 is now available for as low as $330.

Despite losing its competitive edge to NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 680, for various reasons AMD was rather slow in adjusting prices of its Radeon HD 7900 series SKUs, the HD 7970 and HD 7950. We are now learning that AMD is preparing the first round of price cuts for its flagship graphics card lineup, since the advent of NVIDIA's Kepler architecture. A Kitguru report pits price cuts of Radeon HD 7970 as much as by US $60 (from $549 to "as low as" $489). The price of HD 7950, on the other hand, is expected to go down by as much as US $55 (that's from $449 to $394). There's also a small price cut in store for Radeon HD 7770, which according to the report, could go down by $15.

A lot of prospective buyers of new generation GPUs were counting on the US $499 launch price of NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680 to result in reactionary price-cuts in the red camp, particularly with the $549 Radeon HD 7970. NVIDIA's GPU is faster, more efficient, and under normal circumstances, should leave AMD with no other option, but to cut prices of HD 7970 to stay competitive. However, that hasn't happened, and according to a HardwareCanucks report, will not happen any time soon.

NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 680 launch wasn't just on paper, there was market-availability on launch-day, although like every other new GPU launch, stocks have been quite limited. Before this launch, AMD and its partners managed to replenish inventories of Radeon HD 7970, making it generally available, while not budging from its ~$549 price. Sources told HardwareCanucks and this situation won't change unless NVIDIA has a more full-fledged lineup of new-generation GPUs against AMD's, or unless the availability of GeForce GTX 680 drastically improves.

Intel has officially announced the January price reductions for its Core 2 processors. Below are all processors that have their prices changed after January 18th. For the full list of Intel processors and their MSRPs, please click here.

Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) has sent a newsletter to its channel partners today, informing them for yet another price cut that affects the company's desktop processor line-up. Several Phenom X4, Phenom X3 and Athlon X2 processors will be 10 to 20 percent cheeper starting next month. The prices below are not the usual prices "in 1000-unit tray quantities", but approximate street prices.

In addition to the new LGA 775 processors, Intel is preparing price cuts for its solid state drives. Intel's super fast 2.5-inch 80GB multi-level cell (MLC) X25-M SSDs - and its 80GB 1.8-inch X18-M counterpart - will drop from $600 to $525 on November 30th. On the very same day Intel will also introduce its new single-level cell (SLC) high-performance 32GB X25-E SSD for $700. A month later on December 28th, the price of this drive will already be dropped to $575. In the first half of 2009, Intel will be migrating to higher density, releasing 160GB variants of the X25-M/X18-M MLC SSDs priced at $990, and 64GB versions of the high-performance X25-E SLC SSDs priced again at $990.

New reports suggest that on October 19th (on my birthday) Intel is planning to cut the prices of several Core 2 Duo and Core 2 Quad processors. According to the report on that date prices of the 2.4GHz Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 and the 2.3GHz Intel Core 2 Quad Q8200 will drop from $193 to $183, and from $224 to $193 respectively. Intel's dual-core 2.66GHz Core 2 Duo E7300 will fall from $133 to $113. In addition the company plans to introduce a new 2.8GHz Core 2 Duo E7400 part on that date too.

Microsoft is glad to report that sales of its Xbox 360 have gone double, after Microsoft last week lowered the price of the console. After cutting the price in US by as much as 29 percent retailer sales have risen 100%, some even report a 600% rise in the sold Xbox 360s compared to the previous week. Let me remind you that Microsoft slashed the price of the Xbox 360 Arcade unit last week to US $199 (down from $279), while the Core or Premium edition is now selling for US $299 (down from $350) and the Elite unit for US $399 (down from $449). After the Sept. 5 price reduction, the Xbox 360 Arcade is now also the cheapest current generation home console on the market. "We are thrilled to be the first next-generation console on the market to reach USD 199, a price that invites everyone to enjoy Xbox 360," said Don Mattrick, senior vice president of the Interactive Entertainment Business at Microsoft.

NVIDIA today slashed the prices of its latest generation of GeForce GTX video cards. The GeForce GTX 280 is now available for as low as $499 and the GeForce GTX 260 costs $299. The high-end GTX 280 was originally priced at $649, while the 260 was priced previously at $399. With a price tag of $299, the GeForce GTX 260 now matches ATI's comparable Radeon HD 4870. The higher end GeForce GTX 280 is still waiting to meet its main competitor in the face of ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2, due to become available later this quarter.

Regardless of how successful Blu-ray and HD-DVD are right now, HD-DVD has almost always had the edge as far as pricepoint goes. Venturer Electronics is proud to continue that legacy with the SHD7000 HD-DVD player. In stores just in time for the holidays, this player is currently $197.88 at Wal-Mart, and will hopefully permeate other stores around the world. While some would argue that the SHD7000 arrived too late, considering the success and low price of the Toshiba HD-A2, current prices say otherwise. While you could get the HD-A2 for as low as $99 during in-store special sales at Wal-Mart, the price is now hovering at around $250. The SHD7000 is nearly identical to the Toshiba HD-A3 HD-DVD player as far as features go, boasting HDMI, 1080i output resolution, and Dolby TrueHD support.

While the HD 3800 series is already available at a relatively low price (the 3850 has an MSRP of $180USD, while the 3870 has an MSRP of $220USD), AMD is considering cutting the price down to even lower amounts. There is no word as to how low AMD will go, but cheap, high power graphics cards just in time for Christmas may be exactly what AMD needs to re-claim market share from NVIDIA and their $300 8800GT. AMD increased their market share with a similar maneuver last year, by releasing value-oriented and powerful X1950 and X1650 graphics cards. This move increased AMD's market share by 2.1%, giving them 23% market share this time last year. NVIDIA has their own plans to get holiday sales, and hopes to churn out enough G92 chips to meet demand.

It seems as though Sapphire is having some sort of sale, offering their entire stock of HD 2900 graphics card either at a discount, or with free shipping. Get them while they are hot:

• 2900GT 256MB 256-bit GDDR3: $170 + shipping.
• 2900Pro 512MB 512-bit GDDR3: $250 shipped.
• 2900XT 512MB 512-bit GDDR3: $280 + shipping.
• 2900Pro 1GB 512-bit GDDR4: $300 + shipping
• 2900XT 1GB 512-bit GDDR4: $340 + shipping.

While Blu-Ray may be getting more sales as of late, HD-DVD proprietors have a figurative ace-in-the-hole. They know that regardless of how good a product is, nobody's going to get it if it is not reasonably priced. And so, they are trying to get an HD-DVD player into customers' homes by offering players at $200 at Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart is currently stocking said HD-DVD players, and will formally begin selling them on November 3rd.

In July, representatives for Microsoft claimed that their Xbox360 prices in Japan were competitive enough, and did not need to lower them. However, Sony's recent announcement to cut both the 20GB and 60GB PS3, as well as the upcoming release of the 40GB PS3, caused Microsoft to re-think their position. To remain competitive, as of November 1st, the Japanese Xbox360 core will cost ¥27,800 (£120/€172/$244), and the Japanese Xbox360 Premium will cost ¥34,800 (£150/€215/$306).

On November 2nd, $399 will get you a lovely PlayStation3 with a 40GB hard drive, no backwards compatibility whatsoever, and 2 USB ports. This is $50 more than the Xbox360 Premium edition, and $150 more than the Nintendo Wii. On November 2nd, the 80GB PS3 price will be reduced to a mere $500USD. Sony has no comment as to why it took so long to determine when America would get this console.

Fortunately for anybody considering an upgrade to AMD AM2 processors, AMD will be slashing prices on their Athlon 64 processors. Just some examples of price cuts we'll be seeing...

The Athlon 64 X2 5000+ currently costs $119, and will soon cost $109USD.

The Athlon 64 X2 5200+ currently costs $124, and will soon cost $119USD

The Athlon 64 X2 5600+ currently costs $149, and will soon cost $139USD.

Acer has become a member of the Blu-ray Disc Association (BDA), giving Blu-ray a lead among the world's largest PC manufacturers.

We're delighted to welcome Acer to the Blu-ray Disc Association,

The addition of Acer provides one more sign of the growing momentum behind Blu-ray Disc and, more importantly, is a significant advantage for consumers, as it further expands the already broad options available to consumers in the personal computer space.

said Victor Matsuda, chairman of the BDA's Global Promotions Committee, in a prepared statement. The company also makes laptops equipped with HD DVD drives. Acer Inc. is currently one of the top five PC brands in the world, and the number one notebook brand in Europe.

In order to be more competitive in the Australian market, Microsoft recently cut the price of the Xbox 360 Core and Premium systems. The Core system now costs AUD399.95, down from AUD499.95 which puts it at the same price of the Nintendo Wii. The Xbox 360 Premium is now AUD549.95, down from AUD649.95. Both figures include local GST taxes.

Yesterday, we pointed out that Circuit City might be planning to cut the PS3 price by $100 USD. Unfortunately, if this price cut actually happens, it's only temporary. The president of Sony Corporate Entertainment America (SCEA) has formally/officially announced that Sony plans no world-wide price cut of this sort. While Sony was considering a price cut to help bolster sales, which developers have been calling for for quite some time, Sony is stone-walled on this issue.

The Circuit City advertisement may yet be legitimate. We'll keep you posted as to whether or not the PS3 will really be $500 USD on the week of July 15th at Circuit City.

Ever since the PS3 price of $600 USD was announced, critics have felt that a price drop was all but necessary. There is a pre-release flyer circling the bowels of the internet with an interesting rumor: a $500 PS3 the week of July 15th. At first, Sony merely scoffed at the $500 PS3, putting it down as just another rumor. However, once this "rumor" became pixelated, Sony was caught flat-footed, and did not have any comment on this situation.

Even if this price drop is legitimate, it could just be a simple Circuit City exclusive sale, and will end the following Sunday. The only thing we can really do is wait until July 15th for the $500 PS3. Regardless of whether or not the flyer is legitimate, you can read it below.