AMD cuts Radeon R9 290X price amid GTX 970 "issues"

[dividebyzero]

Not necessarily. They probably have cut their standard margin and subsidise this price point in order to try to poach NV customers.

Possibly. But how many potential customers are there in that market segment? If AMD wanted to take market share from Nvidia, wouldn't it make more sense to target the high volume mainstream markets?
AMD got hammered on unsold inventory for two successive generations of APUs, taking nine-figure write-downs on both from complacency and basically Osborning themselves by outing next gen product before the present inventory was cleared. It seems close to a certainty that AMD ordered more GPU production thinking the alt-currency GPU mining market would continue - either directly to miners, or to keep the channel stocked so that gamers could purchase at MSRP and mining purchases didn't undermine their gaming market. Large inventory, a stagnant market in the wake of Maxwell, and AMD talking up the 300 series, means incentive is needed to shift the current inventory.

 

[Darth Shiv]

Possibly. But how many potential customers are there in that market segment?

I don't think they can be too choosy about which market segments they win. If a competitor hasn't got a viable product at a price point (because of an unexpected large product failure in this case), AMD really has to nail that point irrespective of what % of the overall market. It's basically a freebie.

 

[dividebyzero]

I don't think they can be too choosy about which market segments they win. If a competitor hasn't got a viable product at a price point (because of an unexpected large product failure in this case), AMD really has to nail that point irrespective of what % of the overall market. It's basically a freebie.

I'm sure that Nvidia's GTX 970 issue added impetus, validity, and sales strategy to the price cuts. What I noted was that AMD and it's partners were already selling the 290X in the $280-300 price range well before the price cut was announced - at least in the U.S.
Another point to ponder is that under EU consumer laws, the 970 sold there can be returned for full refund without jumping through any hoops - and some people are taking that option, yet the 290X cuts aren't deep (if evident at all) in some markets. If AMD's cuts are strategy only, why are they only really prevalent in the geographic distribution areas where large inventory is being held?

 

[Darth Shiv]

I'm sure that Nvidia's GTX 970 issue added impetus, validity, and sales strategy to the price cuts. What I noted was that AMD and it's partners were already selling the 290X in the $280-300 price range well before the price cut was announced - at least in the U.S.

You are quoting the online store sale price for a starter. Drop shippers sell for well below retail price. Let's see if the retail price drop translates into a relative price drop at the store...

 

[dividebyzero]

You are quoting the online store sale price for a starter. Drop shippers sell for well below retail price. Let's see if the retail price drop translates into a relative price drop at the store...

Shouldn't be too difficult to assess. Part Picker have historical pricing (here's one for a pretty popular 290X model currently at new pricing.) and many sites have partnerships with Newegg, Amazon, and NCIX amongst others. Cached pages from etailers would provide similar comparisons.

 

[Dragoncracker]

Wonder when the price for the GTX 970 is gonna drop with all this bad PR. Looking at Negg I don't see the prices dropping and I would have thought they would by now. I would take a 970 for $200-225 in a firesale with it's 3.5 gb full speed memory and have no problem with it. Don't think they will drop them that far but I would love to see it. Just a thought.

The advertised performance hasn't changed from day 1. They have no real reason to do that. Some people in Anandtech were arguing they paid for the advertised specs, when actually that level of detailed specs aren't published to the wide public to be found easily. Besides, people complaining don't even know what are the ROPs or what are they for; they only see numbers.

In that case, people should be complaining for false advertising towards both AMD (295X2) and NVIDIA (Titan Z) because they advertise 8GB and 12GB of memory respectively when only half is the effective memory addressable by the GPUs at any given time. Noone's asking them to lower those prices for that matter.

Ya and amd sells fake 8 6 and 4 core cpus.