AMD cuts down Radeon prices, intros 1GB HD 6950

[Jos]

Last week we told you about how AMD was looking to put some pressure in the sub-$300 segment with new cutback Radeon HD 6900 cards as Nvidia readies the launch of its GTX 560 Ti – which is due today, so check back for our review! Well, now the company has made it official announcing a new 1GB variant of the Radeon HD 6950 priced at $259. This is basically a normal HD 6950 with half the memory and as a result the price and memory performance is lower.

Newegg already has listed three versions of the board for sale on its site, including a slightly overclocked model from XFX. So far we’ve seen no mention of a similarly cutback 1GB version of the Radeon HD 6970, but AMD did cut prices on the 2GB HD 6950 model, which will now sell from $269 to $289 depending on configuration. In addition, the previous-generation Radeon HD 6870 that launched with a recommended price tag of $239 is going down to $219.

If the GeForce GTX 560 Ti does enter the market at $250, we feel that AMD could be gaming the brackets successfully, putting themselves in a good position below and above Nvidia's upcoming mainstream offering.

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/42131-amd-cuts-down-radeon-prices-intros-1gb-hd-6950.html

 

[fpsgamerJR62]

AMD should have launched the 6900 series with 1 GB buffers and then introduced the 2 GB models later. With these current price adjustments, they risk confusing prospective buyers of both the 6800 and 6900 series cards and could end up cannibalizing sales of the 6800 cards in favor of the 6900 cards just to stay competitive with Nvidia at the US$ 250 price point.

 

[edison5do]

With the 560 Ti at $250, the HD 6870 provide almost the same performance (with the exceptions of some games) ande now the 1Gb 6950 at $269, with a lot more performance looks like a better Idea, just $20 buck more... Nice Price game here --- and the customes Stay HAPPY!! like me

 

[CamaroMullet]

Here's a link to the 6950 and the 560 going head to head. Review

They lined up pretty close, with ATI having a slight edge in performance, better power consumption and connection options. But 20 bucks more, with no physx. Pretty interesting.

 

[DokkRokken]

CamaroMullet said:
Here's a link to the 6950 and the 560 going head to head. Review

They lined up pretty close, with ATI having a slight edge in performance, better power consumption and connection options. But 20 bucks more, with no physx. Pretty interesting.

AMD probably justifies the price with Eyefinity, which I'd say is fair.

 

[Relic]

Jose said:
Radeon HD 6870 that launched with a recommended price tag of $239 is going down to $219.

Even found one for $199 after MIR, which is a great for the performance it offers.

 

[dividebyzero]

AMD should have launched the 6900 series with 1 GB buffers and then introduced the 2 GB models later.

AMD couldn't do that. With the GTX 570 and 580 already in the marketplace and selling, AMD risked getting stomped in the Christmas sale season.
A 1Gb AMD card wouldn't fare too differently from the 2Gb part in single monitor testing, but multi-monitor (Eyefinity) and enthusiast levels of game image quality (8x antialiasing for example) testing would definitely put the 1Gb cards at a disadvantage as the low capacity cards ran out of memory frame-buffer, and an increasing number of tech sites now include extreme resolution and/or IQ in their test regime.