I am shocked they are still in business... http://www.resellerratings.com/store/MA_Labs_15OCUK said it.
And we have this;
https://www.techpowerup.com/236422/retailers-are-buying-amd-rx-vega-64-at-usd-675-each
https://hardforum.com/threads/amd-r...card-review-h.1941804/page-12#post-1043171460I will tell you this and beyond this it is about all I can say. But I will tell you that I KNOW what I am talking about.
Someone is telling you lies, and it is not AMD. Selling video cards is a cut-throat business and some folks are doing just that.
Give it 7 to 14 days and everyone will be back down off their high-horses and put their lynching ropes away.
Now you know how "people" feel.I really don't understand how people are failing to grasp this...
One issue here in the article.Interesting article testing HBCC. Did the [H] review showing perf tanking with 8xMSAA still have the HBCC setting disabled?
https://techgage.com/article/a-look-at-amd-radeon-vega-hbcc/
https://www.reddit.com/r/hardware/c...re_buying_amd_rx_vega_64_at_675_each/dm20et2/It's something not talked about very often, but many major wholesalers sell massive lots of video cards to mining co-ops. Usually to people they know, or family members, etc. They can get the cards at much lower volume pricing, then sell them on in bulk at slightly higher than what they would sell to retail outlets, which is still below MSRP, and walk off with a huge profit. Further choking supplies, and driving up demand, so that when the cards do hit retailers, they are massively over inflated. See: RX 580 the last year.
So if you ever see a Costco rack full of the same make and model of video card and wonder how the fuck they got them in the current market...that's how. They are getting them from somewhere you can't.
This brings us full circle to Vega and the Radeon Packs, which have a higher cost on the card itself at wholesale, with the margin being built into the pack items, not the GPU. So they are effectively paying $499 per V64.
Based on a conversation I had today with an old friend who works at a wholeseller I used to do business with, the deal was/is depending on the number of Radeon Packs you order, you would get __ amount of stand alone Vega cards at the regular wholesale price (around $399 for V64, or ~$100 margin). That is where this nonsense about "vouchers" for "cheaper" Vega cards came from. It was all to prevent back channel sales of inventory to miners for sub-retail prices in bulk. That there would be less incentive if they had to pay MSRP through the supply chain. And keep major retailers from simply buying up as much stock as possible, to control the market pricing, as they were capped on total quantity, and then there was the pricing of the Radeon Packs to further dissuade this behavior.
So once these vendors got their inventories, and ran out of their stand alone cards, not wanting to sell the high dollar Packs, they started selling the Pack cards as stand alone, but at the same markup, which was of course $100 higher because it was a Pack card, with the higher price. Which is where this "AMD Price Bump™" bullshit came out of.
Edit: To clarify, based upon a PM I received, regarding the claim that AMD has stopped selling these cards at the wholesale price, and that the $499 MSRP is dead and gone, and part of an elaborate bait and switch, that is a game of semantics. Presently, there are no more Stand Alone GPUs left for inventory that carry that $499 MSRP. All that is left, or was left at the time that statement was made, where cards for Radeon Packs with the $599 MSRP, that were being sold as Stand Alone. So while it is technically correct that "at this time you can't buy a Vega card that you could sell at $499", that is because the only cards you can buy are for Radeon Packs, and come with the higher price tag. And not wanting zero margin, the tack that onto the higher price, and maybe a little extra inflation for demand.
Essentially the vendors are mad that they are being forced to pay retail card prices, on Radeon Packs, for access to loose inventory, non-bubdle stand alone GPUs, at regular wholesale pricing. So they are blaming AMD for trying to keep wholesellers honest, and jacking up the pricing anyway, creating the problem this whole ideas was supposed to avoid.
Real rock and a hard place bullshit for AMD. AIBs are pretty much going to be the only saving grace of Vega. Let's hope GloFo and Samsung can crank the fabs up to 11 and get some chip inventory for them, otherwise it's going to be really bad for quite a while.
Edit eidt: Yes I think AMD should just say this themselves, and yes I think it is absurd that I had to call someone I haven't talked to in over 3 years to get some basic information about the whole situation. Clearly AMD wants to protect some portion of the supply chain, and not call them out on it. Again, a very awkward rock and a hard place for AMD.
I captured this possibility under :that assumes that amd didn't give up the right to compete against its board partners in the retail gaming (mining) space in its contracts and/or favor one board partner over another.
Their business/marketing/legal staff obviously isn't as sharp as Nvidia or even the AMD CPU group. It shows in ever way across the launch of this product. So, they very well could have neutered any chance they had to wield true force to reign in prices. They've most certainly fumbled every other aspect of the product launch so they could have very well fumbled this.This is what you pay your sales/business/lawyers staff to understand and implement. Just goes to show how worthless such individuals are in this day in age...
The narrative that is being pushed is that AMD is the one creating/profiting from the higher prices. That quote states the exact opposite is happening. AMD attempted to keep retailers from inflating the price.
That doesn't demonstrate AMD or their AIB's are responsible for the price hike at all. Going by the prices for other cards from MA Labs I'm actually amazed it's $675. This is like saying Best Buy has great deals on cards.
The issue is that such a limited rebate, is more about marketing than benefiting the end user. Witch such small number you need to basically win an internet clicking lotto to get one at those prices, so it is generally impossible for most people to get that price. So AMD can claim, a few cards sold at that price, so it is realistic to have it in reviews for the Price/Perf calculations.
The issue is that such a limited rebate, is more about marketing than benefiting the end user. Witch such small number you need to basically win an internet clicking lotto to get one at those prices, so it is generally impossible for most people to get that price. So AMD can claim, a few cards sold at that price, so it is realistic to have it in reviews for the Price/Perf calculations.
Without a wall of off topic chat go look up the history of 3dfx.Why do GPU manufacturers use AIB partners? Surely AMD and Nvidia can make the board the GPU attaches to. I assume it must be cheaper somehow to let ASUS, Gigabyte, etc., do it, but that seems odd. Intel and AMD both sell CPUs directly to retailers. Though, I guess they don't make motherboards. It just seems like they are giving away part of the value of the card and at the same time losing control over the price.
Sorry if this is too off-topic. I'll make a new thread if it is since I'm curious now.
Like I said before, it's a lose/lose for AMD. Probably would have been better to just not even try, let retailers gouge, at least all the hate goes to them. With the rebate it's wiggle room and depending on your source, you put your pitchforks on the wrong person. And video reviewers are having a hay day with it.
Little bit of anecdotal evidence from an admittedly small sample size. Having worked in PC part sales through the original Bitcoin craze and now this Eth craze I can tell you for certain that the middle men wholesalers absolutely 100% mark up based on the highest price they think they can pass on to actual retailers. This sounds like AMD knew the volume was going to be extremely limited, so they tied in the bundle pricing to loose cards to keep the bigger re-sellers from buying all inventory and holding the price at a higher point. It's simple economics, AMD isn't doing anything shady in the slightest, in fact as was mentioned earlier AMD is actually LOSING more money on the rebates to keep the retail channel from doing absurd mark ups due to limited quantity. The reality that people don't want to accept is that the retail/wholesale channels are extremely greedy and knowing what I know I can say with 100% certainty they don't want people to know how badly they rip off customers during a fiasco like this. If AMD was going to do a super low volume initial launch they really should have done what NVidia does and pick an AIB partner to launch the reference design and control the supply themselves for 2-3 weeks while AIB's make custom designs.
To give an example of what my shop is doing to keep from gouging our customers on graphics cards with the bundle strategy. Our shelf GPU's we have in stock that are in high demand (RX 580, 570, GTX 1060, 1070) are subject to market fluctuations as loose cards, but we get a few in stock that we bundle with new builds at cost as system specials. We make the margin back on other products, but as long as a customer is buying the card to game on with a new PC we'll sell them the card at MSRP (which is usually cost for us right now). What has happened is retailers had X number of bundle pack cards, they saw how fast the solo cards sold out and decided to can the whole bundle, take the cards from those and sell them as loose cards at a higher price (probably because the bundles weren't moving at all due to how much money you had to spend to receive the full savings) The margin was intended to be made up for on bundle cards on the other parts, much like my margins in store are made up for in up sells like RGB lighting kits, custom sleeved cables, water cooling, gaming peripherals or new monitors. Retailers decided to double dip, as in, not take a hit on any margin at all to incentivize more sales because the quantity wasn't enough to justify it, likely cancelling the bundled savings and just deciding to maximize profit from the inventory they had.
TLDR: everyone wants a slice of a pie, retailers are the culprits in price inflation products, this is always true. AMD sells to AIB at x price, AIB marks up X% to make more to wholesale channel, wholesale channel marks up X%, then retailers mark up to literally whatever they think will sell. If people are buying Vega 64 for $750, you can bet it will be priced at $750
Edit: Spelling hard.
AMD & Intel sell to distributors, not direct to retailers, unless they are huge, like perhaps Amazon or newegg.Why do GPU manufacturers use AIB partners? Surely AMD and Nvidia can make the board the GPU attaches to. I assume it must be cheaper somehow to let ASUS, Gigabyte, etc., do it, but that seems odd. Intel and AMD both sell CPUs directly to retailers. Though, I guess they don't make motherboards. It just seems like they are giving away part of the value of the card and at the same time losing control over the price.
Sorry if this is too off-topic. I'll make a new thread if it is since I'm curious now.
When you try to fix a problem and it doesn't get fixed it means you didn't care enough or truly didn't see it as a problem. Case in point : People want increasingly levels of profits. They sure find all the ways including back door deals to get it. Thus, if AMD truly wanted to end this fiasco within the chain of people their hardware flows to before it gets to customers they would. Walmart did this and decimated the non-value added middle men in the distribution chain. Amazon took this a step further and stuck it to Walmart. Now Google is getting on board with Walmart to lob another salvo. I doubt, if a whale decided to disrupt the procurement and distribution of compute electronics that any of these clowns in the distribution chain could compete and that's exactly what's coming.So TL: DR,
Channel partners have been doing back door deals to mining co-ops for increased profits. This has caused the huge shortages of cards in retail and is largely what has driven the prices of Polaris to insane levels. AMD tried to create a system to stop or at least limit this from happening. Channel partners still did their back door deals causing the stand alone cards to dry up. Without stand a lone cards available, channel partners sold the bundle pack cards as stand alone to try and maintain the extra profits. People start blaming AMD for a problem they didn't create but tried to fix without success.
IF this account is true, I'm guessing AMD then approached some retailers offering rebates or some kind of agreement since they had to buy stand alone cards at bundle prices to try and provide at least some cards at SEP for consumers. Gibbo makes a post with only understanding a part of what was happening, mass hysteria ensues.
Accurate? I don't know. It makes a lot more sense to me than any other theory I've heard proposed though.
You're talking about a company that;s been bleeding red for what half a decade, probably more? They're on a ventilator & can;t afford to alienate even the middle men. Why do you think their last round of mobile chips, with single channel RAM & no cTDP option, were an unmitigated disaster? You need money to do all these things, as it happens AMD is easily making less money from the GPU than all those middle men combined.When you try to fix a problem and it doesn't get fixed it means you didn't care enough or truly didn't see it as a problem. Case in point : People want increasingly levels of profits. They sure find all the ways including back door deals to get it. Thus, if AMD truly wanted to end this fiasco within the chain of people their hardware flows to before it gets to customers they would. Walmart did this and decimated the non-value added middle men in the distribution chain. Amazon took this a step further and stuck it to Walmart. Now Google is getting on board with Walmart to lob another salvo. I doubt, if a whale decided to disrupt the procurement and distribution of compute electronics that any of these clowns in the distribution chain could compete and that's exactly what's coming.
The same way B&M was decimated for non-valued added price gouging is the same way the current lot will be in due time.
So, i'm not buying that the company that is taking all the risk, doing all the R&D, and developing the actual product that is being sold is helpless. They may be lacking balls and the tenacity to cut these jokers at the knees but they aren't helpless. No producer is.
Don't give these idiots a single rebate. Cut them at the knees, circumvent them, and go direct to customers and see them fall in line.... Nvidia did a lite version of this so there is no sense is stating it can't be done. I guarantee you the next go around that Nvidia is going to do this (hard) especially with all the clout they have.
I'm not buying the b.s public statements one single bit. This isn't a new problem. It's one that occurs every launch and one that is currently ever present. There are people within each company who are paid to solve problems like this. They are either incompetent or feckless and its going to cost the Radeon group dearly if its not reigned in and controlled.
As for the clowns hoarding video cards who haven't yet discovered that coin networks are ponzi schemes, betting the future of your companies by catering to them is a sure fire way to be dragged down when the bubble blows.