Big Price Drops Coming from ATI?

[HDTVMan]

Buddy of mine recently got word saying ATI price drops are coming/suspected in the very near future. Possibly by next week. Citing the reasons are sell anything as long as they try to keep consumers from buying an NVIDIA products. Price drops as much as 25% across the boards. He says it comes from a reliable source.

It suspects ATI views every single sale of an NVIDIA product potentially generates a second and third sale for another NVIDIA product. (SLI and a Motherboard). So there is 3 lost sales every time NVIDIA sells a card over ATI. Potentially making sales 3 times larger than ATI single video card sales. Usually those who buy a cards next purchase is usually a second card to do SLI. ATI wants to put the brakes on multiple NVIDIA sales as soon as possible until it can launch its SLI and Next Gen Card which also states is having some real issues with maufacturing and drivers and motherboard issues as well. They dont anticipate production until late this year.

The posting even states prior to the launch of the Nvidia 7800 sales of ATI cards are on the decline and that ATI needs to react soon being what is essentially 2 generations behind NVIDIA.

Found in a newsgroup posting.

 

[blckgrffn]

Hmmm... interesting, and well, hopefully true! A sub $200 x800xl PCIe would certainly turn a lot of heads, mine included!

Nat

 

[imported_X]

I find it interesting that there was so much hype about the R520, yet nothing has appeared. Nvidia floated along quietly, then exploded with the 7800GTX. It really is time for ATI to step up to the plate if they want to hold on to market share.

 

[HDTVMan]

Seems more threads with similar info on the 25%. Could be interesting.

http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview...atid=31&threadid=1622640&enterthread=y

 

[HDTVMan]

You know what would be interesting is if NVIDIA did a price drop first since ATI possibly cant retaliate that would begin putting ATI in the red. Bad for us but this might be NVIDIA's chance at putting a massive hurt on ATI.

 

[Dacalo]

Originally posted by: HDTVMan
You know what would be interesting is if NVIDIA did a price drop first since ATI possibly cant retaliate that would begin putting ATI in the red. Bad for us but this might be NVIDIA's chance at putting a massive hurt on ATI.

Nvidia won't drop the prices before ATI, that would be just not prudent from business perspective. Nvidia will sit pat, and react accordingly to ATI's actions.

 

[HDTVMan]

Originally posted by: Dacalo

Originally posted by: HDTVMan
You know what would be interesting is if NVIDIA did a price drop first since ATI possibly cant retaliate that would begin putting ATI in the red. Bad for us but this might be NVIDIA's chance at putting a massive hurt on ATI.

Nvidia won't drop the prices before ATI, that would be just not prudent from business perspective. Nvidia will sit pat, and react accordingly to ATI's actions.

NVIDIA wouldnt have to do it to the entire lineup just the low end.

If NVIDIA positions the 6600 prices against the 9800 line than that cuts off anything ATI has. Its checkmate for NVIDIA until ATI can get next gen parts and its not looking good as no one is seeing silicon that I am aware of. So the chip doesnt appear to be tapped out.

 

[Killrose]

Ati will have to look closely at the market segments they still have control of and concentrate on them. I think a 25% price drop is pretty far fetched. Ati has the X800XL which is probably one of thier best products because it is positioned between the 6800NU and 6800GT, which represents a pretty good market share I would think.

Not everyone is able to build thier own Sli rig, let alone afford a second card for it. It will be interesting to see how nVidia fares against thier own product line in a 6800 Sli vs single 7800GTX market.

The fact that single card new generation hardware will most likely alway's out-perform last generation in an Sli configuration is goint to be the real cruciable for the whole Sli idea. This will affect sales of Sli capable motherboards/chipsets as well.

 

[blckgrffn]

They already are! The 6600 is as good if not better than a 9800Pro and can be had for ~$100! I know you are going to want beches, but all I have is first hand experience....

My 6600 scores 6480 in 3dMark03 and 2820 in 3dMark05... not many 9800 class cards can get there, not to mention actually play D3@1280*1024, if that is important to you.

Nat

 

[Munky]

That is interesting, I suspected something like that might happen. They may not have anything to compete with the 7800 right now, but a x800xl for $200 ar a x800 for $150 is definitely a hard deal to resist. And since more profit comes from the midrange cards than from the high end ones, it will definitely hurt nvidia if everybody starts buying x800xl instead of the 6800gt. But then nvidia will probably drop prices as well, and we as consumers benefit on both sides.

 

[HDTVMan]

Originally posted by: Killrose
Ati will have to look closely at the market segments they still have control of and concentrate on them. I think a 25% price drop is pretty far fetched. Ati has the X800XL which is probably one of thier best products because it is positioned between the 6800NU and 6800GT, which represents a pretty good market share I would think.

Not everyone is able to build thier own Sli rig, let alone afford a second card for it. It will be interesting to see how nVidia fares against thier own product line in a 6800 Sli vs single 7800GTX market.

The fact that single card new generation hardware will most likely alway's out-perform last generation in an Sli configuration is goint to be the real cruciable for the whole Sli idea. This will affect sales of Sli capable motherboards/chipsets as well.

I dont know because some will look to SLI the 7800 down the line. Buy one 7800 now and when the price drops because of next gen you simply buy a second for cheap and it puts you in the ballpark of the latest gen. I still think we have some driver revisions before they get all the performance they are going to get out of SLI.

 

[biostud]

no-one is going to buy the highend ATi cards at their current prices, when they can get the 7800

 

[HDTVMan]

I think you can see it even in the forums here. You dont see anyone talk about the 600 or even the 700 lineup from ATI. And the 800 talk is minimal. I dont believe we have that many NVIDIA fanboys that there is barely any talk of ATI cards. I even see a lot of people recommend 9800 cards but its really quiet otherwise for ATI talk.

ATI needs to paper launch what they cant do to get some focus off NVIDIA and do some price drops.

I really think its going to happen. ATI can try to make that 25% back on selling you the SLI versions of the cards if they can get them out.

 

[gorcorps]

Nvidia has the SLI cards. It makes them top dog for the PCI-xpress market. But, I think ATI is still top dog in the AGP world. ATI has been the best in my opinion for middle to low grade machines and upgrades, as their AGP cards are rather inexpensive for the power. Nvidia has their really nice AGP cards too, but ATI has had some of the best bang for the buck cards in the this area. I think ATI has focused on nabbing that market too long and has forgot about the high end gamers.

 

[zendari]

Originally posted by: HDTVMan
I think you can see it even in the forums here. You dont see anyone talk about the 600 or even the 700 lineup from ATI. And the 800 talk is minimal. I dont believe we have that many NVIDIA fanboys that there is barely any talk of ATI cards. I even see a lot of people recommend 9800 cards but its really quiet otherwise for ATI talk.

ATI needs to paper launch what they cant do to get some focus off NVIDIA and do some price drops.

I really think its going to happen. ATI can try to make that 25% back on selling you the SLI versions of the cards if they can get them out.

You're completely right. Frankly, the entire ATI lineup sucked balls compared to the 6600 and 6800 GTs. And if you want to game, the 6600 GT is really the minimum, especially on a forum like this.

The only ATI card even worth considering is the x800 XL PCIE, as the 6800 GT PCIE cards are expensive, but even they are coming down.

 

[Killrose]

Driver improvements to Sli might be possible, but driver improvemnts will also improve single card performance as well. As far as i'm concerned as a consumer, the single card is the only way to go.

My stand has alway's been that you don't buy Sli for (1) card now, (1) card later performance, you buy it for (2) cards today performance, with no waiting. What kind of sence does it make to spend $600 today for (1) 7800, then (1) 7800 card next year for $400 for a whopping $1000 total, with the knowledge that when you drop that $400 on your second card that the newest generation is available for $600.

And the $600 newest generation card is not only faster than your now $1000 Sli rig, but has newer shadder capabilities, runs cooler, uses less power, ect?

 

[Munky]

Originally posted by: blckgrffn
They already are! The 6600 is as good if not better than a 9800Pro and can be had for ~$100! I know you are going to want beches, but all I have is first hand experience....

My 6600 scores 6480 in 3dMark03 and 2820 in 3dMark05... not many 9800 class cards can get there, not to mention actually play D3@1280*1024, if that is important to you.

Nat

You obviously OC'd your 6600, and my OC'd 9800p breaks 3000 in 3dmark05. A 6600 at stock speeds is way slower than a 9800, but it doesnt matter, because as long as people believe a 6600 is faster, they will buy it, which seems to be the general trend around here. Even more people will buy a 256mb gf6200 for "only" $100, and then start complaining when they only score a whole 1000 in 3dmock.

Anyway, the problem with ati is their prices are too high for most products, or the products arrive too late. Early this year, when the 6600gt was going for $200, ati was supposed to release a 12 pipe x800 for also $200, which would have been great, but no, it became available like 3 months later, when the 6600gt was already going for like $160.

Anyway, I agree that the x800xl pcie is the only ati card that considerably undercuts the competition in price for a similar performing card. The 9800p also has been going for $120 lately, which is a good deal compared to similar performing cards. But with every xbox360 sale ati makes a profit, so they're not gonna be in any big trouble financially, even if they don't rake in much cash from video cards this summer.

 

[blckgrffn]

Nope, I was just careful in selecting my 6600, which was supposed to come at 450/550 but came only at 450/500. It's a "turboforce" Gigabyte model that can be had for $107 at NewEgg in the 128 model. So that was my stock speed, and there I believe it could really beat a 9800 at everything except maybe 3dMark2001SE, but that isn't so important anymore, is it?

And I agree with your take on the X800XL in PCIe, I just picked up an AGP flavor one for about $210 so I will get my taste of ATI after a pretty long time, computer wise.

Also, it is apparent that ATI isn't going to meet its demise anytime soon, if the market were that bad then Nvidia probably would have tanked during the FX early nforce days!

 

[blckgrffn]

Holy cow! They have a super big inventory! 111 days vs their target 60! That is 4 months, ages in this market! Makes me feel foolish for buying an x800xl at this point, maybe we will see the employee pricing like GM here to clear some of it out

 

[nitromullet]

ATI needs to paper launch what they cant do to get some focus off NVIDIA and do some price drops.

That would serve no purpose but to add insult to injury for all the potential ATI customers. ATI has a horrible track record for paper launches now. The X800's were late, the X850's were late (after they promised it would not be), and there has been no sign of CrossFire which they launched at Computex. IMO, ATI really should not try to attract attention to itself at the moment unless they actually have something to show, and judging by their silence lately, someone at ATI agrees.

 

[HDTVMan]

Originally posted by: blckgrffn
Holy cow! They have a super big inventory! 111 days vs their target 60! That is 4 months, ages in this market! Makes me feel foolish for buying an x800xl at this point, maybe we will see the employee pricing like GM here to clear some of it out

Thats a bad inventory level and again another sign that price drops will have to happen because if they cant clear out inventory with current prices its not magically going to start dissapearing. Its also a bad sign all together which supports the notion that ATI chips just arent selling.

On the Xbox 360 ATI will get a small portion for each XBOX 360 sold however they dont own the technology this time around like Microsoft did with NVIDIA. Nvidia could work on the prices and cheaper better yeilds to make more profits but ATI cannot. Microsoft owns the technology so microsoft can control the manufacturing pricing. So if the die shrinks and its cheaper to make the chips the savings are passed to microsoft instead of giving ATI larger profit margins. This is good for both companies but not as lucrative as ATI should hope. Its definately a free money without any overhead deal which is good for ATI.

 

[HDTVMan]

Originally posted by: nitromullet

ATI needs to paper launch what they cant do to get some focus off NVIDIA and do some price drops.

That would serve no purpose but to add insult to injury for all the potential ATI customers. ATI has a horrible track record for paper launches now. The X800's were late, the X850's were late (after they promised it would not be), and there has been no sign of CrossFire which they launched at Computex. IMO, ATI really should not try to attract attention to itself at the moment unless they actually have something to show, and judging by their silence lately, someone at ATI agrees.

Worked for the Investors of Intel. No one ever questioned Intel on paper launches. No one even questioned Intel for not seeing the problems of not being able to keep increasing Mhz/Ghz. Shows you how dumb the investors really are today or how the top dogs who own it dont want to draw any attention to that minor detail. Smoke and Mirrors.

 

[HDTVMan]

Sadly looks like R520 is delayed until October.

I would bet R520 is coming with 32pipes. They need a comeback in October.

I would assume the SLI cards are also delayed till October but I dont recall them having a release date anyway. Any news more than the problems would be appreciated.

 

[SilverTrine]

SLI was a selling point and something reviewers can put in their review but who really is going to hook 2 6600GTs in their box when an x800xl/6800gt is close in performance, and theres no games that stress a X800xl or 6800gt anyway. From a marketing standpoint for their motherboards and for reviews it was pretty shrewd, however I question if it really advances GPU's. The 7800 isnt really that impressive so the door is open for the R520 to really wow some people the ball is in ATi's court.

 

[HDTVMan]

Your right now that the 6800 is only about 100more I would put in a 6800 before I bought 2 6600gt's.

But I would believe the 6600gt is the mainstream by which all next gen games are going to require as a minimum. So ATI needs to price match the 800 against it becuase the 700 doesnt cut it. Even then if next gen games rely on smartshader 3.0 then the ATI linup is really not going to look attractive.