[techpowerup] Radeon HD 7970 FOB Price Cut to $475

[tincart]

Orders from vendors will likely pick up because of this. Sounds like AMD has a good supply of cards.

 

[railven]

IMO this is literally nothing more than sound supply/demand inventory management.

The $525-$550 price-point was based on expectations of the supply being S0 units/day and the demand being D0 units per day where S0 was expected to be nearly equal to D0 (i.e. balanced supply/demand because of the price target).

What I read into this shift is that AMD has either internally revised their predictions of consumer demand downward (D0 was too high, so now they have D1 where D1 < D0), or they are seeing better than anticipated 28nm yields and are realizing that supply needs to be revised upwards and in response to this excess supply they need to lower prices and increase demand.

Image Source

Personally I would bet that they are seeing better than expected 28nm yields and have adjusted price down slightly so as to promote a slight increase in demand to avoid needless inventory buildup.

I like what he's saying. Supply is going to be good then! Maybe we won't see as much gouging?

I wonder if we'll see any bundles or custom designs out the gate. With such a long gap between announcement and launch, surely someone has put an extra hamster on the wheel.

 

[Concillian]

IMO this is literally nothing more than sound supply/demand inventory management.

[...]

Personally I would bet that they are seeing better than expected 28nm yields and have adjusted price down slightly so as to promote a slight increase in demand to avoid needless inventory buildup.

This is what I read into it too.

Basically supply is stronger than expected, so prices will decrease to sell what they can while nVidia ramps up 28nm.
Either TSMC has increased their capacity quicker than expected and given AMD the option to purchase larger volume or yields are higher than expected at this stage in MFG. I'd lean towards the latter, but we'll probably never know.

If they are smart they will continue to drop prices via MIR rather than a flat drop. Dumb people will still equate price with performance, and dropping below GTX580 prices will result in loss of the ignorant marketshare who willingly give away money.

 

[96Firebird]

Why are they even doing this?

They read SirPauly's posts here and decided he was right...

Thanks SirPauly!

 

[Panopticon]

I doubt prices will be higher then the leaked $549 at launch. This price drop is probably meant for their partners so they can get their prices more in line with msrp. I'm sure AMD goes to its partners before launch to determine what they actually will charge for the finished product, maybe they were not happy with what they found out. Imagine if the card was $600 and NV dropped 580 prices even by $25-50 dollars, 7970 sales would be hurt to some degree.

 

[maddie]

This is what I read into it too.

Basically supply is stronger than expected, so prices will decrease to sell what they can while nVidia ramps up 28nm.
Either TSMC has increased their capacity quicker than expected and given AMD the option to purchase larger volume or yields are higher than expected at this stage in MFG. I'd lean towards the latter, but we'll probably never know.

If they are smart they will continue to drop prices via MIR rather than a flat drop. Dumb people will still equate price with performance, and dropping below GTX580 prices will result in loss of the ignorant marketshare who willingly give away money.

NOT TRYING TO START AN ARGUMENT. Is it possible that Nvidia might be later with Kepler and thus more wafers are available now?

 

[Don Karnage]

I doubt prices will be higher then the leaked $549 at launch. This price drop is probably meant for their partners so they can get their prices more in line with msrp. I'm sure AMD goes to its partners before launch to determine what they actually will charge for the finished product, maybe they were not happy with what they found out. Imagine if the card was $600 and NV dropped 580 prices even by $25-50 dollars, 7970 sales would be hurt to some degree.

We'll find out in a few days

 

[BallaTheFeared]

Is it still worth almost $500 just for a few months on top?

Seems like a card best served for multi monitor users, everyone else who isn't grossly under powered should probably wait and see what happens.

 

[notty22]

Are you talking about sites like excaliberpc.com?

http://www.excaliberpc.com/611611/sa...-7970-3gb.html

Every launch this site has pre-sale cards listed at ridiculous prices, and they are never indicative of final price.

I was hunting some down and checking out old launch prices of high end cards for another post.
Sabrepc.com ?
The 4870x2 at one point sold for 500.00 , they have brand new ones for 150.00, and show the 7970 for 649.00 ! lol
It will be nice when the time arrives, when the gamer is going to be able to buy 7970 power for 150.00 !

 

[Don Karnage]

I was hunting some down and checking out old launch prices of high end cards for another post.
Sabrepc.com ?
The 4870x2 at one point sold for 500.00 , they have brand new ones for 150.00, and show the 7970 for 649.00 ! lol
It will be nice when the time arrives, when the gamer is going to be able to buy 7970 power for 150.00 !

Sabre has a 590 for 934 dollars as well

 

[Panopticon]

Is it still worth almost $500 just for a few months on top?

Seems like a card best served for multi monitor users, everyone else who isn't grossly under powered should probably wait and see what happens.

Maybe not but for people like me who just built a new system and don't have an old GPU to hold them over its already been a long couple of weeks waiting to be able to game. I need something powerful enough to run everything at 1080p with full detail and very high fps. A 580 would do the trick but why buy one of those now, they are also about $500 (or more for the 3gb).

 

[Skurge]

Good news for me. I can actually get it at the lowered price.

 

[Arkadrel]

Is it still worth almost $500 just for a few months on top?

Answear is yes.

A few months could turn into ~6 months or something going by rumors, whats a half a years wait you ask? along time. Maybe people dont want to wait that long for kepler.

the 580 1,5gb and even the 580 3gb both cost more, and give less performance, again that makes the 7970 a attractive buy.

The 590 and 6990, can cost a fortune, think 700$+ yet the 7970 can overclock and match these cards that cost that much, and they can do so as a single GPU, without SLI profile issues or CF issues, or microstuttering. They have alot of new features, more features always better if you find them something you could use.

That makes it a great buy compaired to its competition (the 580, 590, and 6990).

 

[3DVagabond]

Maybe not but for people like me who just built a new system and don't have an old GPU to hold them over its already been a long couple of weeks waiting to be able to game. I need something powerful enough to run everything at 1080p with full detail and very high fps. A 580 would do the trick but why buy one of those now, they are also about $500 (or more for the 3gb).

You are far better waiting for the 7970, as you are. If the 7970 is priced at $500 then the 580 would have to be $350 to compete on value. It's typical that all these people who thought just a couple of months ago if you want the fastest card there's a premium you have to pay are now wanting the fastest card to be priced bang for buck.

They think that the latest tech on a fledgling process should be cheaper without a clue as to what TSMC is charging AMD for these chips. Add to that 3gig of the fastest GDDR5 VRAM I've ever witnessed (1700MHz O/C's), R&D costs, AIB markups, retailer markups, etc... There's not a single person here who knows the actual costs.

 

[Panopticon]

You are far better waiting for the 7970, as you are. If the 7970 is priced at $500 then the 580 would have to be $350 to compete on value. It's typical that all these people who thought just a couple of months ago if you want the fastest card there's a premium you have to pay are now wanting the fastest card to be priced bang for buck.

They think that the latest tech on a fledgling process should be cheaper without a clue as to what TSMC is charging AMD for these chips. Add to that 3gig of the fastest GDDR5 VRAM I've ever witnessed (1700MHz O/C's), R&D costs, AIB markups, retailer markups, etc... There's not a single person here who knows the actual costs.

Yeah I wouldn't be astonished at all to learn that AMD has a slim profit margin on these cards because of the new fab prices TSMC are probably slinging at them. I think people should keep the simple business model of supply and demand in mind, if something is priced too high and demand drops a smart company will even out the ratio as an above poster noted.

 

[HumblePie]

Truthfully though, in this economy how long do you think it will take before the price gouging relents? I will state this. Judging from history, if any retailer actually sells for $475 I will buy them then and there. Why? It will go up within day to some ridiculous price gouging price. This has happened with the 5xxx series and the 6xxx series. It took over 6 months before the 5850 actually went down to MSRP. Almost the same thing for the 6950. I missed the boat on the 5850, but managed to pick up two 5870s used from someone for a decent price. I did jump on these 6950s and I'm glad I did for MSRP at initial release before they jumped in price by $100.

I pretty sure I can get a decent price for my unlocked 6950s and jump over to to 7970s at release without too much cost incurred.

 

[RaistlinZ]

I also anticipate the cost rising well over MSRP and staying there for a long while like the 5850/5870.

 

[Silverforce11]

Lowering the price by nearly $100 is a good way to entice everyone with older GPUs to upgrade.

Good move.

A 365mm2 die selling for $475 is still plenty enough for AMD's margins. As for consumers, I don't think anyone's going to complaint.

I just want one badly... hope stock is ok.

 

[Panopticon]

I myself am wondering if these will sell out day one... I hope not because I will not have access to a computer at work on the 9th save for 30 mins at lunch. If these sell out first thing in the morning I'm gonna be heated

 

[Concillian]

NOT TRYING TO START AN ARGUMENT. Is it possible that Nvidia might be later with Kepler and thus more wafers are available now?

I don't think the TSMC capacity is likely, that would be something that would have been known a while ago. Yields are a much more likely scenario.

Also, TSMC services a lot more than AMD and nVidia, I think that scenario is doubtful. I think if it was that they had extra capacity, it'd be more likely that they got capacity online faster than anticipated and were trying to sell that capacity to anyone and everyone working on 28nm (but AMD is the first and only shipping that we know of.) that's something that wouldn't come up as a surprise. As noted in another thread, you don't just come up with a finished wafer overnight, it takes weeks to go from start to finish, so capacity contract changes would have been worked out well in advance.

Yields from a new process on a new design being better than planned would be much more likely to be something happening late in the game. You can expect that they sandbagged their expected yields to some extent in order to ensure they made money even if yields sucked. If yields came out better than expected, then you get a huge bonus supply that changes what they put into their model for ideal price.

One thing is for sure, you can bet AMD isn't going to lower the price out of the goodness of their heart. Something is in it for them.

 

[Concillian]

Truthfully though, in this economy how long do you think it will take before the price gouging relents? I will state this. Judging from history, if any retailer actually sells for $475 I will buy them then and there. Why? It will go up within day to some ridiculous price gouging price. This has happened with the 5xxx series and the 6xxx series. It took over 6 months before the 5850 actually went down to MSRP. Almost the same thing for the 6950. I missed the boat on the 5850, but managed to pick up two 5870s used from someone for a decent price. I did jump on these 6950s and I'm glad I did for MSRP at initial release before they jumped in price by $100.

This all depends on the demand and how many they have sitting on the shelf.

If there are thousands on the shelves and hundreds being sold a day, probably not much gouging. If there are thousands on the shelves and hundreds are being sold a MINUTE, well, different story.

I think the lowering of the price suggests they'll have a bunch sitting on shelves.

There wasn't much gouging for 2500k and 2600k at release... because Intel gets huge supplies ready for that release rush. 5850 and 5870 supply was hand to mouth, so there was gouging.

 

[hdfxst]

http://legitreviews.com/news/12143/ they say that Donanimhaber is incorrect

 

[MrTeal]

http://legitreviews.com/news/12143/ they say that Donanimhaber is incorrect

That doesn't say that Donanimhaber is incorrect about the drop to $475, just that people's interpretation of the information is incorrect.

 

[Don Karnage]

Im still waiting to see what nvidia is going to do with the 580s. If they drop them below 449.99 I don't imagine well see much gouging on the 7970s. If nvidia wants to screw over Amd all they have yo do is drop the price to 399.99. Let's face it. Nvidia has made its money on the 580 and could afford dropping it down to 399.99 without much issue.

 

[Panopticon]

consider that every sale of a 580 blocks the sale of a 7970 and vice versa not sure if companies actually compete in this way but NV might be willing to accept lower profit margins to increase their market share.