What the heck happened? R9 290 series price increase by $100?!

[MrDark]

Stupid Bitcoin miners screwed up the price of the card and I can't find any MFG selling it for its retail price of $399. I was waiting until my check got in for this month before I bought it and now I'm screwed until...who knows?

Does anyone know anywhere still selling the thing for $399?

At least I can take solace in the fact these bitcoin idiots don't realize what diminishing returns and depreciation of value mean.

 

[blackened23]

Litecoin mining happened. Corporations are buying these cards in lots of 100s for mining. It's pretty funny, actually, but supply/demand has shifted due to miners.

Litecoin difficulty is skyrocketing right now so I don't think it's going to be sustainable, if anything people will switch to an alternative currency in all liklihood - bitcoin and LTC mirror each other in value, bitcoins halved in value in the past 2 days and litecoinns also are halved in value. So there's a possibility that the situation will auto-correct in a couple of weeks.

In the meantime, yeah, I can't see any actual PC gamer buying that stuff for 100-150$ over MSRP. People obsessed with mining? Maybe.

 

[akahoovy]

Litecoin mining happened. Corporations are buying these cards in lots of 100s for mining. It's pretty funny, actually, but supply/demand has shifted due to miners.

Litecoin difficulty is skyrocketing right now so I don't think it's going to be sustainable, if anything people will switch to an alternative currency in all liklihood - bitcoin and LTC mirror each other in value, bitcoins halved in value in the past 2 days and litecoinns also are halved in value. So there's a possibility that the situation will auto-correct in a couple of weeks.

In the meantime, yeah, I can't see any actual PC gamer buying that stuff for 100-150$ over MSRP. People obsessed with mining? Maybe.

Perhaps there will be a glut of used R9's for sale in the near future, when things aren't panning out as hoped, hopefully cheaper.

 

[moonbogg]

Spend $2000 on cards to make $1800 over the next 5 years mining. That's what happened.

 

[Keysplayr]

Where is the money coming from behind the bitcoin/Litecoin/Anycoin thing? You can't just generate money from nothing and the original values had to come from somewhere with REAL money backing them, and why are they worth what they are worth?
I can see this is the reason for the rise in pricing if corps are buying them all up.

 

[nwo]

Spend $2000 on cards to make $1800 over the next 5 years mining. That's what happened.

5 years?! More like 3-5 weeks tops.

 

[blastingcap]

Supply and demand will even out eventually.

5 years?! More like 3-5 weeks tops.

That really depends on price, difficulty, and price of electricity. Difficulty is exploding, having doubled in the last 3 weeks and still rising even faster now than last week. There's also an element of risk; with any commodity or stock, the crash is usually MUCH faster and severe than the rise. Some people have more appetite for risk than others.

I think we're getting off topic now.

I also think this topic needs to be merged with the other "why are Radeon prices increasing" threads.

 

[IEC]

Spend $2000 on cards to make $1800 over the next 5 years mining. That's what happened.

Or if you started early enough and held your coins until the recent spike before selling some... you have a bunch of "free" hardware

 

[nwo]

Supply and demand will even out eventually.

Yep, hopefully/likely sometime next month.

 

[Headfoot]

An awful lot of "bitcoin idiots" that started early enough and held long enough are now rather rich. I mined LTC (not much unfortunately) when it was under $2 and everyone said it wasn't worth mining. Well. Now look at it. Time will tell who is truly an 'idiot' here. I've already paid off my hardware costs by mining. All I know is I'm not certain enough of the outcome to invest more than a single card's worth of power into it...

 

[AnandThenMan]

I like when people say there is no way to make money in crypto mining. That's right, nothing to see here move along. ^_^

 

[Headfoot]

I like when people say there is no way to make money in crypto mining. That's right, nothing to see here move along. ^_^

Haha true. This is my new answer

 

[MrDark]

An awful lot of "bitcoin idiots" that started early enough and held long enough are now rather rich. I mined LTC (not much unfortunately) when it was under $2 and everyone said it wasn't worth mining. Well. Now look at it. Time will tell who is truly an 'idiot' here. I've already paid off my hardware costs by mining. All I know is I'm not certain enough of the outcome to invest more than a single card's worth of power into it...

Right there. "Started early enough". People are spending a boatload of money to get on a train that left the station 3 days ago. At this point they'd have better luck investing that money into purchasing the coins.

 

[alcoholbob]

Where is the money coming from behind the bitcoin/Litecoin/Anycoin thing? You can't just generate money from nothing and the original values had to come from somewhere with REAL money backing them, and why are they worth what they are worth?
I can see this is the reason for the rise in pricing if corps are buying them all up.

It's called a bubble, like dot coms and housing...it's price is way beyond its intrinsic value and is just driven by speculators.

Originally much of its value was lower overhead such as not having to report its value to regulatory agencies which was a big bonus for people trying to avoid taxes or the law if it was illegal activity (although that's changing with new laws coming into effect, and why Diablo 3 is no longer pay 2 win).

 

[ViRGE]

I imagine there are people at both AMD and nVidia HQ jumping through their butts because of it. Now if you want hilarious, picture those scenes.

It'll be a double edged sword, I figure.

AMD sells cards as fast as they can make them for now, which is a good thing for them. However these cards aren't being purchased for the same reasons as high-end video cards normally are, namely long term ownership for recreational/hobbyist purposes. Rather they're being purchased on a short term basis for economic reasons. Which means they're going to sell out for now, but when the economics no longer make sense these cards are going to end up being put back on the market as used cards.

So in a few months down the road (or however long this takes) not only will sales drop off significantly for AMD as miners stop buying, but any new cards will be going up against an oversaturated used card market. Those used cards will further depress new card sales for a time, making the resulting market for new cards especially soft.

Furthermore there's no guarantee those used cards will be in tip-top shape (given the fact that miners tend to overclock and overvolt their cards to squeeze out additional performance). So we could be talking about a large stockpile of outright abused cards being circulated back into the hands of gamers, which more often than not would be blamed on AMD's drivers (since drivers always get the blame for stability problems).

Which is not to say that I'm trying to be gloomy over this. But as nice as it is to sell out now, it's not in AMD's long term interests to have these cards coming back on the market as used cards. AMD needs people to sell these cards and keep them.

 

[24601]

It'll be a double edged sword, I figure.

AMD sells cards as fast as they can make them for now, which is a good thing for them. However these cards aren't being purchased for the same reasons as high-end video cards normally are, namely long term ownership for recreational/hobbyist purposes. Rather they're being purchased on a short term basis for economic reasons. Which means they're going to sell out for now, but when the economics no longer make sense these cards are going to end up being put back on the market as used cards.

So in a few months down the road (or however long this takes) not only will sales drop off significantly for AMD as miners stop buying, but any new cards will be going up against an oversaturated used card market. Those used cards will further depress new card sales for a time, making the resulting market for new cards especially soft.

Furthermore there's no guarantee those used cards will be in tip-top shape (given the fact that miners tend to overclock and overvolt their cards to squeeze out additional performance). So we could be talking about a large stockpile of outright abused cards being circulated back into the hands of gamers, which more often than not would be blamed on AMD's drivers (since drivers always get the blame for stability problems).

Which is not to say that I'm trying to be gloomy over this. But as nice as it is to sell out now, it's not in AMD's long term interests to have these cards coming back on the market as used cards. AMD needs people to sell these cards and keep them.

I'm guessing AMD would rather sell all their stock at launch prices rather than sell stock at lower prices.

It's a win for them however this swings, and even when people dropped out in droves from LTC mining in the summer/fall, used cards for 7950 only ever went down to about 270 USD and used 7970s only ever went down to 310 USD. The firesale prices were from the new cards from AIBs themselves.

 

[AnandThenMan]

Which is not to say that I'm trying to be gloomy over this. But as nice as it is to sell out now, it's not in AMD's long term interests to have these cards coming back on the market as used cards. AMD needs people to sell these cards and keep them.

Or maybe the used cards will find buyers that would have normally not purchased high end hardware.

 

[blackened23]

I like when people say there is no way to make money in crypto mining. That's right, nothing to see here move along. ^_^

To answer this question: there is money if you're early on the train. If you're late for the train, like NOW, you'll make a little but not that much. Unless you buy way more in hardware than you should, and then one should cross their fingers that the entire thing doesn't crash (in terms of LTC valuation) overnight.

Do you bitcoin mine? Bitcoin mining became worthless a VERY LONG time ago due to difficulty; it would literally take more than a year to pay off a GPU purchase through bitcoin mining at current difficulties. Alternative crypto currencies are the thing now, but aside from LTC nearly all of them are fairly low in value and many of them use the CPU for mining instead of GPU. Here's the thing about litecoin. The price of litecoin roughly mirrors the price of bitcoins. Problem. Bitcoin value TANKED in the past couple of days. Problem number two. Litecoin difficulty skyrocketed in the past 2 weeks.

This mining craze just isn't long term sustainable, period. I mean, one would have to be completely naive to see the rather anemic sales 2-3 weeks ago of 280X cards and literally overnight after Bank of America released their valuation of Bitcoins, everything sold out. These cards weren't selling and now suddenly sold out as soon as they're in stock. That will not be sustainable especially since both bitcoin and litecoins tanked in value over the past few days.

I do suspect as others have mentioned that the used market will be flooded with these cards at some point in the future and once the litecoin bubble bursts, AMD will have made some cash but from that point forward it won't be so rosy. That said, AMD making money from GPU sales is a good thing, so hopefully AMD makes the best of it. In other words, put that cash towards proper R+D towards the next gen cards and create more well rounded GPUs with user experience metrics addressed. An AMD willing and able to provide proper GPU competition is a good thing. So, again...hopefully they maximize their return from the mining craze.

 

[Borealis7]

what are you talking about? i googled "BTC to USD" on sunday, the first result was a site called Preev.com which averages several BTC trading sites, and it was 918$, today it shows 919$. tanking not found...

 

[Keysplayr]

The money has to be pulled from somewhere. It does indeed appear to be a "bubble" like phenomenon and when that bubble bursts, there will be literally thousands of R* 2xx cards flooding the used GPU market. So hang tight.

 

[Will Robinson]

Stupid Bitcoin miners screwed up the price of the card and I can't find any MFG selling it for its retail price of $399. I was waiting until my check got in for this month before I bought it and now I'm screwed until...who knows?

Does anyone know anywhere still selling the thing for $399?

At least I can take solace in the fact these bitcoin idiots don't realize what diminishing returns and depreciation of value mean.

Welcome to AT VC&G section.
Hopefully all the "stupid idiots" here that cryptomine won't be too biased by the tone of your original post.
This is not a gaming forum..it's all about graphics cards and their abilities.
The compute hardware in today's AMD cards is very powerful and capable of multifunction/tasking in areas that are just beginning to become clear.
This is of interest to many here including myself.

 

[NTMBK]

Can't wait for the Litecoin bubble to burst. I want to score a bargain on an R9 290

 

[Keysplayr]

Can't wait for the Litecoin bubble to burst. I want to score a bargain on an R9 290

I can't think of any bubbles that don't burst, eventually. The only thing left to wonder is, will the bubble form a small hole and deflate slowly, or will it explode in a soapy ruin? Anyways, it has to end if it's based on BS. You and countless others will rejoice with the supply of 290s when this is over.

 

[Atreidin]

It would be really cool if a retailer got a bunch in stock then sold them at MSRP with a limit of 1 per household. That would generate some goodwill, at least from me.

 

[BallaTheFeared]

Can't wait for the Litecoin bubble to burst. I want to score a bargain on an R9 290

Hey hey, I still have a lot of coins I'd like to use for future upgrade. A 780 Ti won't last forever.