NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260 and GeForce 280 GTX Price Cuts Now Official

[malware]

NVIDIA today slashed the prices of its latest generation of GeForce GTX video cards. The GeForce GTX 280 is now available for as low as $499 and the GeForce GTX 260 costs $299. The high-end GTX 280 was originally priced at $649, while the 260 was priced previously at $399. With a price tag of $299, the GeForce GTX 260 now matches ATI's comparable Radeon HD 4870. The higher end GeForce GTX 280 is still waiting to meet its main competitor in the face of ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2, due to become available later this quarter.

Source: CNET News

[sfp1987]

wow they are really desperate

[Wile E]

$500 is much more reasonable for the 280. Now it's a card worth considering, depending on your needs and budget. Bring it down another 50, and it's a real winner.

[alexp999]

Originally Posted by Wile E

$500 is much more reasonable for the 280. Now it's a card worth considering, depending on your needs and budget.

+1. They didnt have much choice really. You cant go against the 4870X2 with a price of $649. Feel sorry for anyone who has already bought the 280. Hopefully this should keep the prices down and good for us consumers. Stop the price of 4870X2 inflating and keep a competitive market. I wonder if Nvidia have done a sony and are selling at or below cost? $150 is a lot of money to drop.

[Wile E]

Rumor has it that it is at, or at least very close, to selling at a loss. (The upcoming 55nm die shrink will help alleviate that to a great extent tho)

[alexp999]

Originally Posted by Wile E

Rumor has it that it is at, or at least very close, to selling at a loss. (The upcoming 55nm die shrink will help alleviate that to a great extent tho)

What I dont get is that if 55nm is cheaper, why didnt nvidia just use that manufacuring process straight away like ATi did?

[From_Nowhere]

Nvidia is profiting on each GTX 2x0 sold, just not as much as their competitor [Should be because it is a bad business strategy to sell something for less than it costs to make] Although based on previews, they won't be competitive in the graphics market until the 55nm GTX 2x0's are released. In the end the consumer wins by having a wide selection of cheap and powerful graphics cards to buy.

[Wile E]

Originally Posted by alexp999

What I dont get is that if 55nm is cheaper, why didnt nvidia just use that manufacuring process straight away like ATi did?

They needed to get the cards out on the market, to coincide with ATI's 4k launch. If they would've held the card till 55nm, they wouldn't have had anything new to compete with ATI in the meantime. Kinda like what happened to ATI when NV released the 8800 series. ATI was left high and dry with no comparable products, and lost a good bit of the market due to that.

[Megasty]

It was inevitable but I can still see the GTX280 coming down lower. Like Wile E said, at $450 it would be hard not to consider. The GTX260 will continue to match the 4870 while AMD will have to bring it down to match the P/P of the 4870x2.

[mdm-adph]

Originally Posted by alexp999

What I dont get is that if 55nm is cheaper, why didnt nvidia just use that manufacuring process straight away like ATi did?

Because anytime a company is in the lead, the progress of its research and development slows to a crawl. (This is why monopolies are bad.) Nvidia was in the lead, so it dragged its ass getting 55nm stuff out. ATI was struggling, so it was pouring what money it had (I'd assume) into getting newer and better stuff out.

Either way, the consumer wins! For $299, the GTX ain't a bad card, and definitely competes with the 4870. I'd still pick a 4870 at this point -- just to help ATI out and help them stay in business -- but I wouldn't turn down either card if given to me for free.

[newtekie1]

I think nVidia should have raised the defualt clocks on the 260 GTX a little bit. They could easily make the 260 GTX outperform the HD4870 out of the box and it wouldn't cost them anything. They could then sell it at the same $299 price point.

They also need to release some lower end cards based on the GT200 cores, with some more pipelines disabled and lower memory busses. To help make a little money off the GT200's poor yields. So the cores that aren't perfect don't go completely to waste. A 240 GTX with 144 Shaders and a 384Bit memory bus. Perhaps redesign the PCB a little to make it cheaper and eliminated the unused parts of the memory bus. Make a card that is a little cheaper to produce, and one that is uses cores that essentially cost nVidia nothing since they were just going to be thrown away anyway.

[Cold Storm]

About a week ago, Evga cut their prices to that... My step-up is only going to cost the amount of shipping now... Hope I can get it by the end of this week!

[Nitro-Max]

They really had to do this tbh people were'nt buying / upgrading or moving to ati.

[alexp999]

Hmm. I'm gonna have to give this some serious consideration now. I was set on getting the 4870X2. But now the GTX280 is going for the same price. There are some aspects about the nvidia drivers which I really do prefer. (like being able to use nhancer) and setting game profiles much easier. Oh and being able to use EVGA precision .

There is also the fact that the GTX280 consumes less power and will never have any issues with some games which dont get on with SLI/crossfire as it is a single GPU card.

But I dont know if future ATi drivers will cause the 4870X2 to pull ahead and make me think, "i wish I had bought..."

Cus it has twice the amount of ram at GDDR5 as opposed to GDDR3

Ah! I'm so confused as to which to get.

What is everyone else thinking?

[Airbrushkid]

It seems both Ati and Nvidia are having problems. Yes Nvidia lowered there price. But your missing he fact that AMD stock has drop to $6.00 a share. Last year it was at $12.00. If something doesn't happen soon Ati will fall fast. Maybe AMD will have to sell Ati. Just think Nvidia buying up Ati....

[yogurt_21]

been this way for the past 2 weeks in the u.s. yeah at 500$ the gtx280 is definetly considerable especially whyen you can get the evga off of the egg at 469$ after mail in.

[spy2520]

Originally Posted by Airbrushkid

It seems both Ati and Nvidia are having problems. Yes Nvidia lowered there price. But your missing he fact that AMD stock has drop to $6.00 a share. Last year it was at $12.00. If something doesn't happen soon Ati will fall fast. Maybe AMD will have to sell Ati. Just think Nvidia buying up Ati....

last year ATI was $12 and now its $4.80. but two months ago NVDA was selling for $25 now its down to $11 and change. So both are doing horrible at the moment if you think about it. Another thing to consider, a year ago AMD was at $16, NVDA was at $40. Nvidia stock has dropped 72% in the past year, where AMD has dropped 70%. I doubt its gonna turn around for either any time soon.

[laszlo]

Originally Posted by Airbrushkid

It seems both Ati and Nvidia are having problems. Yes Nvidia lowered there price. But your missing he fact that AMD stock has drop to $6.00 a share. Last year it was at $12.00. If something doesn't happen soon Ati will fall fast. Maybe AMD will have to sell Ati. Just think Nvidia buying up Ati....

Soon all are for sale except Intel who has "only" a 9.6% drop AMD has 26% and NVIDIA 34% seem America's economy is falling apart....no need for Bin L

http://uk.finance.yahoo.com/q?s=intc
http://uk.finance.yahoo.com/q?s=amd
http://uk.finance.yahoo.com/q?s=nvda

[newbielives]

No one was complaining when the 6800 series was reaching 600$ but then we had Doom3 and HL2 to wet our pants over.

Where are you Project Offset, I need the sexy back in my PC gaming

[Darkrealms]

It will be hard not to get 2 260s when it hits $250, heck at that price they'd probably sell two to most users! ; )

I think Nvidia should have dropped the 260s to $250, it would have been a no brainer at that point.

Originally Posted by newbielives

No one was complaining when the 6800 series was reaching 600$ but then we had Doom3 and HL2 to wet our pants over.

Where are you Project Offset, I need the sexy back in my PC gaming

There were those of us complaining but that doesn't mean we didn't still end up dumping the money into it. That was when Ultras were $1K. @_0

[Hayder_Master]

nvidia eat the bait from ati , am sure now ati prepare for next strike , very powerful strike , this is my guess

[candle_86]

Well Nvidia could fight the 4850 easily as mentioned actully. G200 core with 160SP on a 256bit GDDR3 Bus with ram @ 1000mhz would give the 4870 a run for its money, and the board would be alot cheaper to make as the bandwith would effictly be half at that point

[Wile E]

Originally Posted by candle_86

Well Nvidia could fight the 4850 easily as mentioned actully. G200 core with 160SP on a 256bit GDDR3 Bus with ram @ 1000mhz would give the 4870 a run for its money, and the board would be alot cheaper to make as the bandwith would effictly be half at that point

Ummm, the current 192SP 260 doesn't beat the 4870. How, exactly, do you expect a 160SP card to compete with it?

[candle_86]

the 260 ties or beats the 4870 at the same price, a cut down G200 core on a 256bit bus could take on the 4850 is what i said. Overall if i could afford a 260 or 4870 its 260 for me

[Wile E]

Originally Posted by candle_86

the 260 ties or beats the 4870 at the same price, a cut down G200 core on a 256bit bus could take on the 4850 is what i said. Overall if i could afford a 260 or 4870 its 260 for me

Reread your own post, you first said 4850, then went on to claim 4870.

Originally Posted by candle_86

Well Nvidia could fight the 4850 easily as mentioned actully. G200 core with 160SP on a 256bit GDDR3 Bus with ram @ 1000mhz would give the 4870 a run for its money, and the board would be alot cheaper to make as the bandwith would effictly be half at that point