Thursday, March 29th 2012
Radeon HD 7970 Price Cuts Not Any Time Soon: Report
A lot of prospective buyers of new generation GPUs were counting on the US $499 launch price of NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680 to result in reactionary price-cuts in the red camp, particularly with the $549 Radeon HD 7970. NVIDIA's GPU is faster, more efficient, and under normal circumstances, should leave AMD with no other option, but to cut prices of HD 7970 to stay competitive. However, that hasn't happened, and according to a HardwareCanucks report, will not happen any time soon.
NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 680 launch wasn't just on paper, there was market-availability on launch-day, although like every other new GPU launch, stocks have been quite limited. Before this launch, AMD and its partners managed to replenish inventories of Radeon HD 7970, making it generally available, while not budging from its ~$549 price. Sources told HardwareCanucks and this situation won't change unless NVIDIA has a more full-fledged lineup of new-generation GPUs against AMD's, or unless the availability of GeForce GTX 680 drastically improves.
AMD can't cut prices of HD 7970 without disturbing prices of its other HD 7000 SKUs, namely HD 7950, HD 7870, and HD 7850. The company is able to command relatively high prices for these SKUs, because they offer relatively high performance in their market segments. Until NVIDIA has new products to compete with these three SKUs, it makes sense for AMD to overlook, and even sacrifice the competitiveness of one SKU, the HD 7970. Besides, with AMD AIB partners out with a bouquet of non-reference design products based on the HD 7970 without charging too high premiums, AMD has a chance of attracting buyers awaiting availability of GTX 680 away from it.
Source:
HardwareCanucks
NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 680 launch wasn't just on paper, there was market-availability on launch-day, although like every other new GPU launch, stocks have been quite limited. Before this launch, AMD and its partners managed to replenish inventories of Radeon HD 7970, making it generally available, while not budging from its ~$549 price. Sources told HardwareCanucks and this situation won't change unless NVIDIA has a more full-fledged lineup of new-generation GPUs against AMD's, or unless the availability of GeForce GTX 680 drastically improves.
AMD can't cut prices of HD 7970 without disturbing prices of its other HD 7000 SKUs, namely HD 7950, HD 7870, and HD 7850. The company is able to command relatively high prices for these SKUs, because they offer relatively high performance in their market segments. Until NVIDIA has new products to compete with these three SKUs, it makes sense for AMD to overlook, and even sacrifice the competitiveness of one SKU, the HD 7970. Besides, with AMD AIB partners out with a bouquet of non-reference design products based on the HD 7970 without charging too high premiums, AMD has a chance of attracting buyers awaiting availability of GTX 680 away from it.
114 Comments on Radeon HD 7970 Price Cuts Not Any Time Soon: Report
They are obligated to increase the value of their stock, if possible, to increase shareholder returns. Not doing so could result in executive firings, eventually. This is the responsibility of a board of directors, who choose a Chief executive, who then chooses other executives, who are all beholden to the board of directors, who are themselves legally beholden to the shareholders. The shareholders own the company. It may take time, but the shareholders can and do have the power to make sweeping changes to a company, if a majority of them want it done.
Ultimately, without having all the information available, concerning pricing decisions and all the rationale that went into those pricing decisions, it's pointless to ascribe any kind of wrongdoing to any company. If there is some kind of illegality at work, it is most likely either something extremely obscure and legally arcane or simply in a 'grey area' where there are no specific prohibitions, otherwise it would have been immediately flagged as a problem by AMD's legal department.
So,
Supply and demand. Charge high, until competition forces you to reduce prices, until then, collect the profit, please the shareholders. The reality is that Nvidia releasing one card, even if it is high end and slightly outperforms the top AMD card, hasn't been enough for AMD to decide to lower prices across the board for their new gpu line. Sounds to me like the usual business person's ploy to make as much money as possible, when it's possible to make the most amount of money.
We may not like it, and think it's unfair, and then go on to rant about how it's somehow illegal and/or unethical and 'bad form', but it happens all the time, everywhere, in every economic domain.
Enough already.
EDIT:
Meanwhile, on Newegg, all the GTX680s are sold out, and the entire line of AMD 7000 series gpus are available.
Looks like they made the right economic decision for their company, and are currently maximizing their profits.
And the 7970 i think wasn't sold out even before gtx680 was out, because of good stock(supply?) because the launch was almost 3 months ago.
Side note.....I tried to reply before and the tab at the top said the domain was seized by ICE...wtf
...April fools joke I guess
Yeah not even remotely the same, but you get the idea. Like I said, for them to try and do something is more or less OK, to use shaddy tactics to achieve that, is not so OK, but still more or less normal in bussiness, sadly, but for a consumer to swallow those shaddy tactics and defend them is stupid and obscene. Even if we concede to the false and corrupt expression "in bussiness everything is valid", we as conscious consumers have the right and the obligation to protest when they cross the line and we have to do our best to try to inform other consumers of this morally if not legally bad behavior.
They were caught and punished for practicing price fixing not so long ago, so don't even pretend there's no tactic behind all of this. According to everyone involved 28 nm is a lot better than 40 nm, yet they increased the prices by $150 when compared to 40 nm launch, all in the name of "low supply", a low supply they have forced on themselves.
But, to quibble, in your style, I'll point out that a 'gray area' means something not specifically covered by any law or regulation. It's entirely possible their legal department realizes something is not OK, but that maybe the repercussions are not likely to be serious, and the financial gains outweigh the legal risks, who knows? Only they know. But there is no defense from me, I don't like it either, but that is the reality. If they can do it, they will; which is exactly what I pointed out. Moral questions almost never come up in business decisions where profit is being maximized.
So it will magically spawn another GPU core? :shadedshu
DAMN become extremely cocky with this HD700 series just because they wanna kill peoples needs to buy their also limited offerings while their on the side track running GPU business for consoles with their lucrative concord deals. Shame on YOU DAMN.
I just hope envy will be kind enough to quickly release some halfcut GK104 desighns with 1024SFX (Quad 256SFX) as it would more than satisfy my needs in 200-250USD segment which could be hopefully be a killer card for those measly HD7700/HD7800 (HD5700/6700/6800 refresh offerings) that DAMN give us.