Radeon HD 7990 "Malta" Prices Slashed to $699, Targets GTX 780

[librin.so.1]

Waaaaaait a sec... aren't the 7990s supposed to be EOL'd Real Soon Now™?

 

[Ghost]

Waaaaaait a sec... aren't the 7990s supposed to be EOL'd Real Soon Now™?

Maybe 7990 going EOL is just a rumor. Or maybe they're already clearing inventory.

 

[btarunr]

Waaaaaait a sec... aren't the 7990s supposed to be EOL'd Real Soon Now™?

And I stand by that. If you absolutely need to buy the card, now is a good time. Personally, I'd still spend that much money on a GTX 780.

 

[BigMack70]

This is a great move by AMD. Still don't think the 7990 is worth it at any price due to coil whine, but it's great to see the custom cards like the powercolor devil 7990 at $650... that's a steal!

 

[techtard]

If I didn't already blow my video card budget earlier this year, I might have gotten one of these.
They must be trying to get rid of whatever stock is left over before the 9000 series drops.

 

[EarthDog]

MEH. Old hat from AMD. Wasn't the 7970 $550+ upon release, then slashed prices to compete with the slightly better performing and cheaper 680? Then slashed dramtically again to reach its pricepoint now?

 

[Sempron Guy]

HD7990 Malta here still at 45,000 pesos ( $1071 ) Chances of that new price being implement here is close to zero this year

 

[cdawall]

MEH. Old hat from AMD. Wasn't the 7970 $550+ upon release, then slashed prices to compete with the slightly better performing and cheaper 680? Then slashed dramtically again to reach its pricepoint now?

Umm both manufacturers do that...

 

[EarthDog]

Sure they do... I never inferred otherwise.

But note that the 7970 went from $550 upon release, to $375 today (not including MIR). A $170 (32% difference). While the $680 went from $499 upon release to $420 (16% difference). Pretty big drop from AMD there versus what one can consider a normal market price drop on the $680.

As I stated, AMD usually lowers their pricing to be even more competitive in the market. This is not impressive, ballsy, or shocking in the least to me.

 

[radrok]

As much as I love dual GPU cards I'd still buy two 7970s if I had to choose simply because the 7990 showed wierd over clocking behaviour.

Good move nonetheless

Let's hope this is a sign they are going to roll out their new GPU generation soon.

 

[MxPhenom 216]

Now nvidia really should drop prices.

 

[arbiter]

Now nvidia really should drop prices.

Maybe they don't cause they invest the money in to a decent dev team for their drivers? Where as AMD had to use software patch to fix frame problems, nVidia has hardware built in to do the job.

 

[cdawall]

Sure they do... I never inferred otherwise.

But note that the 7970 went from $550 upon release, to $375 today (not including MIR). A $170 (32% difference). While the $680 went from $499 upon release to $420 (16% difference). Pretty big drop from AMD there versus what one can consider a normal market price drop on the $680.

As I stated, AMD usually lowers their pricing to be even more competitive in the market. This is not impressive, ballsy, or shocking in the least to me.

Both companies try and align to the market. NV used to do it more competitively back during the GTX 4X0 series and such. The latest series is the only one I have seen try and stay priced up.

Maybe they don't cause they invest the money in to a decent dev team for their drivers? Where as AMD had to use software patch to fix frame problems, nVidia has hardware built in to do the job.

No nVidia has software patches already built in to do the job. It uses the same frame pacing as AMD.

 

[TheoneandonlyMrK]

Maybe they don't cause they invest the money in to a decent dev team for their drivers? Where as AMD had to use software patch to fix frame problems, nVidia has hardware built in to do the job.

there wasn't that many complaining before Nvidia released Fcat and my fives were not bad before, now they are throwing a good argument for keeping with them until pirate islands or maxwell turns up.
ima do some benches one day showing the day 1 upto now improvement in performance from Amd drivers on five series and next time ill be doing the same ie bigest pocket dent for a day 1 next gen card then a year later on get another Its the way.

 

[EarthDog]

SNIP.

Right. I get it (had it). You are saying what I am saying for pete's sake. I guess my reply was towards anyone that was surprised of this happening and not towards someone that agrees and posts common, well known information in rebuttle?

Not sure wth happened there honestly. :rofl:

 

[erocker]

Maybe they don't cause they invest the money in to a decent dev team for their drivers? Where as AMD had to use software patch to fix frame problems, nVidia has hardware built in to do the job.

So they claim.

No, their cards aren't overpriced due to a "dev. team". They're overpriced due to a lack of competition.

 

[fullinfusion]

Good price but too little of a drop to late in the game.. if it was that price when I grabbed both 7970's I'd rather been all over it as I've always preferred single dual gpu cards.

 

[progste]

Finally! that's a reasonable price: like 2 7970s

 

[cadaveca]

Indeed. You still have an Radeon setup Dave?

Yeah, I have multiple Radeon cards, one in my personal rig, one in my memory testing rig, one at a forum member's house(he really should have returned to me a long time ago, just remembered a few minutes ago), but at the same time, I have dual GTX670's for board testing.

No, their cards aren't overpriced due to a "dev. team". They're overpriced due to a lack of competition.

Personally, I am pretty sure that AMD's bitcoin potential is part of what is keeping the sales of their cards up a bit higher than expected, adding additional value to their cards that many don't have any interest for. At the same time, there are many users running AMD GPUs, and don't use them for gaming, or video at all, really.

If you think that's expensive, you should see how much go fast goodies cost for a car. Computers are the cheaper hobby for me. lol.

Precisely why my wife has ZERO problems with what I do with PCs and reviews. However, I am shopping for a new car....

 

[Jstn7477]

Personally, I am pretty sure that AMD's bitcoin potential is part of what is keeping the sales of their cards up a bit higher than expected, adding additional value to their cards that many don't have any interest for. At the same time, there are many users running AMD GPUs, and don't use them for gaming, or video at all, really.

Yep, I actually purchased another HD 7950 and 7970 in January for distributed computing. I haven't been able to use them for World Community Grid for months because all the GPU users finished the work 16x faster than WCG was expecting, but Folding@Home finally got their act together and made OpenCL beta work units that make a 7970 earn more points than 3 GTX 480s, but TITAN/780 beats a 7970 by a good 40-60K points per day (7970 baseline is ~100-120K PPD). Most of my GPUs are used solely for distributed computing purposes, and I game occasionally when I have time.

 

[radrok]

They're overpriced due to a lack of competition.

Also because Nvidia has a better name among buyers and tends to be the popular choice when a graphics purchase is involved.

 

[HumanSmoke]

Finally! that's a reasonable price: like 2 7970s

Depends where you live. Cheapest price in my country is $US 1400 ( or nearly three times the price of a 7970 GE from the same store...Tiger Direct by another name)...needless to say, they aren't particularly sought after here.

 

[Casecutter]

All the pricing for AMD and Nvidia can traced back to early in 28Nm coming into the picture. Sorry this is Long Winded.

TSMC – Indicated early on 28Nm production would be more costly... "by somewhere between 15-25%"
Nvidia – Would start purchasing full wafer production, not per chip as had been the case previously.
AMD – Foresaw GK100 being expensive given the die-size, but then when it was cancel AMD assumed they had cornered that market. Then they received less than optimum Tahiti's from TSMC production, but still figured they could go for brass ring asking $550.
Nvidia – Finds they can have GK104 best Tahiti with the implementation of Boost, even if that adds cost they can easily under-cut a 7970 @ $550.
Nvidia – Surely designed Kepler knowing they'd buying wafer production, and designed the whole "multiple variants" from a single wafer (not 2 and then one gelding as AMD traditionally). They've binned 5 different variants from every GK104 wafer, which absolutely gives them a price advantage. That alone was the early strategy that really turn to be the boon for Nvidia against AMD LE/XT harvest.

AMD – Tahiti doesn't have the efficiency to offer higher clock performance. I always thought Tahiti XT was to be a GHz offering, but at first because of TSMC production issue they released with 7.5% lower clocks believing good production could provide a straight-up 1GHz card. Even once good production was the norm, AMD found going with TSMC "HPL" (lower power) process and GCN architecture wasn't working out as well as first wafer trials might have indicated and took a page from Nvidia also adopting the Boost approach.

Nvidia – Kepler architecture was from the beginning designed to be extra efficient so it could profit more from the "HP" without being inefficient. The problem was at first GK100 was still a unwieldy. I think Boost was originally something conceived/experimented to aid the GK100 although quickly realized Boost could make the GK104 a contender to Tahiti. The cancelation of GK100 was because of realization for Boost performance worked on the GK104 (also believe due more to cost, maturity in the TSMC process, but also a fix or two). So canceling and delaying things a little help; lengthen time for good HP GK104 wafer production, while time to develop/implement boost. That was another great boon to Nvidia.

That might be how the cookie crumbled… just one person’s thinking. So AMD had miss-steps, but assumed they would come out on top... So why underprice what traditionally Nvidia had always shown to do? Nvidia had done things smarter, but had they not found some windfalls they might have had to do things different. So Nvidia came to the table in a healthier position than ever, and pull the rug out from under AMD. I'm fairly certain Nvidia could move further on price when AMD made cut and added bundles, but Nvidia needed to hold firm to maintain pricing, so when stacking the 780 and Titan on top of the revamped 6XX cards pricing appeared apropos down the road.

 

[Deadlyraver]

So, who's volunteering for more quad-fire benchmarks?

 

[cadaveca]

So, who's volunteering for more quad-fire benchmarks?

You offering to buy cards? IF so, I'm in.