AMD R9 290X Hits $900 On Newegg. Thanks *coin

blade52x said:
Who the heck plays video games anymore? Playing crypto mining is so much more fun! The graphics are real life. The strategy is quite deep. Optimizing rigs for hash power and electricity usage requires a lot of trial and error. Choosing the right coin to mine to maximize profit requires a lot of thought. It's the ultimate "RTS"!

I mean really... GPUs for video games? That's like so last decade. Even Nvidia is getting onboard with Maxwell looking like mining beasts if the 750Ti is any indicator. [H] really needs to rename PC Gaming & Hardware to "PC Mining & Hardware" already.
:D :p
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Reading your post pretty much made me wonder if cryptocurrency mining has laid waste to the traders of EVE. It sounds like it would push all the same buttons aas their chosen entertainment and then some.
 
MethylONE said:
Also, someone mentioned 'overclocking.' Most scrypt miners actually undervolt, and underclock. Hash-per-watt is the goal. Overclocked cards often hash worse, but always draw substantially more power making more heat in the process.
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My brother runs a Litecoin farm. I can vouch that this is true - he keeps them all undervolted and underclocked.
 
We wouldn't have this problem if Nvidia cards didn't fail so much at integer performance. 3 cycles vs 1 cycle? What a joke.

They're absolutely garbage for mining so this is why all of these cards are being snatched up left and right even when they're way above MSRP.
 
mzs_biteme said:
They just changed MSRP of the 280x (and probably others) from $299 to $399.... So they are riding this wave as well.. Again, no reason for them to stop...
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No, they did not change the MSRP for the 280x. It is still $299.
 
Ashbringer said:
This bitcoin thing will eventually diminish, and you'll find a lot of graphic cards for sale on Ebay.
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apparently you have not heard of the gravity well, I actually turned the 69xx cards back on the other day
 
Ashbringer said:
This bitcoin thing will eventually diminish, and you'll find a lot of graphic cards for sale on Ebay.
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I've been reading this same prediction for years now and it hasn't happened yet. I suppose if people say it long enough they'll be right, someday.

In the meantime I think the best advice is to preorder from sites that do it and wait. From what I've seen by posters who have done that it's usually a few weeks for the orders to be filled.
 
McFry said:
Beacuse this is not their target audience. To remain relevant in the gaming arena they need gamers to buy their platform and establish brand loyalty. If their cards arent being used for their intended purpose, then guys like me go buy something else, and then they potentially lose a lifelong customer who would purchase many more cards in the future, over some stupid fad that will die out once it takes a football field length worth of cards to mine 1 coin.
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You mean like when nVidia came out with the 780 and undercut the Titan by 30%? That must have PO'd a lot of people who bought Titans for a grand only to have custom 780's come out that owned the Titan. Nope! It just made them think that the 780 was the bomb of a value. Or, when the 290/X came out and nVidia instantly lopped 30% off of the 780 (ok 28.5%, but you get the idea)? Nope, again! People just drooled over the new found value of the 780. Now all you hear is how with mining inflation the 780 is the greatest value in high end cards. Pretty sad that it takes price gouging of AMD cards to make nVidia's MSRP a better value. Now though, AMD are the wankers because mining demand and the free market have interacted to make AMD cards cost as much as nVidia cards. And it's mostly because people are so spoiled that they won't pre order for a reasonable price and wait a few weeks. Nobody is threatening to not buy nVidia cards. No, in fact they are drooling all over again for the new $1000 Titan Black. lol

Let me explain something about retail and sales. If I have to buy product to sit on the shelf until someone is ready to buy it there are additional expenses involved compared to having the product pre sold when it arrives. So, if you are willing to wait for me to get your stuff in I can sell it to you for less. My margins can be less because as fast as the money goes out of my hands to pay for the product your money comes in. I take away your sale's profits and use your money to buy more. If I have to pay for it and then wait for people to slowly buy it, I still have the same invoice to pay but I have to use my money until I get yours. I need a bigger return in that instance. I'm paying Sapphire's invoice with money from my Sony sales. I'm paying my Sony invoice with money from my EVGA sales, I'm paying the next vendor with Sony sales, etc... Let any of that product sit on the shelf for some reason and it backs up the whole process. Pre sold is a retailers wet dream.
 
sorry, my internet went wonky. another repost. :eek:
 
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Relayer said:
sorry, my internet went wonky. another repost. :eek:
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Relayer said:
double post
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A little side note and something I've observed over the years on [H]:
If you're going to post on the forum, don't do it between the times of 12 midnight and 2 AM PST.

Apparently the forum goes into a daily maintenance mode and you'll get a HTTP 503 error or connection issue with the forum's server. Doing so and you'll end up double-, triple-, or quad-posting your reply. Already happened to me several times.

On topic: What's the best place to find out how long it takes to manufacture a single wafer for GPU or CPU?

I've checked Google and all I found was around 3 days from raw materials to GPU/CPU assembly. That does not include adding the GPU to a board, the necessary ICs and electronics and completing assembly before shipping it out to wholesalers, retailers and OEM companies.

If the pricing is due to lack of stock, we have to consider that TSMC is the sole producer of this GPU for AMD and Nvidia.

But, TSMC has other companies as well.

That, and we have to consider that ASUS, MSI, Gigabyte, Visiontek, Diamond, Club, Galaxy, PowerColor, XFX, EVGA and a few other graphics card manufacturers are all demanding fabricated GPUs from TSMC.

The only way we can see pricing go down is if production is increased, but TSMC is probably at its limit at producing GPUs for those companies, and other silicon-based electronics for other companies outside of graphics processing units. They can't produce faster than their maximum capacity or as fast as they can. A lot of the GPUs, to my knowledge, are ordered ahead of time with expected ship dates and manufacturing schedules.

So, if a company like XFX put in an order for a batch of 1,000 R9 280, R9 280X, R9 290, R9 290X GPUs a month ago-- January-- for 4,000 GPUs total, we probably won't expect completed cards about two months-- March-- from order date from TSMC. My best guess. And, retail availability by March.

As Kyle said above, it isn't that simple.

AMD should really look into adding another fabrication company to manufacturer GPUs that can handle the capacity and demand, and can be solely there to manufacture GPU chips without outside companies demanding fabrication orders.

Global Foundries, perhaps?
 
All it screams is don't buy at Newegg

Why bother with a company that is overpricing products ?
 
mzs_biteme said:
Not according to this : http://hardocp.com/article/2014/02/16/xfx_double_dissipation_r9_280x_video_card_review#.UwRXfmJdWq0

"........What truy separates the AMD R9 280X from the Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition is the price tag. The AMD R9 280X has a base MSRP of $399. This is $100 less than the launch price of the Radeon HD 7970 GHz ..........."
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However, if you go to the last page you will see this same article says that the MSRP is still $299. The market has driven the price up.

"Overall, price inflation has really hurt AMD R9 280X GPU based video cards for the hardware and gaming enthusiast. The GeForce GTX 770 is able to compete on performance and offer a better gameplay experience at $100+ cheaper! That is a massive difference in price now, and it is simply because prices have risen to levels way above the R9 280X's MSRP of $299."

It seems that prices have risen, NOT necessarily MSRP. You really need more than one article or an official statement for a change in MSRP. Even if they did raise MSRP it is their product, their design, their investment. They can rightfully charge whatever they wish. They can even lower the MSRP and if a company that buys one of their products want to charge more than MSRP they can, or charge less.
 
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octoberasian said:
...
On topic: What's the best place to find out how long it takes to manufacture a single wafer for GPU or CPU?
...
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Ask someone who knows. TSMC is about 1.1 days per layer. 65nm process (the one my company uses) has about 54 layers so it takes about 60 days to build a wafer. 28nm has more complexity in the metal layers so they take an extra couple of weeks.

After wafers are built they go through wafer sort and package assembly (mount the silicon chip on the substrate). Probably about a week of time there because package assembly is usually not done at TSMC.

AMD probably increased production in December when demand went through the roof so that bump in production should show up in a few weeks. I'm guessing they were conservative because building a pile of inventory to service a speculative bubble (crypto-currency) would be stupid.
 
And here I am with 290Xs that I paid $499 for. Sometimes being an early adopter pays off :p
 
mzs_biteme said:
Sure... .Like in 1 out of a 1000 cases..... Especially when it comes to computer hardware...;)
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People (especially Americans) are rarely happy unless they are tooting their own horn.

Prices in Australia are less than prices at NewEgg.

But R9 290/290X are STILL way overpriced.
 
Excessionoz said:
People (especially Americans) are rarely happy unless they are tooting their own horn.

Prices in Australia are less than prices at NewEgg.

But R9 290/290X are STILL way overpriced.
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Calm down there, it's just a joke. And hey, nobody is forcing anyone to pay these prices :)
 
Ashbringer said:
This bitcoin thing will eventually diminish, and you'll find a lot of graphic cards for sale on Ebay.
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Who will want to buy cards that ran at 90C 24/7 for months???

Ive put my mining 290s on water for many reasons, not the least of which they never run above 30C.
 
TigerLord said:
Who will want to buy cards that ran at 90C 24/7 for months???

Ive put my mining 290s on water for many reasons, not the least of which they never run above 30C.
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Reference card, maybe... But who, other than miners, in their right mind would want a reference cooler card???? My 7950 runs at 75~79deg C, and 280x at 72~76 C all day long... VRM's are never above 85 C....
 
TechLarry said:
Bitcoin needs to die before someone gets seriously screwed.

Oh, and fuck NewEgg.
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Those people already got screwed by ASICs. That's why all these new coins came up, so those people who have no chance against ASICs can still mine.
 
Rizen said:
And here I am with 290Xs that I paid $499 for. Sometimes being an early adopter pays off :p
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I sort of got lucky that way too this time. I usually wait. I wanted an Eyefinity6 or Matrix card from ASUS but did not see one on the horizon in any press releases so I got one of the few reference $399 290's(Gigabyte) during the latter part of November. Tried everything to make it work for almost a month but had to RMA it. I then decided to get another one and the prices were through the roof. I keep looking for about a month and finally bit the bullet on a deal of 2 ASUS DC2 OC cards @ $580 which is only $10 over MSRP. I have waited almost a month but shouls have them is a week or so. I guess we take the deals where we can find them now days.
 
TigerLord said:
Who will want to buy cards that ran at 90C 24/7 for months???

Ive put my mining 290s on water for many reasons, not the least of which they never run above 30C.
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At stock voltage my 290's run around 70C under full load -- this is without undervolting anything either.

Sure -- the fans are at 75% but who cares? I have the rig in my 2nd bedroom I never use or go into, it can be as loud as it wants and I'd never know.

Anyone who's mining will *NOT* keep their cards at 90C because the card will start to throttle itself and perform like shit. Despite everyone's misconceptions -- us miners want the hardware to be kept cool,. and perform solidly.
 
mzs_biteme said:
If you wanna boycott AMD's card's cuz they don't "control" the market, then go ahead.. There is a line of 10 people waiting behind you... Hell, if I wanna buy fifty 290x's, line 'em up and shoot them with a 50 cal, they'll be more than happy to sell them to me.... As long as I'm paying. You see where I'm going with this? Don't think for one second they give two f@#$ about yours or my "feelings" on the current pricing scheme... The only "target audience" they want is a PAYING one...:cool:
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Right, and when AMD is relegated to the likes of Matrox or Voodoo I'm sure they'll think it was worth it to let their cards be bubbled out of the average consumers reach and relegated into obscurity.
 
McFry said:
Right, and when AMD is relegated to the likes of Matrox or Voodoo I'm sure they'll think it was worth it to let their cards be bubbled out of the average consumers reach and relegated into obscurity.
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This will not happen anytime soon other than in your fantasies.
 
mi7chy said:
AMD isn't going anywhere. It excelled at password/hash cracking around 2008, it continues to excel with crypto currency mining and will likely continue to do so with the next new work load thrown at it since it's programmable. Here's a good explanation:

http://www.extremetech.com/computing/153467-amd-destroys-nvidia-bitcoin-mining
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If there is anything to drive home the reason why AMD video cards perform better at mining than Nvidia cards, this one paragraph should suffice from the article:
Ouch. The Radeon 7790, a $149 GPU, offers 80% of the GTX Titan’s performance for 15% of its price. The Radeon 7970 is twice as fast at half the price. Even the CUDA-accelerated kernel doesn’t bring Nvidia hardware into the same league as AMD’s — a point hammered home if we compare system power consumption. Keep in mind that the Titan is a 7.1B transistor GPU with a 561 mm sq die. The fact that the Radeon 7790 nearly matches its performance at 112 sq. mm and 2B transistors points to a fundamental bottleneck within Titan’s architecture as the source of the problem.
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I'm sure it's improved significantly since this article was written last year in April with CUDAminer released. However, a $149 (in 2013) video card outperforming a $999 video card in cryptocurrency mining is just absolutely nuts.

And, this is the very reason why we have supply shortages of AMD video cards and why they are in very high demand. In another forum post in the Video Cards forum, someone mentioned that the 760 and 770 have already gone up in price due to demand, and I would not be surprised that's because of improvements in CUDAminer making those video cards now a very attractive prospect for mining.
 
McFry said:
Right, and when AMD is relegated to the likes of Matrox or Voodoo I'm sure they'll think it was worth it to let their cards be bubbled out of the average consumers reach and relegated into obscurity.
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I don't think you have a clue on WHY the AMD cards are currently so expensive....:confused: Look up term "supply and demand"...
Miners that don't blink an eye and purchase ten 290's in one order are what AMD wants, and not your "average joe consumer" that's saving dimes and nickles for 12 months to get ONE (!!!) 290 or 290x. Money talks, "joe shmo" walks - empty handed...
 
Up until recently Frys had MSI 290X for "only" 619.99. That sign of goodwill is over now.
 
octoberasian said:
In another forum post in the Video Cards forum, someone mentioned that the 760 and 770 have already gone up in price due to demand, and I would not be surprised that's because of improvements in CUDAminer making those video cards now a very attractive prospect for mining.
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Price increase with Nvidia is just a side affect of industry shortage caused by AMD dGPU demand.

As for mining performance, 750 Ti hash rate is ~260 khash/s compared to 400's with R9 270. Being that 265 is similar to 270 if it attains mid to high 300's it'll be a much better buy for $150. So far, interest is non-existent for 750 Ti or any other model on litecointalk.org.
 
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Has anyone tried the usb sticks for mining bitcoins. I mean my pc is always on anyway, but I just wonder if it is worth it or not.
 
you would need a lot of them to make it worthwhile.

they are bitcoin only ASICs, and all the money is in Altcoins now.
 
mzs_biteme said:
I don't think you have a clue on WHY the AMD cards are currently so expensive....:confused: Look up term "supply and demand"...
Miners that don't blink an eye and purchase ten 290's in one order are what AMD wants, and not your "average joe consumer" that's saving dimes and nickles for 12 months to get ONE (!!!) 290 or 290x. Money talks, "joe shmo" walks - empty handed...
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And I dont think you understand the importance of public relations. If AMD's loses their base in lieu of miners (which will eventually die out), everyone will have moved on to their competitor to satisfy their needs. How well did NeoGeo or 3DO do with their obscenely priced systems?
 
TechLarry said:
Bitcoin needs to die before someone gets seriously screwed.

Oh, and fuck NewEgg.
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If bitcoin dies a lot of people will get seriously screwed... though us miners will just sell our mining rigs as gaming computers on craigslist and be totally fine.
 
mi7chy said:
Price increase with Nvidia is just a side affect of industry shortage caused by AMD dGPU demand.

As for mining performance, 750 Ti hash rate is ~260 khash/s compared to 400's with R9 270. Being that 265 is similar to 270 if it attains mid to high 300's it'll be a much better buy for $150. So far, interest is non-existent for 750 Ti or any other model on litecointalk.org.
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I would buy up droves of 750 TI at $109~ but i dont want to waste my PCI slots on only 260kh. my 290s are getting 900kh...
 
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