Claims of Early Pricing on Vega 64 and Vega 56 Fall Flat in USA

FrgMstr

FrgMstr

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OC3D is reporting that AMD is changing pricing of its RX Vega video cards in the UK. The quote from Overclockers UK's "Gibbo" follows.

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Now the good and bad news, the good news is AMD are rebating early launch sales to allow us to hit £449.99 on the stand alone black card which has no games. This is a launch only price which AMD at present are saying will be withdrawn in the near future, when if it happens is unknown, but remember do not be shocked if the price jumps nearly £100 in a few days.

This time round there is no early adopter tax, quite the opposite on the stand alone black card, so do be quick.

We've also made some bundles as well, these bundles feature NO DISCOUNT, what you get is two AAA titles known as Prey and yet to be released Wolfenstein II PC games, worth a solid £50 between them. Well I lie, they include the Black Card which has £100 discount up front, so by buying the bundles you get the black card at the launch discounted price, but also score the two free games. This is also same case for the Samsung & VEGA monitor bundle, it includes the black pre-discounted card, but also scores you the two free games.

OC3D goes on to say this:

The long and short of it is that Vega's price increase is not due to high demand, miners or retail price gouging, it is from AMD themselves. This raises a lot of questions, which hopefully be answered by AMD in time.

Before everyone starts going ape over this, at least here in the USA, let's discuss some things. First and foremost AMD has very little control legally over the actual retail pricing of its products. FIt is illegal for AMD to dictate retail pricing. MSRP is just that, "Manufacturer SUGGESTED Retail Price." Surely there are some loopholes in exactly how this is applied in different industries here in the USA, mostly being that if a retailer is not selling at MSRP, that the retailer gets cut off. However when it comes to video cards, this does not ring true with the actual retailers of these video cards being extremely narrow, ie. Amazon and Newegg.

Questions concerning video card pricing have certainly come up before, and NVIDIA has its own way of going about that. And worth keeping in mind is that AMD does not actually sell any products in the retail market like NVIDIA still does today.

And while this retail pricing strategy might be happening in the UK with AMD cards, it is not legal for it to happen in the USA. We have reached out to AMD for comment.
 
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gxp500 said:
Let the market decide that not amd.
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It is a free market, or it's supposed to be. Let the people who don't know how to price compare pay what they will. I saw people asking $800 for 1070's. I went to amazon and bought two for $360 each. There was a two card limit. I went ahead and placed two orders. LOL.
 
gxp500 said:
Let the market decide that not amd.
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The market seems to have bought them all up so the market has agreed. The question is whos getting what cut of the price increase.

Is AMD getting an extra $100 or do the retailers have their fingers in it?

Gibbo also said Vega could mine buckets to 11 but that wasn't really the case either. :jimlad:
 
ecmaster76 said:
The market seems to have bought them all up so the market has agreed. The question is whos getting what cut of the price increase.

Is AMD getting an extra $100 or do the retailers have their fingers in it?

Gibbo also said Vega could mine buckets to 11 but that wasn't really the case either. :jimlad:
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I'm not sure whats up, is it something we do not know about custom mining os's.
According to benchmarks of hashing and pricing of gpu's, I know they buy RX580's at 420$ easy but according to online mining benchmarks from the likes of legitreviews the 1070 at the same price seems good.
When asking a miner about it they just respond "HAH!"

Miners that does really well have their owns devs and I think there's something we do not know, thus making Amd cards really good at it, or something...

I managed to snatch up a RX64 at the launch price, I could always sell it if I find it too crappy :D
 
ecmaster76 said:
The market seems to have bought them all up so the market has agreed. The question is whos getting what cut of the price increase.

Is AMD getting an extra $100 or do the retailers have their fingers in it?

Gibbo also said Vega could mine buckets to 11 but that wasn't really the case either. :jimlad:
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You show your wisdom. True statements all.
 
ole-m said:
Miners that does really well have their owns devs and I think there's something we do not know, thus making Amd cards really good at it, or something...
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Some trade secrets are too valuable to share. Starting to remind me a lot of high frequency stock trading.

A small relative advantage can reap disproportional rewards. Possibly these are getting bought just in case they end up being better.

Or AMD only made 10 of them
 
I like how it is a "free" market except with certain specific companies, Apple for example.

They set the selling price completely and do not even allow retailers to offer discounts.

The only upside is that they also don't allow the retailers to raise the price.
 
We got fucked royally, the liquid version went from £638, to £699 to £780 inside of a day. :(
 
cyclone3d said:
I like how it is a "free" market except with certain specific companies, Apple for example.

They set the selling price completely and do not even allow retailers to offer discounts.

The only upside is that they also don't allow the retailers to raise the price.
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I'm assuming since Apple products are desirable, Apple uses the threat of cutting off supplies to make retailers toe the line. AMD I feel does not have the position to do so.
 
You guys are incredibly lucky though ... I mean seriously. You guys all wanted a new GPU. You're in luck. All these places that carried the AMD Vega also have in stock right now a high-end card from nVidia called the 1080 ti. It has more memory, runs cooler, uses less electricity, and most of all, it has 30% additional performance over VEGA. But that's not all. It's the same price now as the Vega. But we aren't stopping there, it's also in stock. Talk about rainbows and unicorns and that fuzzy wuzzy feeling we are crave. Such incredible luck for some of you .. how often does that happen? Never! This whole time you wanted something so so bad, couldn't get it but then suddenly and without warning there is something even better right under your nose. All you have to do is open your eyes.

You lucky things.
 
Thanks for the clarification. I was kind of shocked, but I didn't click it. Looks like that was added because it didn't show the bundle earlier.
 
Why the fuck would AMD raise the price of their cards well over the price of nVidias better performing cards?

Something just seems fishy about Vega. I really wonder if AMD know something about it that the rest of us don't? It literally is not worth the price AMD are asking now.

But I tell you one thing for free, that Overclockers UK are price gougers that try to make out that they aren't, have been since Dabs went under.
 
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Stimpy88 said:
Why the fuck would AMD raise the price of their cards well over the price of nVidias better performing cards?

Something just seems fishy about Vega. I really wonder if AMD know something about it that the rest of us don't? It literally is not worth the price AMD are asking now.

But I tell you one thing for free, that Overclockers UK are price gougers that try to make out that they aren't, have been since Dabs went under.
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I'm just scratching my head wondering why OCUK gets so much mention here, nevermind that Gibbo moron that trolled everyone with the "Vega mines 70-100MH/s!"
 
I was pissed with the whole nVidia Founder's Edition launch fiasco. Now AMD seemingly doesn't want to be left out of that money making game either.

So now I'm left wondering if we will see a launch day with cards actually able to be purchased...at MSRP...*ever* again.
 
odditory said:
I'm just scratching my head wondering why OCUK gets so much mention here, nevermind that Gibbo moron that trolled everyone with the "Vega mines 70-100MH/s!"
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Gibbo is pretty much the only talking head for a major tech reseller that speaks openly online. Doesn't matter if he goes full retard or not, people keep listening to it.
 
Ocellaris said:
Gibbo is pretty much the only talking head for a major tech reseller that speaks openly online. Doesn't matter if he goes full retard or not, people keep listening to it.
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It's pretty cool that they let that happen. I think it engenders a community that gains them fans and loyal customers. Retard or not it's easier to forgive a person than a company.
 
odditory said:
I'm just scratching my head wondering why OCUK gets so much mention here, nevermind that Gibbo moron that trolled everyone with the "Vega mines 70-100MH/s!"
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He did say in a post a few mins later that it might be bs, but all the tech sites reporting on this ignored that part.
 
Every business aspires to sell its goods at as high a price as they can get away with. So if AMD is indeed raising the MSRP, I say good for them. No big deal, it's just capitalism happening.
 
That’s not really the point most here are making. It’s more like why would AMD price these cards higher than the target nVidia cards, and be offering less performance, with terrible thermals, noise and power draw?

I would quite like a Vega 56, but I’m not going to pay more than what a 1070GTX costs. And to be honest, the nVidia cards really look better, if you can get them for their retail prices.

I worry that if it is true that AMD are going to put the prices of their Vega cards up, then nVidia will respond by putting their prices up too, as they still have the better performing, better value cards.
 
Storm in a teacup really...

Vega 64 non-bundle was at MSRP of 449GBP before it ran out of stock at OCUK. Lowest price of RX Vega 64, highest demand inevitable.
Vega 64 Black Pack was at MSRP of 549GBP, then they raised prices of pre-orders on non-bundle cards to the samel level as the BP Bundles ones in order to sell the remained of the Back Pack stock.
Vega 64 Black Pack of ran out of stock as well, now both the non-bundle and Black Pack prices are up in the sky so they don't overbook the next shipment on pre-orders.

Then they proceed to position themselves as the Knight in shining armor battling the big bad AMDragon for lower prices. Now this normal retail / e-tail sales strategy is all over the internet. :vomit:
 
Stimpy88 said:
That’s not really the point most here are making. It’s more like why would AMD price these cards higher than the target nVidia cards, and be offering less performance, with terrible thermals, noise and power draw?
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If people are buying them out of stock, why not make profit on that?

Same reason the RX cards have stupid high prices right now.
 
cant help by wonder if this was for getting good price : performance ratio's on reviews knowing the performance and heat numbers were laughable... once reviews were done jack prices
 
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Stimpy88 said:
...why would AMD price these cards higher than the target nVidia cards, and be offering less performance, with terrible thermals, noise and power draw?
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The same reason they can make people sink deeper into their ecosystem by having to buy the Vega package deals - because they have a "low supply/high demand" product that is really the only upgrade path left to Fury owners "enjoying" the open-standards-ness of FreeSync (essentially giving AMD a monopolistic control of a tiny segment of the discrete GPU market).
 
SixFootDuo said:
You guys are incredibly lucky though ... I mean seriously. You guys all wanted a new GPU. You're in luck. All these places that carried the AMD Vega also have in stock right now a high-end card from nVidia called the 1080 ti. It has more memory, runs cooler, uses less electricity, and most of all, it has 30% additional performance over VEGA. But that's not all. It's the same price now as the Vega. But we aren't stopping there, it's also in stock. Talk about rainbows and unicorns and that fuzzy wuzzy feeling we are crave. Such incredible luck for some of you .. how often does that happen? Never! This whole time you wanted something so so bad, couldn't get it but then suddenly and without warning there is something even better right under your nose. All you have to do is open your eyes.

You lucky things.
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Except those poor Freesync people...
 
triwolf said:
No, Gibbo didn't just lie, he is a LIAR. Fixed that for him.
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https://www.kitguru.net/components/...-gibson-clears-up-rx-vega64-pricing-disaster/

Apparently a second EU retailer is now saying the same thing. Turns out Gibbo wasn't lying this time.

“Komplett.no today confirms to Tek.no that the price of just over 5,000 kroner was limited to a limited edition of 275 graphics cards, as the company – as one of AMD’s “selected” online stores – was allowed to sell at a favourable price at launch. The RX Vega 64 version we had for sale was in a limited edition of this price and will unfortunately not be put up for sale again. When these were sold out, we had to remove this product from our pages”.
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Perhaps the MSRP holds in the US but looks like the EU buyers are being screwed. Looks like the 500 price is a US specific thing that AND did not make clear didn't apply to the EU.
 
An interesting thing from the GN article is that they were told Newegg received 60-70 Vega cards for the pack. With such limited quantities no wonder they sold out.
 
If the performance was great, I'd be right there with everyone else. But looking at the benchmarks, I'm still scratching my head wondering why people are all freaking out over the Vegas. The only reason I was going to buy one was to have an all AMD box - just a neat idea. If I wanted performance, I'd go straight to the TI versus paying retail gougers the markup price.
 
Bowman15 said:
Capitalism...that's how it works.
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Not when you have card A that is not quite as fast, or offer anything tangible over card B which is €150 less, and also runs 100w less, and much cooler. It’s just VERY odd marketing from AMD.

This has to be miners and Freesync people only that want to pay over the odds like that. When the dust settles, nobody in their right mind will buy a Vega card at these prices.
 
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