AMD pulled a dirty trick just before the launch of this card in an attempt to poison GTX 1660 ti reviews.
IN essence they tried to frame the 280 dollar price point initially as the new price point for Vega 56 and emailed reviewers directly this information. After the reviews were published, AMD clarified that there was no Vega 56 price drop.
UPDATE 1: AMD framed this as a price drop in their email to press, and that's how most press reported it. However, this tweet from the official AMD account concerns me:
Our friends at @Newegg had a killer deal for Radeon RX Vega 56 at $279.99 ($249.99 after MIR) just earlier today. As you can imagine, it sold out quickly.
I'm seeking clarity on whether this was a limited-time sale on one particular Vega 56 model, or indeed a price drop.
UPDATE 2: A spokesperson for AMD provided a disappointing response, but at least we know where things stand:
“Radeon RX Vega 56 has been heavily promoted since the holidays and into the new year as partners have been eager to make RX Vega 56 and it's forward looking 8GB of HBM2 available for more gamers. To clarify, the current Radeon RX Vega 56 promotion is not a price drop. Additionally, the RX Vega 56 graphics card will continue to be offered as part of AMD’s Raise the Game: Fully Loaded bundle with three of this year’s blockbuster titles.”
Yep. I reached out to @AMD and updated my article ASAP, but I also fell into the trap at first. AMD's marketing knew exactly what they were doing here. Carefully worded, timed perfectly to create assumptions and influence reviewer's final conclusions.
AMD framed a card with limited stock and availability as a price drop to get reviews to compare the Vega 56 to the GTX 1660 ti. Gamersnexus fell for the trap and to a lesser extent Jay2cents did too. Anandtech was cautious too.
It was not until the reviews were published did AMD clarify that the Vega 56 did not receive any price drop. This is a scummy tactic because it allows company to crap on their competitors launches with none existent products which don't exist in reality in terms of price to performance.
If at the Radeon VII launch, Nvidia gave newegg 10 RTX 2080 ti to sell at 699 and framed it as the new price for the series and emailed to reviews to use this new price to performance point as a consideration point when writing the review..Then after the article is published which makes the Radeon VII look bad, finally clarify that this was not a price drop but a limited sale. This is what AMD did and has the potential to pollute reviews in the future.
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