[Tweaktown] R9 290/x price cuts begin

wand3r3r

Limp Gawd
Joined
Dec 17, 2011
Messages
422
Hopefully they have something new coming. They can't keep this bleeding going for the entire holiday season. Cmon AMD. Do that magic again. I loved my 6950s 2GB flashed and unlocked to OC 6970s. Sniffle, sniffle.. miss ya man! :(
 
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Hopefully they have something new coming. They can't keep this bleeding going for the entire holiday season. Cmon AMD. Do that magic again. I loved my 6950s 2GB flashed and unlocked to OC 7970s. Sniffle, sniffle.. miss ya man! :(

I think you mean 6970 heh.
 
That makes the 290X a pretty good value relative to the 980, the latter not priced quite as aggressively as it probably should be. I have to wonder how painful this is to AMD's margins, though.
 
That makes the 290X a pretty good value relative to the 980, the latter not priced quite as aggressively as it probably should be. I have to wonder how painful this is to AMD's margins, though.

Anyone choosing a 290X over a 970 is insane. The 290X needs to be $299 for it to be competitive, and even then, pony up $30 and get the 970.
 
That makes the 290X a pretty good value relative to the 980, the latter not priced quite as aggressively as it probably should be. I have to wonder how painful this is to AMD's margins, though.

The ebay market is where the trouble is, you can get a 290x for around 300 dollars, and a 290 for a crazy price of around 250 or less.


Anyway, I still have my single reference 290 that I got for an inflated price during mining times. Horrible timing on my part, but that should still provide enough performance for dragon age inquisition, the only higher end game I intend to play this year since I don't play shooters.
 
looks like AMD's strategy is to drop the 290x below the GTX 980 and the 290 to below the 970 thinking that it'll solve the problem...the Nvidia cards are still the better deal even at slightly higher prices...AMD really needs to release a new card
 
Hopefully they have something new coming. They can't keep this bleeding going for the entire holiday season. Cmon AMD. Do that magic again. I loved my 6950s 2GB flashed and unlocked to OC 7970s. Sniffle, sniffle.. miss ya man! :(

link to THAT BIOS please...lol
 
You guys seriously didn't remember that you could unlock the extra shaders on a 6950 to match the 6970??

Wow :eek:

My younger brother later bought a 1GB 6950 and I was able to unlock the shaders on that too. (not all 1gb cards unlocked)Of course he lacked the extra 1 GB of Vram, but he was gaming at 1680x1050 back then.

My 6950s (each 2GB) Not only unlocked the shaders but overclocked like beasts even after that. I would bench higher than most 6970s and even some 6990s.

My next graphic cards after that were 2x GTX 680s then now my 2x GTX 980s. it'll be nice to go back to AMD. I like to mix things up to keep things competitive.

See here to refresh your memories http://www.techpowerup.com/articles/overclocking/vidcard/159
 
looks like AMD's strategy is to drop the 290x below the GTX 980 and the 290 to below the 970 thinking that it'll solve the problem...the Nvidia cards are still the better deal even at slightly higher prices...AMD really needs to release a new card

If AMD still can sell the cards at profit it is an excellent strategy and Nvidia cards do not support Mantle this is another thing which makes the price drops even more attractive to people without a really fast cpu.

New AMD card when it is here, it does not make sense to rush. If Nvidia wants to have really low pricing on their cards let them go for it.
 
You guys seriously didn't remember that you could unlock the extra shaders on a 6950 to match the 6970??

Wow :eek:

My younger brother later bought a 1GB 6950 and I was able to unlock the shaders on that too. (not all 1gb cards unlocked)Of course he lacked the extra 1 GB of Vram, but he was gaming at 1680x1050 back then.

My 6950s (each 2GB) Not only unlocked the shaders but overclocked like beasts even after that. I would bench higher than most 6970s and even some 6990s.

My next graphic cards after that were 2x GTX 680s then now my 2x GTX 980s. it'll be nice to go back to AMD. I like to mix things up to keep things competitive.

See here to refresh your memories http://www.techpowerup.com/articles/overclocking/vidcard/159

lol, you said 7970 not 6970 ;)
 
I hope this puts downward pressure on a used R9/295x2's. I would love to snag a used one for my computer.
 
If AMD wants to stop the bleeding and put some hurt on Nvidia what they need to do is;

1. Lower R290X to $329.99 to beat GTX 970 in price & out of box performance
2. Lower the R290 to $279.99 (they would sell like crazy)

3/ Leave the GTX 980 to compete with itself since it's priced kind of high.

--OR to compete with GTX 980--
Another thing they can do is use their new cooler that they used on the 295 X2 and make a dual R285 card to compete with the GTX 980. maybe they can price it at $579.99. They can also lower the R295x2 to $699.99.
 
If AMD wants to stop the bleeding and put some hurt on Nvidia what they need to do is;

1. Lower R290X to $329.99 to beat GTX 970 in price & out of box performance
2. Lower the R290 to $289.99 (they would sell like crazy)

3/ Leave the GTX 980 to compete with itself since it's priced kind of high.

--OR to compete with GTX 980--
Another thing they can do is use their new cooler that they used on the 295 X2 and make a dual R285 card to compete with the GTX 980. maybe they can price it at $579.99. They can also lower the R295x2 to $699.99.

All they have to do is start the media campaign on which Mantle games are coming out and are supported already. If they can get this to do well then they have some time before their new card comes out and meanwhile keep beating the Mantle drums :)
 
All they have to do is start the media campaign on which Mantle games are coming out and are supported already. If they can get this to do well then they have some time before their new card comes out and meanwhile keep beating the Mantle drums :)

I dunno. Me and many others are not sold on mantle. Remember Glide? I've been in this computer game too long. Mantle is doomed to fail. IMO. Maybe I'm wrong but we'll see if mantle survives after DX12 hits. I feel that will be the end of mantle. We may see a few games that are in the works for mantle trickle out but DX 12 will probably be better than mantle in every way.
 
Mantle is dead in the water imo:

MsIxNMa.gif
 
I dunno. Me and many others are not sold on mantle. Remember Glide? I've been in this computer game too long. Mantle is doomed to fail. IMO. Maybe I'm wrong but we'll see if mantle survives after DX12 hits. I feel that will be the end of mantle. We may see a few games that are in the works for mantle trickle out but DX 12 will probably be better than mantle in every way.

Glide is not the same ;) Glide didn't solve the backwards approach that DirectX has at the moment and make games CPU bound (does not make sense where cpu can do megaflops and gpu does teraflops).

Mantle allows medium and low end CPU to get really great performance in games where the cost of a new mainboard ram and all that stuff make it out of reach for low income gamers.

DX12 is not out yet even tho they promised to ship it with Windows 10 it is still not here. Mantle allows usage on Windows 7 and 8.1 as well as Windows 10 so there is another win for people not willing to keep spending money on the computer.
 
If AMD wants to stop the bleeding and put some hurt on Nvidia what they need to do is;

1. Lower R290X to $329.99 to beat GTX 970 in price & out of box performance
2. Lower the R290 to $279.99 (they would sell like crazy)

3/ Leave the GTX 980 to compete with itself since it's priced kind of high.

--OR to compete with GTX 980--
Another thing they can do is use their new cooler that they used on the 295 X2 and make a dual R285 card to compete with the GTX 980. maybe they can price it at $579.99. They can also lower the R295x2 to $699.99.

This is what I'm thinking as well. Yes I know 980s are still mostly sold out everywhere but this is easily attributable to the early adopter frenzy.

Since the 970 is priced so competitively, it's very likely once the craze is over it'll outsell the 980 10 to 1. So I agree that AMD's focus really should be on pricing the R290X right so it beats 970 out of box with a comparable (or better still, lower) price tag.
 
On this side of the pond cuts happened as well. R290X goes for like 400 euro, and 290 for 300. Too bad, that 290X is still higher than the 970, which sells from 329 to 379 (depending on brand).
 
That makes the 290X a pretty good value relative to the 980, the latter not priced quite as aggressively as it probably should be. I have to wonder how painful this is to AMD's margins, though.

$399 for the 290X is hardly a "good value" - relative to the 980 or otherwise. The 970 smokes it at $329, so the 290X really needs to be about $299 where price/performance is concerned. And that's not even factoring all the extra heat/power/noise with the 290X.

As for AMD's margins, well I'm sure they were enjoying the bloated margins during the brief mining craze so hopefully they stored some nuts for the winter - gonna be a long, cold one for AMD.
 
AMD should merge with NVIDIA, let NVIDIA completely run the show and then they could take on Intel in both the CPU and GPU spaces.
 
If AMD wants to stop the bleeding and put some hurt on Nvidia what they need to do is;

1. Lower R290X to $329.99 to beat GTX 970 in price & out of box performance
2. Lower the R290 to $279.99 (they would sell like crazy)

3/ Leave the GTX 980 to compete with itself since it's priced kind of high.

--OR to compete with GTX 980--
Another thing they can do is use their new cooler that they used on the 295 X2 and make a dual R285 card to compete with the GTX 980. maybe they can price it at $579.99. They can also lower the R295x2 to $699.99.

the 970 is better than the 290X in every single way; price, performance, noise, heat, power consumption... the 290X needs to be priced at less than $300. even in games where the 970 loses (narrowly) to the 290X, you can just go into afterburner and instantly get an extra 15% performance guaranteed and beat even an overclocked 290X (good luck getting anywhere close to the same amount of overclocking out of a 290X as a 970.)

there's NO reason to buy a 290X at $400, and STILL no reason to buy one even at $300 unless you already have one and want to use CF.

this $400 pricing pretty much guarantees no one is going to be buying anything but 970s all the way up until amd releases a new card.
 
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$399 for the 290X is hardly a "good value" - relative to the 980 or otherwise. The 970 smokes it at $329...
The 970 sometimes performs better, yeah. Maybe even often. But when you're comparing it to the 970, you aren't evaluating its value relative to the 980: you're evaluating it relative to the 970.

What part of "relative to the 980" confused you? Was it the "8"?
 
The 970 sometimes performs better, yeah. Maybe even often. But when you're comparing it to the 970, you aren't evaluating its value relative to the 980: you're evaluating it relative to the 970.

What part of "relative to the 980" confused you? Was it the "8"?

why would you ever compare the 290X to the 980 when a lesser card in nvidia's lineup is already better and cheaper? and how does that make the 290X a 'pretty good value' compared to the 980, when, again, the 970 is already better and cheaper? of course cards at the top of the scale are going to have a worse price to performance ratio. your comment makes no sense in any context.
 
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of course cards at the top of the scale are going to have a worse price to performance ratio. your comment makes no sense in any context.
You can lack an understanding of a thing while showing that you understand it. It's kind of a neat parlor trick, but what good is it?
 
You can lack an understanding of a thing while showing that you understand it. It's kind of a neat parlor trick, but what good is it?

the statement makes sense, what doesn't make sense is why you would ever state it in the first place. it's like saying the sky is blue and expecting people to respond with 'huh, i never noticed.'
 
AMD should merge with NVIDIA, let NVIDIA completely run the show and then they could take on Intel in both the CPU and GPU spaces.

This is not only laughable it will screw us as customers when you have one big company monopolized segment of the market.

It would make no sense for AMD to do this since AMD would _not_ benefit from doing this and Nvidia would not make a partner with deep pockets to "kill Intel"

AMD already decided on a fruitful strategy to combat Intel and that is to go the ARM route. Intel ruining its own market to get share versus ARM by handing out SOC as candy to anhyone willing to use their Baytrail in tablets and phones.

How is anyone to compete with Intel when they are giving it away for free?
 
Mantle is dead in the water imo:

MsIxNMa.gif

Its like saying DX12 is dead in the water also.
Mantle brings other benefits you cant have with nvidia.
that actually enhance ones experience gaming.

I like when people compare a whole new ARC to pre existing 1 year old arc.
I notice the 290 is several times faster than a 680 from nvidia.
Notice the logic?
 
Also, BF4 is a mess.

PVZ, Theif and Sniper Elite work great in mantle.

Soon we will have civ, and Da:i
 
A good friend of mine brought up a good point. AMD has already peaked. They have to compete with Cryptocurrency miners at this point.

Since the complete and utter crash of Cryptocurrency there is a flood of R290/280 cards on the resell market for super cheap. Not all but many people are buying their cards off forums, ebay, craigslist etc... My friend believes that AMD will likely sell fewer cards at Etail/retail because of Competition with their rival (nvidia) AND Bitcoin peeps. The market is saturated with cards to go around from users selling them cheap because they no longer need them. Some had farms of dozens of these cards that they are now selling to recoup some of the money spent on them when cryptocurrency was actually lucrative and suddenly declined.

I think he made a good point.
 
290x at $350 would make it more compelling imo. For those looking to go 290 crossfire, now it's probably a good time.

Mantle is a decent feature but not that groundbreaking as some as these people make it out to be. I never used it with my old 290, same ways I never use physx (and other meh software it includes) with nvidia.
 
A good friend of mine brought up a good point. AMD has already peaked. They have to compete with Cryptocurrency miners at this point.

Since the complete and utter crash of Cryptocurrency there is a flood of R290/280 cards on the resell market for super cheap. Not all but many people are buying their cards off forums, ebay, craigslist etc... My friend believes that AMD will likely sell fewer cards at Etail/retail because of Competition with their rival (nvidia) AND Bitcoin peeps. The market is saturated with cards to go around from users selling them cheap because they no longer need them. Some had farms of dozens of these cards that they are now selling to recoup some of the money spent on them when cryptocurrency was actually lucrative and suddenly declined.

I think he made a good point.

It crashed a long time ago. If they are selling them really cheap then Nvidia has no change even at the prices they charge.

So if the flooded market of used videocards gets going for under $200 then it is weird people still buying cards that are over $100 higher in price and only get you 10 to 15 percent improvement.

290x at $350 would make it more compelling imo. For those looking to go 290 crossfire, now it's probably a good time.

Mantle is a decent feature but not that groundbreaking as some as these people make it out to be. I never used it with my old 290, same ways I never use physx (and other meh software it includes) with nvidia.

So if you are not using Mantle it is not ground breaking? Even a person on these [H] had a core2duo + AMD 290 and he would strongly disagree with you on that comment.
 
Even a person on these [H] had a core2duo + AMD 290 and he would strongly disagree with you on that comment.

In that scenario, then yes it can be fantastic. Though imo, one should be able to afford a better proc if you're able to drop $400+ on a graphics card.
 
So if you are not using Mantle it is not ground breaking? Even a person on these [H] had a core2duo + AMD 290 and he would strongly disagree with you on that comment.

a 7 year difference between the two most important parts in a computer. now i've heard everything.

that's like attaching an F1 engine to a 10,000 pound block of steel.
 
Its like saying DX12 is dead in the water also.
Mantle brings other benefits you cant have with nvidia.
that actually enhance ones experience gaming.

I like when people compare a whole new ARC to pre existing 1 year old arc.
I notice the 290 is several times faster than a 680 from nvidia.
Notice the logic?

You know that u're comparing 4X MSAA on a 970 GTX to 2X MSAA on the 290?

MSAA is very taxing on the GPU and even with twice the amount, the 970 GTX is able to come on top. All this while being on DX 11.

Maxwell has builtin hardware tweaks for DX 12.0 that'll be further exploited once DX 12.0 is out. The performance lead will only begin to grow.

Thats why, at this stage it's hard to recommend a 290 / 290X if you're getting a new card. If u're going for crossfire, sure the price cuts are nice to give u a huge performance boost.
 
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