Another AMD Price cut?

Don't have the link on me, but nvidia are making noises about dropping the GTX 660ti by $20 because there apparently not selling as planed.

Now there are noises about AMD dropping there prices by yet a little more having already dropped $50 on them just weeks ago.

http://www.techpowerup.com/172097/A...ound-of-Radeon-HD-7000-Series-Price-Cuts.html

Don't you just love healthy competition?

Pic shamelessly stolen from ocUK

just bought my 7970 for $382 last week. It eats my 5850 so im fine with the price cuts, however the 7950 is starting to look VERY good at $290.

If it keeps going like this i might get another 7870 for xFire.

Umm... Looks like I'll be doing Xfire. Prices are getting stupid awesome right now.

The price war is that insane that AMD dropped the price of theyr 7000 series by over 100 $ already in only 3 months. Sure, i feel bad for those who didnt wait some more months, and i feel bad for myself since i made the same mistaken. Of course, price does drop over time but usualy they dont drop in such a agressive and short manner. So it truly surprised me, but anyway, i was in critical need of new hardware and every single month was valuable to me, when the old hardware died. So, in future i surely will be more careful and i will delay buying new hardware much longer. Its always easyer when you already got great running systems and when there is no desperate need for new hardware. Next time it will be the case for me and i can recommend it to everyone.

Anyway, its still nice to see when price are going down, but there is still some bad smell. Because apart from the agressive rush which is making premature buyers feel like being robbed, there is another component that is constantly overpriced because of lack on competition, its the Intel CPU. At least the GPU is good priced, so its never wrong to update a GPU when needed. But CPUs are usualy never upgraded and at the current peak of new releases which is delayed by Intel, its not even worth it to look at. Im not even sure if there is a need for because the GPU is usualy the culprit, at least for high res gamers.

So for now... a big hurray to GPU upgrades, and remember... Nvidia/AMD is a real competiton, price drops... even agressive ones, are always possible.

Besides, the 660ti was not a very big success and i kinda expected it. Because the entire package was simply not clearly beating the 7870, making the 7870 a very good alternate option for most users (especially because of the agressive price drops). Most review sites may still recommend the 660ti, but there is not even a good reason, just because its Nvidia it seems. After all it was not able to truly boost the 660ti, but i guess most review sites got a strong connection to Nvidia (bribing and all the stuff) so its not uncommon not being "neutral".

I do think, up to the third highest tier (upper mid range) AMD is the winner. But the 2 highest tiers is a advantage for Nvidia (because more power efficient and slightly better peformance at below 1080P), so the rule seems to be as follow:

Nerd/Freak (special tier): 690 GTX vs. sadly no real competition yet = Nvidia
Enthusiast: 7970 vs. 680 GTX = Nvidia
Performance: 7950 vs. 670 GTX = Nvidia
Upper Midrange: 7870 vs. 660ti = AMD
Midrange: 7850 vs. ??? = AMD
Upper Entry Level: 7770 vs. ??? = AMD
Entry Level: 7750 vs. ??? = AMD

Then the question is, whats the most important market? I guess midrange and upper midrange. So AMD is still going strong and Nvidia will be at a high war vs. AMD, which is currently happening and thats why the price drops are that agressive (on both sides). The 690 GTX is just something in order to polish theyr image but its not a good gold donkey itself.

lol im glad i have to wait let them fight to the death!

W00t for competition. The 660 I just reviewed stands taller than a 7870 for a less. Its a valid choice in the market, no doubt.... yet again forcing AMD's hand.

The 660 ti came way to late, most users are much more confident with AMDs mainstream offers at that point. Nvidia in the beginning just tried to satifsy the high performance users and then tried to sell the "old Fermi" at bargain prices to the mainstream, so they could get ride of theyr overfilled storage on those chips. I think that was not a good move and it may hopefully bite Nvidia in the shiny butt. If we had that competition way sooner it may have changed a lot but Nvidia just wanted to show theyr muscles, that was the main priority it seems. They wanted to be sure that theyr product will beat AMD, and made the minimum required in order to achieve that goal, which was in need of more time so they had to wait until the improved drivers has been released. Anyway, thats not the marketing instrument of a real competitor, its trying to fool the mainstream market by selling out the old warehouse while trying to anticipate the power of AMD in order to release the midrange Keplers.

Anyway, its just the background of those stuff i seems to feel and notice. What finally matters most is if the cards are comparable and so far i saw 2 pretty comparable cards. I will watch the new reviews thought, to be sure nothing has changed. With the recent price drops Nvidia will have to react because 7870 is now to much of a great deal, thats certain.

660 was released today. Im not talking 660ti. I reviewed it on the front page. THAT is what competes with (and for the moment is the better choice).

Let me correct this chart:

Dual GPU: 690 GTX vs. ?????? = Nvidia
Enthusiast: 7970 vs. 680 GTX = AMD (performance is the same, AMD is $50 cheaper)
Performance: 7950 vs. 670 GTX = AMD (670 wins in performance I believe, but AMD is $50+ cheaper
Upper Midrange: 7870 vs. 660ti = AMD (660ti wins in performance, but costs $50 more)
Upper Midrange: 7870 vs. 660 = Nvidia (same performance, 660 is $20+ cheaper)
Midrange: 7850 vs. 660 = Nvidia (660 wins in performance, and costs the same)
Upper Entry Level: 7770 vs. 650 = ???? (NO testing on the 650, but it should compete with this card and be priced similarly)
Entry Level: 7750 vs. 650 = ????? (No testing on the 650, but it should outperform this card at a more expensive price)

Click to expand...

Ah well, didnt check prices but its true, at price/performance AMD is going strong.

Well the 660 is new, never heard of. Checking out. But the possibility to gain performance with OC will be important too... so i wonder if the 660 (non ti) can compete and whats actually the difference. The difference must be very minor else there is no way it can beat the 7870.

The 660 seems to be very effective and is having aproximately 25% lesser SP units, thats all i know. But the performance loss vs. 660ti is probably only 10% (which is lesser than 7850 vs. 7870 which should be 15%) . However, im not so sure that it will beat a OC 7870 with the grade of a Hawk which is highly OC able. But that was not the target because its actually targeted vs. a 7850 where it will clearly win, OC or non OC, it will always clearly win.

Compared to 7870 that may be possible at stock but at OC i feel (feel = i still lack a proof on a paper) that a 7870 Hawk for the price of 260 $ is the better performer and probably better deal. Cant have more power for lesser price and i enjoy the quality parts.

hank123 said:

just bought my 7970 for $382 last week. It eats my 5850 so im fine with the price cuts, however the 7950 is starting to look VERY good at $290.

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holy ****, I paid more for 7850 in my coutry, about 310$... you can't imagine how lucky you are that you don't have VAT.

Ivy said:

Ah well, didnt check prices but its true, at price/performance AMD is going strong.

Well the 660 is new, never heard of. Checking out. But the possibility to gain performance with OC will be important too... so i wonder if the 660 (non ti) can compete and whats actually the difference. The difference must be very minor else there is no way it can beat the 7870.

The 660 seems to be very effective and is having aproximately 15% lesser TEX units, thats all. However, im not so sure that it will beat a OC 7870 with the grade of a Hawk which is highly OC able. But that was not the target because its actually targeted vs. a 7850 where it will clearly win, OC or non OC, it will always clearly win.

Compared to 7870 that may be possible at stock but at OC i feel (feel = i still lack a proof on a paper) that a 7870 Hawk for the price of 260 $ is the better performer and probably better deal. Cant have more power for lesser price and i enjoy the quality parts.

Click to expand...

Again, I just reviewed it, let me give you a link as it answers these questions...:http://www.overclockers.com/galaxy-gtx660gc-review

For the moment, overclocking is limited due to Nvidia limiting the power limit to 10%. If it had 20% it would clock more (AIB's are looking in to that). Also note, that you choose a HAWK and the price on that is more than the cheapest making it a money decision for minimal gains to beat another card.

I would have expected more performance loss compared to 660ti and 7870. Apparently the cutted down SPs are not that important rather than having efficient programmed software which isnt truly up to the task for to many SPs. Guess 10-15% lesser performance for the 660, thats not much.

The 10% power limit hurts... when someone want to squeeze juice. A Hawk for 260$ would have zero issues with, and is only 20$ more, still. 660 is 240 $?, dunno, cant find offers yet. A 660 ti is still 300-310 $ on Newegg, much higher priced.

I dont know how Nvidia would be able to keep 660 ti prices up when the 660 is 60-70$ lower priced, so i do expect price cuts very soon. People should watch out and dont buy prematurely.

That is an aftermarket 660 I reviewed, yes for $239. Reference models would be cheaper and overclock the same making that gap larger.

If you wait, another cut or another card is coming down the pike. I really dont like that advice for the most part. If you are ready to buy and a price cut isnt imminent.. BUY.

Then only have to find out if a price cut is imminent, hard cookie. Im not a marketing expert. Fact is, if i would have gotten my GPUs 3 months later, i could have saved up 160$. Would be fine to have such cuts in a half year but in such a quick pace, waiting is always recommended.

Thats not for current time, but in 3 years i want to be more wise and buy at a time of higher price stability, else i simply feel robbed.

Well, the insane cuts is also happening on RAM and SSD. Both was cut by more than half, in only a year. However, the Intel CPU is always the mighty and steady price machine, can be sure it will never go down.

Guess great time to buy RAM/SDD and GPU too. Cant go down much more anymore, else its almost free.

We will agree to disagree. If you wait, you will wait forever for the next price cut, the next card... etc...again unless you KNOW a cut is coming.

How should i know?

Ummmmmm, thats exactly my point in why NOT to wait (thanks for proving my point! )!!!!! Most the time, we have no idea when we will see price cuts like this so why wait.

Wish I waited, but I didn't have a choice. HD 4870 just wasn't cutting it in BF3 lol

EarthDog said:

W00t for competition. The 660 I just reviewed stands taller than a 7870 for a less. Its a valid choice in the market, no doubt.... yet again forcing AMD's hand.

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What do you mean by "stands taller" here is one that has the 7870 the faster card http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Zotac/GeForce_GTX_660/27.html

GTX 660 is in blue, not green.

There are a bunch more like Tom's hardware http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/geforce-gtx-660-geforce-gtx-650-benchmark,review-32523-2.html

ect.... http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum/hardware-canucks-reviews/56674-nvidia-gtx-660-2gb-review.html

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2012/09/13/asus_geforce_gtx_660_directcu_ii_video_card_review/9

http://www.hardwareheaven.com/revie...locked-graphics-card-review-introduction.html

It sits in-between the 7850 and 7870, given the 7850 has huge overclocking potential i'm not so sure.

But i will admit its a much better price than all of nvidia's other cards GTX 660 vs 7850 / 7870 is good competition, but i don't think its black and white.

We will have to wait and see what the prices of the GTX 660 / 7850 / 7870 actually settle at, i don't see any GTX 660 on newegg yet, they are for sale on ocUK for £10 less than the 7870. at that the 7870 is still the better choice.